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02.12.2019 | Symposium: Self-Censorship and Life in the Liberal Academy

Escaping the Social Pull: Nonconformists and Self-Censorship

Erschienen in: Society | Ausgabe 6/2019

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Abstract

Chamlee-Wright (2019) argues that Adam Smith’s moral psychology can help us understand the phenomenon of self-cenorship in today’s academy. But the lynchpin of Smith’s psychology, the desire for mutual sympathy of sentiments, can serve at least two purposes: pulling us into beneficial community with others, but also creating–and solidifying–social division. These two purposes can conflict and lead to potential problems: they can make it more difficult to nurture creativity, and they can lead to stigmatizing, ostracizing, and otherizing those outside the community. These problems can lead to stifling of, and underinvestment in, the innovative thinking necessary for a robust “life of the mind.” I diagnose the problem, explain the dynamics involved, and suggest a potential way out of the impasse.

Vorheriger Artikel Academic Values and the Possibility of an Academic Impartial Spectator

Nächster Artikel Sources of Self-Censorship

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Smith 1982 (1759), 14.

Smith 1982 (1759), 13 and passim. As Smith makes clear, he uses “sympathy” not to mean pity but, rather, concord or harmony: “sympathy” may “be made use of to denote our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever” (1982 [1759], 10).

Quoted in Chamlee-Wright 2019, ms. p. 3.

See Mackinac Center n.d.

Of course, Socrates, Jesus, Joan of Arc, and Galileo had supporters in their own days as well, even if they were far outnumbered by their detractors.

Smith 1982 (1759), 253.

Smith writes, “Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love”; and: “What so great happiness as to be beloved, and to know that we deserve to be beloved? What so great misery as to be hated, and to know that we deserve to be hated?” (1982 [1759], 113).

This misery can be exacerbated as a result of the intrapersonal collective action problem we might also face. Most of us set up for ourselves a vision of the virtuous person we wish to be, a vision that might include thinking independently and voicing nonconforming positions where appropriate. But at each moment of decision—“Should I speak up now, or not?”—the balance might, for reasons suggested in the text, tilt toward not speaking out. The result can become a pattern of not speaking out, thereby jeopardizing our chances of approaching the standard of virtue we set out for ourselves and wished to attain. We might then judge ourselves negatively for having failed to live up to our own standards, thus increasing our misery. (I thank Gregory Robson for helpful discussion on this point.)

See Dwyer 2010.

See Denniston 2015.

See Pew Research Center 2019.

See, for example, Langbert 2018.

This is my adaptation of the position defended in Anderson 2015.

In 2006, I published a book in which I argued for legally recognizing same-sex marriages (2006, chap. 8). At that time, my argument was considered by academics as controversial and as pushing the envelope of acceptability, but it was given a fair, if spirited, hearing. Today, however, my position receives far less consideration—in part, I suspect, because it is considered uncontroversial, even self-evident and obvious.

That is, they do not progress from Fig. 3a all the way to 3c, or to the final representation in Fig. 4.

See also Lukianoff and Haidt 2018; and Whittington 2018.

See Rose 2019.

Consider, as an example, the recent social encouragement to “punch a Nazi,” which trended for some time on social media. One internet aggregator website suggested, based on social media mentions, that January 28, 2017 was the official “National Punch a Nazi Day” (Whatnationaldayisit.com [n.d.]). If we get sufficient social approval for doing so, why would we not declare our intention to search for suspected Nazis and punch them?

David Hume wrote: “I shall therefore venture to acknowledge, that, not only as a man, but as a British subject, I pray for the flourishing commerce of Germany, Spain, Italy, and even France itself” (Hume 1758 [1985], 331). Even France!

See Smith 1982 (1759), 84.

Hume: “The more these refined arts advance [in a commercial society], the more sociable men become”; indeed, “it is impossible but that they must feel an encrease of humanity, from the very habit of conversing together, and contributing to each other’s pleasure and entertainment” (Hume 1754 [1985], 271).

For more recent defenses of this argument, see Seabright 2010 and Otteson 2019a.

See Otteson 2019b.

See McCloskey 2016, 2019; Pinker 2018; Rosling et al. 2018; and Davies 2019.

I draw here on Otteson 2018.

Anderson, R. T. 2015. Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom. New York:Regnery.

Chamlee-Wright, E. 2019. Self-Censorship and the Associational Life in the Liberal Academy. Society.

Davies, S. 2019. The Wealth Explosion: The Nature and Origins of Modernity. Sussex:Edward Everett Root.

Denniston, Lyle. 2015. “Opinion Analysis: Marriage Now Open to Same-Sex Couples.” SCOTUSblog. Available here: https://www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/opinion-analysis-marriage-now-open-to-same-sex-couples/.

Dwyer, Devin. 2010. “Obama Justice Department Weighs Appeal in Defense of Marriage Act Case.” ABC News. Available here: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-defense-marriage-act-bind-justice-department/story?id=11126465.

Hume, David. 1754 (1985). “Of Refinement in the Arts.” In David Hume: Essays Moral, Political, and Literary. Eugene F. Miller, ed. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund: 268–280.

Hume, David. 1758 (1985). “Of the Jealousy of Trade.” In David Hume: Essays Moral, Political, and Literary. Eugene F. Miller, ed. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund: 327–331.

Langbert, M. 2018. Homogenous: The Political Affiliations of Elite Liberal Arts College Faculty. Academic Questions, 31(2), 186–197.CrossRef

Lukianoff, G., & Haidt, J. 2018. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. New York:Penguin.

Mackinac Center for Public Policy. N.d. The Overton Window. Available here: https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow.

McCloskey, D. N. 2016. Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

McCloskey, D. N. 2019. Why Liberalism Works: Why True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All. New Haven:Yale University Press.CrossRef

Otteson, J. R. 2006. Actual Ethics. New York:Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Otteson, J. R. 2018. Intellectual Diversity and Academic Professionalism. Political Economy of the Carolinas, 1, 8–19.

Otteson, J. R. 2019a. Honorable Business: A Framework for Business in a Just and Humane Society. New York:Oxford University Press.CrossRef

Otteson, J. R. 2019b. Humane Markets: The Classical Tradition of Political Economy. In M. D. White (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics (vol. 2019, pp. 295–315). New York: Oxford University Press.

Pew Research Center. 2019. “Attitudes on Same-Sex Marriage.” Available here: https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/.

Pinker, S. 2018. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. New York:Viking.

Rose, D. C. 2019. Why Culture Matters Most. New York:Oxford University Press.

Rosling, H., Rosling, O., & Rönnlund, A. R. 2018. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong about the World—And Why Things Are Better than You Think. New York:Flatiron Books.

Seabright, P. 2010. The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life (2nd ed., ). Princeton:Princeton University Press.CrossRef

Smith, Adam. 1982 (1759). The Theory of Moral Sentiments. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, eds. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Whatnationaldayisit.com. N.d. When Is National Punch a Nazi Day?. Available here: https://whatnationaldayisit.com/day/punch-a-nazi/.

Whittington, K. E. 2018. Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech. Princeton:Princeton University Press.CrossRef

Titel: Escaping the Social Pull: Nonconformists and Self-Censorship
Publikationsdatum: 02.12.2019
Erschienen in: Society / Ausgabe 6/2019
Print ISSN: 0147-2011
Elektronische ISSN: 1936-4725
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-019-00416-y

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