Fetishizing the fundamental right not to be criticized

The latest uproar. over student protests has produced some on the other handing from the NYT editorial board. A friend reminds me that two years ago this same collective body had this to say about the current state of free speech in America:

For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.

This social silencing, this depluralizing of America, has been evident for years, but dealing with it stirs yet more fear. It feels like a third rail, dangerous. For a strong nation and open society, that is dangerous.

Consider the level of sheer intellectual incoherence that is made invisible by the platitudes of reactionary centrism, which is what this is. If I’m violating some “fundamental right of the citizens of a free country” by calling certain opinions shameful, and even legitimate grounds for shunning those who hold them, then it should be unnecessary to point out that my speech is being “silenced” [sic] in exactly the same way, by those who are trying to shame me for daring to express such opinion!

This is a logical contradiction that an intelligent 12-year-old should be able to see, but an astonishing number of people remain blind to the fact that, if criticism equals “silencing,” then the statement ‘you should not silence people by criticizing them” embodies a kind of Xeno’s Paradox of Criticism: if I must silence my criticism of you to avoid silencing you, then of course you are silencing me in the process.

This contradiction disappears if we dispense with the facially absurd idea that “criticism” equals “silencing.” Yet however absurd that idea may be, its continuing social power is illustrated by the fact that the nation’s leading editorial page can opine that Americans have a “fundamental right” to speak their minds without being criticized, or at least without being criticized in ways that make them feel shamed. Another way of putting this is that criticism is OK as long as it’s not ever taken seriously by its targets.

Basically the people who collectively emitted the quoted paragraphs should feel ashamed of having authored them, although I’ve apparently violated their fundamental rights as Americans by pointing this out.