The following is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.
“Beware of the left-wing mob.” It’s an oft-repeated slogan among proponents of free speech on college campuses around the country and certainly at Princeton. The Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC), the organization dedicated to the promotion of free speech on this campus, made it the focus of its signature event this year, “Mob Rule: The Illiberal Left’s Threat to Campus Discourse.” POCC brought in some high-profile speakers for an interesting panel discussion, but unfortunately the event’s headline performer—the so-called left-wing mob—failed to show. While one could view this as evidence of the success of the free-speech movement, given that the aforementioned enemies of free speech appear to have slunk into the shadows, I think that the event and the absence of the “mob” bring to light a key flaw in campus free-speech rhetoric: its dependence on enemies to legitimize itself.
Boy-who-cried-wolf moments like these severely undermine the authority of free-speech proponents, as they help turn the “left-wing mob” into a mythological boogeyman, which most students will never see but will constantly hear war stories about. After enough retellings without an appearance from a dreaded left-wing mob, these war stories risk becoming fairy tales in the minds of listeners. If supporters of free speech (and I count myself among them) make themselves reliant on the existence of a tangible enemy to show free speech’s goodness, they will never be able to truly overcome objectors. Free-speech rhetoric runs the risk of becoming an eternal game of cat and mouse, where proponents of free speech decry the left-wing mob to the point of making themselves look like idiots, only for it to return and then retreat under renewed attack, continuing the never-ending cycle.
Proponents of free speech (or “liberals,” in a broader sense of the word) must retool campus free-speech rhetoric so that it focuses on the positive goods associated with free speech and the ends to which free speech must be directed rather than constantly harping on the perilous dangers of the left-wing mob. They could, for example, spend more time arguing for the many goods associated with free speech, such as exposure to diverse ideas and the simple good of each student’s agency in their own education brought about through their dialectical expression of their beliefs and opinions. In addition to this more practical point, it is intellectually unsound for the primary argument for free speech to rest on a claim that “our enemies are bad”—which, again, makes free speech intellectually dependent on unfree speech. Free-speech proponents must be able to articulate positive arguments for free speech even in the absence of opposition, and, if they hope to preserve free speech at the university, this must be the rhetoric that they adopt and use more often. This rhetorical shift will be necessary to reach students who, like myself, have not had negative experiences with cancel culture on campus, and for whom “mob” rhetoric will not resonate.
I’m not saying this to diminish anyone’s experiences with cancel culture. And by no means am I saying that we should not talk about free speech on this campus. I’m also not saying that the speech environment at Princeton is perfect. It’s not, and even if it were, discussion about the place of free speech on campus would still be necessary. There is an important place for groups like POCC on this campus. As the speech environment on campus improves, we must remember that if we do not intentionally conserve things like free speech, they will be easily imperiled or lost when challengers arise again. There is more work to be done to foster an environment where students feel comfortable sharing their opinions and experiences on all topics in a robust pursuit of truth. But this work cannot focus on vilifying a now-invisible enemy.
In revamping free-speech rhetoric, we can look to movements that have successfully adjusted their rhetoric to restore their credibility and resonate with a wider audience. A strong example is the sustainability movement. Not too long ago, the sustainability movement’s rhetoric focused on issuing prophetic warnings about the woes that would befall our unsustainable society. A favorite device was the “future U.S. map,” which showed the United States with Florida underwater and much of the coastal areas and lowlands submerged. The mantra “Florida will be underwater in thirty years” began to lose traction with most people after about fifty years, and so the sustainability movement pivoted to rhetoric focused on the good of sustainability and stopped trying to position itself as a modern-day Noah. Similarly, the gun-rights movement has shifted from emphasizing the need to defend oneself against violent criminals toward arguing for the goodness of gun rights on their own merits. The free-speech movement likewise must grow beyond simple fearmongering, hyperfocused on a few extreme but rare cases, and talk more about the genuine goods of free speech. We can leave the “left-wing mob” events back in 2017.
POCC could be the Cassandra of Princeton, shouting warnings at people like me as we welcome the Trojan horse through FitzRandolph Gate. But whether or not there is an imminent threat, I think the free-speech proponents would be well served to retool their rhetoric to focus more on the positive good of free speech than on fairy tale–style warnings about an invisible boogeyman. If they do not change, they risk becoming the Harold Campings of campus, constantly warning Princetonians to prepare their souls for the Second Coming of the Left-Wing Mob—and constantly making fools of themselves when the Day of Rapture passes by without any left-wing mobs appearing at their events.
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