The Marketplace of Ideas: A Critique
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2019
- According to scholar of the first amendment C. Edwin Baker, the marketplace ideas metaphor is the dominant rationale given for freedom of speech.
Although not as old as the bill of rights itself, its been used for over a 100 years, since Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes Jr used it Abrams V. United States in 1919.
He said that ‘the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas-that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”
There are many critiques that could be made of the marketplace metaphor, and what’s presented here will be necessarily limited, but taking a look at the concept philosophically while exploring some pivotal moments in the history of the press should serve to highlight where the metaphor fails, and what a more accurate metaphor might look like.
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Credits:
Stock footage provided by Videvo, downloaded from www.videvo.net
The Gentleman's Magazine: Photograph by MichaelMaggs; original author "SYLVANUS URBAN, Gent". [Public domain]
Sources:
Martin Conboy, Journalism: A Critical History
John Nerone, The Media and Public Life: A History
Ralph Negrine, Politics and Mass Media in Britain
Jared Schroeder (2018): Toward a discursive marketplace of ideas: Reimaging the marketplace metaphor in the era of social media, fake news, and artificial intelligence, First Amendment Studies, DOI: 10.1080/21689725.2018.1460215
Robert L. Kerr, IMPARTIAL SPECTATOR IN THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS: THE PRINCIPLES OF ADAM SMITH AS AN ETHICAL BASIS FOR REGULATION OF CORPORATE SPEECH
Apologies for the sore throat! Thanks, as always, to my Patreon supporters. If you'd like to support the channel you can do so at www.patreon.com/thenandnow. Please remember to hit that bell!
Wonderful work. Can I ask if the problem with RUclips monetization is solved and what was their explanation? I'm starting a RUclips channel and the fact that demonetization seems to happen in a very arbitrary manner is pretty worrying. Thanks. Have a nice day,
dude i really love your channel! I'm a media studies student from Universitas Indonesia and we play your video in our class. It's really helpful. Thank you so much.
I really like how this analysis goes beyond the obvious and cliché stuff about "freedom of speech should not tolerate intolerance" but tackles big issues of funding and regulating the media.
The marketplace of ideas gives me shivers. As if ideas are just another commodity that are only valid through popularity. Then it is not about whether your idea provides insight but whether it can compete in terms of popularity.
I think it is just one of the many ways the underlying values of this part of society shine through. The value that profitable = good is a gigantic current that shapes so much of the current world. Popular things are profitable thus popular things are good. That they call it the marketplace of ideas shows that economical undercurrent that pulls so many things in its wake, like ideas.
The most cynical reading views ideas as nothing more than just another object to gain power. On the marketplace there are plenty of products that are made for no other purpose than to make the seller enough money to have power over others, producing a fair or beneficial product is secondary or not even considered. The pet rock is still viewed as an economic success, if you view ideas the same way then things like flat earth are valid simply because they are popular, if people are dumb enough to buy it it is their own fault.
No wonder Trump can flourish in this environment, he is the embodiment of it. Everybody knows everything he does is a scam and a lie and overselling yet it is still valid because it is popular, or better said he makes you BELIEVE it is popular and thus it must be valid. That is basic advertisement, make somebody believe your product is popular and they think that makes it valid because deep down there is this shared value that profit = good -> popular = good
in the marketplace of ideas, it's not the best ideas that win, but the loudest. just like the loudest branding sells the most products in the consumer market.
As someone with long term attention problems I really appreciate how well paced and engaging these videos are! Much appreciation.
My brain is going into recovery mode form all these high level ideas!
It's simple.
The best ideas don't win out by merit.
They win out by appeal.
When everyone is uninformed, the marketplace of ideas sells the the popular, not the correct.
"No tolerance for the intolerant" is just a means of keeping power in the hands of those who decide "I am the force of good".
All limitations to speech serve this purpose.
(Commenting for the algorithm. Great, insightful video!)
(Replying for the algorithm if that's how it works. Agreed!)
Fantastic work as always.
Yet another excellent video, your channel is genuinely criminally underrated imo. Keep up the good work. :)
Excellent content, this came up just recently for me.
Wonderfully insightful video
What where the songs used? Great video btw!
This is a really, REALLY good video essay.
Fantastic video, you always deliver.
Great video!
Been working on a similar essay on the marketplace of ideas for a while. For the marketplace of ideas allegory to work, you'd have to be in a society where people had the same amount of power, and had the same goals and motivations. If there is an incentive for enough to go against discoursive truth, the "best argument" of course will not win. I like using conspiracy sites like infowars as an example here, their motive is to fearmonger, so Alex Jobes likely will not accept the scientifically agreed upon truth on the safety of vaccines, since it goes against his interest.
Thank you so much for this video. I have to learn about the Marketplace of Ideas for my Communications class. It was so boring to read about in the book, but your video made it so interesting.
Wow! Such a great way to present it clearly.
One of the most undersubbed channels on youtube.
8:50 actual footage? Sick, nice content
Best channel on RUclips.
Commented on your last video on Foucault (and Genealogy) about how a reading list would be appreciated. But I see that you put it on your other videos (maybe i also just somehow missed it on that vid). Thanks a lot for that
Another great video! How does one go about researching topics such as the ones that have been covered in "Then & Now", finding such obscure information must be harrowing as well as coming form an isolated localized source, and I'm sure it's dependent on the subject itself, nevertheless, I'm thinking libraries or the internet on basic subjects, but, as I wrote: "finding such obscure information", these have to be the resources of universities, or are there archives that are havens rich in information on subjects that to, the general public have become unknown or forgotten rarities?
Google
Tell me more about this "Goo-gal", you say? Or maybe it was "Gro-goop", yeah, that was it, so where can I get this "ao-called" "Gro-goop", sounds kind of cheap??
The marketplace of ideas can be understood in two overlaying ways: one which sees it's value in allowing ideas to compete so that the best of them can emerge and another in which the successfull realisation of that which should be allowed is expected to be garantied.
Great video!
Great stuff
Excellent, as allways
Whoa, the dominant paradigm of ideas is the paradigm of the dominance of markets? Sounds like the ideology of the ruling class.
I like these ideas, but I think the problems with free speech are the same problems we encounter in free markets, so I'd say the metaphor is pretty apt. It's just the subtext of the metaphor that is misleading, as you correctly point out.
Y'all ever read the works of Alexander Meiklejohn?
What a channel. Why did it took me so much time to find it?
Instant favourite.
10/10
I was just ranting about the use of this phrase yesterday. It's kind of annoying and a perfect example of replacement of language with that of the ruling elite, in their fight for cultural hegemony.
the WEF approves this message!
The marketplace of ideas has always been dumb, but I still think free speech should be the direction to lean towards.
Regulating speech is about power, partly because power allows them to regulate speech, but it also helps them maintain power. It's no mistake that the people who support free speech are always the one's who lack power along some dimension.
The right supports free speech on social media and in university, where they lack hegemony. They also tend to be apologists of speech regulation with regards to Trump.
The reverse is true for the Left. They support regulations on social media and in university, but they are more supportive free speech when it comes to Trump.
This divide is also obviously due to the kinds of issues that come up (exactly what should be banned).
Pessimism about human nature does lead one to realize that the marketplace of ideas is naive. Though it should also make you pessimistic about giving institutions the power to regulate speech in some capacity. (i.e. the same people arguing to put strictures on hate speech also put out rhetoric about the alt-right pipeline, opening up questions about how far they're willing to go.)
I'm with you on most points (although I've become less pessimistic about humanity recently (and more pessimistic about it's future)), but I don't understand your last sentence? Who do you mean by 'they'?
@@Enzaio I think he refers to the ones who want to regulate speech in that case. The 'they' left you a little nervous, right? Why is that?
The antecedent to "they" in the last sentence is "the same people arguing to put strictures on hate speech."
@@stateofthenihil8352 Excuse me, English is not my native language. I'm interested to know which section of the left it is exactly that you mean by "they". It's such is disparate group of people and ideologies, none of which seem particularly dangerous to me (because the ones with the dangerous/misguided ideas - hardcore communists and anarchists - are incredibly marginal).
@@AK-lk6lv You're assuming quite a lot, right? Why is that?
We need market place of ideas now more than ever
Do we? That's the kind of thinking that has MSM platforming fringe extremist climate deniers on equal footing with collectives of scientists who study that kind of thing for a living
But who, the, should be the arbiter of what is extremist or radical, and what is fair and free speech? Because the way things are going now, it's becoming gradually more moralistic. "If you speak in opposition not to any arbitrary or physical factor, but simply my philosophical approach to certain topics or my lifestyle in general, then you are violating me and thus your speech is extreme and should be prevented at all costs." This seems like a far more dangerous approach to someone like me, who values artistic, academic, scientific, political and philosophical discourse free from the worries that the wrong opinion will result in an actual, often physical or financial punishment.
Who decides what's dangerous, what's true and what's moral in a system that moralizes speech? Some people may argue from an oversimplified position on what constitutes free speech, but the opposition to that is refusing to acknowledge that it is campaigning for the absolute and final abolition of speech and opinion altogether, regulating language and expression so that anything that falls outside of their moral framework must result your total annihilation as a speaker. Deplatforming, gagging and complete social exclusion with no chance of redemption.
Is that really a *better* or or more just system?
Wouldn't a retort to your main point be that the market of ideas works, but only in the long term? I mean every time you mentioned a good idea that failed you come back to the fact that it succeeded later. To keep with the analogy, maybe this is an issue with the salesman, not the product?
The "Marketplace of Ideas" is the most idiotic, corruptive, dangerous metaphor since original sin. In order to accept it, you would have to think that the validity of an idea is the most important thing influencing its persuasive power. We know better. People like ideas that make them comfortable, and that they are frequently exposed to. Truth often makes people uncomfortable, and the frequency of exposure is dependent on who has the loudest, most persistent megaphone.
I would actually say that original sin, depending on how it's understood, is an argument against the implicit argument of the marketplace of ideas.
Lies have a distinct advantage over truth in the "marketplace of ideas", because they're not constrained by observable reality or even by reason. The marketplace only favors ideas that capture people's attention and motivate them to spread those ideas.
I think you pivot from talking about the marketplace of ideas to talking about the news media as though they are synonymous. They are not. Your critique does not apply to, say, a library. (In practice libraries curate their collections pretty fairly. One need only give people the advice to "not judge a book by its cover". Here can be found the physical embodiment the metaphor in our present world.)
Kierkegaard has a good critique of the news vis-à-vis the public.
In any event, let's not imagine that in order to fix the news or the public that we have to critique the rudiments of how humans evaluate things by passing judgement on them freely.
There is one huge flaw in this entire presentation. It assumes that for the marketplace of ideas metaphor to be valuable as a test of the meaning and effectiveness of free speech, it must meet these absolutely utopian standards of equal access, neutrality, and universal accessibility. Freedom is a relative concept. Marketplace is free to the extent that it is better than the alternatives. So the question that we must answer is, free compared to what? The two examples given of the falsity of the marketplace of ideas metaphor, the abolitionist movement in mid-19 century America and the chartist movement in Great Britain prove my point exactly. The cause of abolition of slavery did eventually triumph, despite its short term failure. The same is true for the chartist movement in Great Britain. Five out of the six points of the chartist movement did prevail within the next 70 years. Does this time delay prove that the marketplace of ideas metaphor is a gross distortion of the process of sorting through new ideas? The author obviously thinks that it does, but from my perspective it proves just the opposite. The marketplace of ideas metaphor is an excellent description of the ultimate success of both abolitionism and the Chartist movement for more democratic representation. The author makes his case by restricting the timeframe of the effectiveness of the marketplace to the immediate aftermath of the original publication. This is a completely unrealistic standard. The truth does emerge from a debate amongst competing ideas. I know of no other system that has led to even this degree of limited progress. I hear no suggestion as to a better method or system for sorting through competing and antagonistic ideas. In other words, this critique is a perfect example of the dangers of making the perfect the enemy of the good.
The marketplace of ideas NEVER stated which kind of means can be used to propagate ideas. It makes no case for fairness or against dirty competition so this critique is a non sequitur.
Senko S. That’s precisely what the video is about. Reducing such a complex system into some “hurr durr market will fix itself, don’t worry about it lol” metaphor is a perfectly valid critique.
@@mesahusa but this metaphor works 100% the market will favor the most capable propagators. People just hate that these propagators aren't always on their side and then rally together like insectoids. The system isn't complex at all if you understand what agency, self interest and ressourcess are.
@@Senumunu What is your definition of 'works'? Leaving things to the market doesn't let good ideas shine, only the ones that can produce the most capital. Do you think that money can in its totality solve all the world's problems? Like it did with slavery?
@@mesahusa I don't give a shit about slavery. It's an inefficient system and money is not there to solve certain problems. Production and reproduction of capital is the effect of choices not of what you think you want or need. All ideas that "shine" in today's markets especially the liberal and neoliberal ones shine bcs they are advantageous to capital. Nothing else.
Your use of the words racist and sexist disproves the market place of ideas. Even though you understand how the press works your not aware as to how it effects you
The problem is that there are too many regulations.
The conclusions here don't follow at all.
You've shown that there are imbalances in which ideas are dominant or entrenched in culture, and then used examples like voting rights and abolition of slavery which actually won out in the end as examples of things that faced resistance from entrenched interests.
This seems like a perfect fit for a market metaphor. Unless you're not actually using a market as a metaphor, and instead using some kind of magical fantasy version of the market that instantly adopts the best version of every product as if that is the only possible factor that influenced it.
Attacking that version of 'the market' seems kind of strawmanny, only the most deluded 14 year old libertarian would imagine a market actually works like that.
But that aside, let's admit there are problems with 'the marketplace of ideas'. How do we jump to the assumption that the government should be regulating it? You actually need to show that it would somehow solve the problem to have the government doing that, not just show that there is a problem in the first place. Maybe that problem is unsolvable, maybe government intervention will make it worse (which is the underlying assumption of free speech laws). We can't just wave the magic government stick at things and hope they disappear.
This whole thing also works on the premise that inertia in the system is bad because it slows or blocks the ascendancy of good ideas like abolitionism. But it doesn't specifically impede the adoption good ideas, it impedes the adoption of NEW ideas. How many new ideas turn out to be stupid and destructive, like phrenology, fascism or Scientology? In those instances we could have used a lot more inertia from incumbent cultural narratives to protect us, so simply pointing out that incumbency slows the adoption of good ideas isn't the full picture. It's like pointing to autoimmune diseases and suggesting that it proves we'd be much better off without white blood cells, or a libertarian who points out the pitfalls of legislation and then suggests we shouldn't have a government, and yet never addresses the problems that were trying to be solved in the first place.
It's easy to point out the flaws in systems, but that doesn't imply carte blanche to decide on arbitrary solutions or substitutions.
Steve M It is not guaranteed that good ideas like abolitionism will eventually win in the marketplace of ideas. Good doesn’t always triumph, and this is a reason to try to create a level playing field. The problem is that certain ideas have a advantage over others from the get-go and that some potentially good ideas are even forced down into obscurity for years or forever. You’re fighting a straw man with another straw man, saying that his argument is that the best ideas will always triumph. He is not saying this: he’s saying that in the past and present there are certain dynamics that elevate certain ideas, whether they are in fact good or bad, over others. If all ideas were equalized, it may be that the best idea is chosen or it may be that the most flashy and “high-calorie” idea is chosen; the best that we can assure as a society, using the power available to us, namely the democratic state, to at least put the fair conflict on the table, replacing the current one-sided domination of those ideas with money, rhetoric, and clout behind them. Of course, a tyrannical government (such as North Korea) would not be a good instrument to use. But the American government in principle can make things better due to its relative transparency.
In short, the author of this video is showing that current power imbalances exist and that one solution is to try to equalize these dynamics to create a true marketplace of ideas, now one more suited to democratic and rational choice of the better ideas. If something like phrenology becomes ascendant, so be it. It is more worth it, in my opinion, to allow Reason to judge ideas in principle than it is for the form of the marketplace of ideas to choose victors on the basis of money, power, or rhetoric (or for the government/corporations to choose a victor)
It’s your mistake for assuming the marketplace of ideas would be perfectly fair and not like financial or social markets. Morality has nothing to do with it.
First
You ignored the most important issue- the alternatives are far worse. Thanks for the leftist nonsense.
You ignore the catastrophic failures of the current situation because you're unable to imagine new alternatives that are better. Thanks for the rightist nonsense.