No, I am Not Leaving Substack
The Nazi Problem Isn't The Real Problem
There was a big media fuss from an article from the Atlantic detailing a problem with Nazis on substack. Other media outlets picked up on this story and tried to suggest fundamental problems with Substack’s moderation policies.
This isn’t an article suggesting I approve of Nazis on any platform or their ability to monetize that platform…
But I do have some thoughts and considerations.
Ironically, the pressure on Substack eventually made them cave to take some of that content down.
Keep in mind, this isn’t your typical “free speech” and woke cry article where I will bitch about how the left doesn’t let anyone do anything fun including be a Nazi online. This is an article that is more so about questioning the very nature of freedom and moderation.
What is freedom anyway?
A fundamental problem I see in many leftist spaces and online communities is the lack of discourse around freedom.
We surely see this discourse in right-wing circles and media with classics like…
Taking away someone’s gun = that’s an infringement of someone’s freedom
Getting a vaccine = taking away someone’s medical freedom
Yet…
Incarcerating someone over a non-violent crime = LAW AND ORDER
Denying someone access to abortion = fetus's life trumps autonomy (pun intended)
Jokes aside, it doesn’t pass me that our rudimentary understanding of freedom as seen clearly with the political right on issues is also misunderstood by leftists. What do we mean by freedom?
If we take a crack at some boring ass philosophy we can get some clues. One of my go-to figures on this topic is the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who describes the concepts of positive and negative freedom.
Positive Freedom is the ability to act in a way one wishes.
Negative Freedom describes the absence of obstacles, barriers, and or constraints.
Liberalism, in its classical philosophical form, typically supports a negative version of liberty. Freedom in its eyes (if it had eyes) includes the removal of constraint from action aka big government shouldn’t tell you what to do.
This is more akin to the current libertarian/right-wing attitude of freedom we see in the United States because as you will notice when you actually read into liberalism… the current talking points made by many right-wingers are fundamentally liberal.
So, why is this distinction important?
It gives us a framework by which to look at freedom and the considerations of each kind of freedom.
The Problem of Freedom
I think most people would agree with the general alienation they have from their work, they would agree that they fear for the economy and that they have general anxieties about this nation's (the US) future.
We have quite a few data points supporting all three of these worries.
I’m probably going to lose half of my readers with this remark because of years of red scare propaganda but…
Maybe Karl Marx had some points?
The alienation people feel from their work, the diminished promise of economic stability, and elitist interest hurting working-class citizens would compromise freedom.
Anytime we talk about freedom we need to ask two questions.
Freedom to do what?
Freedom for whom?
Historically these have been two contentious topics. Many were or are denied the ability to love who they want, do what they want, and be who they want.
Obviously, we can talk about instances of each based on race, class, and gender but that is beyond the scope of this article.
In these instances, people’s autonomy (their choice) was taken from them.
When someone cannot afford a college education, the freedom to pursue that education is denied. When a person cannot own a business because they’re black, the freedom to own a business is denied. When a person cannot get a medical procedure because they lack insurance their freedom to access healthcare is denied.
In these instances, positive freedom is denied.
If we compare countries that have free healthcare, free education, and other social services (more positive freedoms) to the USA we see greater life satisfaction, better health outcomes, and better educational outcomes.
Does this mean we need to be a social democracy like Nordic countries? Not necessarily.
This bleeds into some of my critique of leftist online spaces…
The thought is since America is probably the most politically right-wing of all Western industrialized countries that it should perhaps copy from the blueprint of other countries that are more socially democratic yet this is misguided.
Outside of differences in culture, politics, history, industry, etc., one thing is clear.
Americans value negative freedoms more than positive ones if we just look at the corporate-sponsored duopoly that contains our political choices.
The American conception of “liberal” is highly skewed. In most countries, the Democratic party would be considered center-right at best, but that’s a story for another time.
Fundamentally, we cannot look at other countries as THE solution to the American issue of freedom. America is unique, not exceptional, in its historic and cultural conception of freedom.
A Path Forward
This comes to the forefront of the problem I have been pontificating in this article. If positive freedom is being denied in many cases should the solution be to increase positive freedom?
This is where we go to the paradox of positive freedom.
Berlin argues that the conception of fulfilling positive freedom contains the dangers of authoritarianism.
In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy section on the paradox of positive freedom, Berlin argues that one could reason the use of a group of elites to control the masses by using the justification of positive freedom.
His main example is the Soviet Union and its issues. While the Soviet Union could be an entire article of its own, I think Berlin’s slippery slope argument has merit.
Government intervention and oversight can be misused and abused to control what people do or think.
One example of this is the concept of the censorship-industrial complex which argues that the government purposefully censored certain forms of information by leveraging big tech companies.
While the person who is championing this idea is highly questionable if we take this concept at face value, what gives government officials the right to censor information?
If we take the freedom argument to its conclusion the censorship of information could potentially be argued to produce positive freedom as belief in harmful rhetoric from misinformation and conspiracy theories can harm autonomy by having us disengage with our “democratic” institutions.
On the flip side, shouldn’t we be free to choose what information to consume free from the interference of outside actors, governmental or otherwise?
This leads us back to the Nazis on Substack problem.
When we try to fulfill positive freedom by allowing for better autonomy we can simultaneously interfere with that autonomy in a way. However, negative freedom can also lead to a lack of autonomy and freedom by being a barrier to choice
While not giving governmental universal healthcare can provide choice in the form of different premium insurances, how much choice does a person who can’t afford most options have?
This is the paradox of freedom itself.
The Paradox of Freedom
Philosopher John Stuart Mill argued greatly for negative freedom especially when it came to ideas.
His conception of the “marketplace of ideas” saw that untethered sharing of ideas no matter how ridiculous or nonsensical can help us get towards the truth by place of debate and inquiry.
However, Mill didn’t contend with the information ecosystem we are currently dealing with.
Misinformation spreads faster than more accurate forms of information, emotional content gets more engagement on social media, and we are generally overloaded with more information than ever before.
In this unfair arrangement, good ideas do not always triumph, and bad ideas do not always fall by the wayside. It is highly plausible that bad ideas, by gaming the information ecosystem not only triumph but thrive.
The purpose of social media is to ultimately make money for the companies who run it, not to provide the most nuanced information humanly possible.
Why do you think we have the doom scroll?
Why do you think Facebook knew social media was detrimental to mental health but decided to keep that information to themselves?
So… maybe negative freedom for information doesn’t necessarily work because in large part due to the profit motive of social media and big tech companies to keep you on their applications as long as possible to extract sweet sweet ad revenue dollars.
Nevertheless, we get into the problem of positive freedom by trying to correct this unfairness by possibly regulating the industry. Who decides what information we can consume and why? What makes information good, bad, helpful, or harmful? Should the government or the market be able to make these decisions?
This was a long-winded, semi-tangent way of saying this shit is complicated and there are no clear answers.
The paradox of freedom would require that we carefully weigh out and consider both positive and negative aspects of freedom because ultimately we need a mixture of both.
Nazis on Substack aren’t THE problem, society is.