Daniel Willingham--Science & Education
Hypothesis non fingo
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Censorship or Insisting on Common Decency?

12/27/2013

 
Diane Ravitch posted a comment from a reader on her blog yesterday, which drew this comparison:

"But both CCSS and standardized testing are trying to make teachers into KAPOs, a Nazi concentration camp prisoner who was given privileges if they would supervise work gangs."

Diane later noted that there was an "outpouring of rage on Twitter" against this post. She went on to say

"Several people said I should not have allowed it on the blog or words to that effect. I find this argument to be a form of political correctness that is used to censor opinion. If anyone wants to use an analogy to make a point, that is their choice."

Diane has continued to defend the posting on Twitter today, Dec. 27. I think this defense is off target in three ways.

First, I would not call this a case of political correctness. Diane has not said that the analogy is not offensive, but she has suggested that objecting to it is tantamount to political correctness. This will always be a judgment call, but I am on the other side of the fence on this one. There are certain events that are so important, so sensitive to the people in whose culture it is enmeshed that I find it unfeeling and insensitive to draw on that event for ones own purposes. That is especially true when the comparison minimizes the trauma and suffering associated with the event. Test-takers are not comparable to Holocaust victims, nor are students asked to perform public service comparable to slaves. This is a far cry from the hypersensitivity documented in The Language Police in which, for example, an elderly person could never be depicted as doing something stereotypically associated with the elderly.

Second,
I disagree with Diane's characterization of people's objections. If you agree that some speech is ill-considered and offensive, telling people that is not censoring their opinion. It's just not the same thing. It's telling them you think their analogy is ill-considered and objectionable, and you are asking them to rethink. You're not forbidding them from saying it, obviously.

Third, more specific to Diane, if she had asked the author to change the analogy or had refused to post the piece because of the analogy, I would not call that censorship. The author does not have a guaranteed right to post what she likes in Diane's blog, a right that Diane would have been infringing. Diane was a offering a platform for this author's voice, and obviously she offers that platform to voices she thinks are worth amplifying. This situation is not comparable to that documented in The Language Police, in which enormous power was concentrated in the hands of few publishers. If an author wanted to publish a textbook they had to toe the line drawn by the publishers or give up on publishing the book. That power relationship does not exist in this case. This is the internet, for crying out loud.

Diane, I respectfully ask that you rethink your position on this matter. I don't think it was a good call and I don't think your defense of it holds up.

EDIT: 1:28 p.m EST. I referred The Language Police as Left Back.
Joanne Jacobs link
12/27/2013 05:38:41 am

I completely agree with you. I'm amazed that Ravitch needs to be told this.

Broeck N. Oder
12/27/2013 11:54:34 am

I'm amazed she had to explain it. Professor Ravitch is, as a historian, taking the precise position Thomas Jefferson and the Founders would have espoused. Agreed, some folks might be offended, it might be an over-the-top comment, and so on, but that person had the right to say/write it, whether anybody liked it or not. It did not create a "clear and present danger" in any way, therefore it is shielded by the First Amendment. Personally, I would not have so phrased it, but Professor Ravitch is correct to defend the right of the person to articulate it.

Karen Mahon link
12/27/2013 12:17:18 pm

Dan, thank you for this article.

I agree that the person had the right to make the comment on Ravitch's blog and I agree that Ravitch herself doesn't need to ask for the poster to modify it.

That said, I still think it is in poor taste, for the reasons you articulated here, Dan, and I think it reflects badly on Ravitch for not responding to it more vociferously. However, this is not surprising to me because, in my opinion, Ravitch is known for saying inflammatory things herself that seem to be in the interest of garnering attention. The effects of this post seem perfectly in line with those motivations. Sadly.

WT
12/27/2013 04:15:46 pm

Broeck -- if anyone had suggested that the government punish the writing in question, you would have made a relevant point. But the First Amendment is completely irrelevant to the question of whether Ravitch showed good judgment in reprinting, with no sign of disagreement, a letter that was so staggeringly stupid, offensive, and hysterical.

Broeck N. Oder
12/28/2013 11:31:06 am

With all respect, WT, noting a historical framework for why Ravitch may have decided as she did is not irrelevant, especially since she is a historian. Mr. Jefferson once noted: "Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched?" In this case, who is the arbiter? Ravitch merely followed Jefferson's admonition that you let folks have their say, and let others decide whether they find it useful, not whether it should have appeared. I think most of us did not find that comment useful, but Ravitch was right not to use her own "foot" to decide what the rest of us could read. She laid it before us to let it speak for itself, and it has.

WT
12/28/2013 02:05:27 pm

There is no historical precedent in Jefferson, in constitutional notions of free speech, or anywhere else, for the idea that a private citizen is required to open up her own publication (as it were) to any speech by anyone else, no matter how idiotic. Notice that we don't see Ravitch pointing to free speech as a pretext for reprinting letters from equally deranged individuals who say that teachers belong in Communist prison camps or that Randi Weingarten was born to aliens on Mars.

Broeck N. Oder
12/29/2013 03:36:17 am

I never said any of that, WT; what is clear is that the person who wrote the offensive item had the right to do so, and Ravitch had the right to let the comment appear. People who are outraged have the right to be outraged, and they have the right to say so. What is distressing here is that some folks think Ravitch had a duty to act as a censor when she did not. I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree, which is also our right.

WT
12/29/2013 07:41:35 am

No one is saying Ravitch had a "duty to act as a censor." You don't seem to know what "censorship" actually is (hint: it's not "censorship" for a private citizen on her own blog to decline to reprint someone's deranged stupidity, while leaving that person free to publish it anywhere else).

Beliavsky
12/30/2013 03:46:38 am

"nor are students asked to perform public service comparable to slaves"

I dislike Willingham's misuse of language here. Public service *requirements* to get a high school diplomas go beyond "asking". They are coercive. If you don't "volunteer", you can't get graduate and go on to further education or work that requires a diploma.

Is military conscription merely "asking" people to serve in the military?

Mögel link
1/21/2014 08:38:35 pm

Excellent entry! I'm been looking for topics as interesting as this.


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