Guest post: Skip the “but”
Originally a comment by Sackbut on The point is.
This topic brings to mind a number of things that are related in my mind, if not in anyone else’s.
JK Rowling was verbally attacked and threatened. People talking about it seemed frequently to say “I don’t care for her writing, I didn’t like Harry Potter, but…”
Harvard University was attacked by Trump and his lackeys, and the university resisted doing what was demanded, under threat of restrictions and reduced funding. Many people seemed to find it necessary to say, “Harvard has all these problems, I disagree with what they were doing, but…”
Jimmy Kimmel was recently (temporarily) pushed off the air. People found it necessary to say “He’s not funny, but…”
There is nothing whatsoever wrong with criticizing Kirk’s statements and expressed views, or the writing of Harry Potter, or the actions of Harvard, or the comedy of Kimmel. There seems to be some unspoken assumption, though, that if you defend XYZ you must therefore like XYZ, so people take pains to clarify, right then and there, at the moment of expressing defense, that this is not the case. Maybe that kind of assumption is widespread, and so must be countered immediately. Or perhaps the fact that XYZ is currently noteworthy means all topics about XYZ are equally noteworthy right now. I don’t know. Sometimes these discussions about XYZ feel like two valid conversations that don’t really need to happen at the same time, but that’s just the way I think about things. Many other people merge topics together that to me seem better separated. I get in trouble with that all the time.
Or, as Voltaire is often quoted as having said: “I don’t agree with a word you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.”
I do hate that conversational quirk ‘I don’t agree with everything s/he says but’ – IRL I ask the person who says this to name a person with whom they agree with everything they say. I have no idea why people do this.
Ophelia, thank you for making this a guest post.
Omar, allow me to attempt to clarify.
The point I’m trying to make here is that I see a pattern, and the pattern bothers me, and I’m not sure why it exists or why it bothers me, but I do see it.
People leap to decry the murder of Charlie Kirk, or the attacks and threats against JKR, or the browbeating of Harvard, or perhaps they leap to agree with something intelligent said by Ted Cruz, or what-have-you. For some reason, they can’t quite bring themselves to do only this, they must embed in their comments that they do not agree with everything this person or institution has done or said. Perhaps they even go on at length, detailing their disagreements, in a statement that is theoretically on a different topic. I don’t know why people do this. I have done it myself, and I don’t understand why. It feels to me, when I do it, like maybe I’m trying to make it clear that I’m not a person who agrees with whatever-it-is, I’m just decrying this one thing or supporting this one thing. I try not to do that, because I assume it’s almost never necessary, when talking to intelligent adults, but I don’t succeed.
To me, this feels like a topic shift, or perhaps a broadening of the topic. I often react badly to such things, unfortunately. It’s like trying to discuss the rights of women, and someone else wants to broaden it to the rights of all oppressed groups; or perhaps like broadening “Black Lives Matter” to “All Lives Matter”. Sure, it’s fine to talk about these other things, but right now I want to talk about One Thing, and I don’t really understand the impetus to broaden the discussion, all the time, right at the get-go.
I can see why people do it when there’s some very obvious glaring Wrongness in the person they’re quoting or defending. I think I do it myself. One wants to disavow the glaring Wrongness but also quote or defend the person or the person’s views on other matters or on one matter.
If the Wrongness is just ordinary everyday wrongness that doesn’t matter, then it’s silly to pause to disavow it, but if it’s a big deal, it seems worth clarifying that it’s despite the big deal bad thing that you’re quoting the perpetrator. If it’s a small deal then it seems absurd to do that.
GUEST @ #2:
The quote attributed to Voltaire IMHO is a nice and succinct summary of classical liberalism. For the record, I have seen anything by the late Christopher Hitchens with which I disagreed. Nor someone with whom I have disagreed on everything. After all, most people approve of motherhood in general and as an abstraction, most likely even including the likes of the mass-murdering Adolf Hitler.
I think that the proper context for the Voltaire attributed quote is a particular statement, or series of them.
I think that the reason for the qualification is entirely due to the outrageous behaviour of a certain segment of the online culture which immediately accuses people of being Nazis, if they express sympathy for anyone whose views have been declared taboo. They make unreasonable demands that, to be acceptable to them, a person must hold the prescribed views on everything.
It is fear which creates the fawning response.
Not only do they seem to believe that we’re not allowed to say, simply, “No man or woman deserves the death penalty for exercising their right to free speech” without decrying the content of said speech, they seem to believe that they have the right to silence anyone with whom they might conceivably disagree on anything, employing the full force of the law wherever they can.
This is a trend I noticed (and disliked) going back well into Trump’s first campaign against Clinton. Damn near every single comment from the left defending or praising Clinton started with “Now I don’t necessarily care for all of her political choices, but-” at minimum. Some harped on that point for minutes, giving lists of political points of difference the speaker had with her before actually getting to the praise. Often these were also the people who recognised Trump as the existential threat to rule of law that he truly is – but by giving the warning preamble, the compliment they eventually gave was utterly undermined.
I often joke that I don’t even agree with myself on everything, but it really isn’t much of a joke. I disagree strongly today with some of the things I believed sincerely when I was younger, but further research convinced me to change my mind. And, of course, since I often choose to play devil’s advocate, especially when a group of people I am in refuse to disagree with each other on any point, I definitely don’t agree with myself at those times…except when I do, of course, and I’m the only one willing to speak up.
Regarding that quote so famously and frequently attributed to Voltaire: I don’t have the sources at hand, but my understanding is that there is zero evidence that he said (or wrote) it. Rather, the quote is found in a biography of Voltaire, written long after he was dead – and it was stated not as something he said, but as something he might have said.
And right on cue: “‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’ is a well-known 18th century phrase attributed to Voltaire (1694-1778). Although the origin of this phrase is contestable – it may merely be a Voltairean principle – it is a vivid reminder of the chasm between a rational understanding of the true role of free speech in society and the irrational present-day attitudes to it. Voltaire’s statement (or principle) suggest that a truly free society requires a robust exchange of ideas, including those we disagree with, to ensure the survival of a ‘resilient’ society.”
There is for me a delightful irony in that quote, as it comes from an article* published at Quadrant Online, a professedly ‘liberal’ yet ‘conservative’ Australian online journal which banned me from commenting (under another nom-de-blog) despite my having a paid subscription to it at the time. And my crime in the editor’s eyes? My support for the mainstream science on global warming and climate change. I am informed that fossil-carbon interests finance the site. So I must check up on what Voltaire had to say about hypocrisy.
*https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/free-speech/more-speech-not-enforced-silence/