On No-Platforming

I distinguish between active and passive no-platforming. By 'active no-platforming' I wish to track what the OED defines as no-platforming (simpliciter), that is to "prevent (a person holding views regarded as unacceptable or offensive) from contributing to a public debate or meeting, especially one at which they had originally been invited to speak." By "passive no-platforming" I mean to "prevent (a person holding views regarded as unacceptable or offensive) from contributing to a public debate or meeting" by simply not inviting them. In general, active no-platforming reacts publicly to hosting and scheduling decisions and tends to create controversy. Passive no-platforming is the behind the scenes, operation of conference committees, speaker-series hosts, etc. 

Passive no-platforming is ubiquitous and generally routine in professional disciplines. It generally creates no controversy.* Passive no-platforming prevents one from wasting one's time (the most valuable and scarce resource to an academic) on the uninformed, unskilled, mediocre, and the too-often-drunk-and-over-the-hill types. I don't mean to suggest passive no-platforming is without interesting pedagogical and normative significance. Does a department speaker series' primarily benefit the education of the PhDs, to create network opportunities for the community, to honor the disciplinary leaders, to check out folk for future job openings, to enhance the department's standing in the academic/university community? Some of these desiderata can be at odds with each other, and are constrained by budgets, the academic calendar, and the idiosyncratic preferences of the speaker series chair. These desiderata are not identical to the decision of a university to confer an honorary degree, or an academic unit's interest to host debates on topics of political significance.

Because of its ubiquity passive no-platforming can have a great deal of significance on the shape of a profession. Academia is, in part, a credit or recognition economy, and so these speaker decisions are, in their cumulative effect, important possible signals and rewards. Often this is a good thing; logicians shouldn't invite me to keynote their conferences (and if they did, they would have plenty of evidence that I would be inclined to deny the law of identity.) But such passive no-platforming can also be part of philosophical politics (for my use, see here and here). For example, few continental philosophers were (are) ever asked to give department lectures or keynotes in the (analytic) intellectual milieu that shaped me (the reverse may also be true). Unfamiliarity and mutual ignorance can reinforce contempt, and eliminates types of philosophers from possible jobs.+ To offer a non-trivial example: by systematically ignoring (say) Foucault (see, for example, the Healy citation analysis), analytic philosophers have had to play catch-up in their philosophical analysis of how states and societies police and govern the identities of human bodies.

A famous attempt at active no-platforming took place when some influential analytic philosophers (and, yes, Husserlians, Austrian philosophers, etc.) tried to prevent (recall) the award of a honorary degree to Derrida. (Strictly speaking, they tried to influence the ballot; so perhaps we need a category between active/passive?) I mention this episode to remind readers that our attitude(s) toward no-platforming (passive and active) is often connected to our considered and sometimes superficial views of underlying merits of the case/person. 

While passive no-platforming is far more prevalent, it is the relatively rare acts of active no-platforming that tend to create the most division. In my view, active no-platforming tends to be imprudent as a means of persuasion of even bystanders of good-will. It is generally polarizing, and often attention is drawn away from underlying substantive issues to matters of procedure. Even so, some may decide that polarization is the price worth paying for all kinds of solid epistemic (draw attention to certain argument patterns, etc.) and normative reasons (e.g., draw attention to certain patterns of recognition and omission, etc.). I return to this below.

Alongside its invitation to Prof. Stock, to a lecture to the Aristotelian Society, the society published a remark (ht Leiterreports):

In 1883 the Aristotelian Society declared "The Society adopts, as its first and indispensable principle, to attach itself, as a Society, to none of the several Schools or Lines of Thought, which still, unhappily, divide the philosophical world. It is, on the contrary, its chief endeavour and boast, that adherents of any, or all the schools ... can and do meet as members of it on an equal footing, with equal freedom of discussion, and with equal welcome to propound their views. In no other way, the Society holds, is it possible to attain the end of philosophical discussion and study.”

In the spirit of this declaration of purpose the Aristotelian Society wishes to express its support for Prof Kathleen Stock's right to engage in philosophical debate and writing without harassment. The Society remains neutral on the philosophical debates in which she is engaged. We very much look forward to hearing her paper on June 3rd.

We do not need to be innocent here: this statement is clearly written in anticipation of controversy (including, perhaps, attempted active no-platforming). That's because Prof. Stock is at the center of much public controversy right now, including, alas, the subject of harassment (something I publicly condemned without reserve). The invitation to Prof. Stock is not a neutral act--as the Society forthrightly declares, it is meant, in part, to express its support to Prof. Kathleen Stock's rights. Even those of us that disagree (recall this post) with Prof. Stock can understand the desire to offer such a gesture. Even so, the society could have expressed such support, more symbolically and less significantly, without offering Prof. Stock an opportunity to lecture on the topic; or, when it did do so, it could have simultaneously offered an "unequivocal statement of support for trans people within the profession and outside" ("Joint Statement" Minorities and Philosophy UK and Minorities and Philosophy International). And while I don't think the failure to do so is itself a sign of bigotry, not doing so is a mistake. 

I don't find the Society's claim that it remains "neutral" about the debate itself fully convincing (although I have no doubt about its sincerity). The Society plays a role in shaping perceptions in three non-trivial ways: (i) that there is a 'debate(s)' worth having (as opposed to other discussions), and (ii) that Prof. Kathleen Stock is the person worth hearing on the debate; (iii) and that debate is a means to the stated aims of the Society ("philosophical discussion and study"). For the record, I respectfully disagree on (i) and (iii).  

Here I only focus on (i). Some philosophers instinctively think anything is up for debate. But in practice we behave differently inside and outside the classroom. For example, were the Society to invite a leading astrologer to present the pro-astrology side with the claim that it was neutral on the debate about the efficacy of astrology or invite a young earth creationist to challenge Darwinism, it would (quite rightly) generate derision. Its claim to neutrality would either be thought insincere or it would be a sign of (nearly culpable) ignorance with the risk of discrediting philosophy in the eyes of our learned peers (or, if there were a pattern of misjudgment it would discredit itself among philosophers).

As an aside, attitudes about such matters can change. In the era of the Society founding, one can find leading intellectuals intrigued by the possibility of communicating with the dead (e.g. Sidgwick; see also here). Now, the Society would think twice about hosting a talk that treated this as a live scientific possibility (while nobody would raise an eyebrow if it were discussed as a thought experiment to show something else).

So, to claim that there is a debate with sides in it is itself not a neutral act. Often there are overlooked sides (perhaps presented by folk not in the public eye); and there is, in fact, a substantive judgment about the sense that there is a controversy worth engaging in with prima facie positions worth defending without risking harm to the reputation of the Society (and undermining its aims). In fact, I have seen informed, feminist friends have vituperative exchanges on social media over the Society's decision and justification (possibly destroying friendships; (for a sense of the discussion see this thread at Dailynous prompted in part by the Society's decision).

It's notable that in its statement, the Society did not pause to reflect on the fact that its invitation could also be thought to undermine the "equal footing" of, and "equal welcome" to those who may, not without justification, feel that the Society is willing to have their identity be challenged in public not merely as a matter of philosophical curiosity, but also with the partial intent to shape public legislation (which is part of the background of the controversies)--a legislation intended to police access to public spaces. One may wonder to what degree "equal footing" can be presupposed in a philosophical culture with enormous prestige and income hierarchies and where, in the larger society, being subject to violence in virtue of one's identity is so unevenly distributed.** 

I want to close with a final observation. There is a tendency, even among the well meaning, to frown on active no-platforming, It is often treated as anti-academic and mob rule. 

I find this puzzling (in the (ahh) Oxbridge sense of flatly wrong). Active and comparatively rare, no-platforming is a modest, and fairly incidental corrective to the effects of the widespread practice of passive no-platforming. It does not follow that active no-platforming is always merited. People are fallible, after all. But to treat active no-platforming as ipse facto opposed to free inquiry is a mistake. Yes, it disrupts the quiet operation of the agenda and credit conferring invisible powers behind the scenes. (I have hosted more than thirty workshops and conferences in my career, so I am not exempting myself.)

But we all know in our hearts that having these invisible decisions be challenged occasionally, while seriously unpleasant for the folks targeted by them (especially those adverse to controversy), also makes us more aware of, and, over time, perhaps sensitive to, otherwise hidden dimensions of our practices.  For, active no-platforming is usually accompanied by a manifesto or a statement of purpose. And these often tell the story not of future hegemony or political domination, but of "disappointment," vulnerability, and lack of recognition ("uptake"). To be threatened by this is an instance of (recall) hearing without listening.

 

 

 

*Of course, it can create controversy when observable patterns of exclusion attract notice.

+This is not to deny that such contempt can be an effect of mutual engagement (cf. the Searle-Derrida exchange).

**Regular readers know I think that in such context the demands of responsible speech (in light of inductive risk) are also unevenly distributed.

Comments

[John Schwenkler]

Eric, I would like to hear more of what is behind your rejection of (i). *What* is the debate here that you think is not worth having? The one that concerns what sexual orientation is? or whether biological sex is worth of its own social and legal recognition? or whether members of a vulnerable group (in this case those of women, lesbians) can agitate for its rights in the face of opposing rights-claims from other vulnerable persons without thereby being bigoted? And so on.

[ajkreider]

There's at least one sense in which active no-platforming is opposed to free inquiry - it interferes, necessarily, with the goals of those who sought to hear what the no-platformed had to say. They do not get to inquire. The no-platformer says, "Hear me, not her", and does so by force. This must be so, because if no one came to hear, there'd be little point in no-platforming in the first place.

If the paper versions of Stock's articles were burned, and the online versions hacked, you would no doubt count those acts as opposed to free inquiry. Isn't active no-platforming just a version of this?

[Marinus Ferreira]

ajkreider says:
"There's at least one sense in which active no-platforming is opposed to free inquiry - it interferes, necessarily, with the goals of those who sought to hear what the no-platformed had to say. [...] This must be so, because if no one came to hear, there'd be little point in no-platforming in the first place."

This is not true: there are many instances of the public presentation of a viewpoint which doesn't attract an audience to engage and isn't in the first instance looking to attract such an audience, but exists in the first instance just to advertise their presence. Consider for instance the long and ongoing history of demonstrations by Nazis and neo-Nazis which routinely attract minuscule numbers of supporters and often much larger groups of counter-demonstrators. The point of the demonstration is simply to be seen, not to engage. This can be seen also by the fact that very many such demonstrations are aimed not at potential supporters, but at groups targeted by the Nazis and neo-Nazis.

There is excellent recent philosophy on the social impact of having views presented, most importantly by Cristina Bicchieri. She points out (notably in 'Norms in the Wild') that the mere presentation of some view or behaviour makes it more prevalent, whether or not they are presented in a positive light or not. It's this effect that the no-platformer is targeting.

As for the comparison between de-platforming and book-burning, the point of the post is instead, it seems to me, to compare de-platforming with such articles not passing peer-review, or being retracted from the press. An instance of this would be the removal of the articles linking vaccines to autism from medical journals.

[Julien Murzi]

I think there is a debate worth having: no one seriously questions now whether racism is admissible; by contrast, it seems to me that it is far less clear what we should think about gender and sex. My partner has just been awarded a research grant, only available to women. But what counts - and should count - as a woman in this context? I am critical of so-called gender critical answers to this and related questions, but I think these issues should be debated, and that we can only get clear on them by debating them. It will take time, patience, understanding, and good will on all sides. I hear that freedom of speech applies differently to students and early career colleagues, on the one hand, and established members of the profession, on the other. So it can be ok to be a little rough on the latter - I hear. This thought terrifies me. Who decides what's ok and what's not ok? I'm ok with inviting the AS to invite to speak philosophers who hold views that are opposite to the ones held by Stock. By all means. But it shouldn't follow from this that it was wrong for the AS to invite Stock.