Here’s a letter to my good friend at Berry College, the economist Frank Stephenson.
Frank:
In an email this morning you ask if I’ve “considered blocking the troll” who lately, at my Facebook page, has been defending protectionism.
I’ve not. In fact, I now regret even asking him voluntarily to stop posting at my page.
I understand that encountering the troll’s many ‘arguments’ and assertions is intellectually painful. The head can’t help but hurt when it confronts blatant illogic, especially when this illogic is presented as if it’s as irrefutable as Euclidian proofs. Still, I believe that such trolls, as long as they refrain from advocating violence or overt bigotry, ought not be blocked.
First, to block such a person conveys the false impression that we’re insufficiently confident in our ideas. Let the ‘woke’ and the progressives – and now increasingly the MAGA – embrace cancelling; let them monopolize this gutless maneuver. We, unlike them, have nothing to fear from challenges to our ideas and ideals.
Second, it’s possible that the troll will occasionally raise an objection that is serious and worth considering. If the case for free trade is to be as strong as possible, its advocates should be as familiar as possible with all coherent arguments – theoretical and factual – that are marshaled against it.
Third, the troll serves our purposes by revealing to us the protectionists’ arguments and attitudes du jour. Even though most of these arguments and manners of argumentation are unserious and incoherent, even illogical, it’s precisely these arguments and attitudes, because they are widespread, that we proponents of free trade must counter. And we can’t effectively counter them unless we’re up-to-date on what they are.
Fourth, the troll also serves our purposes by revealing to intelligent yet uncommitted individuals the nature of protectionists’ thinking. No sensible person can come across protectionists’ arguments without soon realizing both that these arguments hold no water, and that many protectionists argue like undisciplined third-graders. A sensible person who hasn’t yet made up his or her mind about trade policy can compare, side by side, the arguments and manner of argumentation of free traders with those of protectionists, a distressingly large number of whom, like the troll, argue by hurling ad hominems, by repeatedly committing the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy and the fallacy of composition, by suddenly shifting the argument to ground Y when checkmated on ground X, by ignoring or misrepresenting free-trade arguments that they cannot refute, and simply by showing their poor command of facts and theory – and sometimes even by throwing temper tantrums when they’re unable to escape the superiority of the case for free trade.
So I welcome the troll to continue to comment at my Facebook page, and you should welcome him to do so at yours. The annoyance at encountering his ignorance is more than repaid by the value that he unwittingly contributes to the cause of free trade.
Sincerely,
Don
