The Day I Received a “D” on my College Paper on “Communism”

Events of the day are reminding me of the day I received a "D" on a college paper. The subject was "Communism."  I was attending the University of Missouri- St. Louis at the time, back in 1977. I was taking a class on "Communism," because I decided that it important to be knowledgeable about a political theory that I often heard about, but didn't understand. The class was taught by three teachers. One of them indicated that she was, in no uncertain terms, "a communist." I was a straight A student at UMSL; I mention this only because it provides context to this story. I should also mention that I enjoyed the class. It stimulated me to think. Reading the actual words of Karl Marx helped me to appreciate that he had genuine passionate concerns for the mistreatment of workers. He worked hard to construct what he believed to be a better political system to protect workers.

The "Communist" teacher assigned a reading and required us to write a paper, which I did. I expressed my concerns that a communist system, though well-intentioned, would not work because it didn't provide some necessary incentives. It was a short paper, about 6 or 7 pages. I received a "D," with the comment that I didn't show that I understood Marx, but I could re-write and re-submit. I decided to re-write. I'm not proud of what I then did, but I fully understand why.  For my re-write I handed in a glowing uncritical tribute to communism. I still have the rewrite and one of my ending sentences was this: "The way of communism, for Marx, presents the opportunity of a better life for the individual and for society as a whole." This same teacher gave me an "A-" on this rewrite, with this comment: Why has no communist society been able to achieve what Marx proposed?" I was tempted to respond: "For that answer see my FIRST paper!" I didn't respond, though. I moved on, tarnished by my intellectual dishonesty.

This turned out to be a formative experience for me. I sometimes think of this bad grade when I hear of students and teachers who are being chilled or reprimanded for asking sincere questions, positing hard-to-hear facts or formulating arguments against any form of orthodoxy or ideology. If we don't allow free speech in classrooms, including the free expression of views that some people consider unpopular or even offensive, we will turn our classrooms into churches. I am well-tuned to detect oppressive religious dogma that parades in intellectual clothing. I spent much of my childhood blunting my well-intentioned father's attempts to save my soul by urging me to say absurd things.  I never gave in, and my upbringing helped to forge me into the analytical and skeptical person that I am. I embrace free speech and critical skepticism as an important way to understand things that confuse me, and I've often stayed the course as others get angry with me instead of discussing facts and opinions that they consider "dangerous." Hence, the name of my website, "Dangerous Intersection." As Carl Sagan wrote: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."  Indeed.

The willingness to grapple with threatening ideas is strong good medicine for developing the kinds of human beings who I trust. Uncritically adopting a slogan or a platitude is not the same thing as thinking and doing this should never be tolerated as "education."  It is also important to make sure that everyone speaks up because the otherwise chilled speech might be the majority opinion of the group. Or it might be a small minority opinion which will someday become revered as great wisdom. Once we are well-informed, all of us need to speak up, especially when it seems scary. It's for these reasons that I wrote this post on the classic social science experiments of Soloman Asch: "Why you need to be the one to speak up." It's for this reason that I have been hammering on free speech issues of late.

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Harper’s Letter on Justice and Open Debate

We are now beginning to hear the other side of a much-needed debate advocating for the need for robust and open debate. Too many careers have already been threatened or ended by a misstep or two on an invisible ever-changing minefield containing far too many untethered and unsustainable ideas. And whatever happened to do unto others? Here is the final paragraph of the Harper's Letter signed by numerous artists, thinkers and writers who fear for the future. The document is titled: "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate":

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.

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The Two Starkly Different Meanings of “Black Lives Matter,” and Political Ideas That Must Never Be Criticized

"Black Lives Matter" is a simple looking phrase, but it functions as a Trojan Horse. Many people don't understand that there is a big difference between A) stating the obvious fact that Black lives do, indeed, matter and B) embracing the controversial political agenda of the Black Lives Matter organizations. Just because one believes A doesn't necessarily mean that one believes B, but this conflation flies under the radars of many people who embrace both A and B even though the only part that they have carefully considered is A.

Consider this excerpt from a recent news article about Nick Buckley, a man who has spent many years of his life helping desperate others through a charity he founded in 2011, Mancunian Way, based in Manchester, England. The problem started when Nick dared to write an article:

In the article the 52-year-old started by saying: “Of course black lives matter. Let’s get this obvious point over and done with at the beginning”, but went on to criticise the political agenda of the organisation BLM which sought to repudiate the values expressed by Martin Luther King.

I am sympathetic to Nick Buckley's clearly stated concerns. Like Buckley, I am concerned that some of the political ends of BLM sharply conflict with the wisdom of Martin Luther King. The fact that Nick Buckley dared to speak up about this critical issue cost him his job and that is a tragedy.

In some circles, the phrase "Black Lives Matter" has taken on the status of an unassailable fundamentalist religion, which is extremely unfortunate. Whenever this phrase is uttered, we should be asking whether the speaker is asserting A, B or both A and B.  Whereas A is self-evident truth to me, B is a complex set of ideas, many of them ill-defined and/or problematic.

Every idea, especially every political idea, should be open to vigorous criticism and discussion. There should be no exceptions, for the reasons carefully stated by John Stuart Mill in his work, On Liberty. To every claim I respond: "Let's test it." To the extent that any ideas are declared to be sacrosanct, off-limits to discussion and criticism based on science, statistical analyses and the diverse wisdom collected by thinking people from the beginning of time, our democracies are dead.

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Recognizing and Escaping from Kafka Traps

Until now, I didn't realize there was a name a peculiar type of argument, but from now on I will recognize it as a "Kafka Trap":

In The Trial, Kafka presents a totalitarian world where a man is arrested by unspecified authorities and accused of an unspecified crime. Kafka traps occurs when people are accused of something but their denials are interpreted as absolute proof that the accusation is true. For example,

You are an liar!"
"No I am not."
"That proves it. Liars always deny they are liars!"

Kafka Traps seem to work because they are circular, thus evidence-free, thus unfalsifiable. You can expose the fallaciousness of Kafka Traps by making some simple substitutions, e.g.,:

"You are a jelly donut!"
"No, I am not."
"That proves it. Jelly donuts always deny they are jelly donuts!"

Now consider this argument:

" You are a racist!"
"No, I am not."
"That proves it.  Racists always deny they are racists!"

This argument that all white people are racists has been employed by Robin DiAngelo:

Yes, all white people are complicit with racism. There will be umbrage and upset. People will insist that they are not racist. That I don't know them ... 'I've traveled a lot. I speak lots of languages ... I had a Black roommate in college. I'm a minority myself.' This is the kind of evidence that many white people used to exempt themselves from that system. It's not possible to be exempt from it.

These Kafka Traps are fact-free pseudo-arguments that remind me of St. Anselm's alleged proof for the existence of God ("That than which nothing greater can be conceived") and St. Thomas Aquinas' Contingency proof for the existence of God ("even if the Universe has always existed, it still owes its existence to an uncaused cause. The only thing missing from these three fallacious arguments is the word "Abracadabra!"

To escape a Kafka Trap, you can also demand evidence for these extraordinary claims, then (after no evidence is produced) invoke Carl Sagan: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."

If you are facing an evidence-free claim that you are a racist, simply flip the argument 180 by substituting "maker of false accusations" for "racist":

"You are a maker of false accusations!"
"No, I am not."
"That proves it. Makers of false accusations always deny they are makers of false accusations!"

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The Broken Window Theory of Social Media

A girl in my grade school was repeatedly bullied, but the teachers (Catholic nuns) failed to intervene. Several of the boys formed a mob that picked on her, both in class and on the playground. They mocked her with nicknames. They chanted at her. They made fun of the way she looked, including the thick glasses she wore. They sneered at her, sometimes causing her to look very sad. Other students would sometimes try to intervene but it was at the risk of becoming targets themselves. Several decades later, this bullied girl had grown into a very impressive woman who told me that this bullying contributed to severe depression while she was a young adult.

As I reminisced about this sad chapter of grade school, I thought about how far we haven’t come. On social media (for me, FB and Twitter), I’ve seen similar boorish online behavior by numerous people, including intelligent people who I consider friends and who are offering ideas I consider valuable. The bad behavior is usually directed to people on the “opposing political team,” but that is no excuse. There is no excuse at all. Why do people who are generally decent and thoughtful stoop to the low bar set by the President? Do they think it’s OK to be like Trump?

Why do so many people think it’s OK to engage in name-calling, slurs, ad hominem attacks, guilt by association and numerous other fallacious and malicious forms of argument? These things are the broken windows and graffiti of social media and they are also symptoms of something much deeper. Why do grown educated adults make fun of the way other people look, including ridiculing the President’s obesity, lack of hair and skin color? Trump’s behavior repulses me, but I will keep my criticisms aimed only at his behavior, not his looks. What is the justification for doing otherwise in a civil society?

Many people justify their social media loutishness by pointing to the loutish behavior of members of the other political team, as though this justifies anything. We need to rise about this temptation and with a little discipline we can do it. Others have done it in much more trying circumstances. Ben Fainer, a friend of mine, died a few years ago. He was tortured and terrorized for six years at Buchenwald and other concentration camps during WWII. In his 2012 video, I asked him whether he hated the Nazis for what they did to him and his family. He said, “If I hate, I’m going to hurt myself.” The way that Ben discusses his survival in the camps is an inspiration to me (See minute 38:20). Truly, we can stay above the fray.

As new fault lines are becoming more apparent within the two traditional political teams, I’m seeing even more of this bad behavior online. Why is this OK? We don’t hurl weaponized language at each other in person. Why aren’t we taking special care on social media, given the increased risk of treating each other as floating words rather than as fully human?

Can’t we see that we are engaged in cheapest type of virtue signaling when we use low rent language and bullying tactics? For those of you who claim to be Christian how can you possibly justify this behavior? Is that how any of us were raised? Don’t we want to be good examples for our own children? Wouldn’t it be better for us to take our inspiration from real life great communicators like Martin Luther King rather than by plummeting to the coarse ignorance of Donald Trump?

In tumultuous times like this, when mortality salience is thick in the air, we are being poisoned by the ingroup bias. It binds and blinds far more than we realize. This group bias can make a pit of venomous snakes look like soft puppies and it can make puppies look like venomous snakes. Our deeply ingrained groupish tendencies can cause the confirmation bias run rampant and most of us are completely oblivious. Until we muster the discipline to take the red pill that allows us to see this cluttered world as a complex ecosystem rather than a Manichean battlefield, we will suffer a long succession of missed opportunities. Step one is to recognize the full humanity of each other while online.

If we have the better facts and persuasion, then let us educate and persuade each other. If our ideas are so undeniably correct, why not offer our ideas fairly and, yes, forcefully, after giving our opponents their best foot forward? Let’s make social media a place where we want to be both inspired and challenged. Let’s clean up all of this broken glass and graffiti. When we disagree with others, let us have the courage to work together to find out why we disagree. When we can’t seem to resolve our differences, let’s make sure that we always recognize the humanity in each other in the process. That is the only way we will stop this insanity.

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