On thought policing to protect feelings: The big mistake America's left-liberals are making

Comment published on New York Times blog, in response to opinion essay by Thomas B. Edsall, “The moral chasm that has opened up between left and right is widening,” October 27, 2021:

"Feelings," it seems, are at least as important as the use of reason to determine the correctness and good sense of ideas. But feelings can be taken into account without themselves becoming norms that guide discussion. Given that women seem to be more attentive to feelings than men, taking them more into account could mean just that, that they are taken into account, with good enough reasons still deciding matters that are up for discussion.

We cannot have meaningful freedom of speech at all if people can be protected from having their feelings hurt. Biden brought up this desideratum during the recent presidential campaign; it is a terrible mistake.

Hate speech should be prohibited, and prosecuted, but it must be defined narrowly, not broadly. Where there are grey areas, room for doubt, or important issues at stake, we need to cling not to enforcement of the most correct social norms but the opposite principle of tolerance. The liberal-left has opted instead for the path of aggressively searching out and prohibiting "micro-aggressions." In a certain sense, which is indeed dependent on traditional gender norms and values, it has also been pursuing what may be called a normative femininity. More than that, however, what we are seeing is the triumph of the psychological over the political in a therapeutic corporate culture. Yet, the political is about contestation. Democracy requires disagreement.