The Role of Abrasion in the Academy
The value of abrasion in academic discourse is well-recognized (Popper 1959, 1963). In
On Liberty, Mill (
1956 [1859]: 21) famously defends freedom of expression by observing that the collision of ideas benefits those who are correct, as they come away with a “clearer perception and livelier impression” of truth, and those who are mistaken, as they are given “the opportunity of exchanging error for truth.” In other words, the abrasion of intellectual exchange sharpens our arguments and our minds. In Mill’s view, therefore, we should, “be grateful to anyone who looks for weaknesses in received truths or mistakes in their application” (Blackford
2019: 39).
Heather Wood Ion (
2015) notes that in addition to sharpening our intellects, campus life also provides a measure of
social abrasion, something that is often seen as an essential part of the college experience. Wood Ion notes that exposure to diverse opinions, perspectives, and pedagogical methods creates friction that abrades prior expectations, unexamined assumptions, and the rough edges of lingering adolescence. A white student’s first exposure to critical race theory, for example, can create both emotional as well as intellectual challenge. Arguably, the social and intellectual abrasion students experience is mirrored among the professoriate, especially as we engage across disciplines. Two decades of teaching alongside sociologists, for example, abraded some of the jagged edges that my economics training had left unchallenged and unrefined.
Abrasion has a particularly important role to play in difficult conversations, like those related to social identity. When we first learn the Pythagorean Theorem, new knowledge is conveyed. We may feel a sense of accomplishment or delight or boredom, but we generally don’t feel anything like shame. The abrasion is slight. If the lesson were sandpaper, it would be 1000-grit. It’s different, though, when the lesson points to something that we perhaps should have known, if only we had been more sensitive, or had a greater sense of humility, or “got out of our bubble” more. When our interlocutor says, “If you had grown up experiencing discrimination like I did, then you would likely see things differently,” it may ring true. New knowledge is being conveyed here too, but unlike the Pythagorean Theorem lesson, the abrasive grit can feel rather rough. We may feel called out, not just for not knowing something, but for lacking sensitivity and humility. The phrase, “like I did,” suggests that we may have unintentionally offended our conversation partner. Lack of intent to offend does not absolve us, as it is further evidence that we have missed something important that we should have known.
Conservative commentators often lament that rhetoric of this kind is designed to put some people (especially those with traditional forms of social privilege) in a conversational straightjacket. An alternative view is to see conversations like these as coaching sessions, in which peers, teachers, and colleagues help us to develop what Adam Smith describes as the vantage point of an “impartial spectator,” the point of view that is gained by imagining how our conduct appears to a fair-minded observer who stands at some distance from us (Otteson
2002).
5 As we become better at this imaginary switching of places, we are better able to bring our thoughts, emotions, and actions in line with the sentiments of the broader society. This human capacity to align our sentiments with one another forms the basis for what eventually emerges as a self-regulating system of just conduct.
6 As Smith observed in TMS, when we experience abrasion in the form of mild disapprobation—especially from our peers—we learn how to imagine ourselves in the shoes of a person who is different from us. We come to understand better how others understand and respond to their circumstances. In this process, we often come to appreciate better the degree of our own cluelessness to the circumstances of others. We might chafe a bit at the realization, but mild abrasion of this kind allows us to fill knowledge gaps between ourselves and others in different circumstances, and we become less clueless and more effective at speaking across social and cultural divides (Weinstein
2013).
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With that said, there is a point where abrasion ceases to be coaching and takes the form of punishment. When a majority (or vocal minority claiming moral authority) deploys the abrasion of associative life to punish rather than to enlighten or persuade, we approach a tipping point. The fact that there are relatively few incidents in which someone is publicly shamed for making a reasonable argument is less important than the fact that it is within the realm of possibilities that it might happen. Except for those seeking the limelight as provocateur, no one wants to suffer the fate of Brett Weinstein, the Evergreen State professor who was the target of an angry group of student protesters demanding his resignation for challenges he posed to the University’s diversity programming. Any scholar who expects a reaction of this kind faces a strong incentive to self-censor.
In short, the ideal of the liberal academy invites abrasion, and calls us to submit to its temporary discomfort so that we might develop our intellect, resilience, and character. At the point that abrasion is weaponized, however, its effect is to shut down intellectual openness and the process that drives the growth of knowledge.
The Role of Civility in the Academy
While an educational environment requires abrasion, it also expects civility, not simply as a matter of politeness, but as a fundamental aspect of what it means to be a liberally educated person. Michael Oakeshott (
1951), for example, observes that liberal learning is a social conversational process. But, in order to participate effectively, we need to be initiated into the art of conversation, acquiring the intellectual and moral habits associated with civility. These habits of mind allow us to recognize, in ourselves and our conversation partners, our underlying humanity. Colleges and universities are special places in Oakeshott’s view, because they create the physical, learning, and social spaces in which we cultivate these habits.
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When we understand civility as acquiring the intellectual and moral habits appropriate to the great human conversation, we recognize that civility will involve some degree of self-censorship. Civility and productive dialogue require that we think before we speak, which at times, means holding our tongues, withholding our thoughts until they are more fully formed, or until we find a way to express them in a manner that will reduce (to the degree possible) the risk of unnecessary offense.
9 Though he does not use the phrase, Smith essentially says as much in TMS when he writes about the importance of tempering one’s passions and moderating one’s behavior to be in concordance with what the broader society will consider proper. What one says, and how one says it, are among those behaviors that may require tempering and moderating. Learning how to temper one’s passions is not just a matter of politeness, it is essential to our development as moral beings.
Though essential to the health of the academy, civility also has the potential to degrade the quality of discourse, much as Tocqueville cautioned, leaving us too deferential to majority opinion. In particular, civility can undermine productive discourse when it is inappropriately understood to mean “don’t rock the boat;” when making an unpopular argument is in-and-of-itself considered to be an act of incivility. As Blackford (
2019: 39) notes, Mill saw the potential danger in calls for civility if insistence on civility is used to justify speech suppression. “As [Mill] says, opponents will always view us as intemperate merely for expressing ourselves in a strong, forthright way—someone passionately committed to a rival view will likely feel this as an attack.”
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And as concerned as he was with tempering our passions, Smith also considered truth seeking and willingness to act (and presumably, speak) on behalf of truth and justice to be a moral duty. Thus, the question of whether self-censorship is or is not a problem is context-dependent. In Smith’s system, self-censorship may be exactly what is called for if that censoring is aimed at reigning in a passion, particularly an unsocial passion like anger that is too fiery for the circumstance at hand. But self-censorship is a significant problem in circumstances in which it leads the scholar to abandon her duty to contribute to rather than retreat from the truth-seeking enterprise. But saying this is not to suggest that the lines of demarcation are simple.
For example, while making an unpopular argument should not, in-and-of-itself, be considered an act of incivility, when combined with other factors, we may conclude otherwise. We all know this instinctively in our lives outside the academy. If we know that Aunt Ruth gets upset by our stance on a particular policy issue, we refrain from making that argument at her Thanksgiving dinner table. The time, place, and purpose of the assembly is not a suitable setting for debate. Aunt Ruth’s sensibilities do not, of course, set the standard in scholarly discourse. That said, there are norms that guide time, place, and purpose considerations, even in the academy. If our colleague’s preferred argument is not germane to the topic at hand, we say to her (or at least think it in our heads), “now is not the right time to pursue the point.” If an argument has been raised, refuted, and is widely considered a settled matter by relevant experts, we consider it a breach of civility if a colleague persists in his attempts to argue otherwise, especially if the purpose of the gathering is to move the conversation forward rather than revisit matters already considered settled. Given the scarcity of time and attention bandwidth, such norms serve us in our efforts to make intellectual progress.
But the parameters of civility such as the “germaneness test” and the “settled matter test” can be misapplied, crowding out or disallowing arguments simply because we don’t like them.
11 When an admonition has the weight of the majority (or a vocal minority claiming moral authority) behind it, Tocqueville’s “manly independence of thought” can easily slip away and something like “group-think” may set in. The title of Alice Dreger’s book
Galileo’s Middle Finger makes the point well. Making an argument that aims at truth, but fails to align with a preferred (dominant) political or ideological message, can lead the group, particularly one bound by a sense that they have the moral high-ground, to cast out the heretic. A common rhetorical device of groups seeking ideological purity is to bypass counterargument altogether by naming the conclusion they disfavor as blasphemy. According to this logic, it follows that the purveyor of blasphemy is evil, and therefore, not worthy of a hearing. Taking the logic one step further, such heretics must be punished, so that they do not continue to spread their lies. Further still, they must be expelled from the community so that they do not poison the minds of others, particularly young and impressionable people under their tutelage. While scholars seek distinction, most of us would prefer to avoid the treatment reserved for heretics, and we face a strong incentive to adjust our behavior accordingly. Not a single rule of formal censorship is required, in other words, for a good deal of censorship to occur.
It is tempting to say to ourselves that we can rise above such tactics—that we will not be among those who will cast out the Galileos in our midst. But making this claim is trickier than it might seem, especially if we believe that it is sometimes appropriate to use language to admonish, punish, and withdraw approbation.
12 The power of language to withdraw social approval is critical to associative life, and it is part of what gives freely associating people the ability to safeguard liberty. As Strossen (
2018) argues, for example, we don’t need the state to punish racist or misogynist speech because we can do that on our own by withdrawing our approval. It is well-within the bounds of liberal principles to deploy language to register disapproval of those who, for example, deny the inherent dignity of a particular group of people. But the fact that withdrawing social approval is sometimes justified makes the associative life wicket all the stickier. It’s often difficult to know when and where to stop. And for those who value the benefits of associational life, which includes the affection of friends and colleagues and professional standing and reputation, it is also difficult to know when it is that we are engaging professionally and civilly and when we are simply caving in to the pressure to conform. It is this dual effect of self-censorship—that it sometimes leads to social harmony and mutual respect, and that it sometimes leads us away from candor and truth—that makes it particularly difficult to navigate.
When we consider the importance of humility, the navigation becomes even more difficult. It may be tempting, for example, to fancy ourselves as being Galileo-like, immune from social pressures that would have us self-censor. But such a stance creates a tension between ironclad confidence in one’s own ideas, no matter what others say, and a commitment to epistemic humility. When so many disagree with us, might that give us pause? Might we withhold our point of view, at least until we gain a sense from others that we are on the right track? As with civility, it is hard to know where appropriate humility and caution ends and inappropriate caving to social pressure begins. Again, some degree of self-censorship is a good thing if we hope to avoid the corruptions of arrogance. Our reasonable and desirable commitments to civility and epistemic humility, however, may in some moments make us complicit in a social dynamic that leads the academy away from the fearless pursuit of truth.
In short, abrasion and civility can both be sources of self-censorship, which in turn, fosters both positive outcomes (namely, mutual sympathy and respect) and negative outcomes (namely, reluctance to engage in the open exchange of ideas). Because scholars are enculturated into the liberal norms of abrasion and civility—through undergraduate and graduate study and the intensive intellectual mentoring of research assistantships and the dissertation process—we carry these values with us into the culture of the academy, and enculturate the next generation to adopt these same intellectual habits. We are expected, in our lives as students, researchers, teachers, and colleagues, to challenge (to abrade) one another and to submit to such abrasion. We are expected to engage in the grand conversations of our discipline and the broader academy with civility, which will sometimes require that we stop and reconsider what we are about to say and how we will say it—as this is essential to the health of the conversation. But these same norms can also tend toward weaponized abrasion, excessive deference, and conformity that shuts down the free and open exchange of ideas.
Self-censorship, then, is neither inherently bad or good. It is, rather, the choices that scholars make under specific circumstances that determine self-censorship’s effect on the quality of discourse. Scholars therefore need guidance as to when it is and is not appropriate to self-censor. As I argue below, responding appropriately is both an epistemological and moral challenge. Smith’s discussions of the impartial spectator and the virtue of self-command anticipate both aspects of this challenge.