Formally equal tolerance of all positions is claimed to entrench existing power, since the powerful are heard more loudly by default.
Marcuse's 1965 essay. Heavily contested: read as a critique of hollow neutrality by supporters and as a justification for suppression by critics, and both readings are available in the text.
In practice
- A university that gives equal platform time to a fringe claim and a settled one has, on the essay's argument, made the two look equal.
- Both readings are available in the text, which is why the essay is cited approvingly and disapprovingly for the same passages.
- Possible explanations
- The proposed explanation is asymmetry of resources: formally equal tolerance leaves the distribution of who is heard to money and existing institutions, so neutrality preserves the prevailing arrangement rather than opening it.
- In its favour
- The observation that formal equality of speech rights does not produce equality of audience is straightforwardly correct, and media ownership research documents the asymmetry.
- Against it
- The remedy proposed, withdrawing tolerance from positions judged regressive, requires someone to make that judgement, and critics argue it licenses exactly the suppression it was meant to oppose. Both readings are available in the text.
- Standing
- Heavily contested: read as a critique of hollow neutrality by supporters and as a justification for suppression by critics.
- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Competing accounts of how power works