Andrew’s already taken up some of the political theory behind progressives’ comfort with shouting down and otherwise silencing opposition, as evidenced during a thwarted presentation by New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly at Brown University the other day. Over on RIFuture, both Bob Plain and Steve Ahlquist rephrase the event in Orwellian fashion by recasting the technique as “not listening to.”

Not listening to… preventing others from listening to… such are the semantic slips that cement the bricks of a totalitarian state. But there’s a practical reason with shorter-term relevance to allow people to talk, and to listen to them whether they’re right, wrong, or crazy.

The fact appears not to be disputed that crime is down during Kelly’s tenure. It’s a matter of discussion how much of a role the specific “stop and frisk” policy has played in that, but it’s the case. The likelihood is, then, that shifting policies to conform with the reckless imperatives of Ivy League agitators will ensure that more people (poor people) will be hurt, robbed, or killed.

Does this mean that “stop and frisk” is an ideal practice? Not at all, but such policies are a matter of balance, and as such, they’re best decided at the local level. The activism, in other words, is misplaced. The kids weren’t protesting “stop and frisk” in New York City on the New England college campus; they were protesting speech.

Admitting that ensuring security is always and everywhere a matter of balance, it’s a rather obvious thing to suggest that you can’t assess how policies in your area should be adjusted if you don’t listen to how they operate there and elsewhere. More: You can’t strengthen your own arguments and beliefs if you don’t listen to others’.

That, to me, is the most discouraging aspect of progressives’ WAM-BAMN* approach to public discourse. It assumes that people with loathsome beliefs, or even just disagreeable ones, can never say anything surprisingly edifying, either to change minds or to strengthen the persuasiveness of those who oppose them.

Lamentable as it is, such assumptions are not surprising, coming from a political movement built around the ideal of central planning. Where “not listening” becomes a mandate for the raucously appealing action of “not allowing to be heard,” the mob becomes unable to hear, which makes the individuals within it unable to question those holding their reins.  If it’s true that listening to the bad will improve one’s arguments for the good, then it appears that the rein-holders find it more risky to allow their followers to think than to allow them to improve.

That the university officials at the event and after it have no apparent strategy for responding to and overcoming the WAM-BAMNers indicates three things: first, that they are not as principled as they profess to be (or at least are so weak as to undermine principle); second, that they likely agree with the young thugs; and third, that the product they’re selling is as hollow as it is expensive.

The civic lesson of higher education has become that the best way to have one’s own opinion heard is to declare a mutually unpopular belief to be unlistenable.  It doesn’t take a political science degree to see the danger in that.

 

* Whack a mole – by any means necessary.