Sympathy for the devil: Amala Ekpunobi and the free speech dilemma

For better or, frankly, for worse, our political discourse is like a field of weeds: the same debates and controversies bloom and recede with every season, and new fads take root or are outcompeted by the impenetrable thicket of new debates as we hack and slash our way through tired talking points. Such a crowded ecosystem leaves little opportunity for an issue to remain in the public eye for long before it is supplanted by another species of controversy, so it is noteworthy when one does survive. In particular, I have always been interested in that perennial flytrap of writers, “concerned intellectuals,” and pundits: the campus freespeech debate. Recent events have once again brought this issue into sharp relief. Amala Ekpunobi’s arrival on campus last fall stirred the expected fights over “civil discourse” that so recently filled the pages of this newspaper. Then, in late February, the Division of Student Affairs announced the creation of a course called “Dialogue Across Difference” that is dedicated to fostering “open dialogue.”

The donor funding the new course extolled the virtues of campus free speech and lamented that “The concept of ‘cancelling’ someone because of their opinions and viewpoints is anathema to the fundamental purposes of higher education and human advancement.” It is yet another clash between the ideals of the free marketplace of ideas and the enforcement of safe spaces.

Basically, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.

On the face of it, Ekpunobi appears to be yet another in a long line of conservative influencers spouting talking points — talking points which others have rightfully criticized as blatantly incorrect. But if Ekpunobi is now an adherent of conservative talking points, it is only because she was once an adherent of leftist talking points. As Ekpunobi tells it, she followed in the footsteps of her activist mother, joining her mother’s group as an organizer. Spending so much time around fellow left-wing advocates, however, exposed her to what she describes as rampant, casual anti-white racism. The event pushed her to think more critically about the positions she inherited from her mother and eventually turned her into an acolyte of Thomas Sowell, a defender of the free market, an opponent of wokeness, a veritable Saint Paul — in other words, a “free thinker.”

From this perspective, we might easily conclude that this is an example of triumph over leftist indoctrination. But how, exactly, was Ekpunobi indoctrinated in the first place? Presumably, she was not threatened by her parents or peers — simply put, she just had never given the ideas much thought. We are left, then, with the oxymoronic possibility that her former earnest belief in left-leaning values did not imply genuine contemplation — that an idea can make others believe it even if they have not really thought about it. As benign as this concept seems, it holds serious consequences for our endless debate about free speech. Perhaps

Ekpunobi would dismiss it as another example of leftist indoctrination. I prefer the term coined by former Vice writer and commentator Sam Kriss: this is an example of a “demon.”

Kriss begins his review of Dostoevsky’s “Demons” with, well, a history of demons. Not the traditional Christian demon, a figure of winged, fiery fury, but rather the demon of the Torah. In the Jewish tradition, these demons are not terrifying monsters, but a silent, invasive species of the mind that “[changes] the way you act, or the way you look, or the way you speak. A demon possesses you: it speaks its own words out of your mouth.”

Dostoevsky’s book tells the story of a murder plot by a group of Marxist revolutionaries scheming during the twilight of the Russian Empire. Dostoevsky was a staunch conservative and no doubt would have denounced the socialists as demons had they really existed. But Kriss suggests a far subtler demonology. Each revolutionary, Kriss points out, declares their loyal commitment to the revolution in flowery, grandiose manifestos and monologues, and yet each and every one is revealed to privately contradict socialist thought. For example, Varvara, one of the plot’s supporters, proclaims that only “inveterate old men” ignore the popularity of socialist ideas. Varvara, ironically, is herself a wealthy landowner, the exact enemy of the socialist cause. Is it accurate to call them pretenders and hypocrites? In some sense, yes. And yet, these people really do slay a man for the sake of the undying revolution. And while much of their thought reflects no genuine socialist ideology, it does, at the very least, reflect their own genuine ideology, even if, like Varvara, they cobble it together from external sources. Kriss expresses this contradiction best: “‘Demons’ isn’t the nightmare of vicious ideologues taking over the world. It depicts a far subtler horror: an ideology that is everywhere, but that nobody really believes.”

Dostoevsky’s horrors, as subtle as they may be, are not far removed from us. In 2017, Kriss, known as an outspoken feminist on Twitter, admitted to allegations of sexual harassment. Kriss was a committed Marxist himself, had surrounded himself with social justice advocates, and had more than proven his commitment to feminist causes. And yet here he was, felled in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Are we to pronounce Kriss nothing short of a liar? Or do we see in his biting critiques of antifeminism the shadow of a demon that manufactures the illusions of true belief even in the face of hypocrisy?

Who can really say? A demon possesses you. It speaks its own words out of your mouth, of an ideology that is everywhere, but that you don’t really believe.

First place: “I don’t care what that t-shirt said, Reggie, the man with a law degree is telling us that it’s ‘bear arms’!” Umar Hanif | Current