
The Echo Chamber Is the Enemy of Democracy - raleighm
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-07/steve-bannon-the-new-yorker-and-free-speech
======
jancsika
> But he was more than willing to provide a forum for people whose leftist
> ideas he despised, a group that included Noam Chomsky, Muhammad Ali, Saul
> Alinsky, Allen Ginsburg and John Kenneth Galbraith.

That's revisionist history.

Buckley allowed Noam Chomsky on his show once, sure. But I'd hardly call him
"more than willing" to let Chomsky get his ideas across. He was constantly
interrupting him. At the end of the interview Buckley even went so far as
pressing a button to go to commercial in order to keep from having to answer
one of Chomsky's questions.

"Providing a forum" would be what Amy Goodman did by allowing the 9-11
truthers to debate the Popular Science guys on Democracy Now. That's the
standard, and Buckley's interview of Chomsky on Firing Line doesn't live up to
that standard.

------
trowawee
Weird to write this article without citing any actual numbers. Here, let's
help with that: [https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2018/8/3/17644180/po...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2018/8/3/17644180/political-correctness-free-speech-liberal-data-
georgetown).

Some key takeaways:

\- There just aren't many instances where people are actually being uninvited
or censored on an absolute scale.

\- It's actually spread across the ideological spectrum, not solely limited to
conservative speakers.

\- A tiny handful of conservative speakers are responsible for a significant
number of these events, and in fact it appears that to some degree the point
of inviting them is trolling, intended to draw protest and press attention,
rather than a genuine attempt to present.

Personally, I think major news organizations offering their imprimatur to
self-proclaimed fascists who advocate for limiting or destroying democratic
governance might be more harmful to democracy than colleges refusing to host
talks by people who traffic in trolling and bigotry. But that's just me.

I also think it's useful to consider Sarte's quote about the utility of
"debating" anti-Semites:

> Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of
> their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to
> challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is
> obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-
> Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for,
> by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their
> interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to
> persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press
> them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some
> phrase that the time for argument is past.

and how that same pattern plays out frequently in the high-profile interviews
and debates with people like Bannon and Spencer.

~~~
2trill2spill
It's hard to take your source seriously when they say in reference to
conservative speakers on campus "In other words, they’re trolling." Apparently
the free speech project being cited by the source you posted is quite biased
on the subject.

~~~
skrowl
All you had to do is see that it was on vox.com to know it's biased. vox.com
is pretty well known to be very left-leaning.

------
dfxm12
_The first is that echo chambers are a terrible disservice to readers, to
listeners, to students and to democracy. The second is that with respect to
political issues, a degree of humility is essential._

It's weird that this is the point of the opinion piece in this context. We're
talking about a guy who built his fame on selling sensationalism to his own
echo chamber and never showed one iota of humility.

I agree we could all use a little bit more humility, but we're not going to
get there by hearing from someone whose talking points are not based on fact,
but on appealing to emotion.

If you want someone with an opposing viewpoint at the festival, find someone
more sincere. To borrow an example from the article, even if you disagree with
Noam Chomsky, you can still trace back his opinion to the facts that informed
it. You didn't see Buckley debating people on Firing Line who completely
fabricated stories.

------
DanielBMarkham
There is a larger point here about being human that's not related to tech or
democracy.

1\. We do not know what is good for us. We only know what we like and don't
like. (We know this because we can look back in our own lives to times in
which we did what we liked and it was not as good as if we had did something
else, sometimes disastrously so.)

2\. Many times we have to be annoyed by ideas and other concepts we don't like
for a while until we realize that there is some bit of great value here for
us.

The logical conclusion to points 1 and 2 is this: there is some degree of
being annoyed that is a normal and healthy part of living. Too much
aggravation? Probably not. But you can definitely have too little. Too little
aggravation would be far, far worse than too much, in fact.

So goods and services that seek to reduce/eliminate everything we don't like
are not actually acting in our best interests, whether they're some social
media tech or a new brand of opioid. A bit of this kind of thing at the
appropriate time is great. Too much is disastrous.

~~~
dboreham
Another larger point to consider is that what we perceive as "just politics"
is a (big) business to the participants: politicians, parties, pressure
groups, media organizations, journalists. These folks exploit basic human
traits (outrage, fear, tribalism ...) for monetary gain. Put another way : the
trolls aren't trolling because they're deranged (sometimes, ok..) but because
that's their business.

Long watch but quite relevant and interesting:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg4IqrIpuQU&t=2440s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg4IqrIpuQU&t=2440s)

------
bilbo0s
I think people are conflating ideas here.

Democracy is a political system. You can have a democracy coexist with as many
"echo chambers" as you please. (In fact, in a healthy democracy, you _would_
have "echo chambers"). The reality is that "echo chambers" created the
conditions that allowed Trump to be elected. _But_ , he was _ELECTED_. The
democratic process worked fine.

What I'm trying to, gently, point out, is that "echo chambers" not giving you
the democratic results you want, is not the same as "echo chambers" being an
"enemy" of democracy. Everyone can say whatever they please. Everyone can
listen to, or indeed, _ignore_ , whatever they please. Simultaneously, along a
completely different and orthogonal axis, everyone can _vote_ however they
please. Now obviously in such an environment, if there really is complete
freedom of choice and freedom of association, "echo chambers" will develop.
This doesn't show a lack of freedom, rather it shows an abundance of freedom.
Any person is free to position themselves wherever they please in the space
defined by that democratic environment.

Freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom of association etc, these are
some of the most important features of a democracy. So "echo chambers" don't
represent a _threat_ to democracy. Quite the contrary, their existence
actually indicates the presence of _healthy_ environment in terms of
democratic freedoms.

Now of course people won't like this, because it allows the ill informed to
remain ill informed as long as they choose. But that goes back to freedoms. As
horrible as this is going to sound, it's the democratic _right_ of the ill
informed, to remain ill informed.

~~~
tomjen3
The US already puts limits on who can vote (have to be a citizen, have to be
18+, can't be a felon), would it be so terrible if we also had a test to see
if you actually knew what was going on?

It would have to be worded carefully, e.g "what does THINK_TANK believe will
happen to the economy under Trumps tax plan" (as opposed to "what is likely to
happen under Trumps tax plan", so there would be no political disagreements)
and it would of course have to be applied equally to everybody (no
grandfathering).

But the question I am really asking is, would it be so bad if the number of
eligitable voters were smaller, but they were more informed?

~~~
craftyguy
Who would write the questions? Who would determine who is/isn't fit to vote?

1\. If it's the ruling party, then there's no way they would write unbiased
questions.

2\. If it's the opposition party, then there's no way they would write
unbiased questions.

3\. If it's a combination of the two, then no questions would get written in
time.

4\. If it's a third party, then who vets/selects them, and who can be a part
of it? GOTO 1

> But the question I am really asking is, would it be so bad if the number of
> eligitable voters were smaller, but they were more informed?

That's incredibly dangerous. Who decides who is 'informed' and not? I bet most
(all?) voters think they are informed.

~~~
tomjen3
The questions don't even have to be unbiased, they just have to be something
you would know only if you have actually looked into it. They aren't meant to
ensure that you have equally read all sides, just that you have done some
research.

Each question would be assigned some score, and you would need a certain
minimum to pass.

As long as everybody is given the same test, and that the questions are
objective, the same determination would be made for everybody, no matter what
their political leanings were, so in a sense whatever knowledge you require
your opponents to know, you would also your side to know.

Even if it is so blatantly biased that every single question is a positive
statement about Hillary (say), wouldn't you want somebody voting against her
to do so on an informed basis, and so as a minimum they should know her
platforms/positions?

~~~
craftyguy
The bias I am referring to is not favoring one candidate over another in the
wording of the questions, but rather to disqualify voters who may not vote the
same way as you. An example might be "what did candidate XYZ say 3 years ago
on this random radio talk show", and only die-hard supporters would be able to
answer it correctly. (There are likely much better examples of what I am
trying to convey here, but my caffeine level is dangerously low)

------
WalterGR
I want to speak specifically to two paragraphs from the article, taken
together.

 _Disturbingly, most of the controversies involve people whose views are to
the right of center.

...

Nor did Buckley think that all ideas deserve a forum. He did not host
defenders of astrology, the Ku Klux Klan, Nazism or Soviet-style Communism._

Does anyone of any note to the left of center advocate for Soviet-style
Communism?

If the worst views he can conjure from the left are a right-wing scare story
and _astrology_ , whereas the worst on the right are murderous ideologies,
then I think the first paragraph kinda explains itself.

~~~
tunesmith
There needs to be a pithy phrase for this kind of debate. Kind of like "form
over function". Except here it's the desire to focus on the "form" of an
argument, over the actual content of the argument. Similar to both-sides-ism.
"Is the earth round? Views differ." Some kind of pithy phrase, when repeated,
will exhort people to look at the content of the argument rather than just the
structure.

~~~
WalterGR
_Some kind of pithy phrase, when repeated, will exhort people to look at the
content of the argument rather than just the structure._

I understand what you’re saying, but if this unequal silencing is so obviously
a real phenomenon and isn’t simply a reflection of _the views being espoused_
\- then it should be easy for the author to come up with examples. And it’s
not just this author. It’s every author I’ve read commenting on this
‘phenomenon.’ They always say that it’s right-wing voices being silenced, but
never suggest what left-wing voices should be silenced that aren’t.

So I invite anyone to suggest the left-leaning equivalents of Nazism and
white-supremacy.

(And by equivalents I don’t just mean viewpoints, I mean comparable levels of
influence. Some random bloke on the web claiming to be left-leaning and saying
that their race is superior to whites isn’t the equivalent of white-supremacy
as a movement.)

------
maldusiecle
Pretty weak argument. Once you admit that certain views deserve to be taken
off the able (astrology, the KKK, Nazis, and "Soviet-style communism," unclear
whether Mao-style communism is permissible), you need to have principles about
where the line is.

I know a lot of people who would absolutely describe Bannon as similar to
Nazis or Soviets, who feel very strongly that his "white nationalist" views
are likely to lead to a genocide. It's pretty widely know that the last
subject of these "free speech" uproars, Milo Yiannapolous, flirted pretty
openly with Nazi-style beliefs--and that Bannon was the one who gave him a
platform in the first place.

If you disagree with Bannon being put in that category, you have a
responsibility to at the very least explain why he's not there. Otherwise
you're just cultivating willful ignorance, deliberately refusing to engage
with others' arguments. Creating your own echo chamber, one could say.

------
sandworm101
>> Which ideas, if any, are beyond the pale? Is it a mistake to “normalize”
some speakers? When?

Untruth. Lies. Total fiction mascaraing as fact. Such things should be denied
the dignity of a university podium. People who want to poke holes in climate
models are one thing, people who believe the earth is getting warmer due to a
giant dragon hiding behind the moon are another. People who believe Obama was
a lizard-person sent by Bin Laden to undermine gun rights ... such
"alternative facts" deserve no place on a campus dedicated to learning.

~~~
epicureanideal
Assuming the students have been appropriately educated, wouldn't they just
laugh at the speakers talking about lizard people? Why would they need to be
protected from that kind of nonsense?

~~~
qbrass
Those students will spread the idea as a joke until it reaches a bunch of
people who take it seriously and start to organize.

~~~
epicureanideal
That sounds like a different problem. If people are so weak-minded that they
can't be trusted to hear obviously ridiculous ideas, isn't that equivalent to
asserting that democracy is doomed to failure? That the majority will only "do
the right thing" if some "better" people "guide" their opinions "for their own
good"?

