tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/milo-yiannopoulos-40808/articlesMilo Yiannopoulos – The Conversation2019-06-25T11:49:15Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1187812019-06-25T11:49:15Z2019-06-25T11:49:15ZBret Easton Ellis: countercultural bad boy to grumpy Gen-Xer in eight essays<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280426/original/file-20190620-149851-1hjtfj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">d feee a o</span> </figcaption></figure><p>White, the latest book from the American novelist Bret Easton Ellis, marks the writer’s shift from countercultural provocateur to an ageing Generation X voice. This collection of essays, a first foray into non-fiction for Ellis, comes nearly a decade after his most recent novel, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/26/imperial-bedrooms-bret-easton-ellis">Imperial Bedrooms</a>. In White, he discusses his novels, his upbringing, the state of American politics and his responses to contemporary culture. </p>
<p>Most importantly, it gives him a platform to expand upon the ideas that have attracted a great deal of negative attention on social media. Particularly his controversial Twitter presence, where his flippant comments have created a stir. </p>
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<p>Much of White reads like an out-of-touch author using controversy in an attempt to remain relevant. But Ellis still poses an interesting question for a Trump-era America: are political correctness and artistic freedom at odds with each other? </p>
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<span class="caption">First foray into non-fiction.</span>
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<p>As a successful American literary figure who is often defined by controversy, Ellis unsurprisingly cites freedom as a paramount value. In White, he discusses this as part of his provocative belief that identity politics challenges freedom of expression. What Ellis calls the “widespread epidemic of self-victimization” silences unfavourable viewpoints, redefining censorship in contemporary society as something that masquerades as tolerance. </p>
<p>If engaging in debates with problematic views gives them credibility, Ellis presents the flip-side – that silencing such debate establishes what he calls a “threatening groupthink”. Here, Ellis presents the interpretations of freedom of speech by Generation Xers and millennials as fundamentally different. </p>
<p>Ellis’ discussion of his controversial 1990s novel American Psycho in White – and the nods to Trump both books contain – give his arguments a strangely nostalgic but contemporary feel. American Psycho dramatically amplifies 1980s excess, presenting what Ellis calls the “logical outcome” of the decade’s mindset. White takes a similar approach, this time using non-fiction to describe 21st-century concerns. </p>
<p>Both present dystopian American societies – the violent and excessive freedom pursued by protagonist Patrick Bateman in American Psycho and the dramatisation of politically correct censorship in White. Essentially, both texts use extreme representations of freedom to consider the limits of the societies they describe. </p>
<h2>Trump-tinted glasses</h2>
<p>Trump connects the discontent of American Psycho and White through his barbs at political correctness, providing a clear example of capitalist excess and the American ideals of freedom and success. In American Psycho, Bateman’s idealisation of Trump supposedly gives him “a newfound confidence”, implicitly validating Trump’s extreme expressions of freedom. </p>
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<span class="caption">Chilling vision of the 1980s.</span>
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<p><a href="https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/james-ball-rise-and-fall-of-the-alt-right-poster-boy-1-5809076">Milo Yiannopoulos</a>, the polemic former editor of Breibart News and baiter of identity politics advocates, makes this idealisation more contemporary. Bateman might not call Trump “daddy” like Yiannopoulos does. But, in White, Ellis describes Trump as “the daddy [Bateman] never had”, making this connection overt. For Yiannopoulos and Bateman, Trump represents an extreme idealised freedom, connecting him to Ellis’ concerns in White. </p>
<p>In this way, Ellis accidentally makes Trump a cyclical figure, connecting American Psycho and White through the repeated success of Trump – in both commerce and politics – that offers a counterpoint to the apparent failures of left-wing politics.</p>
<p>For Ellis, the fall of Soviet communism marks the failure of left-wing ideologies – an idea which he extends in White. What Ellis sees as the triumph of Reagan-era capitalism is depicted by Bateman’s violent excess in American Psycho. Comparably, the recent failures of the Democratic Party – and the backlash against identity politics they represent for Ellis – are both central to the author’s discontent as expressed in White. Even if his railing against identity politics is the more overt. </p>
<p>Trump has shifted from an inspirational figure in American Psycho to a presidential one in White. But Ellis’ primary interest in White is what he calls the “outrage, indignation, panic and horror of the Trump Apocalypse”, as imagined by the Democrat-voting left.</p>
<h2>Identity crisis</h2>
<p>Provocatively, Ellis equates the wider hysteria of Democrats after Trump’s success with the hypersensitivity of milliennials he decries in White. Even so, he makes an interesting observation of American society’s understanding of freedom through this backlash against Trump. In White, he presents thought crimes – bizarrely, even the paranoid and impossible policing of one’s dreams – as the logical conclusion of what he sees as the censorious nature of identity politics. Here, Ellis evokes an Orwellian, 1984-esque dystopia in contemporary liberal society. He connects the 1980s American fear of communism to contemporary rejections of micro-aggressions by millennials. In doing so, he presents political correctness as an awkward fit within American notions of freedom.</p>
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<p>At its most captivating, White uses contradiction to disorientate the reader. Blurred boundaries define Ellis’s personality, the political landscape he describes in White, and how they overlap. He defies the stereotypes of the two-party democratic system and presents Trump as an ill-fitting semi-countercultural figure for this model. But Ellis also has no interest in politics, and claims to have warned about Trump in American Psycho. You find yourself asking whether Ellis really believes everything in White – or if it’s little more than a hostile reactionary commentary. It is difficult to say, but perhaps that is the point. </p>
<p>In White, he claims that identity politics are fundamentally tribal, making diversity and inclusion impossible. Provocatively, this implies connections between identity politics and the nationalistic views of the New Right, as localised groups that prioritise their own interests. Ellis describes a “delicious” feeling of self-victimisation when aligned with identity politics. But he overlooks his own self-victimisation in White, and its presence in cries of white oppression more broadly. </p>
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<p>These contradictions extend beyond the contemporary left. The way Ellis describes his anxiety at the way his tweets are policed implies a similar self-victimisation. </p>
<p>Ellis’ claim that 21st-century America has exaggerated and embraced 1980s culture connects American Psycho and White – but White misses some of the complexities that made novels such as American Psycho compelling and dynamic. While just as brash in 2019, Ellis seems more conservative than ever before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Graham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ‘bad boy’ of 1980s US fiction is back with his first foray into non-fiction. As you’d expect, he’s still courting controversy.Matt Graham, Postgraduate Researcher, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1081702018-12-04T08:17:30Z2018-12-04T08:17:30ZSpecial pleading: free speech and Australian universities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248637/original/file-20181204-126665-jti3vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Freedom of speech on Australian university campuses has been heavily debated this year.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is an edited version of a speech given at a <a href="https://www.miragenews.com/summit-to-explore-issues-of-academic-freedom-and-autonomy/">summit</a> to explore issues of academic freedom and autonomy hosted by the Australian National University. It’s a longer read, at just over 4,000 words.</em></p>
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<p>The student stood, a little nervously, at the office door. Could he discuss his assessment for the semester? He laid out all his recent assignments, sadly none of them very well argued. </p>
<p>“I’ve read your comments very carefully”, he said.</p>
<p>“And while I do not disagree with any of the particular marks, I just think as a body of work this deserves a higher grade.”</p>
<p>This is special pleading. It means offering an argument though evidence is lacking or even contrary. </p>
<p>We special plead because we want something to be true even when we cannot prove the case. We rely on only those facts which suit our argument, claims of widespread support for our point of view, and the use of memorable examples, even when these diverge from verified broader trends. </p>
<p>Claims of a free speech crisis at Australian public universities are special pleading. We hear ministers, senators and think tanks speak about an imminent danger to free speech. </p>
<p>This concerns everyone who cares about higher education – free speech is essential to our shared notion of university life, and voices claiming a crisis on campus have been loud and widely heard. </p>
<p>Crisis talk has encouraged the Minister for Education to announce a review of free speech provisions, and to speculate about penalties for universities which fail some unspecified test.</p>
<p>Yet it is sobering to read carefully the evidence offered in support of a free speech crisis. </p>
<p>This turns out to be a small number of anecdotes repeatedly retold, warnings about trends in the US, implausible readings of university policies, and unsourced claims that staff and student feel oppressed. </p>
<p>We are offered scraps of unrelated incidents. Tenuous and sometimes tendentious claims. Occasional concerning incidents. Some poorly framed policies. As though these sum to a higher mark.</p>
<p>But to date those asserting a crisis have provided no systematic evidence of a meaningful, sustained and growing threat to free speech on campus. </p>
<p>So what drives this sudden anxiety? To answer the question we must do what academics value: ask what is at stake and why it is being debated, consider ways free speech might be measured, test the evidence and assess whether the claim of a free speech crisis is reasonably stated and valid. </p>
<p>It can be slow and tedious to apply a scholarly logic to a free-flowing public debate. Politics move on while we ponder. Yet when people assert free speech on campus is under threat the stakes are important. Free speech goes to the very mission of a university, so it is worth taking time to consider the threat. </p>
<h2>The context</h2>
<p>The free speech controversy relies heavily on American examples, with the implication that Australia is, or will, travel down the same path. </p>
<p>The dependence on US material is striking. The <a href="https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/research-papers/free-speech-campus-audit-2017">2017 Audit of Free Speech on Australian Campuses by the Institute of Public Affairs </a> opens its discussion of “substantial hostility to free speech” not with Australian content but with American cases – Middlebury College, Evergreen State College, and widely reported clashes at the University of California Berkeley over an appearance by “conservative provocateur” Milo Yiannopoulous. </p>
<p>Likewise, a speech by the NSW Minister for Education, Rob Stokes, to the Centre for Independent Studies paid much attention to safe spaces, trigger warnings, and no-platforming. </p>
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<span class="caption">NSW Education Minister Robert Stokes (left): has expressed concern about trigger warnings and no-platforming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brendan Esposito/AAP</span></span>
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<p>These are American trends, infrequently seen on an Australian campus. Yet <a href="https://www.cis.org.au/events/the-manchurian-campus-threats-to-free-speech-in-higher-education/">the Minister concludes</a> Australian university life is now a “monoculture” that has “narrowed robust debate to the point of non-existence.”</p>
<p>The free speech debate arises in the distinctive American context of campus politics. Overtly conservative organisations in the US seek to confront, and change, a university culture they see as hostile. Online publications such as Campus Reform and The Campus Fix hire student activists to report on the “liberal bias” of their professors, in articles fed to conservative news outlets. </p>
<p>A key message of such campaigns is that conservative students, uniquely, are the victims of constraints on free speech, denied a voice by administrators and fellow students. </p>
<p>Cohort data confirms university students are more likely to lean left than right, as indeed are all young people. </p>
<p>It does not follow that students with different views are oppressed. <a href="https://niskanencenter.org/blog/there-is-no-campus-free-speech-crisis-a-close-look-at-the-evidence/">Cohort studies of young people in the US</a>, reported by political scientist Jeffrey Sachs for the Niskanen Center, show no generational shift in attitudes to free speech.</p>
<p>Conservative commentators believe otherwise. They publicise incidents to foster the impression of a widespread problem and growing alarm. </p>
<p>Likewise, American conservative organisations invite contentious speakers onto campus to test the patience of university management. </p>
<p>This was once a standard tactic of the radical left, seeking to prove the operation of “repressive tolerance”. Now provocation on campus is the tactic of right leaning organisations. </p>
<p>American practice draws on two different threads of thinking. </p>
<p>Some avowedly American conservative organisations are keen to assert traditional values. The modern university, says Morton C. Blackwell, President of the Leadership Institute, is <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/Higher-Educations-Internet/232879">a “left-wing indoctrination centre”</a>. </p>
<p>This view is widely shared among conservatives. A <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/26/most-americans-say-higher-ed-is-heading-in-wrong-direction-but-partisans-disagree-on-why/">2018 PEW poll</a> found 79% of Republican-leaning Americans worry professors bring their political and social views into the classroom. </p>
<p>The second strand is libertarian in outlook, critical of anything that might constrain free expression. </p>
<p>Here the issue is less content than process – free speech as an overriding value, which must never be compromised for institutional reasons. </p>
<p>So for a traditional conservative, the worry is curriculum, for a libertarian, the concern is anything that constrains open expression.</p>
<p>Both strands of thinking influence Australian material on campus free speech. </p>
<p>The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) adopts American conservative campaign techniques. It has created “<a href="https://ipa.org.au/generation-liberty">Generation Liberty</a>” in which current students serve as campus organisers at seven Australian universities. </p>
<p>Yet policy proposals offered by the IPA and the Centre for Independent Studies depart from traditional conservative caution about the role of the state and the risks of regulation. </p>
<p>They promote a libertarian definition of free speech, heavily influenced by American first amendment thinking, and demand more government regulation of universities.</p>
<p>Finding an accurate label for this mix of conservative and libertarian impulses is not easy. Here we call them “right leaning”.</p>
<p>Whatever the term, importing American analysis and campaign techniques only makes sense if there is significant overlap between ferment on American campuses and practice in Australia. To test this, we turn from context to evidence.</p>
<h2>Assessing the evidence</h2>
<p>Those who claim a free speech crisis on campus must establish their case – to them falls the burden of proof. </p>
<p>So what follows is an examination of the most widely quoted evidence for suppression of free speech on campus. The case is neatly summarised in <a href="https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/as-unis-stifle-free-speech-we-need-a-law-to-stop-the-rot">an opinion editorial published by The Australian</a>, in which Matthew Lesh from the IPA cites as evidence of free speech suppression the sacking of a geophysist at James Cook University, complaints from Chinese students about maps in a classroom presentation, concerns about a film screening at Sydney University, and a decision by the University of Western Australia to reject funding for a research centre associated with Bjorn Lomberg. </p>
<p>The list is said to be representative rather than complete – for these, says Mr Lesh, “are not isolated incidents”:</p>
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<p>Academics have voiced concerns about the progressive monoculture at our universities jeopardising research and teaching. Students with a different perspective are too scared to express their contrary opinion.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, risk-averse universities bureaucracies succumb to censorious demands. Universities also maintain policies that chill free speech by preventing insulting or unwelcome comments, offensive language or, in some cases, sarcasm and hurt feelings.</p>
<p>Activist students are couching their demands for censorship in the language of safety – the absurd claim that merely hearing an idea can make people unsafe. </p>
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<p>The result, says Mr Lesh, is a “<a href="https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/as-unis-stifle-free-speech-we-need-a-law-to-stop-the-rot">free speech crisis</a>”, a judgement echoed by some Coalition senators. Not everyone is persuaded. When Shadow Minister for Universities, Louise Pratt, expressed doubt – “I don’t think there is a problem on campuses in relation to free speech” – she was critiqued by Mr Lesh for ignoring “mounting evidence to the contrary”. So what is the case, and by what criteria should it be assessed?</p>
<h2>Tests for free speech</h2>
<p>“Mounting evidence” of suppression requires a threshold definition. </p>
<p>Debate in the US and now Australia has produced eloquent statements about the nature and argument for free speech, nowhere more finely expressed then by Chancellor Carol Christ at the University of California Berkeley.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2017/08/23/chancellor-christ-free-speech-is-who-we-are/">she observes</a>, “the public expression of many sharply divergent points of view is fundamental both to our democracy and to our mission as a university.”</p>
<p>Inviting uncomfortable speakers on to campus may clash with campus expectations of “tolerance and inclusion, reason and diversity,” but universities must live with that tension. </p>
<p>These themes have been explored by several thoughtful Australian texts on the role and responsibilities around free speech on campus. We draw on two in particular – a speech by <a href="http://www.academyoflaw.org.au/resources/Documents/AAL_DARWIN_event_17Sept2018.pdf">retired Chief Justice Robert French</a>, who is also Chancellor of the University of Western Australia, and a <a href="https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/it-s-complicated-academic-freedom-and-freedom-of-speech">paper</a> by eminent legal academics Professor Adrienne Stone and Ms Jade Roberts. </p>
<p>These experts on free speech stress the complexity of issues at play. Chancellor French has noted there is no legal requirement for universities to provide a forum for all speakers, though there should be a high threshold for denying an invitation. </p>
<p>Stone and Roberts draw an important distinction between academic freedom and free speech. </p>
<p>Academic freedom is the right to carry out research, teaching and public comment without intrusion. It requires a degree of institutional autonomy to protect that right.</p>
<p>Free speech on campus, by contrast, has no special standing. It is the same right as free speech elsewhere in Australia – the right to self-expression, to question and criticise institutions and ideas. There are no protections at a university from laws that constrain free speech elsewhere in society, such as prohibitions on vilification and defamation.</p>
<p>Academic freedom and free speech require different tests. </p>
<p>Academic freedom is articulated in university rules, which can be examined through application and challenge. </p>
<p>By contrast, freedom of speech may require no university statutes at all, since it is regulated by general law. </p>
<p>Yet as Stone and Roberts detail, universities are complex places. They are built on a commitment to truth and free expression, but also require procedures to manage conflict, assess the work of students and staff, regulate employment conditions, encourage civility and discipline unacceptable behaviour. </p>
<p>What does complexity imply? It introduces judgement into any assessment. Academic freedom and free speech should be thought about in context, examined against circumstances. They are nowhere an unfettered right, but a question of appropriateness. </p>
<p>Still, in thinking about free speech in this complex, organic structure, Stone and Roberts provide some guidance. </p>
<p>Not everything that happens on campus is under the control of management. Universities should accept a high tolerance for student protests but no right to disrupt events. A university can reasonably require speakers to respect scholarly standards. </p>
<p>Even with threshold definitions established, any assessment still needs data. Claims of “mounting evidence” imply accelerating activity. </p>
<p>Here the available material is thin. </p>
<p>A survey of Australian print media reports finds no evidence of change in volume or intensity for clashes on campus with free speech implications. The <a href="https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/research-papers/free-speech-campus-audit-2017">IPA 2017 audit </a> identifies just five confrontations with speakers at Australian campuses, and one withdrawn invitation, in a survey that spans several years. These seem modest numbers for a crisis. </p>
<p>Still, the IPA claims that public universities cannot be trusted to honour free speech. Is this a defensible conclusion?</p>
<h2>Speakers and events</h2>
<p>The IPA rollcall of threats to free speech on campus begins with the cancellation of controversial speakers, censorship of academics and “special security” fees for conservative speakers. It cites noisy protests against psychologist Bettina Arndt, speaking at the invitation of Liberal clubs at La Trobe and Sydney universities.</p>
<p>Protests produce dramatic images. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Ms Arndt spoke at both Sydney and La Trobe because university security staff ensured campus venues remained open. Her comments, challenging an alleged rape culture on campus, were duly reported in the media.</p>
<p>The Arndt example highlights tensions in free speech decisions on campus. Arndt was a guest of a student club. Her campus tour was designed to challenge students campaigning against sexual violence. The universities incurred significant costs protecting Ms Arndt’s right to speak – and in ensuring the equal right of students to protest against her message. </p>
<p>Despite demonstrations - and an unimpressive refusal by protestors to engage in dialogue when offered - Ms Arndt exercised her right to address an interested audience. This seems a success for free speech on campus, rather than evidence of intolerance. </p>
<p>The controversy that followed focused on whether the Liberal Club that issued the invitation should contribute $500 towards security costs. Reasonable people might argue about who should share the costs, including the responsibility of protestors. At the Australian National University, university leadership has agreed to pay such costs rather than compromise the principle of free speech.</p>
<p>In historical context, the 2010s are among the quietest periods for protest in memory on the Australian campus – just ask the people who studied at universities in the 1970s and early 1980s. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248634/original/file-20181204-126677-xvejqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248634/original/file-20181204-126677-xvejqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248634/original/file-20181204-126677-xvejqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248634/original/file-20181204-126677-xvejqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248634/original/file-20181204-126677-xvejqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248634/original/file-20181204-126677-xvejqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248634/original/file-20181204-126677-xvejqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248634/original/file-20181204-126677-xvejqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">University students gather to protest as part of a National Day of Action at the University of Sydney in Sydney, Wednesday, May 17, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Miller/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my 18 years as a Vice-Chancellor, at two institutions, I can only recall two incidents on my watch where protesters prevented a speaker. Over the same years, tens of thousands of public events, academic conferences and seminars proceeded without concern.</p>
<p>Exaggerating the number or significance of no platforming events is special pleading. Protests against speakers on an Australian campus remain memorable but rare events.</p>
<h2>Academic freedom</h2>
<p>The IPA case for a free speech crisis then turns to questions of academic freedom.</p>
<p>Academic freedom is the right of academic staff to speak out as members of the university community. It is jealously guarded by academic boards and professional associations – perceived breaches become matters of public controversy, with the risk of significant reputational damage.</p>
<p>Academic freedom is also protected in federal law, research rules and registration standards.</p>
<p>Universities have policies that express and enforce those legal strictures.</p>
<p>Without more public information it is difficult to offer comment on the sole case cited by the IPA, involving a professor at James Cook University. We should note the independent processes available to test any claim of improper treatment, including the courts. </p>
<p>A crisis, though, implies regular and growing incidents. Again, there is no evidence offered to support such a conclusion. More than 50,000 academics work in Australian universities, yet cases of scholars said to be disciplined or dismissed in violation of academic freedom remain infrequent, and fiercely debated when they occur.</p>
<p>From staff, the IPA turns to questions of curriculum. This raises a different aspect of academic freedom, who decides what can be taught. </p>
<p>The IPA notes that Chinese students have complained about maps used in class, and challenge textbooks with derogatory comments about Chinese officials.</p>
<p>A complaint about classroom content is free speech in action. The issue is not the question but the response – do universities react in robust and independent ways? Does an institution stay true to scholarly values? </p>
<p>When challenged about naming Taiwan as a separate country, an academic at the University of Newcastle held his ground, quoting as his source a report from Transparency International. </p>
<p>On the other hand, a lecturer from Sydney University apologised when students complained, correctly, that a map used in class inaccurately showed established borders. </p>
<p>Likewise Monash University investigated a complaint about a bank of questions used in a subject exam, and acknowledged the complaint expressed was reasonable. </p>
<p>In each case cited, universities used an internal review process to adjudicate the complaint. Such responses seem appropriate.</p>
<p>Concerns about Chinese influence and academic freedom extend to the roles of Confucius Institutes and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-australia-china-relations-institute-doesnt-belong-at-uts-78743">significant donations to centres at UTS</a> and Sydney University. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-australia-china-relations-institute-doesnt-belong-at-uts-78743">The Australia-China Relations Institute doesn't belong at UTS</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Similar questions of institutional autonomy come into play over the University of Western Australia declining a proffered Consensus Centre, and ANU ending negotiations with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. </p>
<p>The outcomes vary, but each decision involves public debate about the risk of donors compromising institutional autonomy. Colleagues express opinions, weigh the merits, consider advantages of funding against potential risks. </p>
<p>When funding is declined, this is no affront to free speech. In the memorable words of ANU Chancellor Gareth Evans, an institution offered a donation must “look this gift horse in the mouth”. </p>
<p>Freedom of association – the right to choose one’s company without compulsion – is also a fundamental right.</p>
<p>It is hard to sustain claims of a crisis for academic freedom. The pace and intensity of controversies appear little changed. Arguments about curriculum are part of normal university business, and no example offered by the IPA suggests a retreat from scholarly standards. </p>
<p>Institutions sometimes make poor choices, and deserve censure, but the vigilance of the academic community on questions of academic freedom appears undiminished. </p>
<h2>Censorship</h2>
<p>Finally, the IPA turns to claims of censorship on campus. </p>
<p>Here, the IPA looks for any statement that will constrain unfettered expression on campus. The ambit is wide - student guides, social media rules, anti-racism statements and university human resources policy. </p>
<p>The 2017 IPA audit is the most substantial survey of university practice offered in the free speech debate. It samples some 165 policy statements from across the sector and scores these against a “hostility index”, a ranking of universities by perceived censorship of free expression. Most universities are found wanting. </p>
<p>Such reports impose hard numbers on matters of judgement. Policies are presented as binary choices – yes or not to suppressing free speech - and marked accordingly.<br>
This leads to some implausible judgements.</p>
<p>For example, an audit list of an unacceptable speech code opens with a Murdoch University by-law that prescribes a A$50 fine for “insulting language” or “offensive behaviour”. </p>
<p>This sounds concerning – but some delving into the Murdoch rules and procedures suggests background considerations missing from the IPA assessment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248653/original/file-20181204-126659-b4mnog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248653/original/file-20181204-126659-b4mnog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248653/original/file-20181204-126659-b4mnog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248653/original/file-20181204-126659-b4mnog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248653/original/file-20181204-126659-b4mnog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248653/original/file-20181204-126659-b4mnog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248653/original/file-20181204-126659-b4mnog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graffiti in Newtown, NSW.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">JAM Project/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A Murdoch student concerned about the behaviour of others would likely consult the university website. This defines insulting or offensive behaviour as a category of bullying, and offers numerous resources, including definitions from Western Australian law, a list of frequently asked questions on the topic, and advice on how to handle bullying. If concerns persist, the website list contacts within the university.</p>
<p>And the A$50 fine? </p>
<p>It is found in by-law seven, a short provision dealing with assault and abuse, indecent or improper acts. When proved, removal from university land is the first sanction, the second a possible fine.</p>
<p>The IPA audit does not offer a view on a reasonable way to manage offensive and insulting behaviour on campus. Murdoch choses to do so through graduated steps – first advice, then procedures and, finally, penalties that may include a fine. </p>
<p>This policy is condemned by the IPA through reference only to the ultimate penalty, and proclaimed an example of chilling free speech. The audit goes on to count Murdoch among the top third of offending Australian institutions. </p>
<p>This is special pleading, since it ignores context and policy intention. No link to free speech is established. It seems unlikely any Murdoch student feels constrained by by-law seven. Few if any may know it exists. A step approach is a sensible way to address difficult issues on campus. To describe such policy as a threat to free expression is a schoolboy’s debating triumph.</p>
<p>There are unnecessary and possibly even harmful university regulations. These are worth examination. An audit that looked at regulations in context, and suggested improvements, might be a helpful contribution.</p>
<p>But it is likely such an audit would likely not conclude, as does the IPA, that a majority of Australian universities “limit the diversity of ideas on campus”. On the evidence provided in the IPA 2017 audit this is overreach, a pronouncement with little visible means of support.</p>
<h2>The policy proposal</h2>
<p>Since evidence of systematic constraint on speech and events, academic freedom and censorship is tenuous, why proclaim a crisis at all?</p>
<p>Because a crisis justifies intervention hard to argue in more peaceful times. And for the IPA and CIS, the “free speech crisis” requires new federal controls. </p>
<p>Once again, this is a response inspired by American tactics. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://goldwaterinstitute.org/campus-free-speech/">Goldwater Institute</a>, a US think tank, issued a Model Bill in January 2017 as a template so American states can regulate free speech on campus. </p>
<p>The bill requires universities to be “neutral” in the face of public controversies. That is, public universities cannot support any action deemed as unacceptable by some on campus, such as ending university endowment investment in fossil fuel companies. </p>
<p>Statutes drawing on the Goldwater Institute Model Bill have been adopted by Republican legislatures in Colorado, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia, and remain before other state legislatures. </p>
<p>The version proposed in Georgia imposes penalties on any student who “interferes with the free expression of others.” The Minnesota draft cautions professors against expressing personal views in the classroom, introducing controversial material with no relation to the subject taught, or making statements on subjects in which they have no expertise.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248658/original/file-20181204-126689-h5lxvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248658/original/file-20181204-126689-h5lxvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248658/original/file-20181204-126689-h5lxvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248658/original/file-20181204-126689-h5lxvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248658/original/file-20181204-126689-h5lxvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248658/original/file-20181204-126689-h5lxvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248658/original/file-20181204-126689-h5lxvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign on campus at the University of Slippery Rock in Pennsylvania, US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brian Turner/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The American Association of University Professors has labelled campus free speech laws as “false friends”, because they base bad policy on good principles. </p>
<p>The Association sees a political agenda masquerading behind free speech, a conservative recasting of universities to stop them being a voice for progressive causes. This legislation, concludes the Association, introduces new controls under the cover of grossly exaggerated threats to free speech on campus. </p>
<p>In proposing free speech legislation for Australia, local advocates argue regulation will end a “worrying culture of censorship” on campus. </p>
<p>So Jeremy Sammut, from the Centre for Independent Studies, <a href="http://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/freedom-charters-will-protect-free-speech-on-university-campuses/">wants compulsory “university freedom charters”</a> as a condition of public funding. Such measures, he argues, are necessary because of the “complacent attitudes of Australian higher education leaders.” </p>
<p>Indeed, he says, “university administrators…are unwilling to even acknowledge free speech problems.” Hence, “it is difficult to trust them to self-regulate free speech solutions”. </p>
<p>Perhaps university administrators don’t acknowledge such claims because Mr Sammut provides no evidence of disruption on campus to support his contention; he simply asserts what must be demonstrated.</p>
<p>There is much that puzzles about the legislative proposal advanced by both the IPA and CIS. Once right leaning groups were wary of the coercive power of the state. They argued laws should be used sparingly and framed cautiously to avoid unintended consequences. A Burkean logic resisted needless change to established social relations. </p>
<p>In 2018, though, right-leaning think tanks champion federal regulation and demand state sanctions. </p>
<p>IPA Director John Roskam <a href="https://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/the-heavy-hand-of-free-speech-20181115-h17y9d">is quite explicit</a> – since universities rely on public money, government has the right to make decisions about how that money is spent. If takes “heavy-handed government regulation” to “ensure freedom of speech and freedom of academic inquiry at Australia’s universities then so be it.”</p>
<p>On the other hand, Mr Roskam strongly opposes government regulation of private entities. </p>
<p>This year alone he has <a href="https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/government-snooping-will-not-stop-at-the-banks">ridiculed proposals</a> for mandated compliance mechanisms on Australia’s banks, called the banking royal commission <a href="https://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/a-banking-royal-commission-by-emotive-show-trial-20180531-h10s1u">a “show trial”</a>, and <a href="https://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/diversity-dangers-in-the-boardroom-20180517-h106dw">opposed mandatory diversity quotas</a> for private companies. </p>
<p>Here is the heart of the agenda. As in the US, this is a campaign to open public universities to more conservative voices, and to punish institutions perceived to take progressive stances on issues. </p>
<p>If Australian outrages to justify such intervention prove few and far between, there are always American examples to cite. </p>
<p>Hence the special pleading – new legislation to regulate universities is not a reasoned response to circumstances, but a solution looking for a problem. </p>
<h2>The need for a sense of proportion</h2>
<p>The free speech critique relies on an assumption that American campus issues are relevant to Australian experience. The evidence for this is slight. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/university-challenge/">Nick Haslam argues convincingly</a>, concerns about relativist professors, political correctness and the perceived decline of western civilisation reflect US preoccupations. </p>
<p>Australia has no tradition of violent campus protests. No statues have been pulled down. </p>
<p>Identity politics has not captured local campus politics. On the contrary, recent student campaigns focus on long-standing concerns about sexual harassment, environmental issues and student fees. </p>
<p>The demand for Chicago-style free speech codes - to address imaginary challenges - reflects the gravitational pull of American conservative thinking. </p>
<p>In 2008, and again in 2018, Australia’s university leaders issued unequivocal statements setting out the founding principle of their institutions:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Australian universities restate our enduring commitment to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry. We also restate our enduring commitment to freedom of expression on our campuses and among our staff and students.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They do not welcome the importation of legislative responses and codes of conduct written in the United States against the constitution and laws of that nation. Australians can craft their own words – if required. </p>
<p>For “freedom does not require a positive law to explain or justify its existence”, as Chancellor French has <a href="https://www.cdu.edu.au/about/austin-asche-oration">observed</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248655/original/file-20181204-126665-194n9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248655/original/file-20181204-126665-194n9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248655/original/file-20181204-126665-194n9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248655/original/file-20181204-126665-194n9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248655/original/file-20181204-126665-194n9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248655/original/file-20181204-126665-194n9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248655/original/file-20181204-126665-194n9ty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Confucius said: when words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Claims of a crisis require evidence. A crisis means trends that can be measured, frequent examples that demonstrate consistent worrying behaviour, proof of an organised assault on an underpinning principle of public universities. </p>
<p>All are conspicuously absent. </p>
<p>You cannot take isolated events and inconsequential statements and argue that somehow they sum to a case.</p>
<p>Around the globe there are real threats to academic freedom – oppressive new laws in Hungary and Turkey, tightening party control in China, the arrest of scholars in the Middle East, violent clashes between left and right on American campuses. </p>
<p>And there are issues closer to home:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>funding policies that make universities dependent on international students and donors.</p></li>
<li><p>new security laws that circumscribe areas of research.</p></li>
<li><p>overriding safeguards designed to make research funding decisions transparent and non-political.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These are the challenges to institutional autonomy and campus freedoms we should discuss, not some confected calamity.</p>
<p>Trivialising a fundamental principle by tying it to meaningless “hostility” tests is dangerous. </p>
<p>If requesting civility in a student code is an assault on free speech, what will we say when real dangers arrive? </p>
<p>For <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ep374/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf.">as Confucius noted</a>, when words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been updated since publication to correct an error in spelling Matthew Lesh’s name.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glyn Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Glyn Davis lays out the evidence (or lack thereof) for the argument that free speech on campuses is at risk.Glyn Davis, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1049452018-10-29T19:11:20Z2018-10-29T19:11:20ZWhy Australia should be wary of the Proud Boys and their violent, alt-right views<p>Australia has become a destination for a legion of far-right speakers from North America and the UK in recent months. </p>
<p>Milo Yiannopoulos’ <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/05/milo-yiannopoulos-speaks-australia-respectable-racists-howl-approval">controversial visit</a> last December resulted in violent clashes between protesters and a A$50,000 bill for Yiannopoulos for extra policing. (<a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/milo-yiannopoulous-to-return-to-australia-despite-50k-outstanding-bill-20180815-p4zxpu.html">He never paid it</a>.) </p>
<p>In March, the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson packed out auditoriums in three cities for speeches <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/jordan-peterson-says-hate-speech-will-be-policed-by-last-people-in-the-world-you-would-want-to/news-story/4a37ae224fcc96986dac176374d817ae">railing against feminism, political correctness and hate speech laws</a>. </p>
<p>This was followed by the visits of Canadians Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneaux, which <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/dispute-over-lauren-southerns-hefty-police-bill/news-story/0fb393b743c65bd720d8a3a7324c0c59">sparked more anti-fascist protests</a> and resulted in another large police bill that remains unpaid. Southern’s <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/rightwing-activist-lauren-southern-touches-down-in-brisbane-wearing-its-okay-to-be-white-tshirt/news-story/d750c1b70a5e969ad4190540909ac75d">“It’s Okay to be White” T-shirt</a> served as the inspiration for Senator Pauline Hanson’s <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/pauline-hanson-moves-okay-to-be-white-motion">recent Senate motion</a> declaring the same message.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/speaking-with-journalist-david-neiwert-on-the-rise-of-the-alt-right-in-trumps-america-101972">Speaking with: journalist David Neiwert on the rise of the alt-right in Trump's America</a>
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<p>Brexit-er Nigel Farage toured Australia seven weeks later with his <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-04/nigel-farage-warns-australian-politicians-to-start-listening/10197230">anti-immigration message</a>, and Steve Bannon, former strategist to US President Donald Trump, did an <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/populist-revolution/10196348">interview on ABC’s Four Corners</a>.</p>
<p>None of these speakers has yet to attract an organised movement of followers in Australia. But these tours are certainly having an impact on society, as Hanson’s Senate motion illustrates. </p>
<p>An <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-13/alt-right-plans-shake-up-of-mainstream-politics-in-australia/10368972">ABC investigation</a> revealed that the NSW Young Nationals were infiltrated by members with links to the neo-Nazi fight club that provided security for the Southern/Molyneaux and Farage tours. And Yiannopoulos <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/from-racism-to-gay-rights-milo-yiannopoulos-speaks-at-parliament-after-labor-greens-try-to-ban-him">was even given a platform</a> to speak at Parliament House, the invited guest of Senator David Leyonhjelm.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242671/original/file-20181029-7065-ljd19i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242671/original/file-20181029-7065-ljd19i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242671/original/file-20181029-7065-ljd19i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242671/original/file-20181029-7065-ljd19i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242671/original/file-20181029-7065-ljd19i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242671/original/file-20181029-7065-ljd19i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242671/original/file-20181029-7065-ljd19i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yiannopoulos alongside Leyonhjelm at Parliament House last year. His appearance was vehemently opposed by the Greens.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the imminent visit of Canadian <a href="https://omny.fm/shows/get-off-my-lawn-podcast-w-gavin-mcinnes/playlists/podcast">Gavin McInnes</a>, the leader of the Proud Boys group, Australia could witness an acceleration of organised alt-right activity. </p>
<p>Originally scheduled for next week, McInnes’ tour has been postponed until December. Now dubbed “<a href="https://www.thedeplorables.com.au/?fbclid=IwAR2chda2QkADvgA2Vou1sxcmNUdFIDQK3m3nsQSw_v7TwNe-erDTqjlMFwk">The Deplorables Tour</a>”, it has been expanded to include Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right street gang <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/english-defence-league">English Defence League</a> and the most <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/tommy-robinson-arrest-jail-leeds-breach-peace-freedom-speech-islam-edl-a8408441.html">prominent anti-Muslim voice</a> in the UK.</p>
<h2>‘The Leader of the Patriarchy’</h2>
<p>McInnes and the global Proud Boys fraternity he founded in 2016 is engaged in a culture war against political correctness, Islam, feminism and all that is supposedly destroying Western civilisation. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbLR_AloTG8">recent promotional video</a> of his upcoming tour of five Australian cities sets the tone for his brand of hate-filled rhetoric:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’d like to identify the elephant in the room. Which is you, you are a fat woman.“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Over the next minute, McInnes is exulted as "the leader of the patriarchy, the ultimate male, the legendary Western warrior and a proud Western chauvinist”. He talks about punching people in the face while footage shows him doing exactly that. As Mcinnes states very clearly: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is a civil war. My job is to fight.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EbLR_AloTG8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘This is a civil war. My job is to fight,’ McInnes says.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who are the Proud Boys?</h2>
<p>The bearded, bespectacled McInnes was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/nyregion/proud-boys-gavin-mcinnes.html">recently described</a> by The New York Times as a “former Brooklyn hipster turned far-right provocateur”. One of the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/gavin-mcinnes-path-to-the-far-rightfrontier/article36024918/">co-founders of Vice Magazine</a>, he has used his trademark aggressive style in recent years to carve out a career in the <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/03/16/bad-boy-gone-worse-is-vice-co-founder-gavin-mcinnes-flirting-with-a-dangerous-fringe/">alt-right media sphere</a> as an outrageous cultural agitator.</p>
<p>The Proud Boys is McInnes’ fan club. The male-only group now has chapters across the US, Australia, Canada and UK, all formed in the past 18 months. Proud Boys members, many of whom wear signature <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/fred-perry-wants-alt-right-bros-to-stop-wearing-their-polos">black and gold Fred Perry shirts</a>, have become a conspicuous presence at many violent protests in the US. <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/proud-boys-founder-tries-and-fails-to-distance-itself-from-charlottesville-6862fb8b3ae9/">One member, Jason Kessler, organised the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia,</a> that resulted in one woman’s death.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-australias-tangled-web-of-far-right-political-parties-45619">Explainer: Australia's tangled web of far-right political parties</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Videos of numerous street fights involving Proud Boys members have circulated widely online in recent months. On the eve of the one-year Charlottesville anniversary, Twitter <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/10/twitter-suspends-proud-boys-charlottesville">decided to delete several Proud Boy accounts, including McInnes’ account,</a> due to the violent extremism of the group.</p>
<p>Last week, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/nypd-arrests-three-more-proud-boys-for-manhattan-brawl-with-antifa">five Proud Boys were arrested for brawling</a> after McInnes <a href="http://bedfordandbowery.com/2018/10/inside-the-proud-boy-event-that-sparked-violence-outside-of-uptown-gop-club/">“re-enacted” the 1960 assassination of the head of the Japanese Socialist Party</a> at the <a href="http://www.metclubnyc.org/">Republican Party’s Met Club</a> in Manhattan. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/Boub2juA2OW/?hl=en\u0026taken-by=thegavin2000 ","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>McInnes claims the Proud Boys only fight in self-defence, yet he <a href="https://omny.fm/shows/get-off-my-lawn-podcast-w-gavin-mcinnes/get-off-my-lawn-36-fighting-solves-everything">frequently states</a> the mantra: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You’re not a man until you’ve been beaten up. And you’ve beaten up someone else.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed, to become a fully-fledged member of the Proud Boys, a man must take a beating and also engage in violence in “service to the cause”. The aim is to achieve what McInnes calls the <a href="http://officialproudboys.com/columns/some-clarification-on-the-4th-degree/">“fourth degree”</a>. The first degree is a declaration of a belief in Western chauvinism, the second is to take a friendly beating while reciting breakfast cereal names, the third is a Proud Boys tattoo and the final degree is to engage in battle.</p>
<p>This commitment to violence is deeply concerning. Already, the small Australian Proud Boy chapters have started to make their presence felt at conservative rallies despite claiming to be apolitical. And McInnes’ upcoming visit could give members the opportunity to reach the “fourth degree” through the type of violence frequently seen in the US.</p>
<p>Shadow Immigration Minister Shayne Neumann <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/calls-for-govt-to-deny-visa-proud-boys-founder-gavin-mcinnes/10429936">has called</a> for McInnes’ visa to be denied on grounds he poses a “significant risk” to Australia. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1055329843913445376"}"></div></p>
<p>And a <a href="https://www.change.org/p/gavin-mcinnes-should-not-be-allowed-into-australia?recruiter=906832976&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=Search%3ESAP%3EAU%3EBrand%3EProper%3EExact">petition</a> against Mcinnes’ visit has thus far attracted 33,000 signatures.</p>
<h2>Proud Western chauvinists</h2>
<p>Despite the group’s history of violence, its Western chauvinism should be of even more concern to Australians.</p>
<p>When members are admitted to the Proud Boys, they are required to make a public declaration:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am a proud Western chauvinist and I refuse to apologise for making the modern world. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What exactly does this mean? McInnes has made some of his views clear in the past, <a href="http://officialproudboys.com/columns/some-clarification-on-the-4th-degree/">stating</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think the west is the best, But I don’t think other cultures are different, I think they are worse</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And in a blatant admission on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtu0E9ERXQ4">YouTube</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m an Islamophobe, a xenophobe and pretty darn sexist</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clarifying his views after being criticised as a white supremacist, McInnes said the Proud Boys <a href="https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/02/15/gavin-mcinnes-wants-you-to-know-hes-totally-not-a-white-supremacist/">are not racist</a> or homophobic and that members of any ethnicity or sexual orientation can join. </p>
<p>But the group clearly has a belief in the superiority of Western civilisation. Potential immigrants are ranked according to their assumed commitment to Western civilisation. McInnes puts Western Christians at the top, and ranks Indians higher than Chinese. Muslims are deemed undesirable due to their supposed inability to integrate and their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkcGah_TAQ">“animosity to the West”.</a></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-far-rights-creeping-influence-on-australian-politics-93723">The far-right's creeping influence on Australian politics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is racist dog-whistling. A recent quote by pornographer and Penthouse publisher <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/proud-boys-founder-gavin-mcinnes-heading-to-australia-in-november/news-story/3ae40fb92050ba6b322c4a7c9351c7a9">Damien Costas</a>, who is funding McInnes’ Australian tour, shows how this works: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>These people are not white supremacists, they’re Western supremacists, they believe in the great values that built the Western world … Free speech is the cornerstone of western civilisation </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is an effective strategy to appear non-racist while also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/22/western-civilisation-is-not-under-threat-even-if-conservatives-want-you-to-think-so">propagating the myth</a> that Western civilisation is under attack through migration.</p>
<p>In Australia, this debate over Western civilisation has been playing out through the attempt by the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/gift-horse-s-teeth-anu-s-warning-for-universities-on-ramsay-centre-20181004-p507od.html">conservative Ramsay Centre</a> to set up a university course on Western civilisation. </p>
<p>Speakers like McInnes provide fuel for this frequently uncivil and indignant response to complex issues like immigration and ethnicity.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1053460690118238209"}"></div></p>
<h2>Why Australia? And why now?</h2>
<p>McInnes has <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/proud-boys-founder-gavin-mcinnes-heading-to-australia-in-november/news-story/3ae40fb92050ba6b322c4a7c9351c7a9">called Australia</a> the last vestige of masculinity. And Yiannopoulos has <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/milo-yiannopoulos-australia-is-the-last-remaining-bastion-of-free-speech-in-the-world/news-story/76190d11603a3a3432b6bd255dd79441">called the country</a> the last remaining bastion of free speech.</p>
<p>Until recently, Australia has been an untapped market for the far right. Figures like McInnes are now seen as celebrities. They tour packed-out auditoriums like rock stars. </p>
<p>Case in point: tickets were sold out for an Australian tour featuring Yiannopoulos and far-right commentator Ann Coulter in November, even for a private boat cruise costing A$1,000 a head. Although the tour <a href="https://www.annandmilolive.com.au/">has since been cancelled</a>, all tickets will now be honoured at The Deplorables Tour events.</p>
<p>Each tour pushes the public debate in Australia further to the right, with more scope for conflict. And as the Australian social media sphere becomes increasingly integrated with right-wing commentators from overseas, this rhetoric is also having an effect. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-far-rights-creeping-influence-on-australian-politics-93723">Many in Australia’s right-wing movements</a> are clearly moving further to the right.</p>
<p>For the eager Australian Proud Boys, McInnes’ visit is seen as a chance to earn their “fourth degree” through battle. For the rest of us, it’s an opportunity to debunk spurious racism dressed up as a defence of Western civilisation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kaz Ross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gavin McInnes will be the latest in a string of provocative, right-wing speakers to visit Australia. Each tour pushes the public debate further to the right, with more scope for conflict.Kaz Ross, Lecturer in Asian Studies, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/805242017-07-19T23:28:17Z2017-07-19T23:28:17ZTrolling ourselves to death in the age of Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178704/original/file-20170718-10320-1iir8uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trolling is no longer confined to the darker corners of the internet, especially now the U.S. president himself is engaging in it. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last month, the <em>New York Times</em> took on the seemingly impossible task of counting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html">the lies of Donald Trump</a>. To make this task manageable, they counted all the lies over the course of his first six months in office. They arrived at a grand total of 100 lies. And that’s without even including in their count such categories as the president’s “dubious statements” and “careless errors.” </p>
<p>It is difficult to imagine a more demoralizing job than counting the lies of a man commonly labelled a pathological liar. The lies have left us numb. We have grown accustomed, passive, and helpless before them. We fully expect the lies as surely as we expect the sun to rise and fall.</p>
<p>So how did we get here? How did we arrive in this Twilight Zone, in which the norms of public discourse appear to have broken down — this alternate universe in which brazen lies and grotesque spectacles of incivility feel like the new normal?</p>
<h2>Who’s to blame?</h2>
<p>There are at least two ways of framing the problem. One is to zero in on <em>the media</em>, that is, on journalism. This way of framing the problem sees fake news as the primary culprit. If only we could find some way of keeping fake news in check, <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/june2017/2017/05/how-can-we-fight-back-against-fake-news-and-post-truth-politics">this line of reasoning goes</a>, we could restore some order and rationality to our public discourse. Presumably, then, the answer lies in more aggressive fact-checking on the part of traditional journalism and greater media literacy on the part of the public.</p>
<p>A second way of framing the problem is to focus on <em>media</em>, that is, on technologies of communication. This way of framing the problem sees the dominant media of the age, not their content, as the primary culprit. According to <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602981/social-media-is-killing-discourse-because-its-too-much-like-tv/">this second line of reasoning</a>, if only we could understand how our dominant media shape not just content, but the entire affective structure of public discourse, we might come to appreciate the nature and severity of our present chaos.</p>
<p>Both ways of framing the problem have their respective merits. But between <em>the media</em> and <em>media</em>, which, if either, can be said to be the driver behind what has come to be known as our <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/112830/lies-incorporated-by-ari-rabin-havt-and-media-matters/9780307279590/">post-truth world</a>?</p>
<h2>Democracy as entertainment</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178367/original/file-20170717-30889-1ecafhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178367/original/file-20170717-30889-1ecafhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178367/original/file-20170717-30889-1ecafhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178367/original/file-20170717-30889-1ecafhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178367/original/file-20170717-30889-1ecafhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178367/original/file-20170717-30889-1ecafhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178367/original/file-20170717-30889-1ecafhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronald Reagan: From Hollywood to the White House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Doug Mills)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his 1985 book, <em><a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/297276/amusing-ourselves-to-death-by-neil-postman/9780143036531/">Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business</a></em>, Neil Postman offered an early version of the second view. Taking his cue from the media theorist <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/understanding-media">Marshall McLuhan</a>, Postman argued that public discourse had been recreated in the image of television. American democracy had become a form of entertainment — equal parts sitcom, soap opera, and tabloid TV — in which the trivial and the superficial had come to hold greater persuasive power than the logical and the factual. </p>
<p>Television, Postman claimed, offered nothing less than a “philosophy of rhetoric,” a theory of persuasion according to which truth is decided by entertainment value. The more entertaining a public figure, the more persuasive the message. Postman, of course, wrote in a more innocent time, the age of Ronald Reagan. Would that he had written in the age of Donald Trump.</p>
<p>We can extend Postman’s argument about television to social media. If television turned politics into entertainment, then social media might be said to have turned it into a giant high school, replete with cool kids, losers and bullies. The presidencies of both Barack Obama and Donald Trump are very much social media presidencies. But they tell two different stories. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178368/original/file-20170717-7354-2jdtl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178368/original/file-20170717-7354-2jdtl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178368/original/file-20170717-7354-2jdtl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178368/original/file-20170717-7354-2jdtl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178368/original/file-20170717-7354-2jdtl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178368/original/file-20170717-7354-2jdtl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178368/original/file-20170717-7354-2jdtl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barack Obama was a social media natural - but this was also a curse for his party.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Obama represents the more positive, rosy, feel-good story of social media. He was wildly popular on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, displaying a tech-savviness that put his rivals John McCain and Mitt Romney to shame. Obama’s photogenic appearance, witty humour, sense of irony, knowledge of popular culture, friendships with Beyoncé and Jay-Z, and impressive grace under pressure made him a social media natural.</p>
<p>But Obama’s social media success turned out to be a curse for his party. His fellow Democrats arrogantly assumed that the future belonged to them — that social media was the terrain of a younger generation of liberal hipsters fluent in irony, memes and hashtags — all the while assuming that conservatives were a largely clueless generation of technologically challenged old people scarcely able to make sense of the exotic world of “the Facebooks,” “the Twitters” and “the Snap Chaps.”</p>
<h2>Conservatives as new rebels</h2>
<p>They could not have been more wrong. What they failed to recognize was the rise of the alt-right, a new generation of conservatives equally as cyber-savvy as their liberal counterparts, but whose politics are driven by a burning, insatiable rebellion against liberal orthodoxy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178369/original/file-20170717-21696-uv28z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178369/original/file-20170717-21696-uv28z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178369/original/file-20170717-21696-uv28z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178369/original/file-20170717-21696-uv28z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178369/original/file-20170717-21696-uv28z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178369/original/file-20170717-21696-uv28z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178369/original/file-20170717-21696-uv28z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Milo Yiannopoulos led the new generation of conservative rebels in support of Donald Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)</span></span>
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<p>In some sense, we’ve seen a reversal in the narrative of the culture wars: the rebels of yesterday are said to have become the mainstream, while the new generation of conservatives has become the new rebels, a reversal brilliantly documented by Angela Nagel in her book, <em><a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/kill-all-normies">Kill All Normies</a></em>.</p>
<p>The alt-right, as Nagel observes, grew out of the subversive culture of 4chan, the obscure imageboard on which anonymous users freely post all manner of images, no matter how graphic or tasteless. The anonymity of 4chan early on fostered a spirit of rebellion against authority. What we today know as memes originated on 4chan. Anonymous, the anarchist-hacktivist collective known for its DDoS attacks on government websites, also originated on 4chan. But the same spirit of rebellion that gave birth to Anonymous also gave birth to the alt-right, which formed in reaction to feminist critiques of video games and gamer culture. One of the most vocal supporters of the Gamergate movement was Milo Yiannopoulos, the <a href="https://www.magzter.com/article/Business/Bloomberg-Businessweek/Milo-Yiannopoulos-Is-The-Pretty-Monstrous-Face-of-the-Alt-right">public</a>, if now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2017/jun/07/milo-yiannopulos-the-disgraced-provocateur-resorts-to-alt-publishing">disgraced</a>, face of the alt-right.</p>
<p>It’s not for nothing that Milo, a self-identified and quite proud troll, led the new generation of conservative rebels in support of Donald Trump, in whom they saw the most effective and consistent force against the tyranny of political correctness. The rest of the 2016 Republican field was just too civil, too submissive before the liberal enemy to warrant their allegiance. Donald Trump, however, was the real deal: a man whose irreverence toward liberal propriety and whose absolute lack of principle made him the perfect instrument against the enemy.</p>
<h2>Twitter wars</h2>
<p>If Facebook is a high-school popularity contest, then Twitter is a schoolyard run by bullies. It is the medium in which both Milo and Trump honed their craft as trolls. Although originally designed as a social tool, Twitter soon devolved into <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/a-honeypot-for-assholes-inside-twitters-10-year-failure-to-s?utm_term=.snJZbEx3L#.ghpnWm0bD">an anti-social hellscape</a>. The 140 characters are hardly conducive to civil disagreement. They do, however, lend themselves to reactionary, paranoid behaviour: vicious insults that seek to hurt and offend, to get under the other’s skin, to find their weak spot, to stick the knife in and violently twist it to exact the maximum degree of psychological torment. </p>
<p>It’s difficult not to get pulled into the black hole of Twitter trolling. Even the most dignified users will feel tempted to respond to vicious personal attacks. Twitter wars have become a kind of media spectacle in themselves, worthy of full-blown news coverage, often with headlines like, “…and Twitter lets [him/her/them] have it.”</p>
<h2>Whoever insults hardest wins</h2>
<p>The problem is that trolling has gone mainstream. It is no longer confined to the darker corners of the internet. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/the-president-of-the-united-states-is-testing-twitters-harassment-policy/532497/">The president of the United States is a troll</a>. It is not a wild exaggeration to say that American public discourse is being recreated before our eyes in the light of Twitter. </p>
<p>We are witnessing the birth of a new political game, in which one of the primary moves is the act of trolling. Politicians now routinely troll each other online. Citizens troll politicians and politicians troll them back. The common denominator in all this white noise is the logic of the insult: whoever insults hardest wins.</p>
<p>The problem with zeroing in on fake news as the culprit for a post-truth world is that it does not explain what’s driving the fake news. It would be naïve to think that fact-checking and more skepticism of news sources can somehow contain the problem. Indeed, the problem is much deeper. </p>
<p>Revisiting Postman’s classic book and applying his insights to social media can go a long way not only in explaining the proliferation of fake news, but also the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/upshot/the-real-story-about-fake-news-is-partisanship.html">political tribalism</a> that’s pitting citizens against each other. If Postman were alive today, he might be concerned that we are not so much amusing, as trolling ourselves to death.</p>
<p><em>Jason Hannan is the editor of <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498530835/Truth-in-the-Public-Sphere">Truth in the Public Sphere</a> (Lexington Books, 2016). Read the introduction <a href="https://www.academia.edu/29004466/_Introduction_Truth_as_First_Casualty_in_American_Politics_in_Jason_Hannan_Ed_._Truth_in_the_Public_Sphere_Lanham_MD_Lexington_Books_2016_pp._xi-xxxvi">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80524/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Hannan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We’re living in an alternate political universe of brazen lies and grotesque online spectacles of incivility. Who - or what - is to blame for trolling going mainstream?Jason Hannan, Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Communications, University of WinnipegLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.