The Hidden Substance behind “anti-PC” Procedural Arguments

In this post, I want to try to briefly clarify some features of the “PC” debate reignited by Jonathan Chait’s recent essay on the subject. Specifically, I want to address Freddie deBoer’s widely-shared response—not because I think it’s a brilliant piece of political thinking, but because it serves as a nice illustration of the hidden confusion that sustains this particular debate.

After paying lip service to the general left-consensus that Chait is Bad, deBoer’s essay basically rehashes Chait’s essay in different words, following the same basic argumentative structure of drawing upon intuitive examples of unpalatable ideology policing, and, from them, concluding that the left’s policing of speech/ideas has grown oppressive. Thus, just as Chait leads with the story of a conservative student harassed after writing a column mocking left-wing identity politics, deBoer opens by writing:

I have seen, with my own two eyes, a 19 year old white woman — smart, well-meaning, passionate — literally run crying from aclassroom because she was so ruthlessly brow-beaten for using the word “disabled.” Not repeatedly. Not with malice. Not because of privilege. She used the word once and was excoriated for it. She never came back.

Like Chait, deBoer then goes on to provide a number of similar cases and concludes from them that idea/speech policing is out of control, having grown both oppressive in its own right and harmful to the broader project of building a strong left capable of seizing political power.

To see why the left has reacted so negatively to these essays, it is helpful to begin by considering the coalition-building piece of the argument. Specifically, note that how certain tendencies affect the left’s political efficacy is an empirical question, yet neither essay presents any real empirical evidence that might help us answer it. Rather, to support their claims, deBoer and Chait seemingly rely entirely upon anecdotes—but, of course, the plural of anecdote is not data. Thus, for every person deBoer has seen fleeing an organizing meeting in tears, never to return, there might well be some young woman of color who is excited and energized by how seriously her concerns are taken and, as a result, decides to become a deeply involved and committed organizer. And, for any bit of theorizing one might do about how certain tactics turn off moderates, another might easily counter with theories about how the only people who are turned off weren’t really that sympathetic to the cause to begin with; that those who are overly-policed will stay just as committed while relocating to a different group with a different approach to identity politics; that moderates aren’t as important to a movement as truly committed, radicalized people; etc.

I’m not necessarily endorsing any of these theories; my point is simply that, given the total absence of any actual empirical evidence to resolve what is a strictly empirical question, one can pretty much come up with any theoretical bullshit one wants to justify a preferred position with respect to tactics.

But, if evidence isn’t what leads people like Chait and deBoer to adopt a negative view of ideology policing, what is it that leads them to hold the positions that they do? The apparent answer is that there is something about the tactic itself that they find objectionable, with their empirical claims being an ad hoc rationalization of the visceral distaste they feel.

Even if this suggestion is correct, one can’t be too critical of deBoer and Chait. While perhaps one would expect more empirical rigor from the latter (given his dabblings in the realm of policy wonkdom), at the end of the day, the two are both political theorists, and, as such, shouldn’t really be expected to worry too much about the veracity of the empirical claims they make. Disciplinary teasing aside, while it is certainly a bad habit to try to rationalize one’s normative intuitions through empirical claims, almost everyone is guilty of this tendency, so it would be unfair to crucify Chait and deBoer for our collective sins.

However, one cannot rest at the conclusion that deBoer and Chait simply find the tactics viscerally objectionable. To see why, consider the following (significant) modification to deBoer’s opening anecdote:

I have seen, with my own two eyes, a 19 year old white woman — smart, inquisitive, passionate — literally run crying from a classroom because she was so ruthlessly brow-beaten for using racial slurs and defending Nazi ideology. She was excoriated for it. She never came back.

In this case, one could hardly be sympathetic to the student. Yes, she was intimidated into leaving the community, but this seems an appropriate response given her views and her speech. I would expect both Chait and deBoer to agree that there are at least certain views that are so dangerous or offensive or odious that to air them in certain settings is to forfeit the expectation of certain procedural protections, e.g., freedom from excoriation.

But as soon as one is willing to make even this very modest concession, then what is at issue in the “PC” debates shifts from the tactic of policing to the odiousness of the views being policed. In practically every setting, there is some view that is so objectionable that the policing tactics described in Chait and deBoer’s respective pieces become not only acceptable but also morally required. The only question that remains, then, is which views are objectionable to the point where they have crossed this particular threshold.

Once one recognizes that questions about tactics come down to questions about the objectionableness of various ideas/speech, it becomes clear that arguments presented as merely criticizing tactics are, in fact, tacitly smuggling in all sorts of premises about the extent to which various behaviors are objectionable. Thus, when people decry the pervasiveness of ideology policing tactics, they inadvertently reveal that they don’t consider the ideas/speech/behavior being policed to really be all that bad—or, at least, as bad as the pro-policing contingent believes them to be. 

The substantive views smuggled in by deBoer and Chait’s tactical critiques help to explain why the left has gotten so up-in-arms in response to the two essays. For, even if those on the left are not consciously aware of what is going on, they intuitively recognize that these criticisms are Trojan horses. Though the arguments masquerade as friendly criticism—i.e., coming from those who agree about ends but disagree about means—they are, in reality, hostile attacks on substantive normative positions regarding what ideas/speech are truly objectionable.

If what is at issue is really ideology rather than tactics, one becomes able to also explain why so many people have been critical of Chait and deBoer while, at the same time, admitting that ideology policing is a problem on the left. This simultaneous attack and concession would appear to be a contradiction—that is, until one recognizes that what is really being expressed are merely differing opinions about what ideas/speech are truly objectionable. To admit that there is a problem is simply to assert that there are certain views that are currently policed that aren’t so bad as to actually warrant policing. Everyone except those on the most extreme fringe will agree upon this. The issue, then, is where to draw the line, and it is disagreement over these details that divides the critics from Chait and deBoer.

That these supposedly tactical criticisms are actually ideological attacks in disguise shouldn’t come as a surprise. Indeed, the right deploys these exact same arguments all the time to advance their attacks on the normative claims of the identity politics left! However, agreement on other political subjects tends to lull people into incorrectly assuming that there is general consensus along all political axes.

The point of all this is not to advance a particular view about what ideas/speech are objectionable to the point where a given set of policing tactics is appropriate. Rather, I want to simply make clear that the debate turns on this substantive ideological issue—and that this fact can help to explain otherwise-puzzling features of this intra-left feud.

More importantly, my hope is to provide new direction to a seemingly intractable disagreement. Tedious essays like those written by Chait and deBoer will inevitably get us nowhere because they merely grouse about policing while leaving the outstanding substantive disagreements untouched. If progress is to be made in this debate, one cannot simply argue that policing is bad because almost everyone agrees that it is unacceptable given certain views and conditions, but appropriate given others. Merely pointing out case studies that rub one the wrong way will fail to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree and is more an exercise in rallying the troops than reasoning. What is needed, instead, are arguments about what particular ideas/speech are objectionable; why they are objectionable; how objectionable those respective ideas/speech are; and what policing tactics are appropriate given a particular degree of objectionableness.

Finally, let me conclude by suggesting that those on the left have put far more theoretical effort into answering these questions than have liberals and libertarians. Indeed, much writing about identity politics concerns itself with these very issues! It is perhaps for this reason that I find essays like Chait’s/deBoer’s so tiresome, even when I find myself sympathetic to some of the examples they present.