I’m a big fan of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, and HSIC Steven Novella has an excellent blog entry covering “dissent” in the skeptical movement, “Concern Trolls and Free Speech Nazis“.
Proposition
The whole thing is worth a read (in fact, everything Dr. Novella writes is worth a read), but his commentary on a PZ Myers quote is especially relevant to the scope of this particular blog:
The skeptic movement will be inclusive and allow anyone to participate, and participation means your ideas will be scrutinized and criticized and sometimes mocked and sometimes praised.
This is how I feel – our own beliefs are all fair game, whether religious, political, or social. We should not demand any litmus test for skeptical purity – that is not practical, reasonable, or healthy for any movement, let alone a minority movement like skepticism. Anyone who wants to participate should be welcome, in my opinion – even pseudoskeptics who don’t get it (but that doesn’t mean they get to speak at our meetings). However – everyone also has to recognize that your own beliefs are fair game for the criticism that is at the core of skeptical philosophy. That means that global warming dissidents, feminists, alternative medicine proponents, deists, free market zealots, anti-government conspiracy theorists, and communists all get to have their beliefs challenged, and have no reasonable expectations that their beliefs or their feelings will be spared.
This almost perfectly encapsulates how I view the Free Software/Open Source movement: no litmus test, everyone is welcome (even people who don’t quite get it), but beliefs are fair game. (I’d also draw special attention to the distinction between welcoming someone and giving them the floor to speak from!)
Parallels
There are many correlations between the skeptical and FLOSS communities, consider the extremes that Dr. Novella identifies here:
Here we run the spectrum – at one end there are “concern trolls” who seem to advocate for an extreme of political correctness, and go out of their way to find offense. At the other end are “free speech nazis” (these are not my terms, BTW) who seem to go out of their way to be offensive, as if they are daring someone to ask for a modicum of courtesy so that they can cry “censorship” and get self-righteous about their freedom of speech.
We’ve seen a huge increase in “concern trolls” in the FLOSS arena, mainly corporate-backed “vocal members” feigning wide-eyed innocence when called out on attempts to corrupt, undermine and discredit Free Software. Their favorite flavor of political correctness is to take great offense at the very suggestion that Free Software might be preferable in some way to closed and proprietary software, painting both the opinion and the speaker thereof a cad of the highest order for bringing up things like ethics or morality in mixed company!
Granted, the vast majority of “concern trolls” are cretins with corn-pone opinions, to whom honest discourse is a term without meaning or import, but I still believe it useful to point out their lies and demagoguery if for nothing more than illustrating the clay feet of their rhetorical statue.
What’s funny to me is that there aren’t any “free speech nazis” on the other end of the pole. Sure, I see a lot of attempts by the above “concern trolls” to paint certain Free Software figures as “nazis” (or even more vile characterizations), but even concern-troll-favorite-target-RMS is constant in his recognition of individual right to chose the software they use, even when under the most tasteless personal attacks and misrepresentation of his position.
In fact, even when the concern trolls go so far as to organize slanderous campaigns chock full of good old fashioned mud-slinging personal attacks, I have yet to hear the target cry “censorship” (I have seen the trolls play the “this censorship is not actually censorship” in advance though, in what I consider the pathetic gasps of a guilty conscience writ exceedingly small).
Pointing of fingers
To be fair (and without naming names) I am aware couple of presentations / personalities in the FLOSS universe that I would personally classify as taking the “offensive for the sake of being offensive” road and then pretending any objection to the offense is “PC run amok” – these people one could group in the “free speech nazi” group, but they are not Free Software advocates.
(I’m sure it’s only coincidence, but they are almost all either current or ex-Ruby peeps. Why is that?)
#1 by nautical on July 3, 2010 - 8:35 am
>I have seen the trolls play the “this censorship is not actually censorship” in advance though
I take it you are referring to what you wrote about earlier in “On Having a successful GNOME event.”
That article made me think and arrive at a similar conclusion.
That is; talking about Free Software will be offensive to some people.
I guess that if someone would tell me the work I do is unethical (in case of proprietary software developers, of which some will surely be attending), I would take offense as well.
But that’s not the problem. They don’t understand Free Software, or simply disagree with it. In any case they are allowed to be offended.
The problem is the official guidelines state that “If someone in your audience is uncomfortable with something you’ve said, you’re not doing your job.”
I’m sure RMS will be accomodating enough not to use the “Cult of the virgin Mary” parody, and maybe he will even skip “crowd favourite” St IGNUcious, as to not offend any religious people in the audience. But somehow I don’t see him willing to skip on talking about Free Software, and Free Software in contrast to open-source.
What it comes down to is, if Richard does his job, he’s “not doing his job”. So inviting him to speak basically amounts to a set-up to incite complaints (unless he decides to use his alloted time to demonstrate folk dancing, which would be a rather humourous way to protest.)
One of the main threads through most posts of the author of this blog is the question whether something is caused by stupidity or malice.
I’m not willing to just believe that the organizers of a GNOME event are that malicious (ie, deliberately create a set-up), but it sure is stupid to create guidelines that would put an invited speaker in an impossible situation.
#2 by Jason on July 3, 2010 - 10:57 am
Nautical,
Thank you for the comment!
Yes, the GNOME speaker “guidelines” are a perfect case-in-point of a Catch-22 sort of situation.
How does one argue that another’s choice, even livelihood, is harmful without causing offense?
It is human nature to be offended when told one is making the wrong choices, and it takes a supremely confident and rational person to investigate the assertion – the far more common reaction to is cry foul and attack (because of the perception of being attacked in the first place!)
The entire “be careful not to offend anyone” mindset is absurd anywhere and anytime that intellectual discourse should be taking place, because it renders honest communication impossible.
#3 by Yonah on July 6, 2010 - 12:32 am
How do you avoid causing offense? One must be diplomatic, honest, respectable, considerate, polite, and a whole lot more. Attributes I feel some FOSS supporters lack. Rather some of them end up being major assholes, which of course make the most noise. They don’t care about offending anyone and those who disagree with their worldview are labeled as trolls or paid shills.