Experiments in the Laboratory of Democracy: A Book Discussion Guide to Cancel Wars
Content notes, discussion questions, and related resources for the HxLibraries Symposium common read title, Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy
Colleges are laboratories in which democracy is learned, practiced, and enhanced.
-Sigal Ben-Porath
HxLibraries is honored to welcome Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath as the keynote speaker for our Spring 2024 symposium, Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage. Symposium participants are encouraged to read Dr. Ben-Porath’s book, Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 2023). (A handful of complimentary e-book copies of Cancel Wars are still available for qualifying registrantsall complimentary copied have been claimed—but you can still register today!)
This guide provides content notes, discussion questions, and additional resources for the symposium’s facilitated discussion of Cancel Wars. (Discussion groups are encouraged to meaningfully engage with the text together as they see fit—the purpose of this guide is to provide points of departure for an inspired and engaging discussion, not to drill through all the questions in a rote way!) I welcome corrections and suggestions for the guide in the Comments or by email to smh767[at]psu[dot]edu—please include your preferred attribution if you would like to be credited for your contribution!
Cancel Wars Dicussion Guide
Chapter 1: A Polarized Democracy
Free speech as a subject of both shared values and political polarization (pp. 7-121); “mega identities,” group polarization, and civic trust (pp. 12-15); social sorting, psychological polarization, institutional polarization, and trust decline (pp. 15-21); race, harm, and truth (pp. 21-23); digital media and the epistemic commons (pp. 23-25).
What role do universities have in restoring civic trust? How does institutional neutrality (a la the Kalven Report) impact institutions’ influence on civic trust? What implications does institutional neutrality have for institutions contributing to “top-down responses to … combating disinformation, hatred, and related anti-democratic influences” (p. 24), such as the Stanford Internet Observatory and Virality Project referenced in the Twitter Files [claims, analysis from The Stanford Review and Reason, rebuttal]?
Ben-Porath asserts that “colleges should serve as spaces where free speech is explicitly cultivated as a value—namely, where students are not just expected to practice it and to benefit from it but are also introduced in direct ways to its centrality in college life and democratic practice” (p. 10, emphasis added). What examples are you aware of of campus initiatives that cultivate free speech as a value? What might this look like on your campus? How could you contribute to such initiatives in your role?
“Who pays the price for free speech?” (p. 10). What does it look like for institutions to take responsibility for the harms and costs of protected speech and to safeguard inclusion and belonging? Ben-Porath asserts that “compromise around questions of harm that results from speech might be possible, although any such compromise requires significant scrutiny as to the distribution of harm, and it must be ensured that one group does not bring a persistent demand that another group be required to gracefully bear a burden for the common good” (p. 57). How can an institution gauge when it has adequately mitigated the harms of protected speech, and how can an institution know when it has upheld free speech interests? How can we put Ben-Porath’s views in conversation with Jonathan Rauch and Nadine Strossen’s more absolutist assertion that freedom of speech is essential to advancing the interests of minority groups?
Is there a role for intellectual virtues, such as curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual humility, intellectual courage, and intellectual charity, in addressing speech challenges on- and off-campus? If so, how might intellectual virtues be taught and practiced? What are the limitations of this approach?
Chapter 2: Scientific Truth, Partisan Facts, and Knowledge We Can Share
Shared epistemology, expertise, epistemic populism, and the epistemic crisis (pp. 26-29); pluralism and epistemic niches (pp. 29-30); three criteria for establishing shared epistemology: distinguishing facts from commentary, identifying experts, and consulting reliable information sources (pp. 30-39); motivated reasoning, willful ignorance, epistemic closure, and group epistemology (pp. 39-46); the role of higher education institutions as “civic labs” for shared epistemology (pp. 46-55); interpersonal experiences and local networks as drivers of civic trust (pp. 55-58).
How can institutions, libraries among them, contribute to Ben-Porath’s tripartite solution to establishing shared epistemology (pp. 30-31), including identifying facts while debating opinions, agreeing on how to identify experts who can speak to the facts, and pursuing reliable sources of information? In what ways are we fulfilling—and abdicating—this role?
What role do institutions have in holding experts accountable when they violate the ethics of their profession or discipline, or other social norms (such as “The Noble Lies of COVID-19”)?
To what extent do pluralism and democracy conflict with establishing a shared epistemology, as Ben-Porath suggests (pp. 27, 30, 35, 37)? To what extent can pluralism contribute to establishing a shared epistemology? How can institutions cultivate pluralism that leads to a vibrant epistemic commons and more robust shared epistemology?
Ben-Porath suggests that declining trust in institutions is an artifact of external politicization and attack (p. 48). Could the trust decline be attributable to internal institutional politicization? To what extent is the trust decline a reflection of institutions’ perceived (un)trustworthiness?
Ben-Porath observes that “the closer we get to facts—and to people—the easier it is to trust them” (p. 56). How can institutions cultivate a sense of epistemic proximity in their communities, both on-campus and off-campus?
Chapter 3: Do I Belong Here? Inclusion and Harm
Inclusion, dignitary safety, and speech (pp. 59-61); the subjectivity of perceptions of harm, John Stuart Mill’s discussion of speech harms, Miranda Fricker’s theory of epistemic injustice, differentiating harm from wrongdoing, and relational vs. regulatory responses (pp. 61-68); cancel culture (pp. 68-72); Chicago Principles, inclusive freedom, and assessing acceptable speech by identifying the speaker, the audience, and the justification (pp. 73-83); civility (pp. 83-84); programming aimed at civic dialogue, depolarization, and the common good through interpersonal exchange, open-mindedness, empathy, and inclusive freedom (pp. 85-91).
Ben-Porath asserts that higher education’s commitment to freedom of expression must transcend compliance with the First Amendment as articulated in the Chicago Principles, and aspire to inclusive freedom which will “recognize the consequences of commitment to open expression, to acknowledge the ways in which these consequences are not equally distributed, to identify those who carry the burden of supporting open expression, and to mitigate those consequences” (pp. 65-66, see also p. 76). What will this look like in practice? What considerations does inclusive freedom present for open expression and the shared pursuit of truth?
How can we effectively differentiate—and help students navigate—speech harm from wrongdoing in order to arrive at a response that upholds both open expression and inclusion (inclusive freedom)? What knowledge, dispositions, skills, and resources do we need to do this effectively? What do students (or the impacted parties) need to bring to the table—and how do we help them develop these capacities?
How would you characterize Ben-Porath’s treatment of cancel culture (pp. 68-72)? How does her characterization align with evidence like the National Association of Scholars’ “Tracking Cancel Culture in Higher Education” list, FIRE’s “Scholars Under Fire” and “Campus Deplatforming” databases and “Student Experiences Survey,” Heterodox Academy’s “Campus Expression Survey,” or other indicators of the state of expression on campus?
Can structured dialogue techniques, such as the Urban Rural Action’s ABCs for Constructive Dialogue, provide a method for working towards shared epistemology on contentious topics? What experience do you have with programming aimed at civic dialogue as Ben-Porath describes on pp. 86-88?
Chapter 4: Freedom of Speech and Habits of Democracy in K-12 Schools
Challenges to freedom of speech in K-12 (especially high schools), including speech restrictions for students (Tinker Test) and teachers and a decline in civic education (pp. 92-101); media literacy (including Caulfield’s SIFT method) and cognitive biases (pp. 101-105); civic dialogue and open exchange of views (pp. 105-110).
How can we provide students opportunities to experience free speech as a “lived practice” (p. 92), both in our institutions and in collaboration across the educational spectrum?
Chapter 5: Campus Speech and Democratic Renewal
The role of institutions in established shared epistemology and civic trust for democratic self-governance, and providing and modeling inclusive freedom as a public service, the place of counterspeech and counteraction in inclusive freedom, and constitutional and legal obligations of public universities (pp. 111-123); suggestions for campus leadership, including preparing and issuing public statements and maintaining institutional neutrality, and establishing policies around legitimate protest and other public counteractions (vs. the heckler’s veto) and around campus postings (pp. 126-132, 140-145); suggestions for faculty, including learning design, establishing classroom discussion norms, steelmanning and the Five-Minute Rule, free writing, and engaging in peer observations of instruction (pp. 133-134, pp. 147-151); suggestions for staff, including serving as trained free speech observers (pp. 145-146); suggestions for students to practice attentional autonomy and collaborate across affinity groups (pp. 135-136, pp. 151-152); suggestions for university boards to maintain institutional autonomy and integrity (pp. 136-137); and suggestions to engage third party organizations in delivering programming for interpersonal exchange and civic dialogue to reduce affective polarization (pp. 146-47).
What strategies have you engaged to promote inclusive open expression at your institution? How do they reflect, or extend, Ben-Porath’s model of inclusive freedom?
What are the barriers or challenges to promoting or participating in open expression in your role at your institution? What resources or capacities do you need to overcome those barriers or challenges?
Additional Resources
Datasets
Scholars Under Fire Database maintained from 2015-present by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), with links to additional directories.
Tracking Cancel Culture in Higher Education list maintained from June 2020-present by the National Association of Scholars.
Campus Deplatforming Database from FIRE, analyzed in an ongoing series at The Eternally Radical Idea (part 1, part 2).
College Free Speech Rankings from FIRE.
2023 Student Experiences Survey from FIRE and College Pulse.
Campus Expression Survey from Heterodox Academy.
Survey: America’s Values, Goals, and Aspirations from FixUS-Ipsos (2020), referenced in Chapter 1 of Cancel Wars.
Survey: Free Expression in America Post-2020 from Knight Foundation-Ipsos (2022).
Principle Statements
Kalven Report on institutional neutrality from University of Chicago.
Chicago Principles for freedom of expression from University of Chicago.
Commentary
“Why Free Speech is the Only Safe Space for Minorities” by Jonathan Rauch [video + transcript]
“Freedom of Speech and Equality: Do We Have to Choose?” by Nadine Strossen [article]
Organizations & Initiatives
ABCs of Constructive Dialogue from Urban Rural Action
Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership
National Association of Scholars
Cancel Wars and Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath
“Thinking Differently About The Cancel Wars On Campus” by Ben-Porath for The HxA Blog
Cancel Wars at the University of Chicago Press.
Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath’s faculty webpage at the University of Pennsylvania.
Interviews & Lectures
Can America’s Universities Survive the Culture Wars? A Discussion with Author Sigal Ben-Porath by the Bipartisan Policy Center [February 2023, 1 hour video]
Cancel Wars author event at the Free Library of Philadelphia [January 2023, 1 hour video]
Cancel Wars: Free Speech and the University, A Conversation with Sigal Ben-Porath presented by the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University [March 2023, 1 hour 20 min. video]
Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy lecture presented by the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgay [April 2023, 35 min. video]
Sigal Ben-Porath Discusses “Cancel Wars” with Jane Kamensky presented by Harvard Book Store and the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics [February 2023, 1 hour video]
Reviews
Front Porch Republic (contributed by Robert Jensen)
Theory and Research in Education
Heterodox Libraries Symposium
Current Symposium: Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage | 23 May 24 Abstract [Closed] Call for Proposals Registration Speakers Keynote: Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath Invited Panelists Schedule Full Description Acknowledgements Proceedings Past Symposia
Page references are for the 2023 University of Chicago Press paperback edition, ISBN: 978-0-226-82380-5.
Sounds like a very interesting talk. How readable is "Cancell Wars"?