Repressive Tolerance

The visit to the NY Tolerance Center yesterday and the escalating subway searches here, have me thinking about the relationship between tolerance, fascism and civil liberties.

In 1965, Herbert Marcuse wrote an essay called "Repressive Tolerance." I really like this bit:

Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the Left. As to the scope of this tolerance and intolerance: . . . it would extend to the stage of action as well as of discussion and propaganda, of deed as well as of word. The traditional criterion of clear and present danger seems no longer adequate to a stage where the whole society is in the situation of the theater audience when somebody cries: “fire.” It is a situation in which the total catastrophy could be triggered off any moment, not only by a technical error, but also by a rational miscalculation of risks, or by a rash speech of one of the leaders. In past and different circumstances, the speeches of the Fascist and Nazi leaders were the immediate prologue to the massacre. The distance between the propaganda and the action, between the organization and its release on the people had become too short. But the spreading of the word could have been stopped before it was too late: if democratic tolerance had been withdrawn when the future leaders started their campaign, mankind would have had a chance of avoiding Auschwitz and a World War.

There is a way in which "tolerance" as some sort of content-free concept, set apart from any sort of socio-political context becomes, like patriotism, the last refuge of scoundrels. I think that an understanding of "tolerance" that equates the terrorist acts of 9/11, which were attacks against a super power with attacks against minority group members, falls into what a misuse of the very notion of tolerance and becomes, what Marcuse terms, repressive tolerance, a perversion of tolerance:

The conditions under which tolerance can again become a liberating and humanizing force have still to be created. When tolerance mainly serves the protection and preservation of a repressive society, when it serves to neutralize opposition and to render men [sic] immune against other and better forms of life, then tolerance has been perverted.

True in 1965, still true in 2005.

Monday is Tolerance Day

Last Monday I was delighted to meet with Brian Marcus, Director of Internet Monitoring at the ADL . They are doing some amazing work there, and Brian has, quite possibly, the world's coolest job. Brian is also the liaison to the INACH, and I was gratified to learn that the organization is active, vital and meeting in New York City at the end of September.

This Monday (today), I'm scheduled to visit the new New York Tolerance Center . Of course, I'm especially interested in their Globalhate.com part of the exhibit.

Hate Crime in NYC, 2000-2004

Interesting piece in the NYTimes about hate crime from Sunday. It's short, and the URL will expire, so I include the entire text here:

Breaking Down Hate Crime

By JO CRAVEN McGINTY

When a group of white men attacked three black men on the streets of Howard Beach, Queens, last month, severely beating one with a baseball bat, it was the 125th hate crime in New York this year, according to records collected by the Police Department.

The attack echoed an assault from nearly 20 years earlier when another group of white men armed with bats chased three black men through the same neighborhood, causing the death of one victim, who ran in front of a car while trying to escape.
In one notable difference, two suspects in the latest attack have been charged with first-degree assault as a hate crime — a provision that did not exist in New York until the Hate Crimes Act of 2000. That law, for the first time, allowed harsher sentences for criminals who single out victims because of personal traits like sexual orientation, race or religion. As a result, these suspects, if convicted, would face a minimum penalty of eight years in prison — compared with a five-year minimum for regular assault.

Since 2000, the city’s 23-member Hate Crimes Task Force has investigated nearly 2,000 crimes and determined that 95 percent of them were motivated by hate, including 20 percent that involved physical attacks.

But, like all crime, hate crimes have decreased, dropping 44 percent from 2000 through 2004, with physical attacks decreasing by nearly half.

Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood of the Hate Crimes Task Force attributed the trend to several factors: The Hate Crimes Act, which he said put people on notice; the existence of the task force, which has operated since 1980; and the resolution of high-profile hate crimes, including the first Howard Beach attacks; the 1989 shooting death of a black teenager in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn; and the 1991 stabbing death of a Hasidic Jew in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

“There’s been a modification of human behavior in New York over the last 10 or 12 years,” Inspector Osgood said. “People are just behaving better in the city.”

The article also includes a couple of decent graphics, but blogger didn't seem to want to load those, so you'll have to track those down yourself if you want to see them.

This bit of reporting on hate crimes interesting for a few reasons. First of all, it's framed around the most recent Howard Beach incident which is getting a lot of press locally, while another hate crime that happened just days before and left the victim in much worse condition, is not getting much press at all. The difference? The incident *not* getting much coverage was an intraracial, homophobic incident. The incident in Howard Beach features a big, beefy white guy who, frankly, just looks the part of hate crime perp. Secondly, I find the complete absence of any mention of the Internet noteworthy. On the face of it, one could say that as Internet participation in hate groups goes up, hate crimes are simultaneously trending in the other direction. Correlation, I know, not causation, but interesting nevertheless. And, the distinction between hate online and hate crimes is an important one to keep in mind, and one that is lost in much of the literature on hate. Finally, the patterns of hate crimes in the city are interesting. According to the article, the majority of hate crimes are anti-semitic and occur in the Brooklyn's 61st precinct, home of the largest Hasidic neighborhood, Borough Park. This makes me wonder if there is a greater likelihood of reporting bias crimes in this community, or if the incidents are, in fact, actually higher there. If they are, then this raises questions about the relative safety of 'enclave' neighborhoods, such as Borough Park.

Friedman: Words Matter

This editorial appeared on the editorial page of today's New York Times . I include the whole thing here, as I think it's noteworthy.

Giving the Hatemongers No Place to Hide

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I wasn't surprised to read that British police officers in white protective suits and blue gloves were combing through the Iqra Learning Center bookstore in Leeds for clues to the 7/7 London bombings. Some of the 7/7 bombers hung out at the bookstore. And I won't be surprised if today's bombers also sampled the literature there.

Iqra not only sold hatemongering Islamist literature, but, according to The Wall Street Journal, was "the sole distributor of Islamgames, a U.S.-based company that makes video games. The video games feature apocalyptic battles between defenders of Islam and opponents. One game, Ummah Defense I, has the world 'finally united under the Banner of Islam' in 2114, until a revolt by disbelievers. The player's goal is to seek out and destroy the disbelievers."

Guess what: words matter. Bookstores matter. Video games matter. But here is our challenge: If the primary terrorism problem we face today can effectively be addressed only by a war of ideas within Islam - a war between life-affirming Muslims against those who want to turn one of the world's great religions into a death cult - what can the rest of us do?

More than just put up walls. We need to shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears. The State Department produces an annual human rights report. Henceforth, it should also produce a quarterly War of Ideas Report, which would focus on those religious leaders and writers who are inciting violence against others.

I would compile it in a nondiscriminatory way. I want the names of the Jewish settler extremists who wrote "Muhammad Is a Pig" on buildings in Gaza right up there with Sheik Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, a Saudi who is imam of Islam's holy mosque in Mecca. According to the Memri translation service, the imam was barred from Canada following "a report about his sermons by Memri that included Al-Sudayyis calling Jews 'the scum of the earth' and 'monkeys and pigs' who should be 'annihilated.' Other enemies of Islam were referred to by Sheik Al-Sudayyis as 'worshipers of the cross' and 'idol-worshiping Hindus' who must be fought."

Sunlight is more important than you think. Those who spread hate do not like to be exposed, noted Yigal Carmon, the founder of Memri, which monitors the Arab-Muslim media. The hate spreaders assume that they are talking only to their own, in their own language, and can get away with murder. When their words are spotlighted, they often feel pressure to retract, defend or explain them.

"Whenever they are exposed, they react the next day," Mr. Carmon said. "No one wants to be exposed in the West as a preacher of hate."

We also need to spotlight the "excuse makers," the former State Department spokesman James Rubin said. After every major terrorist incident, the excuse makers come out to tell us why imperialism, Zionism, colonialism or Iraq explains why the terrorists acted. These excuse makers are just one notch less despicable than the terrorists and also deserve to be exposed. When you live in an open society like London, where anyone with a grievance can publish an article, run for office or start a political movement, the notion that blowing up a busload of innocent civilians in response to Iraq is somehow "understandable" is outrageous. "It erases the distinction between legitimate dissent and terrorism," Mr. Rubin said, "and an open society needs to maintain a clear wall between them."

There is no political justification for 9/11, 7/7 or 7/21. As the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen put it: "These terrorists are what they do." And what they do is murder.

Finally, we also need to shine a bright light on the "truth tellers." Every week some courageous Arab or Muslim intellectual, cleric or columnist publishes an essay in his or her media calling on fellow Muslims to deal with the cancer in their midst. The truth tellers' words also need to be disseminated globally. "The rulers in these countries have no interest in amplifying the voices of moderates because the moderates often disagree with the rulers as much as they disagree with the extremists," said Husain Haqqani, author of the new book "Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military." "You have to deal us moderates into the game by helping to amplify our voices and exposing the extremists and their amen corner."

Every quarter, the State Department should identify the Top 10 hatemongers, excuse makers and truth tellers in the world. It wouldn't be a cure-all. But it would be a message to the extremists: you are free to say what you want, but we are free to listen, to let the whole world know what you are saying and to protect every free society from hate spreaders like you. Words matter.


This is classic Friedman, in my opinion. Classic, because while I agree with him in broad strokes about not harboring hatemongers, I'm simultaneously stunned by his parochialism and myopia revealed his list of who the hatemongers are. Where are the white supremacists in this list? Given that the most deadly homegrown terrorism in the U.S. (prior to 9/11) was perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh, a white supremacist, the ommission on Friedman's part is egregious.

Ubiquitous Computing & White Supremacy

I've been reading a lot of Phil Agre's stuff this summer, most recently this article (Agre, Philip E. 2002. “Cyberspace As American Culture.” Science As Culture 11: 171-189), which has given me a lot of food for thought. In it, he makes a compelling case for 'cyberspace' being an ideological construction and not a thing, or place, separate from 'the real world.' Here's a brief bit:

“My question, then, is this: is networked information technology separate from the world, or is it part of the world? Is the Internet replacing the vast sprawl of institutional arrangements in society, or is it increasingly embedded in those arrangements?

“It is easy to think of a traditional mainframe or personal computer as a parallel reality; the clumsy keyboard and screen interfaces to those computers can easily seem like a small window onto a different world. The main trend in computer interface design, however, is toward adapting computers to embodied activities: designing them to be portable, embedding them in cars and clothing, making them aware of their physical location, building them into special –purpose ‘information appliances’, enabling them to be ‘nomadically’ on the Internet wherever they go, and allowing them to establish spontaneous wireless network connections with any (p.182) other devices in their immediate vicinity. This kind of ‘ubiquitous’ computing (Weiser, 1993) is no longer remote from the world of routine activities and relationships. Interaction with computers is now indissociable from interaction with people and things, and it no longer makes sense to speak of a boundary between the cyberspace world and the real world.” (p.181)

Nothing really earth-shattering or revelatory here (this is part of Howard Rheingold's point in Smart Mobs), but a solidly argued point, nonetheless.

What gives me pause in all this is contemplating how (not if) white supremacists are deploying 'ubiquitous' computing for their nefarious ends. And, what does a 'smart mob' look like when the ones doing the smart-mobbing are neo-Nazis? One could speculate that it looks a lot like a lynch mob. To flip that, how can 'ubiquitous' computing be used to take action *against* white supremacists?

All questions today, no answers.

Culture of Tolerance v. Culture of Terror

I subscribe to the ADL newsletter and through the inbox this week was a piece positing a "Culture of Tolerance" vs. "Culture of Terror," here's a clip:

"The awful truth is that the terrorists want to destroy tolerance more than anything else. Societies in which people with different religious affiliations and political beliefs live harmoniously each other are anathema to their worldview, which is based on violence and religious fanaticism. The terrorists will not rest until they have removed our fundamental right to disagree cordially with each other. In that sense, there is a common thread which binds Al Qaeda to the totalitarian nightmares of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union."

It's provocative food for thought, given there is a lot of discussion at ICTE these days about defining exactly what is meant by "tolerance."

Ultimately, I'm not sure what I think about this frame for current events, but it does seem at least partially consistent with Benjamin Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld.

Webbing Global * Identities

I continue to plow through stacks of literature, and came across this fascinating article called, "Under the Rainbow Flag: Webbing Global Gay Identities," (by Bettina, et al., International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies, 2002) which presents a "cultural symbol analysis and visual imagery content analysis" of a number of GLBT web sites.

Really interesting article in a number of ways. I'm struck by the similarities-- and differences -- between the WS-groups I'm looking at, and the GLBT groups in the article, as both are using the Web to shape identities across national boundaries. Here's an excerpt:

"“Certainly, strong thematic similarities and value orientations become apparent among these sites, most notably an enthusiastic embrace of new electronic technologies to link individuals and to bring them out of the isolation of closeted lives into a network of others like them. The loneliness of GLBT lives; the frustration of lacking local, national, or transnational queer histories; and the need for safe, reliable information to make GLBT lives simpler and safer are long-standing themes in GLBT literatures and oral histories around the globe. The ways that GLBT individuals engineer and design the Web sites used in this analysis reflect these needs. Linking individuals for potential dyadic relationships, for group-based political advocacy, or for resources purposes appears a primary aim of these sites. Together, these sites also manifest the existence of a global queer space. Although these sites reveal strong differences – in colors, in language used, in themes, in Web design, and so forth – they also constitute a globally linked space created and maintained by sexual minority members of various national backgrounds. These linkages exist in the form of actual electronic connections, joint symbols (e.g., rainbow flag), joint language (e.g., local adaptations or homonyms of ‘gay’), exchange of news items, and global activism campaigns (e.g., an Internet user in the United States can case a ‘vote’ on a German GLBT Web site). Images of GLBT people from across the world, the strongest antidote to the invisibility of sexual minority members, can be retrieved with a few keyboard strokes.”

Setting aside for a moment the nasty "loneliness" comment in this passage, it would be fairly easy to substitute WS here for GLBT. Of course, making such a substitution reveals the subtle way that the authors assume GLBT-folks connecting via the web is a Very Good Thing(tm), not an assumption one is likely to share about WS-folks connecting via the web.

What does all this mean? From my perspective, it means that there are some abstractions to be made about identity-formation on the web among marginalized groups.

Internet as "Powerful Machine for Recruiting"

I've been searching the research literature for evidence to support the notion that social movement organizations (of any kind) have effectively used the Internet as a recruiting tool. I've yet to find much that makes this case. There are, however, an abundance of news reports and media tales of the Internet as a kind of deus ex machina. Most recently, this story appeared in the Christian Science Monitor about the recruitment of Islamic terrorists.

Here are a few snippets from the article:

"But it is the confluence of America's decision to invade Iraq and new communication technologies that has created the most powerful machine for recruiting new terrorists in history, says Evan Kohlmann, an American terrorism consultant who has tracked jihadi websites since the late 1990s.

"America and its allies are now facing a multifront war: In Iraq, which is turning out a new generation of Arab jihadis; in Europe, where Muslim admirers of Al Qaeda are embracing the cause because of anger over the Iraq war; and on the Internet, which has become a megaphone for radical jihadi ideologies.

In this piece, for instance, the Internet is both a "powerful" recruiting mechanism and a "megaphone." Both of characterizations, it seems to me, fail to understand the medium. A powerful recruiting tool would have to have some way of luring members, which the Internet lacks. And, a "megaphone" suggests a kind of broadcast medium. The real story about the role the Internet plays here is about offering connection, links between otherwise isolated individuals and groups.

And, of course, understanding the Internet within the broader context of Jihad vs. McWorld is the real challenge, one that I haven't seen elsewhere yet.

International Conference

Received this notice via email today:

Dear Sir/Madam,

On behalf of the organizational board, programme committee and the board of workshop chairs, please let me to announce you, that after consideration in the board of workshop chairs and upon suggestions and remarks of members of the programme committee,

Your paper has been accepted both for oral presentation and for publication in proceedings of the Cyberspace 2005 international conference.

With such regards, the organizational board would like to kindly invite you to personally participate on the conference. As a delegate with domicile outside Czech rep., the conference will provide you ....[with all fees for conference, accommodations, and meals]."


Nice! Looks like I'll be in the Czech Republic for my birthday in November.

Internet's Impact on Society & Thoughts on White Supremacy

Back to blogging after a break for lots of off-line busy-ness. During that break, I've had two articles related to the book accepted for publication in special issues of peer-reviewed journals. Gotta love those special issues. I'm still waiting to hear back on the abstract I submitted to the cyberspace conference in the Czech Republic for November. The conference is scheduled for the same day as my birthday, how could they *not* ask me to present?

I've been reading a huge stack of articles about the Internet and about white supremacy. Sometimes these overlap, often they don't.

Most recently, I read a piece from the 2001 Annual Review of Sociology, by DiMaggio, et al., called “Social Implications of the Internet,” which is an excellent review article. Lots of relevant bits for my work, I'll just pull out a couple here. Supporting my argument (from the previous post) about the Internet and cultural hegemony, the authors write:

"With respect to content, US producers dominate the Web, creating and hosting a large percentage of the most visited Web sites (OECD 1997) and so establishing English as the Internet’s dominant language.” (p.312)

And, they also make a really interesting point about what they call "information abundance" (similar to what David Shenk has called "data smog").

DiMaggio, et al. write:

"Sociologists should be concerned not only with inequality in access to the Internet, but with inequality in access to the attention of those who use the Internet. By dramatically reducing the cost of the replication and distribution of information, the Internet has the potential to create arenas for more voices than any other previous communication medium by putting product dissemination within the reach of the individual.

p.313 “Information abundance creates a new problem, however: attention scarcity (Goldhaber 1997). Content creators can only reach large audiences if online gatekeepers – Web services that categorize online information and provide links and search facilities to other sites – channel users to them (Hargittai 2000b). Yet Internet traffic is highly concentrated: 80% of site visits are to just .5% of Web sites (Waxman 2000a). As was the case with broadcast media, the growth and commercialization of the Internet has been accompanied by a commodification of attention. A rapidly evolving mosaic of search engines and point-of-entry sites compete for dominance (NUA 2000a), playing a pivotal role in channeling users’ attention toward some contents and away from others (Hargittai 2000b)." (p.313)

This resonates with me and my own experience of Internet use. And, it also gives me pause to think about nuances of an argument I'm developing on the impact of white supremacists on the Net. The 'pro' argument, if you will, is (rather crudely stated) that white supremacists online can create a global network of organizations and rhetoric that gives rise to an increase in extremist movements, hate crimes, and global terrorism. The information abundance piece makes the 'con' argument, which is that white supremacist rhetoric online is *not* much of a threat because their discourse is lost in the data smog of vast amount of information available. Further, unless search engines direct web surfers to white supremacist sites, then the average user is not likely to visit them.

Something to ponder, as I continue to plow through the literature.