Slashdot Log In
Republic.Com
from the or-is-that-.gov? dept.
| Republic.Com | |
| author | Cass Sunstein |
| pages | 224 |
| publisher | Princeton University Press |
| rating | 6 |
| reviewer | Freematt (Matthew Gaylor) |
| ISBN | 0-691-07025-3 |
| summary | Sunstein argues for greater government involvement as a way to encourage societal cohesion in an age of "cybercascades." |
Cass Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School and Department of Political Science. A former law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, he has worked for the Office of Legal Counsel in the US Department of Justice.
His former works include: "Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech" (1993), which won the Goldsmith Prize from Harvard for the best book on free speech in that year. "After the Rights Revolution" (1990), "The Partial Constitution" (1993), "Free Markets and Social Justice" (1997), and "One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court" (1999). His writings have appeared in the New York Times, and the New Republic. He has also appeared on ABC's Nightline, the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NBC and CBS evening news and other programming.
In "Republic.Com" Cass Sunstein makes the point that in cyberspace individuals now have the ability to filter out everything they don't want to read or see and filter in only those whose opinions they agree with. He calls this the "Daily Me", the ability to filter only the issues that concern you, read only the op-eds that only share your point of view. In short he fears that the Internet will bring about a lack of diversity and will amplify extremism and hate groups (Whatever that means). He writes of "cybercascades" that brings groups of people together who share similar viewpoints, a process that in turn causes group polarization and radicalization.
For example, he says, "a group whose members lean against gun control will, in discussion, provide a wide range of arguments against gun control, and the arguments made for gun control will be both fewer and weaker. The group's members, to the extent that they shift, will shift toward a more extreme position against gun control. And the group as a whole, if a group decision is required, will move not to the median position, but to a more extreme point." (Chapter 3, pages 67 68)
He does his argument great damage by using as an example of a hate and extremist group the usual left-wing target, The National Rifle Association (NRA) He trots out the usual suspects such as Skinheads and the KKK and fails to mention any of the other hate groups such as American supporters of Peru's shining path, environmental terrorists who spike logging areas, World Trade Organization protestors/rioters or other left wing extremists. In Chapter three Sunstein speaks of the gun rights movement alongside the KKK, God Hates Fags, and other hate groups in what can only be considered an attempt at guilt by association.
In Chapter seven, Sunstein writes: "FREE SPEECH IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE," -- his caps. In fact, he repeats this line several times throughout the book. He continues: "We can identify some flaws in the emerging view of the First Amendment by investigating the idea that the free speech guarantee is "an absolute", in the specific sense that government may not regulate speech at all. This view plays a large role in public debate, and in some ways it is a salutary myth." He mentions the usual examples of child pornography, copyright and threats to assassinate the President as examples of the government restricting speech. He creates what I consider a straw-man argument by prefacing these remarks for his "Policies and Proposals" in Chapter eight.
He laments the fact that in a four-station universe the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) had a significant voice. But with the advent of programming with hundreds of choices, the justification for PBS is diluted.
As a partial solution he endorses Andrew Shapiro's suggestion from the book The Control Revolution that the government should support a public website, Public.Net. Sunstein writes: "Public.Net would provide an icon, visible on your home computer. You would be under no obligation to click on it; indeed in a free society perhaps you should be permitted to remove the icon if you really do not like it." He envisions Public.Net to include sections on the "environment, civil rights, gun control, foreign affairs, and so forth." (Chapter 8, page 181)
But what I find most troubling is his idea to require websites to maintain hyperlinks to those with differing viewpoints. His example on page 188:
Sunstein continues: "To the extent that sites do not do this, voluntary self regulation through cooperative agreements might do the job. If these routes do not work, it would be worthwhile considering content-neutral regulation, designed to ensure more in the way of both links and hyperlinks.""We might easily imagine a situation in which textual references to organizations or institutions are hyperlinks, so that if, for example, a conservative magazine such as the National Review refers to the World Wildlife Fund or Environmental Defence, it also allows readers instant access to their sites."
Princeton sent me a free review copy of Republic.Com; I'm glad they did as I would have been highly upset to have paid money for it. I can understand why Professor Sunstein makes the suggestions he does. In my opinion it has less to do with wanting to expand free and open discourse and more to do with control. Who gets to decide which links get to be included as "opposing viewpoints"? I did note that many of Sunstein's examples involved a right wing organization being forced to carry left wing links.
The celebrated civil libertarian, John Stuart Mill, contended that enlightened judgment is possible only if one considers all facts and ideas, from whatever source, and tests one's own conclusions against opposing views. Therefore, all points of view -- even those that are "bad" or socially harmful -- should be represented in the "marketplace of ideas." And the Internet is an incredibly free and eclectic smorgasbord of ideas. And just as we have freedom to choose which sites we visit or what print magazines or books we read, it would be the end of freedom as we know it if the government forced us to read or watch what they want, even if it were only a link. Thanks, but no thanks to Republic.Com.
You can read the first chapter online for free. You can also purchase this book at ThinkGeek. You may also be interested in Cass Sunstein's Homepage.
Oh yeah? (Score:4)
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:3)
People frequently forget that the word Nazi is short for National Socialist. The way the Nazis ran Germany--dictating from the government what is acceptable and what should be liquidated--is sadly what a lot of left-liberals want to do, especially on college campuses.
Not a new problem (Score:3)
Of course, even if an opposing point of view is stated, we humans tend to remember evidence that corroborates our own previously-held point of view, and forget evidence that casts doubt on it. This is a powerful argument against both religious belief and religious unbelief, for example.
Re:Not a new problem (Score:3)
--
Gee, I guess you don't agree with his views (Score:4)
Most people who visit
Sunstein thinks that people need to have good knowledge of all sides of an issue before they decide what they believe, and that people who can filter out what information they receive won't have that knowledge.
Perhaps Sunstein's main idea is much more important than his idea of Public.Net. Peer pressure is a very strong force. If people are stuck in an environment where all of their peers believe one thing, they will be extreme discouraged from developing their own ideas. We need to promote more diversity in our discussions, and not flame people who have differing ideas. People should actually try to help their opponents devlop better arguments so that better debates can be held.
Yes I do know I was rambling a lot, but you shouldn't dismiss Sunstein so quickly. He is not a dumb man.
So how biased is discussion on /.? (Score:3)
I think there is probably some degree of the polarization that Sunstein describes. But I think more of the problems with discussion stem from two areas. For one, extreme opinions tend to get better airplay than moderate ones. This is not
Second, I think online discussion suffers from a lack of in-depth thought. I'd love to see a graph of posts over time look like for a
I only wish I had improvements to suggest... it's like the Churchill quote, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
Re:Oh yeah? (Score:3)
The oposite would probably be "News for cyber-apathetics." (cheesy, but maybe I should trademark the term) "Stuff for people who aren't interested in anything harder than freecell." or "News for people who continue through life without any tech interests." Granted, there used to be a large Linux leaning on
Moderation isn't perfect, but it seems to be better than nothing (there is quite a bit less noise at +1 than below, though that amount is growing, too).
--
Re:"Wings" in politics (Score:3)
Liberals seem to look to the future and change things, trying to improve them, whereas conservatives look into the past, and try to roll things back to a point that they felt was comfortable for them.
Not even close. To take just one example, conservatives are trying to reform Social Security to make it self-sufficient and not in danger of bankruptcy in 30 years, and liberals are howling in protest. The defining issue between liberals and conservatives is not the future or the past, it is how much power government should have.
In the US, the democratic party has tried to fight for the people, the little guy, the worker.
"Little guys" like trial lawyers, Hollywood actors, and union bosses? How exactly were Clinton and Gore fighting for the people when they approved the Clipper Chip, the CDA, and the DMCA? How are Democratic politicians helping inner-city families by denying them a choice in education, while they send their own children to expensive private schools?
The republicans support the business executives, big money, and therefore corporations as well as conservative religious organizations.
Take a look at campaign contributions. Democrats get just as much from businesses as Republicans. Corporations will happily buy legislation from either or both parties. I'm not going to defend the Republican party too strongly because they do a number of stupid things (generally due to the religious right contingent), but to say that the Democrats are for the people and Republicans are for the corporations is pure demagoguery.
With the return of the Bush regime to power in the United States, the prime goal that we've seen so far is to reduce environmental standards, by increasing the limits of acceptible arsenic pollution in our water
It is absolutely false that Bush wants to raise arsenic limits. He ordered a _review_ of Clinton's last-minute regulations lowering acceptable levels by 80% to see if there is a scientific basis for them. Compliance will cost a significant amount, and there is little evidence that current arsenic levels are a problem. In fact, if current arsenic levels are so dangerous, why did Clinton wait eight years to do anything? It couldn't possibly have been a political maneuver so that leftist partisans could subsequently accuse Bush of wanting to poison children....
Beyond Majority Rule (Score:3)
Freedom to NOT listen (Score:3)
Regardless of the various moral positions we wish to promote, this is a quandry we all run into.
To a certain degree, it is a measure of our social skills, to be able to be in communication with someone who does not want to listen. Some poeple who are not very skilled try to insist on it as a right, when in fact it is a matter of social agreement (yah, I'll watch your commercial)
And let's face it the freedom to not listen is often taken as an act of integrity. Republicans not listening to Democrats, dogs not listening to cats, Microsoft not listening to anyone (except when it hurts), etc.
I am sure each of us can think of dozens of things you don't want to listen to. It is an interesting quandry.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Opposing viewpoints? (Score:3)
Part of being a responsible citizen is informing yourself by doing some research on ideas, beliefs, policies, organizations etc.
Sure, the web makes it easier to do all this, but are we going to let ourselves be force-fed, in any way, information that is supposedly balanced. I will never believe it, and will not give up looking it up for myself. It's the only way to gurantee that if I'm wrong, I'm at the very least, responsible for it.
yoink
This guy has obviously never run a website... (Score:5)
http://www.furinkan.net/rant/ [furinkan.net]
Subject matter ranges from griping about bad Anime dubs or things that piss me off in the news. I regularly slam organized religion, conservatism, and moralism.
What really amazed me when I started this site was the large number of emails it generated, both in favor and against the ideas I put forth. Some are flames, but a good number are intelligent, crafted rebuttals of my arguments. It has improved my world view, and made me more prone to carefully consider my arguments before I post them.
While I do think that hate groups and kiddie porn groups exist that feed off of their own homogenity, I think this trend is not the norm and still a sign of stupidity or introverted and psychotic behavrior. From my experiences, I beleive that the majority of intelligent people out there do seek out differing views on the subjects they're interested in.
Re:So how biased is discussion on /.? (Score:3)
I don't think this is restricted to online discussion. One of my frustrations with what Brill's content calls 'Shout TV' is the lack of in depth thought.
To take one topical example, on chat show after chat show the Administration claim that it is 'unthinkable' that the US airplane could have been responsible in any part for the collision near China. I have only heard one 'news' show mention the submarine sinking of a Japanesse trawler in connection with this claim - and that was The Daily Shown on the Comedy Channel.
Other relevant incidents that the research departments of the news media have overlooked are 1) the fact that the US also claims 200 mile territorial limits with respect to certain activities 2) the fact that a Russian MIG landed in Hong Kong a few decades ago and was dismantled by the Brits and the US 3) the fact that the U2 flown by Gary Powers is still in Russia
Not that these pieces of information necessarily change the situation. But listening to so called experts pontificate while they fail to address the issue the rest of the worlds press is discussing suggests that the real problem is not with the new media but with the established media who have become incompetent and lazy.
It is ironic that Mathew Gaylor should take issue with filtering however since he is the principal individual I try to filter out - in many cases by unsubscribing from the mailing lists he infests. His principal waking activity appears to be bombarding mailing lists with off topic rants/trolls on his pet obsessions. These include guns, libertarianism, gun rights, constitutionality of gun ownership, lack of civil liberties in the UK (guns again), some screed by a right wing nut that is probably about guns etc. To say he is a boring one issue monomaniac is an understatement.
I prefer to filter out all discussion of guns, abortion and the works of Ayn Rand. this is not because I don't care about the issues, I just don't care to listen to ideologues rehashing second or third hand arguments I have heard hundreds of times.
The guy has the wrong model (Score:3)
Longstanding UseNetters will remember the activities of Achmed Cosar, a member of the Turkish Secret police who posted hundreds of messages a day to the soc.culture groups of Usenet under the aliases Serdar Argic and Hasan B-) Mutlu.
The clear intention was to drown out any discussion of the 1918 massacre of Armenians by the Turks. The massacre is a touchy subject for the Turkish government and Turkey recently withdrew its ambassador to France after France recognised the massacre as genocide and made vehement complaints to the British after the Armenian masscre was amongst those recognized on 'Holocaust day'.
What Cosar did was to run an AWK script that scanned several USEnet groups for any occurrences of certain keywords. The script would then return the first paragraph of the post, append a randomly chosen insult and add a piece of Turkish government propaganda to the end. Cosar's activities stopped when the US cancelled his H1B visa. [Don't ask how I know this stuff, I am not going to discuss my sources on /.]
Cosar's activities were an extreeme but there are plenty of similar examples. Shouting down the opposition was a popular tactic of Facist and Trotskyite groups. In the 1930s the NAZI party and the Communists would disrupt each other's meetings. Trotsky called the strategy of taking over another party by joining en-masse and being deliberately unpleasant to force others to leave 'entryism'.
These tactics are rare but not unheard of and it is this against this type of behavior that the majority of negative moderation is directed. On slashdot the 'first post' and 'goat**x' messages are a kind of mindless apolitical version of the same thing.
Strictly speaking I don't think that 'trolls' should necessarily be marked down since there is a very fine line between a deliberately provocative post and a troll. In each of the cases I have made a post that scored 5 I have thought that some people would think of as a troll. A well written intelligent troll can be fun - if the intention is to provoke thought rather than to trigger mindless reactions from the unthinking.
For these reasons I see moderation as a tool to protect the middle ground against the people whose purpose is to prevent debate.
Re:Oh yeah? (Score:3)
On Slashdot, I have never noticed a post getting modded down due to different ideas if there was a reasonable argument behind it. Of course, posts that display a lamentable lack of basic knowledge or are just plain illogical are either modded down, or else modded up as "funny".
Note that liberals and academics in the softer disciplines seem to think there is no such thing as facts. Christian conservatives are just as bad, in a different way -- they know there is such a thing as the truth, but have trouble assimilating any facts discovered in the last 1500 years. But I'm an engineer. There's a real world out there, with one set of real truths. We don't and probably never will know them all, but ignore just one thing that we do know and that machine you are designing isn't going to work!
Slippery Slopes (Score:5)