How does an open society cope with the reality that some of its members do not believe in an open society?

Russ Roberts has posted a great Twitter/X thread on the aftermath of October 7, which he sees as "a test for the West and for all open societies—societies that purport to tolerate and even embrace diversity of opinion, culture, and political opinion. Societies that nominally believe in freedom of speech and the press." Such societies, he suggests, "are now at a crossroads ..."

For context, Russ is -- and has been for some while --- the host of the thoughtful and wide-ranging podcast EconTalk (one of the few to which I listen), and a long-time advocate of free speech, reflected on the many folk invited on to his show, including intellectual opponents. He recently moved from the US to Israel to take up the role of President of Shalem College, Jerusalem.

It's worth reading some of the replies too ...

The aftermath of October 7 is a test for the West and for all open societies—societies that purport to tolerate and even embrace diversity of opinion, culture, and political opinion. Societies that nominally believe in freedom of speech and the press. Such societies are now at a crossroads and must think about the direction they wish to head. Reasonable people can disagree about who is responsible and in what amounts for the quality of civilian life in Gaza before October 7. Reasonable people can disagree about whether pressure should be put on Israel to temper its military response to the pogrom of October 7.

Debates over these questions happen here in Israel and they happen in other open societies around the world.

But what do you do about Jew-hatred? What do you do when anti-Zionism is clearly not merely a disagreement with Israeli policy but comes in a flavor that is about Jews and not just Israelis? An open society believes in freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. But how does an open society like Australia’s deal with a crowd of hundreds if not thousands who chant not just “F**k the Jews” but “Gas the Jews” on the steps of the Sydney Opera House? The police discouraged Jews from coming to that rally. Is that the right response? Is there an alternative? How does an open society like England’s deal with 100,000 people marching in the streets chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea” in the aftermath of the October 7th pogrom? Those two slogans are a demand for ethnic cleansing—an Israel without Jews. People at that rally waved flags of Jihad—religious war. The police struggled to respond and ultimately did nothing in the moment to the flag waver. Should they have?

A friend of mine told me last night that an identifiably Jewish man—he was dressed in traditional Hasidic clothing—was assaulted in Heathrow Airport. He didn’t die. I don’t know how badly he was hurt. Open societies typically call this a “hate crime.” Is that enough? The man who was hurt went to the police but there is little they offered to be able to do. One answer is to stop being identifiably Jewish, and many Jews, fearful of violence, have lowered their profile.

On the Global Day of Rage that Hamas proclaimed in the aftermath of the October 7 pogrom, Jewish children attending Jewish schools were told not to wear their school uniforms. Some schools cancelled classes on that Friday. Is that the right way for an open society to respond--fo Jews to avoid being publicly Jewish—an inversion of sorts of requiring Jews to wear a yellow star in Nazi Germany?

Last night, at George Washington University, someone projected giant signs on the sides of buildings saying “Glory to the Martyrs” and “From the river to the sea.” Should celebrating the murder of Jews be protected speech in an open society?
And then there are the people tearing down the posters about the kidnapped adults and children in Gaza. Such actions are at least a tacit endorsement of child abduction. Is that free speech? Hate speech? Or a legitimate political protest?
Political disagreement is at the heart of an open society. Celebrating the deaths of your political opponents seems like something different. I don’t think an open society can survive if some of its members use violence or the threat of violence to silence their opponents.
How does an open society cope with the reality that some of its members do not believe in an open society?  

I recently read Stefan Zweig’s memoir, 'The World of Yesterday.' It’s a masterpiece [agree - Ed.] describing Zweig’s intellectual and cultural world in Vienna and the rest of Europe before and after World War I. He struggles to explain the rise of Hitler but ex post, he understands that part of Hitler’s success was due to how his supporters used violence and intimidation to silence his opponents and to raise the cost of their meeting and gathering publicly. We’re getting a small taste of that now in America and elsewhere. Two nights ago in Skokie Illinois there was a pro-Israel rally and some Jews gathered for an impromptu evening prayer service. Nearby, maybe twenty yards away, a crowd of dozens, held back by barriers, screamed “Allahu Akbar” at them. Police were there, too, restraining them. But what if such disrupters come into the synagogues and elsewhere, with disruptive tactics and implicit threat of violence? Who will stop them? Will the Jews fight back or lower their profile? 

There are lots of videos online of people gleefully pulling down those posters of kidnapped children and adults. Sometimes people watching nearby ask them not to do it. They beg those tearing down the posters for an explanation. No one steps in their way, though. No one fights them or tries to keep the despoilers from hiding the victims. I get it. We’re all afraid of people who seem willing to do violence to us. But how can an open society tolerate this? What does an open society do when some of its members are happy to use violence or the threat of violence to curtail the freedom of other members of that society? Tom Palmer of the Cato Institute once told me that there should be free speech for everyone except those who hold ideologies that do not believe in free speech. I was offended. Free speech should have no exceptions based on political grounds, I argued. I’ve since changed my mind. Tom was right.  Someone who hates Jews or any other group and supports their murder or abuse and who uses violence or the threat of violence to silence those who disagree cannot be tolerated in an open society. But how to implement that intolerance of intolerance? 

We now have the unbearable audio of one of the murderers on October 7th calling his parents and proudly declaring that he killed 10 Jews. Not ten Israelis. Not ten Zionists. Not ten white colonialists. Not 10 settlers. Ten Jews. Here in Israel, we have no illusions about what we’re up against. We know there are people who don’t just want our land. They want to kill us along the way. And they seem to enjoy it.  

There’s a genuine debate here in Israel about whether a ground offensive in Gaza will be worth the lives of the soldiers and the Gazan civilians who will die. But no one is debating whether it’s a good idea to kidnap children or kill their parents in front of them before abducting them. We know what we’re up against. Old-fashioned Jew-hatred. And we’re not going to hope it goes away. We’re going to fight. 

The open societies in the West elsewhere are going to have to come to terms with the reality that some of its citizens want to live in a very different kind of kind of society and are willing to use violence and the threat of violence to intimidate and harm people they disagree with. There is no simple answer to coping with this reality. It is easy to say that you’re against it—all the right people have said all the right things. But soon the West and the open societies may have to do the right thing. Deciding what that is and how to implement that decision is the terrible dilemma facing the West right now.