I’ve written at length before about creationism, flat earth belief and other low hanging fruit. I’ll be referencing them in this article too, but for a different purpose.
Today, trust in institutions is at an all time low. Large swaths of the US population are emotionally committed to indefensible beliefs. Often it’s something they’re aware is untenable, but they’ve already gone “all in”, building their lives on a lie, living in a glass house as it were.
Then someone comes along who throws a truth stone at it. Not intending any harm, just speaking matter of factly and happening to mention something contrary to that person’s dearly held, but mistaken, belief. For example, when creationists object to geologists talking about the age of the Grand Canyon and how it formed:
So, would it be reasonable to require that geologists and tour guides not mention geological timescales out of sensitivity to the feelings of creationist tourists? Most Americans, especially on the left, would scoff at the idea. Likewise, there’s a growing number of more extreme creationists who embrace not only the Genesis creation story, but also Biblical cosmology.
Because the flat earth model is part of their religious worldview, as you might expect, they feel very strongly about it. If you assume Earth is flat, then you must also believe NASA and basically every scientist is lying to the public. That would understandably engender misguided feelings of anger and mistrust.
There’s no polite way to disagree with people like this, because the unavoidable implication is that they’re brainwashed. It’s not something that can be glossed over either, being that these ideological convictions are at the core of their identity and framework for understanding the world. To say they’re emotionally invested doesn’t begin to capture it.
So, out of sensitivity to their feelings, should we all have to humor them under penalty of deplatforming and/or job loss? Should we have to censor all mentions of a spherical Earth in the media and the classroom so as not to offend flat-Earthers? An absurd notion, most would agree.
What about anti-vaxxers? They’re just as stubbornly resistant to evidence showing their beliefs are false as flat earthers and creationists. They’re wrong in a way which compromises herd immunity too, whereas the worst consequence of raising a child as a flat earther or creationist is that their academic and professional prospects will be limited.
But needless to say, anti-vaxxers feel very strongly about their convictions. From their standpoint there exists a global conspiracy to cause autism and other maladies in children by injecting them with poison. You can see how, if somebody fully believed that, it would be impossible not to have passionate feelings about the topic.
In disputing anti-vaxx talking points, are you invalidating their identity? Arguably yes, you are. Does this mean we should censor anything which contradicts their beliefs, out of sensitivity? Should we all be obligated to humor them, lest their feelings be hurt? No, once again most who aren’t in that group would recognize the unreasonableness of such a demand.
Certainly, the constitution and bill of rights guarantee every individual the right to dress, speak, behave, self-refer and present as they please, provided they don’t break any laws in doing so (walking around naked for example).
What neither guarantee is that other people will oblige you if your comfort requires strangers to verbally affirm your beliefs. Although creationists, flat Earthers and anti-vaxxers are popular targets of scorn and ridicule, they’re sensitive, feeling human beings just like you or I. Their feelings are hurt and their identity feels invalidated when other people contradict them about these core beliefs.
However, I hope by now I’ve made the case that nobody has the right to require strangers to play along with their fantasies, directly or indirectly, just because their feelings get hurt otherwise. That’s not part of their individual rights, it’s infringing upon the individual rights of others. Sometimes expressed as “your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose”.
So, the creationist, flat Earther and anti-vaxxers have every right to believe as they feel compelled to. They may identify as created beings, or victims of a medical conspiracy. They may wear clothing proclaiming their views. They may be vocal about those views in the public square.
This is to say that they may dress, speak, refer to themselves and otherwise present to others in a manner they find comfortable and consistent with their beliefs. They may not require strangers to play along however. Nor can they teach their views to other people’s kids on the public dime, or require co-workers to humor them.
But while I’ve chosen examples almost everybody who reads this can agree are false, they don’t need to be in order for the argument to hold up,. If I hold a factually true conviction, I still may not require co-workers to agree with me about it or face losing their jobs.
Requiring creationist employees to verbally affirm a billions of years old Earth and common descent whenever it comes up would be ruled a violation of religious freedom unless they chose a job which can’t be done otherwise, like teaching geology or biology.
Likewise with employees who believe Earth is flat. Unless they work at a planetarium or something, requiring them to make statements contrary to their beliefs that aren’t necessary for them to perform their duties would be ruled a violation of their individual rights.
I don’t mean freedom of speech, which can be and often is suspended in the workplace in various ways dependent upon the values of the company. I’m talking about the company itself requiring certain speech from employees that’s unrelated to their jobs, and contrary to their privately held beliefs.
You may side with the employer, depending on what the belief we’re talking about is. But we live in a world where to eat hot food and live indoors, you must work. Making the right to work conditional upon verbal renunciations of core beliefs represents an unacceptable degree of coercion, and corporate/governmental intrusion into private life.
What if creationists, flat Earthers and anti-vaxxers faced severe consequences for living their truth? Some would argue they already do, but I’m talking about life threatening consequences. Suppose they were even less popular than they are today, to the point that they experienced violence and targeted harassment. Would that change the equation?
Would that mean, even if you personally never raised a hand against any of those groups, you’re personally culpable for harms inflicted on them if you said or wrote anything critical of their beliefs? Under these circumstances, would there exist a moral imperative to suppress critical speech, because it legitimizes persecutory actions?
No, you are not culpable for the actions of others. It is entirely possible to dispute the foundational claims of someone else’s worldview while at the same time affirming their constitutionally guaranteed right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in whatever form that may take from one person to the next.
Everybody used to understand that. Once upon a time, this concept was integral to what it meant to be an American; that no man has the right to force another to bend the knee. That your neighbor is free to say there’s one god, no god, or twenty. That it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain ideas, even objectionable ones, without having to immediately accept or reject them.
So, is this article really about creationists, flat earthers or anti-vaxxers? I confess it isn’t, those are just some ideological groups that are safe to criticize in the current political climate. They’re not the only ones emotionally committed to falsehoods, whose comfort and sense of identity rely upon strangers humoring them.
They differ in that unlike creationists, flat earthers or anti-vaxxers, this particular group has a foot in the door of public schools. While separation of church and state prohibits teaching religious ideology in public schools, the same is not true of political ideology. Not yet anyway, pending some sort of badly needed, precedent setting lawsuit which will likely progress to the Supreme Court.
The same group also has a foot in the door of government, and controls nearly every online discussion platform, such that criticizing their beliefs reliably results in censorship. That’s what happened to a prior version of this article when I posted it on Medium, because apparently censorship is what Medium stands for. Thank goodness for Hive, and the general unregulated wild west climate of blockchain blogging platforms.
These are rights that nobody else has. A special status conferring privilege and the power to silence all questioners. A power the church used to have, which it must now look upon with nostalgic envy.