The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
My Remarks at the Harvard Vigil
On Charlie Kirk, violence, and speech.
There's been some press coverage—The Harvard Crimson, Boston Globe—of the Charlie Kirk vigil last night at Harvard, where I spoke alongside several students as well as my colleagues Randy Kennedy and Adrian Vermeule. I thought I'd recount my remarks here to give them full context, as well as to give credit where credit's due. Below is the prepared text, adjusted to match its delivery, as best I can remember it:
Thank you.
I want to confess that I was a little apprehensive in accepting your invitation to speak.
First, I was worried that it would be presumptuous, as I feel that I know so much less of Charlie Kirk's life and work than so many of you do. I deeply appreciate the students who have spoken today.
Second, I was apprehensive that in a place like Harvard, mourning Charlie Kirk would make one a target of opprobrium or disgust. There are some who believe those deeply moved by Kirk's murder, the widowing of his wife, and the fatherlessness of his children, shouldn't be so moved unless they're willing to take as their own every statement Kirk made and every position Kirk held. Charlie Kirk helped to put on the table on college campuses a wide range of conservative views; that's why so many people are here, who don't all agree about everything. I feel that no one here should feel it their burden to defend everything that other people might believe in order to mourn his unjust death. In that, I'd agree with Jonathan Adler, who noted that one can be a martyr without having to be a saint.
Third, I was apprehensive that it could make one a more literal target, that there could be some wacko out there. As to that, Kirk's example is one of very real courage—not just physical courage, knowing the sort of threats he faced, but intellectual courage, the kind that's necessary to stand under a sign that reads "prove me wrong" and take the very real risk that the next person to step up to the microphone might do just that.
Kirk was, certainly, a gifted communicator. And some think that it's by the gifts of such communicators that a political or intellectual movement thrives or fails. That may be true—in the short run. But in the long run, what makes more difference is the courage to pursue the truth, the courage that leads you to seek out the chance to be proven wrong.
Scott Alexander once wrote that a short-term "focus on transmission" may be
part of the problem. Everyone … knows that they are right. The only remaining problem is how to convince others. Go on Facebook and you will find a million people with a million different opinions, each confident in her own judgment, each zealously devoted to informing everyone else.
Instead, he writes,
… Debate is difficult and annoying. It doesn't scale. It only works on the subset of people who are willing to talk to you in good faith and smart enough to understand the issues involved. And even then, it only works glacially slowly, and you win only partial victories. What's the point?
Logical debate has one advantage over narrative, rhetoric, and violence: it's an asymmetric weapon. That is, it's a weapon which is stronger in the hands of the good guys than in the hands of the bad guys. In ideal conditions (which may or may not ever happen in real life) … the good guys will be able to present stronger evidence, cite more experts, and invoke more compelling moral principles. The whole point of logic is that, when done right, it can only prove things that are true.
Violence, by contrast,
is a symmetric weapon; the bad guys' punches hit just as hard as the good guys' do. … [H]opefully the good guys will be more popular than the bad guys, and so able to gather more soldiers. But … the good guys will only be more popular … insofar as their ideas have previously spread through some means other than violence. …
Unless you use asymmetric weapons, the best you can hope for is to win by coincidence…. Overall you should average out to a 50% success rate. When you win, it'll be because you got lucky.
Remember, he writes,
You are not completely immune to facts and logic. But you have been wrong about things before. You may be a bit smarter than the people on the other side. You may even be a lot smarter. But fundamentally their problems are your problems, and the same kind of logic that convinced you can convince them. It's just going to be a long slog. You didn't develop your opinions after a five-minute shouting match. You developed them after years of education and acculturation and engaging with hundreds of books and hundreds of people. Why should they be any different? …
All of this is too slow and uncertain for a world that needs more wisdom now. It would be nice to force the matter, to pelt people with speeches and documentaries until they come around. This will work in the short term. In the long term, it will leave you back where you started.
If you want people to be right more often than chance, you have to teach them ways to distinguish truth from falsehood. If this is in the face of enemy action, you will have to teach them so well that they cannot be fooled. You will have to do it person by person until the signal is strong and clear. You will have to raise the sanity waterline. There is no shortcut.
I hope that Kirk's example will help remind us of this—of the need for the courage to pursue the truth, person by person—and that, zichrono livracha, his memory will be a blessing.
Thank you.
(updated 12:42 p.m. to add the names of other speakers)
