WEBVTT - Ep117 "What does brain science have to do with free speech? (with Greg Lukianoff)" (with Greg Lukianoff) 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.840 There's plenty of heated debate about free speech nowadays, and 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:12.080 as far as I can tell, almost everyone claims to 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.319 be in favor of free speech, but they often mean 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:20.720 speech from their side and not whatever those dangerous grifters 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.880 are on the other side, whatever they want to say. Now, 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:26.920 from the point of view of the brain, why do 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:30.840 I think that free speech is worth defending? And what 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:35.760 does this have to do with internal models or Internet indecency, 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:40.560 or printing presses, or college campuses or John Stuart mill 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:45.600 or cultures of honor or Robinson Crusoe or cancel culture. 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:47.320 Why literature matters? 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:55.480 And why free speech makes everyone safer. Welcome to Inner 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.800 Cosmos with me, David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and an 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:00.680 author at Stanford, and in. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:02.480 These episodes we seek to. 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:05.639 Understand why and how our lives look. 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:26.360 The way they do. Today, we're going to talk about 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:32.040 free speech with lawyer and passionate advocate Greg Lukianov. I'm 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.080 a defender of free speech, but I'm not coming at 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.520 this from the point of view of a political principle. Instead, 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:43.200 I'm asserting this as a neuroscientist. And here is my argument. 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.560 As you've heard me say on this podcast before. The 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:51.280 brain operates by building an internal model of the world, 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:55.480 which is a compressed version of reality that it uses 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.600 to make predictions and help us navigate. But the thing 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.960 that's it's not always easy to see is that our 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:08.919 internal models are extremely limited. Your model is stitched together 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:14.160 from the very specific details of your past experience and 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.200 the influence of your hometown and the circles you spin in, 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:20.840 and the country you happen to live in, and the 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.280 era you happen to live in, and the context of 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.239 the culture you happen to be embedded in. That's how 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:34.280 you arrive at your version of what is true and inviolable. Now, 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.760 the thing that's always struck me is so interesting is 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.639 why it's so hard for us to think of other 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.680 points of view on any argument. It's difficult because we 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.280 don't even know what to look for. We're just not 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:52.320 smart enough most of the time to think outside the 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.079 borders of our own model. 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.480 And this is where free speech comes in. 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:03.040 My interest in free speech each is as illumination of 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:08.480 ideas that live outside of your visual field. When someone 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.680 expresses an idea that you hadn't considered, even one that 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.680 you might find uncomfortable. They're shining a light into a 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.600 corner of the map that you didn't even know was there. 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.399 You didn't realize anything was missing from your map. Other 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:27.680 people's opinions offer new pieces of the puzzle to your model. 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.840 Sometimes those are corrections, sometimes just considerations of other points 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.320 of view. Sometimes you'll dismiss those out of hand, and 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:39.280 that's fine, But at least that territory now sits on 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:43.880 your internal map while it wasn't even there before. Without 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:48.040 that input, your brain is just going to continue making 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:53.400 its predictions based on partial data. We are all blind 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.800 to our own blind spots. So from this neuroscience angle, 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.240 the important thing about free speech isn't just being allowed 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:06.240 to say things. It's about the critical importance of hearing things. 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:12.480 This is how minds stretch beyond their parochial borders. Hearing 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.920 new ideas is how we push, even just by a 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:21.599 few inches, the boundaries of our mental models, and slowly, iteratively, 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.080 we start seeing other territory that we didn't know was there. 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.560 If I were going to use a totally different metaphor, 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:34.120 I might just say that friction polishes us. It's critically 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:38.440 important to be exposed to ideas that can stretch us. 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.760 Lots of the ideas that we're exposed to aren't going 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:43.920 to do too much for us, but there's no way for. 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:46.400 Us to know in advance which ones will. 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.760 We are living in an age of personalization, algorithms and 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:55.119 social silos, and it seems to me the main risk 0:04:55.200 --> 0:05:00.600 of this is that we stop even encountering ideas outside 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:05.479 our worldview, and that has big consequences for our brains, 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:11.479 especially for young brains, because without friction, we lose the ability. 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:12.440 To gain wisdom. 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.280 As a side note, I've previously made the argument on 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:20.279 this podcast about literature that reading literature is so important 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.640 because it allows you to go on holidays on other 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.640 people's planets. In other words, it allows you to put 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:31.440 yourself in other shoes and stand in other vantage points 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.480 than the one you're used to. This is the same 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.839 idea with free speech. We have to be exposed to 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:42.440 these other vantage points. Often in this case, these are 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.159 unexpected and maybe uncomfortable political points of view, but that's 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:50.000 the only way we can expand our fence lines. 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:52.520 Okay, so that all sounds good. 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.000 But the problem is that free speech triggers a lot 0:05:56.000 --> 0:06:00.680 of discomfort listening to someone defend a posing idea is 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.560 is an unnatural act for the brain because it asks 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:07.600 us to entertain ideas that we might hate. It makes 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.960 us defense of it sometimes asks us to sit with 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:15.120 cognitive dissonance. It asks us to admit that we are 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.200 not perfect in our own views and that sometimes we 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:23.320 are wrong. But is it important to build some cognitive flexibility? Well, 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.360 just look at the history of science, where every new 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:31.000 idea was very unpopular to begin with. Whether that's the 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.440 Sun at the center of the orbit instead of the Earth, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:37.919 or the idea that we and other animals evolved through time, 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:42.679 or Einstein's theory of relativity. Every single advance in science 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:47.440 triggers a lot of pushback before it gains acceptance. We 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.159 tell the story of Galileo fighting the Church, but there's 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.560 a sense in which we could equally cast it as 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:57.120 a fight against the brain's instinct to. 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:58.800 Preserve the status quo. 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:03.880 But especially in recent years, it seems like something has 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:08.599 shifted on campuses and on social platforms and in institutions. 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.720 We have seen the rise of emotional reasoning, the belief 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:17.240 that if something doesn't match your internal model, it's offensive. 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.920 Maybe the words are equated to violence, and therefore the 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.520 speech has to be shut down. And it's no surprise 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.320 because when you're confronted with ideas that you don't like, 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:32.720 your limbic system is cranked up and that steers your reactions. 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:36.400 The ancient alarm bells that we have, including for example, 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:41.320 the amygdala, these circuits don't distinguish so well between a 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.600 snake and a sentence that we don't like, and who 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.240 wants their sense of what's true to feel threatened. So 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:50.440 today we're going to talk about all this and why 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.080 it matters. And I'm so happy to be joined by 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:57.200 my colleague Greg Lukianov, who is a constitutional lawyer and 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:01.080 a passionate lifelong free speech at we're going to talk 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.880 about the benefits of free speech, including several that don't 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:09.080 often strike us. Greg is the president of the Foundation 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.600 for Individual Rights and Expression known as FIRE, and this 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.160 organization is very creative and how it defends freedom of speech. 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.880 They use lawsuits and videos and documentaries and books. And 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.160 in fact you might know him from his co authored 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:27.120 books The Coddling of the American Mind and more recently 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.280 The Canceling of the American Mind, and also he recently 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.840 gave a Ted talk exploring how we've come to equate 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.959 words with violence and how the shift might be doing 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:42.200 more harm than good, especially to young minds. So here's 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:48.920 my interview with Craig. Craig, you care a lot about 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.120 free speech. How did you get here? 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:53.760 Well, I went to the Stanford for Law School right 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:57.040 down the road, and I went to law school to 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:00.600 do First Amendment freedom of speech. My family, on my 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.760 Russian side, you know, fled the Soviets, and I grew 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:05.400 up in a neighborhood with a lot of other first 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:09.439 generation kids. So we really took free speech very seriously 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.000 because a lot of us came from countries that didn't 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:15.200 have it. So that definitely got that that'll give you 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:16.680 that real fire in your belly. And you grew up 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:18.679 in a diverse community as well, right I did. Yeah, 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:20.400 a lot of kids from China, a lot of kids 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.840 from Vietnam, a lot of kids from from South America, 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:23.840 and therefore. 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:25.760 Everyone had different opinions. Yeah, exactly. 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.760 Well, they had different opinions, but they also one thing 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:30.760 that they tended to have in common was that back 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.200 home they didn't allow free speech aha, or at least 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:33.800 not much of it. 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.160 Okay, yeah, okay, So you went to law school and 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.319 you thought, I'm going to really concentrate on free speech. 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.400 Okay, I took every class Stafford offered on freedom of speech. 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.720 When I ran out, I did six credits on censorship 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:48.000 in the Tudor dynasty because I'm a herd. And then 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.920 I interned at the ACLU of Northern California up in 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:51.560 San Francisco. 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.200 Aha, wait, give me just one second about what the 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:54.959 Tudor dynasty. 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.960 See, Because the printing press is kind of, like, you know, 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.480 was the first big disruptive technology of kind of like 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:08.199 you know, modernity, and Henry the Eighth was reacting in 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:10.920 response to what the printing press was bringing to England. 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:15.000 He wanted to have a control over printing in all 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.920 of England, so there was these print licensing laws that 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:20.920 he basically if the only way you were allowed to 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.080 print in England was using a printing press that was 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.800 owned by a company that he approved of, which was 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.120 a smart way to do censorship kind of on the cheap. 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.720 And so Henry, you know, was no friend of freedom 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.079 of speech. And Elizabeth wasn't. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:36.000 Really great either. 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.240 She did have some people, you know, nimed for example 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:40.000 for free speech. 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.080 God, and so the idea is they wanted to control 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.079 the press is so that they can control the message. 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:44.400 Yeah. 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:46.920 And this is what's in common with essentially all countries 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.440 that try to control free speech. They work on the presses. 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:51.600 I mean, for example, in the Soviet Union. Oh yeah, 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:53.679 that was the thing. You control the newspapers, you control 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:55.320 the weather reports, and control everything. 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:55.760 Yep. 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:58.880 And so I have a quick tangential question, which is, 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.600 how did the invention of the Internet change the ability 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:03.560 for governments to do that? 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:04.439 Oh that's so cool. 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:07.600 Yeah, that's that was the thing that got me the 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:09.800 most excited about going to law school to study freedom 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.640 of speech. It was something called the Communications Decency Act 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.160 in the Telecom Act of nineteen ninety six, and it 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:21.080 was trying to ban indecency on the Internet, not obscenity, 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:26.040 indecency and indecency is like lewdness, you know whatever whatever 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.160 that's supposed to mean. And I remember studying this in 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:34.480 undergrad and being like this is laughably unconstitutional, Like there's no, 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.640 this is way too broad, this is way too vague. 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:39.959 And so that's what I went to law school to fight. 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:44.120 So you gave a ted talk recently a great Ted 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:48.480 talk where you outlined four reasons why you are an 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:52.160 opinion absolutist. Now we actually just to back up for 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.520 one second. You're not a free speech absolutist because there 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.160 are in fact limits to free speech. And actually give 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.400 us a very short sense of that in America, what 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:02.720 are the limits on free speech? 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:07.200 Sure, so, for example, incitement to imminent lawless action, basically saying, 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.880 like in a situation where you're likely to burn down 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.360 the mayor's office, let's go burn down the mayor's office. 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:16.120 You know, for example, defamation is not protected, but defamation 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.520 has a very particular definition that is, essentially it's not 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:20.920 saying you're a jerk. 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:23.199 It's saying, I know. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:25.880 For a fact this person's a pedophile, right, you know, 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:30.559 It's an accusation of something serious, and it's a factual accusation, 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.320 not opinion. And of course, the protections that we have 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.000 in place to make sure that it's very hard to 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.400 get sued for defamation if you're defaming, say the President 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:41.679 of the United States, is one of the reasons why 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.319 I'm okay with the defamation as a category of unprotected speech, 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.360 because we have very good protections to keep it from 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.000 getting out of hand. Obscenity is not protected, but that 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:55.240 doesn't mean it's normal, meaning in regular human English, it 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.400 basically means hardcore porn, so that's not protected. But most places, 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:01.520 you know, a lot as long as it's like kind 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:03.800 of like controlled, as long as they can keep kids 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.600 off of it. For example, child pornography is never protected 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:08.599 under any circumstance. 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:09.640 Has got no issue with that. 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.720 So basically, like as a rule of thumb, the things 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.400 that make speech unprotected are things that start to look 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.920 a lot more like parts of crimes, for example, like 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:23.120 incidental parts of crimes, the fact they use words to 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.280 say your money or your life, who cares? You know, 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:27.920 like like that doesn't give a First Amendment person at 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:32.000 the second's pause. But things that tend to look more 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:35.880 like patterns of behavior, like harassment for example. Which is 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:39.439 why I make the distinction of being an opinion absolutist, 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.360 which is essentially I think there's value in knowing what 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:47.719 people's opinions are always full stop, right. 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:49.880 Because otherwise you don't know who you're hanging out with 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.640 in your community or your university or in your population 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:55.040 in terms of what they really think. 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.760 But also from a scientific standpoint, it is valuable to know. 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:00.880 You know, the example that I gave in my talk 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.200 was that no lizard people who live under the Denver 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:08.080 Airport do not in fact control the world. But knowing 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.960 that your future husband thinks they do, knowing that your 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.920 congressman thinks they do, or every single person in your 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.320 new city thinks they do, is really important information. 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:19.800 To have about your world. Exactly right. 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.960 And so you made the argument that free speech makes 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.280 you safer. Yes, so give us a sense of that. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:27.960 So free speech makes you safer? 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.800 Is this idea that you're not safer for knowing less 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.360 about what people really think. It can give you the 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:37.960 illusion of safety that essentially people nobody's saying Nazi things 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:42.200 around me. But if it's illegal to say that, here's 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.400 what you actually do. And this goes a little deeper 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:46.920 than I had time to go on my ted talk group. 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:51.640 Polarization is about one of the best documented, you know, 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.400 findings and social science is if you get people who 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.320 politically agree with each other to talk to just each other, 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:00.960 they become back, they come back more radicalized in the 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.440 direction of the group. And this is you can simulate this. 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.480 It replicates easily take you know, a dozen people, figure 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.600 out where they are politically, split them right down the middle, 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:11.880 have them go talk about a hot button issue that 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.520 they agree on. They will come back much more radicalized 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:16.840 in the direction of the group. And we end up 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.800 doing that in censorship because essentially censorship means and I 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:22.520 said this on the Bill Maher show, you know, we 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.240 don't have laws against anti Semitic speech in the United States, 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:28.920 but they have had them in Europe for decades. And 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.920 anti Semitism, you know, has really increased in Europe over 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:35.800 those same decades in a way that it hasn't. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:37.320 I mean, more. 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:38.960 Recently it's a streintly it seems to be going up, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:41.760 but over the past several decades it hasn't had the 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.840 same kind of curve. And my point where there was 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.360 in America, but as in Europe, it's gotten really bad 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.880 in Europe. And what I said was, it's like you 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.240 passed a law that basically said anti Semites can only 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:54.440 talk to other anti Semites. 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:56.960 So what did you expect to happen? 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:59.360 Okay, So the first one is if people are putting 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.760 all their cards on the table, you have more knowledge 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:02.600 about what's going on. 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:03.560 Yep, okay. 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:05.240 And the reason this makes a lot of sense is 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.640 because we have these very limited internal models which we 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:09.560 take to be the truth. 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:11.080 We say, like, here's my view of the world. 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.320 I know that's truth, I know that's correct, and I 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.640 don't know what all those other idiots and trolls are 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:18.320 doing out there, but I know that I have the 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:19.040 right answer. 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:19.640 Yeah. 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.080 And it's only when you're exposed to those other points 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:24.120 of view that you might even scratch at the fence 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:26.520 lines of your internal model and start pushing it around 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:28.520 and seeing what else is happening there. 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:29.240 Yeah. 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.440 Yeah, okay, So it makes you smarter as well as safer, 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:35.320 just to be able to understand. 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.040 Ah, there's very different views here on this. Yeah. 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:41.480 Well, and I mean most discussions aren't truth seeking discussions. 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:43.520 A lot of times when people defend free speech, they 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.040 only talk about the situation in which you're trying to. 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:47.640 Figure out what the world actually looks like. 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.040 And I'm trying to make the point that even when 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.600 you say things just about preference, you're saying something important 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.840 about the world, like, you know, like that I'm willing 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:00.000 to pay a billion dollars for a really good wine 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.120 is very important permission to have if you're if you're 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.000 selling wine, for example. But when it comes to truth 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.119 seeking arguments, this is one of the reasons why. I 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.960 mean John Stuart Mill, the guy was a freaking genius, 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:14.600 you know, like he was speaking Greek at three, like 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.800 he was off the charts. And I coined this term 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.560 called Mills trident because he makes this argument and on 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.560 Liberty eighteen fifty nine, same year as Origin of speechies 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:29.159 very clear, nice and the three things are that in 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.480 a truth seeking argument, there are only two three possibilities. 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:38.880 One you're wrong, two you're partially right partially wrong, and 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.719 three you're completely right. And he makes the point that 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:47.240 free speech matters in all three circumstances. Obviously, if you're wrong, 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.200 the much more you're not going to know you're wrong 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:55.480 until someone can challenge it. A second, if you're partially right, 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.960 then even you know, even more so because then you'll 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:01.159 actually get you'll actually refine your opinion. And people have 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.359 this experience every day where you're like, oh yeah, yeah, okay, right, right, okay, 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.320 you change yourself a little bit on that. But even 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:13.200 if God forbid, you're entirely right, it's because you don't 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.639 understand why you believe it in the first place until 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.440 you have to defend this. And I see this all 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.240 the time on college campuses. These people who I agree 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.800 with politically, I'm a political liberal, but they don't know 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.000 how to defend a lot of what they believe because 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.399 they hold them as mill referred to it as the 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.560 way people hold prejudices. They know they believe the right things, 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.280 but they don't really know why because they've never had 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:39.879 to defend it. 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.280 So your second argument was that free speech actually protects 0:18:58.320 --> 0:18:59.320 you from violence. 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:00.919 Unpack that us. 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.480 Yeah, so free speech is an alternative to violence. So 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:08.760 most of human history was spent in a there's this 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:12.960 idea of different sort of moral cultures, and one of 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.800 the most ancient forms of a moral culture is something 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:21.800 called a culture of honor, where essentially the idea is 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.840 that to a degree, it's up to you to protect 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.040 your property, to protect your family, and to protect your reputation. 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.240 And that's a serious sort of property interest you have 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:37.280 in that, but also a serious moral obligation you have 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.439 now in societies where can. 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:42.960 I just get some you mean moral in the sense 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.280 that because you need to protect these things and you're 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.840 on your own that gets written into what you believe 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:50.800 equals morality, as in, if I'm a moral person, I'm 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:54.640 going to defend my sister's reputation to the death. 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:55.960 Is that was what you mean by it? Well, I 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:56.520 think both. 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:00.080 I think that in more ancient societies, essentially, like this 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.200 idea that essentially like an eye and eye kind of idea, 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.400 was actually an idea of sort of limiting the damage. 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:08.840 And people forget this about eye and eye, like it 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.880 sounds so horrible, but really what they're saying is, listen, 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.280 if someone wrongs you and they take your eye out, 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:15.800 you can only get one eye back. 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:17.639 You can't destroy their entire village. 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.560 And because that's how brutal, you know, it was in 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.520 some of the older times. So this idea of a 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:29.760 culture of honor, you know, like is still pretty typical 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.520 in a lot of a lot of societies, but that 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:37.600 is often resorting to violence in response to defending yourself. 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:41.600 Cultures of dignity are ideas that actually came sort of 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.280 right around the time of the Enlightenment, and with democratic societies, 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:49.879 where essentially the rules are there is a legitimate authority, 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:52.160 there's a legitimate use of force out there, and it's 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.600 up to you to be able to handle some amount 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.399 of insult, some amount of abrasion, and hold on to 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:02.200 your own dignity, and you are not allowed to resort 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:05.840 to violence. So when on campus and I ran into this, 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:08.440 it's it's gotten a little bit better, but definitely over 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:10.119 the last ten years, I've seen this a lot, this 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:14.680 argument that essentially, if you're saying something really offensive, that's 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.400 a form of violence. So like, for example, at Cornell 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:19.600 a couple of years ago, and Culture was. 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.200 Invited to speak. Now, I don't. 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:25.480 Agree with her politics, but and Culture is trying to 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.320 shock and annoy you, like she makes she cracks jokes 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.280 about being like I couldn't believe I can make money 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:33.440 just by you know, spewing right wing vitriol, Like that's 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.679 her stick. She's going to try to anger you if 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:40.080 you're on the left. And students showed up though they 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:42.800 shouted her down, they wouldn't let her talk and they said, 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.440 your words are violence. And this is something I've heard 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.520 over and over again, Like in response to the Mile 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:52.400 Napolist riots, how many articles were written at Berkeley by 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:56.479 students saying, well, his speech was violence. Give us background 0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:01.639 on that real fasts, not a nice Millianapolis was a 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:06.240 right wing provocateur and he was going to speak at 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:11.280 Berkeley and then an angry mob showed up Antifa, and 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.760