Shock Politics Are Bad for Liberty

Over the past few days, libertarians have been commenting on Milo Yiannopoulos’s YAL- sponsored speech at American University. The question is an important one and has generated palpable tension in the liberty movement: Should libertarians support Milo by giving him a platform for his sensationalist take on free speech advocacy?

I don’t think so and here’s why: He completely and utterly fails at exhibiting the personal responsibility element of free speech, which we should recognize as crucial. Free speech is worth defending and Milo is free to do that in whatever way he wants, but we, as a movement, have a responsibility to control our message and make sure the ideas of liberty are being communicated accurately and compassionately, in a way that helps others understand them further. On these points, Milo fails spectacularly.

YAL inviting Yiannopoulos to speak doesn’t win us supporters, it just deepens the free speech-supporting views of those on our side while throwing gas on the fire between us and our ideological opponents. One can believe in the right to express outrageous and hateful ideas without thinking those ideas should be voluntarily given a platform.

The point of Yiannopoulos’s shock tactics—like his scholarship fund for privileged white males—is to bring attention to the ridiculousness of PC culture and the status quo we’re gravitating towards. What he fails to understand is that marginalized groups are advocating for political correctness because many feel unheard and oppressed by the government, by the status quo, and by their peers. Their struggles haven’t traditionally been given a platform—which is exactly why free speech can be valuable to them, despite their current employment of illiberal tactics.

Yiannopoulos pushes them farther and farther away, inciting anger and violence instead of a shift towards mutual understanding. If they continue to see only people like Yiannopoulos advocating for free speech, they’ll continue to assume that free speech is a “tool of oppression” and not a principle they should be defending even more passionately than we are.

Pat Hannaford is right that there are valuable elements to this strong backlash against PC culture and that this current generation of college students will be ill-equipped to handle a world without trigger warnings and ludicrous levels of sensitivity. I worry, though, that the libertarian community’s tendency to condemn student protesters and lift up voices like Milo’s is our fatal flaw, as we’re helping the concept of free speech be associated with hateful ideas and shock politics.

LGBT rights, ending police brutality, and ensuring that historically-oppressed people have true upward mobility should be core battles for libertarianism. Our philosophy revolves around the way government harms people and hinders their ability to live freely. For groups that have been wronged—both by the government and by the whims of the majority—libertarianism should be seen as a creative antidote for the status quo. Our rhetoric is already tinged with notes of empowerment—read Hayek and Mises and Jeffrey Tucker and you’ll see that our rejection of paternalism is meant to uplift individuals and help each person pursue their own means of fulfillment.

One of libertarianism’s comparative advantages is that it can’t be pigeonholed—we believe in free market capitalism and legal prostitution, the incredible therapeutic uses of MDMA, and the horrors of eminent domain. We are a confusing yet appealing mix of left and right, championing gun ownership while exalting sex-positivity. It’s time we start capitalizing on this uniqueness and forging the kind of unlikely coalitions that could shape our country for the better.

This will take effort on our part. Namely, it will take legitimately listening to the grievances of social justice warriors, educating ourselves about institutionalized racism and sexism, and—in turn—educating those on the left  about the value of free speech as means of creating the social change they seek.

It’s hard to discern whether Yiannopoulos’s popularity is due to a rise in white identity politics (as Matt Needham claims), a backlash against the ridiculousness of PC culture, or a mix of both. Regardless,  it’s clear that the liberty movement’s use of Milo doesn’t change hearts and minds. And if it’s not helping our case, then supporting him is a waste of our time. We have too much passion and intellect in our movement to waste time on flagrant, Ann Coulter-esque personalities when we could be forging new coalitions between the right and left.

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