Arguing Things that Aren't True

Posted by Paul J. Amore on 05.11.2009

No, this isn't about Barack Obama.

The world is round. This has been conclusively proven in several different ways. Furthermore, there has never been a general impression that the world was flat, despite what the legends of Christopher Columbus say. The Greeks knew it was round, the Romans knew it was round, medieval monks knew it was round, and we know it's round. And even if you're not sure because you've never circumnavigated the globe, stipulate that it's round so that I can make a point.

There exists an organization called The Flat Earth Society. It is clearly done as a joke, by people who may be trying to have a little fun, or maybe to make a point akin to the one I'm making. They argue against all the proofs of a round Earth and, even confronted with unshakable facts, refuse to concede the issue.

Well, suppose the Society went militant. Suppose they really got serious about making their point. Suppose they argued that flat-earth theories should be taught to our children and talked about in the media. What political questions would that raise?

It seems to me that if the government is going to put forth a Fairness Doctrine for limited-spectrum media, it has to give equal time to flat-earth theories on every issue, no matter how tangential it may seem. After all, who are they to say that the flatness of the Earth doesn't have crucial bearing on health-care issues? They're not the ones advocating.

It seems to me that if we're going to have public schools, that a flat-earth parent has every right to have their child taught the theories they believe in. Who are the teachers to say that the question is settled? They're nothing but taxpayer-funded employees.

It seems to me that a flat-earther in Canada could go to a federal or provincial Human Rights Commission and demand that everyone who speaks from a round-earth perspective be censored and punished, or that those in the United Kingdom could demand that round-earthers be banned from the country, as right-wing talk show hose Michael Savage was recently.

This, of course, is a reducto ad absurdum. The government shouldn't have to go to these absurdities because there shouldn't be Fairness Doctrines or Hate Speech Laws or Public School Curricula. Government is absolutely not in the business of determining what's true. And just about everyone believes in something that others don't. God, global warming, racial equality, racial inequality, and so many other debateable issues.

Here's a sad fact: there is no position so indefensible that you can exclude it from the public discourse. You think that you've eliminated all justification for Communism, or for theocracy, or anti-scientific thinking, but it comes back. So we are forced to come to a painful conclusion:

In order to be fair, just, and practical, you have to allow the discourse of unfair, unjust, impractical, and downright wrong ideas. Free speech works, and is important, and can't be messed with. The freer the speech, the more right ideas eventually reach the forefront. Eliminate the possibility of crushing a wrong idea out of the discussion 100%, and it's possible to do so 99.9999. . . %

The caveat is that this is only true in the area of politics. A private organization can and ought to be able to exclude anyone on the basis of their ideas. If most everyone simply refuses to hire, or to sell to, or to educate those who think wrongly, that can serve to keep those wrong thoughts at bay.

But Paul, you may be saying, who are you to determine wrong thoughts? Not I, but reality. Here's the other painful conclusion: if a group of bigots, or creationists, or holocaust deniers or such can come together, form a society, and survive and thrive, then it's no one's place to correct them of their errors. Social deviance that manages to thrive is, by definition, not social deviance but merely a new sociality.