# Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 23, 2017, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052 "2017-04-23T09:21:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 110
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2181 "2018-12-17T17:57:13Z")
Short version of my take on Mill: with the overall failure of “marketplace of ideas” to work out (turns out attention matters more than truthfulness and that’s a really bad thing in the age of personal bubbles and information flooding) and the existence of the paradox of tolerance, to name only two concepts, many ideas of “classical liberalism” need to be reexamined and rethought. And even Mill would reject the idea that you could compel a private company to provide a platform for just anyone. My even shorter version: TL;DR. Care to summarize those arguments in less than three pages? ---
**Author:** ![Elmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e9a140/32.png) [@Elmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmore)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2182 "2018-12-17T17:59:59Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Sure. He just: > > - hangs around with and offers a platform to nazis So does anyone who debates them. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with giving nazis a platform. It makes it easier to see how dumb they are. > [@](#): > > - has this weird tendency of offering nazis a platform for debate and then _losing badly_, which is both embarrassing and really quite dangerous So, if you fight nazis and lose…you’re a nazi? I think you’re thinking of zombies. > [@](#): > > - Has made it clear that he thinks nazis and the left are morally equivalent Cite? > [@](#): > > - regurgitates nazi talking points like “cultural marxism” and “heather hayes died of a heart attack” Why is that a nazi talking point? > [@](#): > > - Is beloved by nazis, who think he’s helping them Is also hated by nazis who send him death threats. > [@](#): > > So at best, he’s a neo-reactionary asshole who happens to be incredibly useful for Nazi rhetoric. How are you measuring that? > [@](#): > > I know he calls himself a “classic liberal”, but make no mistake - Andrew Anglin (of The Daily Stormer) is 100% right when he says: > > I have now pretty well agreed not to argue with Sargon of Akkad any further, as I don’t really see any point to it, and feel that on some level he is leading people in our direction (as we are the obvious conclusion of reactionary thought), so there is no reason to try and obliterate him. Andrew Anglin is one of the most consistently wrong people in the world. Why do you think he’s right about this? I wouldn’t take his word for anything. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2183 "2018-12-17T18:02:06Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I guess you think John Stuart Mill is “stupid” as well. Mill wasn’t arguing that any private individual or company had any obligation to **actively promote and disseminate** opinions they disagree with or consider pernicious. So your attempted analogy is false. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2184 "2018-12-17T18:06:58Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > And even Mill would reject the idea that you could compel a private company to provide a platform for just anyone. Straw man: no one (certainly not I, and not Sam either AFAICT) has spoken of “compelling” Patreon to do anything, unless you mean by boycotting them—and your political philosophy is even more incoherent and contradictory than I thought if you think that is unacceptable. > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > My even shorter version: TL;DR. Care to summarize those arguments in less than three pages? I will try, because I think the arguments are so important. But honestly, I think it’s unfortunate that people can’t digest them in their original (curated/excerpted) form in those quote boxes. I’m high on my own intellect, but I don’t claim to hold a candle to Mill, and I certainly don’t think I can improve upon or even retain the elegance of his verbiage, even if some of it is a little “19th century”. BTW, did you seriously need to blare the N-word three times without any asterisks? I don’t think that Netflix exec needed to be fired, but I do think it’s a good policy for non-black people to reference rather than explicitly use the word. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2185 "2018-12-17T18:09:50Z")
> [@Elmore](#): > > So, if you fight nazis and lose…you’re a nazi? I think you’re thinking of zombies. LOL! You win the Internet today. (C’mon: even if you don’t agree with his overall argument, that was funny as hell.) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2186 "2018-12-17T18:13:19Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > This part of the Mill I quoted, BTW, is Sam Harris to a T: > > > [@](#): > > > > Among them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and subtile and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end succeed in doing. No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think :dubious: Um, you do understand that Mill is not in fact **praising** that hypothetical “man of deep conscientiousness, and subtile and refined understanding”, right? On the contrary, he’s **criticizing** that man for “sophisticating”, or trying to make unsatisfactory compromises between his rational thinking and his ideological commitment to received “orthodoxy”. I don’t know whether this description that Mill gives of intellectual timidity and inconsistency sabotaging the integrity of a highly-developed mind is actually applicable to Sam Harris, but I’m pretty sure Harris himself wouldn’t consider it a compliment to be associated with it. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2187 "2018-12-17T18:13:30Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’m sure that’s what Sam thinks of himself, and he’s happy that fanboys like you agree with him about himself, but he’s fully capable of saying really, really stupid things (as demonstrated in this thread, among many other places) due to his own ignorance or bias. His ego and self-regard truly are spectacular, on the other hand. In those qualities he really does stand out as a giant. That doesn’t even contradict the Mill quote. It’s like you didn’t read the last sentence in that quotebox (and this was a much shorter quote than I provided just upthread). C’mon, man. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2188 "2018-12-17T18:17:05Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m high on my own intellect, but I don’t claim to hold a candle to Mill Just as well, since you apparently can’t even figure out what Mill is actually saying, e.g,. about that “man of deep conscientiousness”. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2189 "2018-12-17T18:31:52Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > That doesn’t even contradict the Mill quote. It’s like you didn’t read the last sentence in that quotebox (and this was a much shorter quote than I provided just upthread). C’mon, man. If you now agree that Harris says some really dumb shit sometimes, and is significantly hampered by his own massive ego, then good for you for evolving in the direction of reasonableness. Cast off your racism and, from now on, reject claims that black people are inherently intellectually inferior due to genetics, as well as notions of inherent genetic Northern European superiority, and I’ll give you a big tearful hug! ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2190 "2018-12-17T18:50:52Z")
> [@Elmore](#): > > So, if you fight nazis and lose…you’re a nazi? I think you’re thinking of zombies. Look, you yourself said it was good to debate them because “it’s easy to see how dumb they are”, right? So when a youtuber with millions of followers and a (completely unearned) reputation as a rational mastermind goes up on stage and fails miserably… What message does that send? I’m willing to accept that Sargon is just incredibly stupid and that’s how that happened - he definitely is incredibly stupid. But nonetheless, it’s still a huge boon for the nazis. They now look good in front of his gigantic audience. When Sargon nods along with talking points about how Auschwitz had swimming pools (I’m not sure if that was the exact quote but it was a conversation on Auschwitz and he did not come out of it looking good), it shows his - again: massive - audience that the smart person they look up to sees some merit in this insane propaganda. It helps mainstream it. That’s really dangerous. In reality, “debating” Nazis does little more than mainstream them. It tells people, “this is an idea worth taking seriously with two sides that are roughly intellectually equivalent”. And smart, presentable people like Richard Spencer are really good at making their toxic bullshit at least _sound_ reasonable - hell, Jordan Peterson’s whole MO boils down to “pack neoreactionary rhetoric in a package so dense that he can credibly blame anyone who calls him on it as strawmanning”. But… They’re not reasonable. Nazis lost that debate in the 40s. Fascism lost that debate in the 40s. Racism has been losing that debate since the 60s. Coincidentally, yknow what works against Nazis really well? Deplatforming. > **[Social Media Bans Actually Work](https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-work)** > > Alex Jones says getting banned by YouTube and Facebook will only make him stronger. The research says that's not true. “We’ve been running a research project over last year, and when someone relatively famous gets no platformed by Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, there’s an initial flashpoint, where some of their audience will move with them” Joan Donovan, Data and Society’s platform accountability research lead, told me on the phone, “but generally the falloff is pretty significant and they don’t gain the same amplification power they had prior to the moment they were taken off these bigger platforms.” When you treat them like an intellectual position worth taking seriously, others catch on and do the same. When you treat them like the shitty scum they are, they realize they can’t get away with leaving the hoods at home, so they don’t. Spencer was pretty explicit in saying that his rallies “weren’t fun any more” because of antifascist protests, and on the whole that’s probably a good thing. It’s a lot harder to gain influence and followers when your movement is led by a dude living in his dad’s basement, a “crying nazi”, and the most handsome speedbag in the world. What Sargon does is the exact opposite of helpful. That’s why Anglin likes him. Because his reactionary rhetoric is a step in the reactionary pipeline, and that pipeline tends to lead towards the right, and often towards the far right. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2191 "2018-12-17T18:56:31Z")
Okay, here’s my attempt at a “Cliff’s” on the Mill I quoted earlier today. I make no warranty that this adequately conveys the ideas, but I was asked to do it and I consider it worth the effort: —Social intolerance doesn’t kill anyone or physically force anyone to espouse orthodox opinions. But it is a powerful force that makes people hesitant to admit to heterodox opinions. —This is fine and dandy for many people, as they don’t have to deal with the awkwardness or slippery slope of actually fining or imprisoning anyone, but still maintain a peaceful intellectual orthodoxy of the sort they prefer. —[I can’t improve on or condense Mill here] “But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world.” —[same as above] “The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy.” —People will sometimes say that it’s okay to debate any and all matters of opinion, as long as the arguments are kept civil, and the people arguing do not use dishonest or underhanded debating tactics. But who defines what is fair discussion? If it is the person whose views are under attack that decides, they tend to cry foul the loudest when the attack is “telling and powerful”. —The “worst offenses” people use in debates are to “argue sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion” (what we call strawmanning). But these are all seen constantly in people “of good will” who are arguing for the orthodox opinion, and when they do it they are praised for their “honest zeal and righteous indignation”, even though their vituperative indignation “really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them.” [This is highly relevant to what we have seen in this thread. Only a stubborn cuss like me, of a type that Andy correctly calls “weird”, persists in the face of this kind of calumny.] —The “real morality of public discussion” is “giving merited honor to every one, whatever opinion he may hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favor.” ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2192 "2018-12-17T19:07:59Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > [This is highly relevant to what we have seen in this thread. Only a stubborn cuss like me, of a type that Andy correctly calls “weird”, persists in the face of this kind of calumny.] You are an extra-special smart boy, yes you are! You’re so smart and persistent, and your opinions are always right and reasonable, and never worth criticizing! Anyone who criticizes you is always dishonest, or simply unwilling to step outside what’s “orthodox”, or otherwise foolish… truly you exemplify the concept of intellectual courage! Such a handsome, brave, smart boy you are. Good boy! Good boy! ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2193 "2018-12-17T19:19:22Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If you now agree that Harris says some really dumb shit sometimes There’s no “now” about it. I have said this all along—although you and I disagree on what exactly the “dumb shit” is. The point remains that as Mill wrote, “Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.” > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Coincidentally, yknow what works against Nazis really well? Deplatforming. This too is not in conflict with what Mill says, whatsoever. He acknowledges that what we call “deplatforming” absolutely “works” in the narrow sense you mean: he calls it a “convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already.” But, he continues: > [@](#): > > the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world. This is exactly the state of affairs the IDW aims to combat. It’s uncanny how easily Mill would have recognized these intellectual fights as analogous to those from his own time, despite the massive differences in technological propagation. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2194 "2018-12-17T19:24:22Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > People will sometimes say that it’s okay to debate any and all matters of opinion, as long as the arguments are kept civil, and the people arguing do not use dishonest or underhanded debating tactics. But who defines what is fair discussion? If it is the person whose views are under attack that decides, they tend to cry foul the loudest when the attack is “telling and powerful”. For example, by [calling it “gaslighting” and flouncing away](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21273194&postcount=1865) vowing never to respond to the other person again: > [@SlackerInc](#): > > If you’re going to play this gaslighting game, I’m not going to talk to you any more. Your own hypocrisy on this issue makes you somewhat less than convincing as an advocate for unfettered exchange of opinion. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2195 "2018-12-17T19:32:54Z")
Okay, Kimstu, that’s fair! You got me. I will stop ignoring you. You seem to be very good at getting me to eat crow. As I recall, at least one other time, you used Mill against me and I recanted my position. On that occasion, you said I had “manfully admitted” my error. Do I get another one of those, at least? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2196 "2018-12-17T19:42:28Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > As I recall, at least one other time, you used Mill against me and I recanted my position. On that occasion, you said I had “manfully admitted” my error. Do I get another one of those, at least? 😉 You mean [this occasion?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20847115&postcount=601) Sure, I think this likewise qualifies. Not that you’re not perfectly entitled to go on ignoring any of my posts whenever you choose, of course. I just thought it was rather hypocritical to maintain an official blanket **policy** of ignoring all my posts while at the same time denouncing the evils and perils of limiting free discussion in **any** form, however mild or noncoercive. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2197 "2018-12-17T19:43:29Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Okay, Kimstu, that’s fair! You got me. I will stop ignoring you. > > You seem to be very good at getting me to eat crow. As I recall, at least one other time, you used Mill against me and I recanted my position. On that occasion, you said I had “manfully admitted” my error. Do I get another one of those, at least? 😉 Such a good “manful” boy you are! Who’s manful? You are! The most manfulest boy in the whole wide world! ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2198 "2018-12-17T19:44:45Z")
I do want to note, however, that what I got frustrated with you about in that thread is exactly what Mill so strongly criticizes near the end of what I quoted. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2199 "2018-12-17T21:34:33Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Okay, here’s my attempt at a “Cliff’s” on the Mill I quoted earlier today. I make no warranty that this adequately conveys the ideas, but I was asked to do it and I consider it worth the effort: > > —Social intolerance doesn’t kill anyone or physically force anyone to espouse orthodox opinions. But it is a powerful force that makes people hesitant to admit to heterodox opinions. Sure. And we should be careful about how we handle heterodox opinions as a result. Not every idea deserves the same treatment Richard Spencer deserves. And that’s kind of important. The distinction between “heterodox” and “wrong, and also dangerous and the basis of an inherently violent ideology that leads to genocide” is not really a fuzzy one, for the most part. Just don’t be a Nazi and you’re generally good. > [@](#): > > —[I can’t improve on or condense Mill here] “But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world.” And yeah, if we generalize the tactics we use when dealing with fascists to every heterodox idea, we run into problems. Thankfully, nobody is proposing that. Does Mill mean what he says very generally? Because if so, that is simply not applicable to _any_ society. There are and always will be things that cannot be said in polite company - _that’s why it’s polite company_. Sometimes because they’re “heterodox”; sometimes because they’re offensive and wrong. Additionally, the expression of certain ideas in public are inherently repressive towards others due to the threat they embody, i.e. if your society is cool with [White Fascism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Luu1Beb8ng), people of color are going to find it very risky to say or do basically anything. Most people have absolutely no problem stating their principles loud and clear. Hell, all but the most repugnant of them face virtually no backlash for doing so - unless your viewpoint literally pattern-matches to “literally a Nazi”, the worst you’re likely to get is some mild public shunning - or, more likely, glowing headlines all over the national news and bookings all around the talk show circuit talking about how “silenced” you are because some university canceled your lecture. And even then, the “literally a Nazi” crowd feels bold enough to venture out without the hoods - luckily, that seems to gradually be changing. It is a _good thing_ that espousing certain ideas drastically far outside the mainstream carry a social cost - when those ideas are wrong and dangerous, in an age where curating your news feed means curating _what you see of reality_, bad ideas are really easy to spread. The main currency in the marketplace of ideas is not “truth”. It’s _attention_. And if you allow bad ideas to get a lot of attention… They start winning. Because do you think that antivaxxer mom is even going to see that article about measles on the rise on her news feed? Fat fucking chance. > [@](#): > > —[same as above] “The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy.” Let’s be blunt here - in the age of the internet, this is _bullshit_. It no longer applies in any meaningful way. Nobody’s mental development is cramped because they don’t get Alex Jones delivered directly to their news feed. Today, our problem is not access to information. It’s _curation_ of information. We are constantly bombarded with endless streams of information on all sides, with all manner of agendas and possible motives and with drastically varying truth content. And if your information curation is poor - and it’s easy for that to happen, even by accident - the result is that you are primarily exposed to bad ideas, and not often exposed to the good ideas that counter them - or exposed to the good ideas after the bad ideas have effectively “inoculated” you. There are people who get most of their news from social media. And the thing about social media, unlike the mainstream media, is that if a news source says something you don’t like, _you can just get rid of it_. Unlike the page, tell Facebook you don’t want to see that article on why it’s important to vaccinate, and suddenly your feed is just that much less sane and that much more of a bubble surrounding your deeply-held beliefs that vaccines are a conspiracy to depopulate the earth. So no, in the internet age, this passage does not hold up at all. It’s based in a time where censorship was a real concern. Where if Alex Jones was “censored”, that was it - you couldn’t watch Alex Jones. Now, all it means is that you need to actively search out his shitty web page instead of getting alerts from Facebook and Twitter whenever he goes live. And that’s a _good thing_, because watching Alex Jones has really never made anyone smarter about anything. When our main problem is curation, being able to say, “Okay, if you want to listen to the absolute most insane and shitty assholes, you have to work for it” is a _good thing_, because some people just won’t bother to work for it, and then their choice of what information streams to pay attention to is just that much less full of shitty and crazy. Information and communication work very differently today than they did 200 years ago. The internet really did change a lot of things. > [@](#): > > —People will sometimes say that it’s okay to debate any and all matters of opinion, as long as the arguments are kept civil, and the people arguing do not use dishonest or underhanded debating tactics. But who defines what is fair discussion? If it is the person whose views are under attack that decides, they tend to cry foul the loudest when the attack is “telling and powerful”. Counterpoint: “They laughed at Galileo, yes - but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown”. This is an argument that proves entirely too much. People are likely to cry foul quite loudly when you make a good point? Okay, maybe. You know when else they’re likely to cry foul? When you make a _deeply dishonest_ argument. Particularly a deeply dishonest argument that inherently dehumanizes them. Y’know, like the entire basis of white fascism. > [@](#): > > —The “worst offenses” people use in debates are to “argue sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion” (what we call strawmanning). But these are all seen constantly in people “of good will” who are arguing for the orthodox opinion, and when they do it they are praised for their “honest zeal and righteous indignation”, even though their vituperative indignation “really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them.” And does this still apply in the internet age? At all? No. It really doesn’t. And I’ll tell you why: because if someone consistently argues sophistically, suppresses facts or arguments, et cetera, you can _cut them out of your bubble_. You can block them. You can ignore them. Hell, you can do that even if their arguments are completely legitimate and _you just don’t like them_. People “of good will” is a phrase that means something drastically different depending on your bubble. It’ll look very different between the person who’s a member of Collective Evolution, March Against Monsanto, and NaturalNews and the person who’s a member of Contrived Platitudes, March Against Myths, and SciBabe. The whole idea sorta falls apart. > [@](#): > > —The “real morality of public discussion” is “giving merited honor to every one, whatever opinion he may hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favor.” Counterpoint: racists fucking suck. They’re wrong, their ideology is dangerous, and they should be driven from the public sphere, because their continued existence within the public sphere makes it clear to people of color that their opinions are not valued or safe. …Yeah, Mill lived before _that_ part of history, as it turns out. ☹ > [@](#): > > This is exactly the state of affairs the IDW aims to combat. It’s uncanny how easily Mill would have recognized these intellectual fights as analogous to those from his own time, despite the massive differences in technological propagation. Okay, so I gotta ask - what arguments are so _censored_ that the intellectual dark web feels the need to fight back against them? No, seriously, think about it for a minute. What, _exactly_, are they fighting for? The answer, in almost every case, is either “the status quo” or “a regression to what the status quo was 40+ years ago”. The ability to ask tough questions, like “Do women really have a place in the workplace?” or “Has civil rights _gone too far_?” or, in Charles Murray’s case, “Are black people really just stupid?” :mad: There’s no interesting new ideas here. There’s no hugely heterodox approach. Not a damn one of them qualifies as “progressive”, let alone “leftist”. It’s all reactionary. And much of it is “censored” because it’s arguments we left behind decades ago. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2018, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2200 "2018-12-17T21:40:00Z")
“Black people really just stupid?” Phrasing like that always seems to be a deliberate misunderstanding of statistics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=109) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=111)