The Problem of Political Ignorance

This chapter turns to the problem that political ignorance poses for democratic public discourse. It is often held (1) that ordinary citizens know too little to engage competently in public debates about politics and (2) that, because of the influence of group identity on political beliefs (or ‘group cognition’), this problematic ignorance is here to stay. The chapter argues that this influential worry fails, because it misunderstands the epistemic function of social group identities. The experiences involved in being a member of a particular social group are epistemically useful for deciding whose political judgment and what political information to trust. This is true even when it comes to scientific questions that bear on political issues, and even when people are dogmatically committed to their group perspectives. So, group cognition constitutes a useful tool for managing and overcoming political ignorance—and, by extension, for defusing the threat it raises for public discourse.

Conclusion

The conclusion summarizes the book’s account of what norms should govern political speech. It reiterates how these norms can remain relevant in contexts marked by mutual dislike, ignorance, and fragmentation. And it briefly outlines remaining empirical and theoretical challenges that must now be tackled to realize this ideal.

The Problem of Fragmentation

This chapter assesses the challenge that social and spatial fragmentation poses for inclusive public discourse. This fragmentation impedes democratic speech by keeping people apart, by fuelling intergroup ill will, and by amplifying intergroup inequalities. To address this problem, the chapter recommends adopting ‘integrative’ policies aimed at desegregating social and political groups. Integrative policies, however, remain deeply controversial. For one thing, they may appear to violate people’s freedom of association. And, in particular, such policies seemingly overlook the important interest that members of historically oppressed groups have in residential self-segregation. But, properly understood, integrative measures in fact need not jeopardize these interests. First, integrative policies create meaningful associative opportunities even as they restrict others. Second, integrating a system of public discourse does not require integrating all sites in that system. Doing so therefore leaves space for historically oppressed groups to engage in a meaningful measure of residential self-segregation.

Resisting Political Minimalism

In light of the challenges to inclusive public discourse discussed in Chapters 5 to 7, one might lose patience with this ideal. On this line of thought, we would do better, for the time being, to pursue a more minimalistic political ideal, which jettisons diverse and large-scale public discourse. The present chapter demonstrates that this is a mistake. Even if widespread political ignorance, together with the mutual ill will, dogmatism, and fragmentation that sustain it, are problematic for inclusive public discourse, they are just as problematic for the political models that are touted as alternatives. Accordingly, departing from the ideal of inclusive discourse because of these difficulties is misguided. Far from being the source of the problem, inclusive democratic speech is best understood as an attempted solution to these difficulties. The chapter concludes that, given that these difficulties are ubiquitous, and given the promise of speech-based innovations, we must try to make this solution work.

Voicing Anger

Chapter 1 recommends that emotionally charged discourse play an important role in the public speech of divided democracies. The present chapter builds on this recommendation by examining public expressions of anger. It is commonly held that publicly voicing anger is counterproductive. The chapter resists this challenge by articulating a crucial sense in which voicing anger can be epistemically productive. Because of anger’s distinctive felt quality, conveying anger to one’s listeners can play an indispensable role in alerting them to previously overlooked injustices, and in enhancing their understanding of these injustices. This epistemic function is vital in divided societies. Because such societies typically involve significant social segregation and epistemically detrimental ideologies, the injustices endured by some groups are often invisible to, or misunderstood by, other groups. Finally, the chapter defuses the most powerful objections to this defence, partly by exposing how they overlook the systemic character of public discourse.

Introduction

The Introduction sets the stage by arguing that, in their current form, normative ideals of democratic public discourse tend to be too distant from reality to yield action-guiding prescriptions. Perhaps inclusive public speech is a powerful way of pooling knowledge or contesting power when people who like each other exchange reasons in good faith. But this tells us very little about the value of inclusive public speech in divided settings such as our own, where speech is routinely used to rage, vilify, or deceive, against a background of mutual dislike, political ignorance, and social fragmentation. The Introduction then argues that, to remedy this problem, we need to develop a systematic normative picture of democratic public speech—and specifically, of the norms that should govern democratic public speech—that is sensitive to these non-ideal features.

The Problem of Goodwill

This chapter considers the problem of goodwill. According to this concern, productive public discourse requires more goodwill—and, in particular, more trust—than typically obtains in divided societies. The chapter offers a two-pronged response to this worry. First, once we appreciate the systemic character of public discourse, it becomes apparent that productive public discourse demands far less goodwill than one might think. Second, even when levels of mutual dislike are too high for people productively to engage with one another, we can use public discourse to regenerate the missing goodwill. More specifically, features of public discourse that are widespread in non-ideal conditions—namely hypocrisy, anger, and even the occurrence of hate speech—have properties that can be harnessed to rebuild goodwill in divided societies. This might seem counter-intuitive: prima facie, these features of public speech seem wholly at odds with trust and goodwill. The present chapter, however, challenges this common intuition.

Countering Public Hate Speech

This chapter considers how we should respond to deeply disrespectful or hateful public speech. Unless public hate speech is countered appropriately, it risks eroding the standing or dignity of its targets, and thereby preventing them from participating effectively in democratic public discourse. It is often held that this problem cannot adequately be addressed via ‘more speech’, and that, consequently, we must legally suppress hate speech. But this view relies on an overly limited understanding of how we might counter hate speech with more speech. First, it overlooks the role that the state can play in endowing ‘counterspeech’ with authority. Second, it overlooks the distinction between ‘negative’ counterspeech (which focuses on rejecting hateful perspectives) and ‘positive’ counterspeech (which instead affirms a countervailing and inconsistent perspective). Counterspeech that is both state-sponsored and positively framed constitutes a prima facie preferable tool than legal norms for upholding the standing of targets of hate speech.

Countering Public Misinformation

This chapter examines how we should counteract the dangers posed by misinformation (such as fake news and conspiracy theories) in public discourse. Legal norms suppressing misinformation are an even less promising response here than with hate speech. Yet speech-based responses also face grave difficulties: the damage wrought by misinformation is often ‘sticky’, or difficult to reverse. The chapter offers two recommendations for counterspeech that targets misinformation. The first draws on the negative/positive distinction introduced in Chapter 3: unlike negative counterspeech, positive counterspeech can rebut misinformation without triggering the properties that render it sticky. This insight casts doubt on the popular practice of online fact-checking. Second, the chapter recommends adopting a diachronic conception of counterspeech: verbally responding to misinformation should be a continuous process, which pre-empts as well as follows misinformation. Only if it takes this diachronic form can counterspeech keep the most resilient types of misinformation, like conspiracy theories, from taking root.

Offering Shared Reasons

This chapter considers an influential norm of public discourse—the ‘shared reasons’ constraint—according to which deliberators must appeal to considerations that are suitably shared when offering justifications. This norm plays an important role in facilitating the contestation of power. Nevertheless, in contexts marked by deep social divisions, even the weakest formulation of the shared reasons constraint ends up excluding too many considerations from public debate. The chapter suggests that, to offset this exclusiveness, we should first restrict the shared reasons constraint to the most formal arenas of public discussion. But it then argues that this is not enough. We must also welcome emotionally charged and non-argumentative forms of speech. Though these forms of speech have traditionally been viewed as antithetical to the shared reasons constraint, the two must in fact operate hand in hand. Emotionally charged narrative enriches the pool of shared resources from which the shared reasons constraint proceeds, and thereby mitigates its exclusionary implications.