There is a principle in criminal law called the Blackstone Ratio, which says "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." This liberal principle is an expression of the Presumption of Innocence, which is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 11.(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
Not all people in history have agreed with this sentiment, however. Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh said "Better ten innocent deaths than one enemy survivor."
These are statements about the perceived costs of false positives (identifying an innocent person as guilty) versus the costs of false negatives (identifying a guilty person as innocent). On one end we have people valuing freedom on the other those who value purity. Leftism as expressed through woke cancel culture is currently moving towards purity by neglecting false positives. Increasingly it seems the prevailing view is that it's better to accuse 10 innocent people of racism than to miss one. It's better 10 innocent men get wrongly accused and fired than for one sexual predator to not. Better to have 10 innocent shunned than one enemy among our midst. This is moving us to a place where people excessively censor and self-censor, which impairs productive dialogue. This outcome is an inevitable consequence of costless false positives. There is almost no cost to identifying an innocent person as a bigot. Not only can it not be proven wrong, the only time accusations backfire is in the form of lawsuits for libel, defamation, or wrongful dismissal, which are costly and rare.
One way to counter this impulse is to impose social costs on dubious accusations. People should be criticized for accusing innocent people. Innocence here does not have to be proven; it is to be presumed. If someone cannot support their accusation, they are to be countered for inaccurate bigotry detection and for toying with peoples’ reputations. But innocence is not presumed if certain categories of people are said to be inherent oppressors and that systemic racism permeates society. That’s the rub.
The Presumption of Innocence comes into play in other arenas. Consider argumentation. Best practice includes giving your interlocutor the benefit of the doubt. Have a charitable view of her motivations. When summarizing her position, build a steel-man not a straw-man. Do it so even she agrees with your representation of her views. Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner. To understand is to forgive. In contrast, the calls for justice by social justice activists sometimes sound shrill, more like vengence. Social Vengence!
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Journalist Andrew Sullivan described two steps to get back on track. First, get Trump out to quell extremism on the right. Complete. Second is to pivot and confront the leftist, woke, critical race activists that Biden will enable. On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order reinstating critical race theory training for government employees. He also prioritizes ending systemic racism – an inherently elusive goal. Now both chambers of Congress are Democrat majorities, allowing woke infiltration into government, academia, and corporations to continue unabated. It will be interesting to see if pundits Sullivan, Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, even Tucker Carlson will have any dampening effect. Meanwhile Christopher Rufo, who penned Trump’s ban on critical race theory in government training, is forming “a new coalition of law firms and legal foundation with the explicit goal of fighting critical race theory in the courts.” And Helen Pluckrose launched Counterweight to help people resist the imposition of critical social justice on their everyday lives. We will see how it all plays out.
Maybe in another post I will articulate my objections to critical social justice, woke ideology, diversity/equity/inclusion programs, and so on.
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