Bi-Weekly "Metapolitics" Discussion

I've decided to host our discussion at the Good Karma Café again. It's near the corner of 10th & Pine in Washington Square West neighborhood, and it's fairly easy to get to if you're using public transit. With SEPTA, take the Broad Street Line & get off at the Lombard South Station, and walk 2 blocks east on Lombard and then turn left on 10th street and it's up a half block. With PATCO, just get off at 10th & Locust stop and walk 2 blocks south. For those who are driving, parking in the neighborhood can be tough to find. I'd suggest parking in the parking deck connected to the ACME at 10th & South. If you buy at least $10 worth of groceries from ACME, they'll validate your parking so it's free.

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THE PSYCHOLOGY & ETHICS OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE:

Following on our last two meetups where we discussed the difficulties in classifying & quantifying the various types of political violence, as well as the way media coverage shapes public perception of it, this time we'll look at the psychology & moral philosophy of political violence.

We'll start by discussing the psychology of political violence - both what motivates the individual perpetrators and how this connects with larger in-group/out-group dynamics. Then we'll discuss the moral dilemma of whether or not it's justifiable to physically attack someone based on an abhorrence of their ideology and efforts to stop "hate speech". Lastly, we'll look at the way that social norms about the use of violence by private citizens ties in with broader concerns about the "rule of law" and the state's "monopoly on the legitimate use of violence".

NOTE: This discussion will be run back-to-back with a Skeptics meetup on the "origins of human violence". Here's the link to the event's discussion outline: https://www.meetup.com/Philly-Skeptics/events/238943082/

For those who want to really dive into this topic, I've gathering a lot of articles & videos into a bibliography entitled "Understanding Political Violence" in our meetup's Discussion tab: https://www.meetup.com/Philadelphia-Political-Agnostics/messages/boards/thread/50654736

I know I've linked a LOT of material below, and I certainly don't expect you to read every article and watch every video that I've linked below in order to participate. Instead, I just want everyone to try to look at one or two links in each section. If you prefer short videos & podcasts, you can just watch a few from each section. If you prefer articles, all of the ones I've linked are mercifully short and can probably be read in even less time than it takes to watch the videos. Hopefully, participants will look at different materials and we'll be able to compare notes during the discussion and you'll find out what you missed. We'll go over the basics in everything linked below, and I'll make sure you leave with a better understanding of these issues.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the 3 topics in the order presented here and we'll spend about 40 minutes on each section.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS FOR POLITICAL VIOLENCE: MARGINALIZATION/ANOMIE, REACTIONARY MODERNISM, VIRTUOUS VIOLENCE, EMOTIONAL CONTAGION, VIRTUE SIGNALLING, FICTION-REALITY CONFUSION

1. Julian Huguet, "Why Do Some People Become Terrorists?" (video - 4:19 min.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYuZLHkUD04

This news clip references research by John Morgan & several other psychologists that indicates there's no single psychological profile for terrorists. However, in general, terrorists are often young men who join because of social & economic marginalization and lack of purpose, as well as the "identity diffusion" common during adolescence. (For more on the role of social status & belonging in terrorism, see Gwern Branwen's essay "Terrorism is not about terror".)

Research also indicates that terrorists who are inspired by religion tend to be new converts to the faith who take violent passages from religious texts more literally rather than those who were born & raised in the faith who tend to have a more nuanced & moderate view. (This accords with similar speculations in Phil Goetz's Less Wrong essay "Reason as a memetic immune disorder" that a certain amount of healthy hypocrisy tends to protect traditionally religious people from fundamentalist extremism.)

2. Brian Bethune, "Why do so many jihadis have engineering degrees?" (short article)

http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/why-do-so-many-jihadis-have-engineering-degrees/

Diego Gambetta & Steffan Hertog's research shows that engineers are overrepresented among terrorists and it's not because of bomb-making expertise. The reasons appear to be a mix of "relative privation" - i.e. resentment due to lack of engineering jobs in the Muslim world - and the engineering mindset's tendency to seek "cognitive closure", which causes engineers to lean towards political conservatism & religiosity and occasionally this leads to fundamentalism. (This research is mentioned in Razib Khan's article "Nerds are nuts", which also points to the unusual prevalence of engineers among Hindu nationalists & Christian creationists. It also agrees with the historian Jeffrey Herf's concept of "reactionary modernism" - rejection of modern values but embrace of modern technology - which he sees in both fascism & Islamism.)

3. Brian Lehrer interviews Alan Fiske & Tage Rai, "When Good People Kill" (podcast - 18:00 minutes)
   http://www.wnyc.org/story/when-good-people-kill/

Fiske & Rai are anthropologists and take a cultural relativist approach to violence and argue that the ideological reasons that terrorists & criminals use violence isn't radically different than the reasons soldiers & police use violence. They say that most people resort to violence not because of a conscious desire to violate morality or a psychological condition like psychopathy that diminishes empathy. They note that various studies suggest only 2-13% of violent criminals are psychopaths. Rather, they argue that people typically use violence because they belong to a subculture that has a moral code that justifies using violence in order to maintain personal status or in service to the status or goals of a broader in-group. Fiske & Rai's concept of "virtuous violence" encompasses both the frequent outbreak of "hot-blooded" violence used to maintain status in honor cultures as well as premeditated, "cold-blooded" acts of violence like terrorist attacks, hate crimes & genocidal massacres motivated by religious, ethnic or political rivalries.

In their book, Fiske & Rai not only try to dispel the notion that most violence is the result of psychopathology, but they also go after theories that claim most violence is the result of rational calculation, such as "rational choice theory" and "realistic conflict theory". While some forms of "instrumental violence" could be reasonably expected to yield material or political gains, rationalist theories "fail to adequately explain why people engage in violence under conditions where, by any means of practical or material individual benefit, its utility is clearly negative, and why people are unwilling to engage in rational trade-offs of material for moral goods" (p.153). (Note: This argument is also found in Gwern Branwen's essay, "Terrorism is not effective.")

4. Eric Niiler, "The Psychology Behind The Violence At Trump Rallies" (short article)
   https://www.wired.com/2016/03/psychology-behind-violence-trump-rallies/

Niiler interviews several researchers who suggest that the violent clashes between Trump supporters & protesters at Trump rallies in 2016 could be explained by conflict of values, the emotional impact of Trump's rhetoric, and the "emotional contagion" people experience in crowds.

5. Arthur Chrenkoff, "Revolution as a mating call of beta males" (blog post)
   http://thedailychrenk.com/2017/02/10/revolution-mating-call-beta-males/

Unlike the above articles, Chrenkoff is not a researcher & doesn't cite any research, but he offers one of the few explanations for why people advocate violence on social media. He speculates that people disinclined to personally commit violence may still vocally support violence against their political enemies as a means of virtue signaling & attracting mates. For beta males who've become left-wing activists, traditional macho threat displays are taboo, so this may lead them to try to impress left-wing women by making provocative posts on social media advocating violence in the service of anti-racism, anti-fascism, anti-capitalism, etc. (Similar "signalling" explanations have been offered for why some 4channers have become alt-right trolls, making anonymous threats online & glorifying in videos of activists being beaten up.)

• The #13 video from Devo Nicks @ ShortFatOtaku linked below (watch from 11:55-17:40) presents another explanation for why people from safe, privileged upbringings might advocate violence. Their only reference point for violence is the heroic action in books, TV shows & movies, and for those with liberal arts & social science degrees their views are often influenced by postmodern theory & literary analysis. Thus, they can sometimes think violence is morally justified in real-life cases where it would be thematically justified in a fictional story as a "cathartic moment". This opens the door to justifying proactive violence against all sorts of "symbolic threats" to one's values or identity rather than just the reactive violence to stop immediate physical threats which is recognized as a basis for self-defense in our legal system. (Note: Devo is claiming that under-exposure to real-life violence means that most people only think of violence in the context of fiction and thus they're inclined to be overly cavalier about endorsing real-life violence. He's not claiming that over-exposure to fictional violence causes people to commit violence in real life, although more social scientists are endorsing that view lately.)

THE ETHICS OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE: IS IT MORALLY ACCEPTABLE TO PHYSICALLY ATTACK SOMEONE SOLELY FOR HAVING OR VOICING EVIL BELIEFS? DO EXTREMISTS SPREADING "HATE SPEECH" WARRANT AN EXCEPTION TO NORMAL RULES ABOUT FREE SPEECH & NON-VIOLENCE, SO WE CAN AVOID THE "PARADOX OF TOLERANCE"?

6. Phil Torres, "Milo, Donald Trump and the outer limits of hate speech: When does absolute freedom of speech endanger democracy?" (short article)

http://www.salon.com/2017/02/22/milo-donald-trump-and-the-outer-limits-of-hate-speech-when-does-absolute-freedom-of-speech-endanger-democracy/

Torres argues that "Everybody loves free speech until they don't" and points out that conservatives who objected to the activists who disrupted Milo Yiannopolous's speech at UC Berkeley later abandoned him after a video surfaced of Milo defending pedophilia. He suspects that this is because the "moral badness" of pedophilia is more salient for conservatives, whereas "hate speech" seems less harmful. He points to research that suggests childhood bullying & workplace harassment may cause psychological trauma, and he argues this suggests "hate speech" can cause real harm as well. He then compares restrictions on hate speech to legally recognized restrictions on speech such as shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, possessing child pornography, and defamation which are not protected by the First Amendment, but which have not led to a slippery slope where all controversial speech is punished. He also invokes Stanley Fish, Karl Popper & John Rawls' views about the "paradox of tolerance" - i.e. tolerance of intolerance will undermine core tenets of democracy and could possibly lead to intolerant authoritarians gaining power.

7. Josh Pelton, "Memetics & Punching Nazis" (video - 9:25 minutes)
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whX5P7V-H78

Pelton's video makes many of the same arguments as Torres. He uses Richard Dawkins' concept of the "meme" as ideas competing for the public's mindspace to argue hate speech is ultimately connected to the hate crimes it inspires. The fact that American legal philosophy is founded upon archaic notions of individual agency & personal responsibility tends to make us blind to the systemic effects of toxic ideas.

8. Ken White, "The Seductive Appeal of the 'Nazi Exception'" (short blog post)

https://www.popehat.com/2017/04/18/the-seductive-appeal-of-the-nazi-exception/

White has 3 counterpoints for those who argue that there should be an exception to the principle of free speech for extremists like Neo-Nazis & their hate speech: (1) First, the argument relies on a false premise: that we don't, or shouldn't, extend rights to people who wouldn't extend those rights to us. However, we extend rights to everyone, regardless of whether they support those rights or not, because rights arise from our status as humans not from our adherence to ideology. (2) Second, the "Nazi Exception" is not safe or principled because it's applied by humans, and humans are likely to abuse additional exceptions to the First Amendment that aren't narrow, well-defined & zealously monitored. In general, American universities & the student activist culture have proven unable to make rational, intelligent judgments about what speech is truly "dangerous", and often equate mainstream conservatives with Nazis. (3) Third, these students are pursuing useful idiocy in the guise of safety. Exceptions to free speech don't get used to help the powerless. They get used to help the powerful.

9. Vivian Bercovici, "Humor on McGill University Campus: 'Punch a Zionist'" (short article)

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Humor-on-McGill-University-campus-Punch-a-Zionist-483527

Shortly after the question "is it okay to punch a Nazi?" went viral on social media, a left-wing student activist at McGill University who was also a member of the "Students’ Society of McGill University" (SSMU) tweeted "Punch a Zionist today". When several people called for him to step down from SSMU, he refused and when it was put to a vote it was squashed and he kept his position. Many commentators used this as an example of the slippery slope that the "punch a Nazi" conversation started.

10. David Cohn, "Is It Okay to Punch an Islamist?" (short blog post)

https://medium.com/@digidave/is-it-okay-to-punch-an-islamist-334e4abec9d2

Cohn points out that there seems to be a double standard in the ethical debate over whether or not it's okay to punch a Nazi, and he speculates that people on the political left & right would probably have different answers if they were asked, "Is it okay to punch an Islamist?" (Other articles made a similar point by questioning whether or not it's okay to punch a communist, and they pointed out that the "antifa" tend to carry black & red flags on their marches indicating they're anarcho-communists.)

THE STATE'S "MONOPOLY OF LEGITIMATE VIOLENCE" & THE ACTIVISTS' "REPERTOIRE OF CONTENTION": IF VIGILANTE ATTACKS ON POLITICAL OPPONENTS BECOMES NORMAL, DOES IT CREATE A SLIPPERY SLOPE THAT WILL UNDERMINE THE RULE OF LAW AND LEAD TO SOMETHING LIKE ITALY'S "YEARS OF LEAD"? HOW COULD THIS INTERACT WITH TENSIONS BETWEEN POLICE & MINORITIES AND THE "FERGUSON EFFECT"?

11. Robert Taylor, "The Myth of the Rule of Law" (short article)

https://mises.org/blog/myth-rule-law

Taylor cites the law professor John Hasnas' perspective on the "rule of law" and argues that it is a myth designed to ensure that the public's compliance with the interests of the ruling class. This is consistent with the tendency of scholars at the Ludwig von Mises Institute to take more radical "paleo-libertarian", "neo-Confederate" and "anarcho-capitalist" positions on government. They see the nation-state as a "monolithic, top-down coercive regime imposed by legislatures, state police, and bureaucracies" and they see the law as "not a neutral body of rules to help keep order and govern society" but "merely an opinion with a gun". Instead of our current legal system, Mises scholars like Hasnas tend to favor a common law that evolves over time from custom & judicial precedents rather than statutes and adjudicated by a decentralized system of competing courts & private arbitration.

The paleo-libertarians' disdain for the coercive nation-state which they see as run in the interest of elitist globalists has bled over into the Alt-Right. Ironically, these arguments are also very similar to the views of left-wing anarchists who also view the "rule of law" as highly dubious. The radical left tends to see the "rule of law" as masking "structural violence" (Johan Galtung's term for institutional sources of harm like poverty, pollution, police harassment, incarceration, etc.) and "symbolic violence" (Pierre Bourdieu's term for pervasive yet indirect forms of coercion like racism, sexism, classism, etc.). In this sense, even countries that aren't embroiled in civil wars are still rife with violence exercised on behalf of the elite, and so the oppressed are justified in using violence to resist & overthrow them.

12. Lisa Wade, "Is Mass Murder Now Part of the Repertoire of Contention?" (short article)

https://psmag.com/is-mass-murder-now-part-of-the-repertoire-of-contention-1303ba84be33

Wade introduces the sociologist Charles Tilly's concept of the "repertoire of contention" - i.e. the set of various tools & tactics available to a protest movement in a given time frame, as well as the social norms that govern their use. She argues that evidence is beginning to suggest that mass shootings are becoming more frequent and may soon become an accepted tactic among political radicals.

13. Devo Nicks @ ShortFatOtaku, "When Is Political Violence Acceptable? -- Just War Theory, Utilitarianism, and the Regressive Left" (video - 23:51 minutes)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyb_txorVh4

Devo is an anime & videogame vlogger who rose to prominence after clashing with SJWs during Gamergate. He offered a surprisingly cogent argument about why physically attacking people for having abhorrent political ideas is wrong because it endangers the rule of law. He frames his arguments in terms of the "just war theory" from traditional political philosophy. Just War theory is based on the idea that political violence is only justified when it "intends to and results in protecting people from an even greater harm" (e.g. tyranny, widespread persecution, or genocide). In less dire conditions, political violence is not preferable to the rule of law which benefits everyone by keeping the risk of violent victimization fairly low. He also criticizes the naïve utilitarian arguments often used by those who think that "hate speech" by extremists should be met with violence, noting that philosophers like Immanuel Kant pointed out that this type of reasoning would lead to a "tyranny of the majority".

14. Kraut and Tea, "Years of Lead" (video - 14:40 min.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnwyv3RyJyc

K&T is a German center-left skeptic vlogger known for criticizing both SJWs and the Alt-Right. He suggests that the recent clashes between right & left-wing activists at protests & rallies could degenerate into something akin to Italy's "Years of Lead", a period of political turmoil from the late 1960s to the late 1980s marked by a wave of bombings & assassinations by both communist & fascist terrorist groups. He argues that the only way to prevent this type of escalation into feuding radical sects is for the majority of citizens to deny any moral legitimacy to extra-legal violence and for the authorities to vigorously crack down on it.

15. Jamiles Lartey, Ryan Felton & Louis Beckett, "'Ferguson Effect' Is A Plausible Reason for Spike in Violent US Crime, Study Says" (medium-length article)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/15/ferguson-effect-homicide-rates-us-crime-study

The Guardian reviews a recent Justice department-funded study that suggests three possible drivers for the more than 16% spike in homicide from 2014 to 2015 in 56 of the US’s largest cities: (1) police disengaging from vigorous enforcement in black neighborhoods due to intense criticism & rioting after they've shot unarmed black suspects, (2) systemic breakdown in the black community's trust in police & the justice system, leading some to take the law into their own hands, (3) a rise in ex-cons returning to society due to decarceration policies. The criminologist Richard Rosenfeld says that the evidence points to the 2nd factor being the most dominant, and that this "crisis of police legitimacy" represents a dangerous decline in the rule of law in some locales.