In 2004, Paul Graham, a computer scientist and entrepreneur, wrote an essay on his blog about the power of moral fashion. This topic seems timely and broadly applicable to society and politics. He wrote:
Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way you looked? Did we actually dress like that? We did. And we had no idea how silly we looked. It's the nature of fashion to be invisible, in the same way the movement of the earth is invisible to all of us riding on it.
What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. They're just as arbitrary, and just as invisible to most people. But they're much more dangerous. Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good. Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed.
If you could travel back in a time machine, one thing would be true no matter where you went: you'd have to watch what you said. Opinions we consider harmless could have gotten you in big trouble. I've already said at least one thing that would have gotten me in big trouble in most of Europe in the seventeenth century, and did get Galileo in big trouble when he said it—that the earth moves.
I want to do more than just shock everyone with the heresy du jour. I want to find general recipes for discovering what you can't say, in any era.
The Conformist Test
Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?
If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think what you're told.
The other alternative would be that you independently considered every question and came up with the exact same answers that are now considered acceptable. That seems unlikely, because you'd also have to make the same mistakes. Mapmakers deliberately put slight mistakes in their maps so they can tell when someone copies them. If another map has the same mistake, that's very convincing evidence.
Like every other era in history, our moral map almost certainly contains a few mistakes. And anyone who makes the same mistakes probably didn't do it by accident. It would be like someone claiming they had independently decided in 1972 that bell-bottom jeans were a good idea.
Trouble
What can't we say? One way to find these ideas is simply to look at things people do say, and get in trouble for.
Of course, we're not just looking for things we can't say. We're looking for things we can't say that are true, or at least have enough chance of being true that the question should remain open. . . . . The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true.
Although moral fashions tend to arise from different sources than fashions in clothing, the mechanism of their adoption seems much the same. The early adopters will be driven by ambition: self-consciously cool people who want to distinguish themselves from the common herd. As the fashion becomes established they'll be joined by a second, much larger group, driven by fear. [9] This second group adopt the fashion not because they want to stand out but because they are afraid of standing out.
So if you want to figure out what we can't say, look at the machinery of fashion and try to predict what it would make unsayable. What groups are powerful but nervous, and what ideas would they like to suppress? What ideas were tarnished by association when they ended up on the losing side of a recent struggle? If a self-consciously cool person wanted to differentiate himself from preceding fashions (e.g. from his parents), which of their ideas would he tend to reject? What are conventional-minded people afraid of saying?
This technique won't find us all the things we can't say. I can think of some that aren't the result of any recent struggle. Many of our taboos are rooted deep in the past. But this approach, combined with the preceding four, will turn up a good number of unthinkable ideas.
Graham's essay continues in that vein.
Are moral fashions out of control in America in terms of undue bad effects on free speech? Graham points out that people with opinions that cannot be voiced can simply keep quiet, but with the caveat “I admit it seems cowardly to keep quiet.” People who voice such opinions sometimes face repercussions that include loss of a job or a whole career. Sometimes loss of life is the result.
This essay is striking in view of the four moral values that underpin the anti-bias ideology that B&B advocates. Belief in two of those values, fidelity to truth and facts and application of less biased or less flawed reasoning to truth and facts arguably constitutes a mindset that defines the contours of opinions that cannot be voiced.
But is that really true?
How does one evaluate perceptions of reality, thinking and opinions based on lies, deceit or unwarranted emotional manipulation? What is the balance of social and political good vs bad in that? More bad than good? Variable, depending on circumstances? In the beholder’s eye?
Probably mostly in the beholder’s eye under the circumstances the beholder is in when exposed to heresy.
What would the anti-bias ideology tend to do to people who express opinions that cannot be expressed? Based on the intent behind the ideology, that would depend on whether the opinion or thinking is based on dark free speech*** or honest free speech. If it is honest free speech that is speaking, anti-bias would do nothing about it other than confront honest mistakes in fact or reason, if any, and make whatever counter arguments there may be.
*** Dark free speech: Lies, deceit, unwarranted opacity, unwarranted emotional manipulation such as fomenting unwarranted fear, anger, hate, intolerance, disgust, bigotry, etc.
On the other hand, if heresy or contested ideas rely on dark free speech, should that be subject to repercussions? Does it matter if the person is working for a business when the speech is made? Why should society tolerate dark free speech, even if it is legal, constitutionally protected speech?
On some college campuses, speakers have been blocked from speaking due to the content of their messages. The term liberal snowflake bubbles up. What if the speaker's message is a mix of honest free speech and dark free speech? Does the ratio, say 20% honest and 80% dark, or vice versa, make any difference? The intent behind anti-bias is to make dark free speech less socially tolerable, and that could lead to acceptance of shutting off legal opportunities to squelch speech that contains ‘too much’ dark free speech.
In science there are some ideas that may have some science credibility, but are intensely upsetting to many people. One of those ideas is that whites are more intelligent than blacks. Another is that genetic factors lead to more men being more exceptional than women due at least in part to more genetic diversity among men compared to women. Jobs and careers maybe have been adversely affected by expressing those ideas, even though the speaker was employing honest free speech. Is that an out of control moral fashion?
Obviously, the difference between honest and dark free speech is the speaker’s intent. Honest mistakes have to be allowable because to err is human and always will be. But it is also human, at least for some humans, to lie, deceive and emotionally manipulate. Is there a justifiable basis for moral backlash against dark free speech? Who gets to decide? What backlash is acceptable, e.g., should a political speaker who uses non-trivial amounts of dark free speech to advance the speaker’s personal, political or economic agenda be subject to some form of censure or public rebuke? Should scientists subject to harsher penalties because the whole point of science is, in essence, an anti-bias endeavor? What about an employee who releases information embarrassing to a company?
B&B orig: 12/13/18
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