This is a blog about “The Discourse”. About ‘free speech’ and persuasion. In my current work, I’m reading about the application of signalling theory to political science, and the theory and practice of cultural evolution. These disciplines make two core observations about political life in social species.

Firstly, a political strategy is comprised of two inter-related elements: behaviour and signal. A behaviour is simply an external action by an agent; a signal is a sub-type of behaviour which carries information content between one social actor and another. Of course, behaviour can act as a signal and a signal is a behaviour, but conceptually we can distinguish between those parts of an action which conveys information between agents and those parts that don’t. When it forms part of a strategy, sending a signal to another social agent has the objective of altering the beliefs of the receiver for the advantage of the sender. A corollary of this is that a signal is only that part of behaviour which is observable and comprehensible to the receiver – it does not include actions or motivations that are hidden from them. Through the written and spoken word, humans have unusually sophisticated ways of signalling one another, which the ‘Machiavellian hypothesis’ proposes was largely evolved for the purpose of manipulating others in social settings.

Secondly, in the sphere of cultural evolution we say that social agents learn by imitating the behaviour of other agents. We imitate the social strategies of others more successful from ourselves, in order to minimise the fitness difference between us. A corollary of this is that we copy pretty blindly – so that if our instructor includes additional steps or rituals which are empirically unnecessary humans will tend to copy those rituals too as if there were essential to the behaviour. What isn’t copied are the reasons or motivations for behaviour – whether our social models and celebrities are Machiavellian manipulators, religious fanatics or eccentric oddballs, if their social strategies work, then we copy them blindly. In other words, we buy the breakfast cereals recommended by our favourite celebrities, even if their choice of product as little or no bearing on their success as an actor, athlete or musician.

What these two observations lead to is this: signals (i.e. speech) can effectively change behaviour – in other words, be persuasive – even if the receiver of those signals does not understand why their beliefs have changed or why others wanted change to occur. By performing that social strategy themselves, and sending the same signal, they create a new social equilibrium without, in the main, conceptually understanding or agreeing with it. So for instance, socialists and Marxists have an enormous body of theory justifying and explaining their economic ideas but if they have only one signal which is persuasive – i.e. “Medicare for All” – then that slogan, that symbol, will be the vector that spreads socialist behaviours.

Taboos

The more time that passes, the less individuals are likely to know the empirical reasons for the behaviour and the more they are likely to treat them as a given, as ‘common sense’. Liberal social contract rights such as universal suffrage and habeas corpus seem so obvious now that they hardly appear worth defending (often to our detriment). But several generations backs, these rights were hard fought gains that responded to very real systematic abuses. Over time, what was once sensible, necessary reform became symbolism and ritual, devoid of meaning – until the time we need to fight certain battles all over again.

This sanctification of politics is most visible in US political discourse, particularly around issues of race. The abolition of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation were massive political achievements, hard fought and won with incredible violence. And yet a few generations later, major debates are occurring over the taboo status of particular words and behaviours. But the strength of the taboo is correlated first and foremost with the significance of the civil rights struggle – so much so that performing ‘black face’ can end careers – and not the behaviour itself, so that over time as memories of that struggle fade the ritual power of the taboo appears irrational and disproportionate.

We have seen this most recently in the centre-right (and corporate) response to Steven Crowder’s homophobic harassment of Vox journalist Carlos Maza – which has focused on the appropriateness of Crowder’s words (especially “queer”) and not on the behaviour behind it. What is objectionable about Crowder is the intent behind his crusade to dehumanise and harass another human being on the basis of their personal characteristics, and the broader social harm this causes, not the particular words, phrases and symbols used. The Right has become very good at disingenuously claiming that the signals they send are socially sanctioned – pointing especially to the innocuous use of those signals or symbols by others communities – knowing full well that the motivations behind their actions are almost impossible to prove.