"The marketplace if ideas" sounds like a good thing, but it really isn't. According to the Wikipedia page, it's "a rationale for freedom of expression based on an analogy to the economic concept of a free market. The marketplace of ideas holds that the truth will emerge from the competition of ideas in free, transparent public discourse and concludes that ideas and ideologies will be culled according to their superiority or inferiority and widespread acceptance among the population."
source: Flickr
I hope most of you will immediately see the problem here, especially when we value the integrity of our democracies. There's an immediate tension between the truths found in the free marketplace of ideas and actual truth. It should be clear to anyone who's able to read and understand this post that the most popular ideas are not always the best, most realistic, or most truthful ideas. What's true in most people's minds is nothing more than a popular opinion, and we know that those popular opinions can often damage democracy. Some opinions, if allowed to be spread unhindered, can even lead to the end of democracy; America came close to experiencing that when millions of Americans believed (and still believe) that Trump won the last elections. You can read my post "Tolerance Paradox" for more on that.
This idea of a "marketplace of ideas" is from the early 20th century: the first reference to the "free trade in ideas" within "the competition of the market" appears in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s dissent in Abrams v. United States (1919). The actual phrase first appears in a concurring opinion by Justice William O. Douglas in the Supreme Court decision United States v. Rumely in 1953: "Like the publishers of newspapers, magazines, or books, this publisher bids for the minds of men in the market place of ideas". It's no surprise that the actual phrase was invented at a time when the classical liberal idea of free markets was adjusted after the Great Depression, and were replaced by neo-liberalism. If you've read my post on Neo-Liberalism you know that in that ideology, which still reigns supreme, everything is left to the markets, even finding truth.
It amazes me to no end how people who hold right wing ideologies manage to constantly whine about "cancel culture", while staying blind to the truth that what they call "cancel culture", or "political correctness", or "culture war", originates in their precious free markets and free marketplace of ideas. I'm tempted to say "it's the economy, stupid!" But I won't. Oh, I just did... The political right regularly accuses "the left" of engaging in "cancel culture", the demonetizing and / or deplatforming of extreme right wing opinions. In their complaints they count the mega-corporations that provide the platforms as "the left", and they even speak of "cultural Marxism", a leftist conspiracy that also encompasses academia. This would be laughable if it wasn't so seriously damaging to democratic society. Not the left, but the so called free markets, of which the marketplace of ideas has become a sub-set, are to blame.
The media as well as online social platforms are privately owned, and have the right to permit on their platforms the opinions they approve of. And in their market driven quest for profits news providers as well as online social platforms shape their products in bite-sized, easily consumable formats with "clickbait" headlines. "Cancel culture" is a product of the "outrage culture" cultivated by the "clickbait" headlines produced by profit-seeking market players. When we combine the free markets of the economy with the marketplace of ideas, outrageous ideas become truth for millions of people who aren't "internet savvy". Market players in capitalism take advantage of human psychology whenever it turns a profit, and they all know that anger and outrage inducing headlines get more clicks and views. At the same time they don't want to scare away significant parts of their consumer base by allowing racist or bigoted opinions on their platforms. And movie producers cater to all demographics, not just white males, not even in sci-fi movies...
To illustrate this cognitive dissonance among many right wingers, here's a short video reacting to the outrage on the political right over the "cancelling" of some of Doctor Seuss's Children's books. This is just one example though; I've seen so much more, like the outrage over Sony providing a Black Lives Matter themed PlayStation wallpaper, the gender-swapping or race-swapping of popular comic book characters, or Gillette publishing a razor blade advertisement with the message that men should behave less misogynistic... Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the video!
"Cancel Culture" War is a Fight Against the Free Market
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