America’s Broken Marketplace of Ideas

Today, it is hard not to wonder whether we are helplessly watching the steady degradation of our political union — of our norms, our…

The Framers gather in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Today, it is hard not to wonder whether we are helplessly watching the steady degradation of our political union — of our norms, our values, our institutions, and our mutual trust of one another. When the outrageous and unbelievable are one-upped on almost a daily basis, it’s easy to suspect that our ship has somehow been irreversibly tipped. In the face of these questions, there comes a time when even the most steadfastly conservative Republican, whose team may hold the reins of power momentarily, ought not hold his tongue nor keep his pace as the herd tramples on. Now is such a time.

Our success as a lasting democracy is due, in no small part, to the genius of our Framers and the Constitution they drafted. Through the First Amendment’s categorical command that no law shall abridge the freedom of speech, the Framers created a space in which John Stuart Mill’s marketplace of ideas could take root. Like the Enlightenment thinkers before them, our Founders believed that Americans would more readily discern truth and settle on the best ideas so long as the discursive thoughts of our people remained beyond the reach of the state. For centuries, America has proven the Founders’ faith well-placed, and our success has inspired other nations to grant similar discursive and political freedoms to their people.

Today, though, America’s marketplace of ideas stands frighteningly shaken. Shaken from the top by a leader who views truth as simply another political tool capable of manipulation. Shaken from its roots by university officials and radical campus organizations that limit the free exchange of ideas. And, most importantly, shaken from its core by our own willingness to let half-truths and lazy slander go uncorrected in our daily discourse.

Though the Framers, in their wisdom, set up a free marketplace conducive to democracy, they left the duty of its continued maintenance in our hands. The system’s vitality has always depended ultimately upon our own honor, decency and discerning collective mind. For the marketplace to properly function, everyday citizens must deploy a certain level of judgment through proper civic engagement to assign value to propositions. Without these essential “price-setting” tools, certain ideas become dramatically over- and under-valued and the constitutional scheme of liberty, however well-designed, breaks down.

Of late, we are failing to uphold this civic end of the democratic bargain. At times, it seems we have lost our ability to reason, to separate fact from fiction, to disaggregate a statement’s persuasiveness from the identity of its speaker, to reject out of hand ideas and arguments based on faulty premises or personal animus. The invisible hands of our idea marketplace, once dependable, have suddenly disappeared altogether and set the market teetering toward crazed disequilibria.

The consequences of this market failure cannot be overstated. The idea marketplace sits at the very center of our American experiment and its healthy functioning is key to everything from sound collective decision-making to the integrity of our national moral fabric. Without it, we lose the ability to elevate worthy aims and to promote healthy policy prescriptions into practice. Our discourse devolves, and the marketplace of ideas transforms into a marketplace of personalities.

Since when did we let ourselves demean intelligence and celebrate ignorance? When did it become fashionable to tear down people instead of ideas? When did unreasoned anger, unbridled passion, and unconstrained rhetoric — once confined to the sundry indulgences of our popular culture and entertainment — become desired qualities in our most vaunted public leaders?

We used to be a country that cared about dignity and honor. We would never have condoned (much less elected) a leader so impulsive, crass, and juvenile. We aspired together to meet the great challenges of the day instead of relishing the pettiness of a snide tweet or outrageous stunt. We are the nation that discovered and harnessed electricity, that built the railroads, that put a man on the moon, that led the effort to drive the scourge of Soviet communism from the Earth. It is time we acted like it again.

We must reassert the importance of truth and integrity. Hold ourselves and our neighbors once again to the high standards of civic engagement that the Greatest Generation set for themselves. Refuse to don anonymity’s cloak to loose bitter invective and personal hate. Only then will America’s idea marketplace repair and rebalance.

The stakes, too, could not be higher. More restrictive ideologies less trusting of individual freedom threaten to fill the void if we fail to maintain the Framers’ vision. Just weeks ago, Xi Jinping was heralded for his leadership of China at the Communist Party’s annual convention. While Mr. Xi has opened up the Chinese economy and overseen its considerable growth in recent years, he remains committed to the totalitarian impulses of his predecessors. In China, the internet remains heavily regulated, with the government policing domestic information-sharing platforms. The Chinese people are closely monitored and often relegated to subsistence living in the countryside if ever suspected of dissent. “If you open a window for fresh air for longer than 10 hours,” former leader Deng Xiaoping once said, “you have to expect some flies to blow in. A good country will swat the flies.”

As the world sees the United States and our idea marketplace produce chaotic leadership, volatile policy shifts, and a paranoid withdrawal from the world stage, it undoubtedly questions its confidence in freedom and wonders whether, like China, it ought to be swatting more flies. This is the danger of a dysfunctional marketplace of ideas. Not only does it erode the strength of our own institutions and our ability to course-correct when a popular movement goes too far, it also diminishes the freedom of those abroad who look to America for guidance.

Though we face many challenges across the world today, our ability to confront them will be seriously inhibited if the integrity of our political union is weak. The health of our idea marketplace is central to that integrity and will likely determine whether America will continue to thrive and lead the world, or be swallowed by our own indifference. How we confront this new internal test of our national character will be a defining choice.

Benjamin Franklin, when asked if a monarchy or republic had been created at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, once replied: “A republic — if you can keep it.”

We must keep it — and we will. But, first, we must each reaffirm our own internal standards of intellectual honesty, moral integrity, and collective judgment. Then, possess the courage to make them known.