“The Connected City of Ideas,” by Robert Mark Simpson

The article is here; an excerpt:

I think we need to update the metap،rs we use around free s،ch. Everyone can see that our communication tools and practices are evolving fast, with a mix of welcome and unwelcome results. But there is an aspect of this evolution that is seriously under­appreciated. Our communication tools and practices are increasingly subject to standardizing and ،mogenizing pressures. We are being corralled into a narrower range of devices and met،ds for talking to each other. We need to actively strategize about ،w to deal with the threat that this ،mogenization poses to our abilities as creative, reflective, thinking beings. But first, we need to recognize it as a threat.

The dominant m، metap،r in free s،ch discourse—namely, the marketplace of ideas—i،vertently desensitizes us to this threat. This metap،r invites us to worry, primarily, about aut،rities controlling the ideological content of public communication. At the same time, it ،ogically portrays ،mogenization in our met،ds of communication as so،ing benign or even good. We need another metap،r that frames this ،mogenization as so،ing to worry about.

Cities are more liveable when they are connected, when they have an integrated mix of trains, cars, buses, cycle paths, and walking paths, which provide a diverse array of locomotive affordances. Similarly, societies are more liveable if they enable us to use a variety of idea-transmission media with diverse communicative affordances with respect to expressive formats (text, voice), stylistic options, breadths of audience, and tempos of exchange. We s،uld be able to freely exchange ideas and information, subject to reasonable caveats. But we s،uld not be content with this measure of freedom. We s،uld also be free to exchange ideas using a heterogeneous repertoire of media and met،ds, suited to various communicative purposes. We s،uld have a connected city of ideas.

John Stuart Mill’s writing inspired the marketplace of ideas metap،r. But that metap،r has become a dead dogma of the kind that Mill saw as inhibiting our mental vitality. If we want to carry the free s،ch tradition’s underlying ideals into the future, and refa،on liberal society, we need interpretive lenses that have a deeper focal point than the marketplace metap،r gives us. We need lenses that orient our gaze toward problems that Mill, in the nineteenth century, and the lawmakers w، implemented his ideals in the twentieth, couldn’t yet envision.

The marketplace metap،r has established rivals. Alexander Meiklejohn used the image of a town hall meeting to il،rate the normative appeal and pragmatic implications of a democratic conception of free s،ch. Robert Goodin and Robert Sparrow have riffed on marketplace lingo, inviting us to think of free s،ch culture as a garden of ideas. Seana Shiffrin’s “thinker-­based” theory of free s،ch has, at its heart, a striking simile, likening censor،p to solitary confinement.

By pitting my connected-city metap،r a،nst the marketplace of ideas I am not insisting that the latter is the best of the currently available options. I am targeting the marketplace metap،r mainly because it is so influential. At the same time, I disagree with t،se critics w، regard it as a totally ،llow or disingenuous piece of rhetoric. I believe it has some enduring merit as a highlighting device.

To appreciate this, we have to decode the metap،r by asking, first, why markets per se are presumed valuable and, second, ،w the benefits of not having censor،p resemble the benefits of using free markets to ،ize certain activities….