Study Analysis on the Examination of Actions of Michael Brutsch Through the Lens of Locke
The political validity of this judgment is tenuous, and I will go about examining it in two parts. In part one, I will discuss the “intolerability” of Michael Brutsch through the lens of Locke. Having established this intolerabilty, I will examine why the judgment of Brutsch is rightfully kept outside of the state, and why the punishment should be, as I have already declared, aresult of public judgment, using Hannah Arendt’s appropriation of Kant’s Aesthetic Theory of Judgment.
It is important to remember that Brutsch, as well as being part of the larger community of the United States citizenry, as I have mentioned, was also a member of a powerful sub-community of the internet: the community of reddit itself. It is an ambiguous community; it is anonymous, it is not exclusive, and it is not geographically consolidated. However, reddit has curated a culture amongst its users. In this way, reddit is not dissimilar to faith. It has many members, all of whom, to varying degrees, conform to the rules and ideology behind the site, much like members of any given religion. Similarly, members can be excommunicated. Most importantly, reddit has ideological principles that shape the culture of its community, just as a religion shapes its community.
Recognizing that reddit can occupy the same space in the larger culture as a church would have in Locke’s world allows Locke’s discussion on toleration to be transferred onto the site and specifically onto Brutsch. Locke’s view of toleration was broad for its time, and “leads directly to modern doctrines of freedom of thought and speech” (Chambers, 6). However, Locke did not support unbounded pluralism. The two notable restrictions in Lockean toleration are regarding Catholics and Atheists (C 8). These examples of intolerance are seen largely as a product of Locke’s time, for as Grey notes, “[l]iberal toleration developed at a time when moral variety did not extend to diversity in the virtues that are given recognition in different ways of life” (324). But while Locke did find some people to have an intolerable faith (or lack thereof), he also found people to be intolerable depending on their specific practices of a tolerable faith. This is a better place to extrapolate intoleration from Locke, for it can be used to judge intolerable acts in modern, pluralistic societies where many more “virtues,” as per Grey, are tolerated.
It is helpful to conceive of reddit as a faith with many sects, wherein reddit has created an overarching ideology that is interpreted by its members and preached differently by different sub-cultures in the userbase. Thus, we can tolerate the ideology of reddit, but we cannot tolerate the interpretation of that ideology by Brutsch and his defenders. Locke contends that “another more secret evil, but more dangerous to the commonwealth, is when men arrogate to themselves, and to those of their own sect, some peculiar prerogative covered over with a specious show of deceitful words, but in effect opposite to the civil right of the community” (Toleration, 25). A particular tenant of reddit ideology is freedom of speech, a value common to the United States citizenry and many others. Brutsch and his particular sect of reddit culture exploit this fact by using it as a defense for their less tolerable internet habits. This is precisely the “specious show of deceitful words” that Locke describes. It is free speech to post voyeuristic pictures of women to a website, but the of the photographs themselves constitute an invasion of privacy, as does the appropriation of minors’ photos from Facebook or other websites. Many of the other subreddits that Brutsch managed promoted hate speech that could conceivably fall under exemptions from constitutional free speech: the lewd and obscene, the libelous, the profane, and fighting words.
If Brutsch’s interpretation of free speech is indeed “opposite to the civil right of the community,” the question remains, why is there not validity in the state punishing Brutsch for his actions? Locke would say they “have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate” (25). The answer comes down to practicality. It is difficult for the state to regulate the internet due to fear of censorship and the vast nature of the web. The two concerns are interrelated. Because of the size of the internet, one would have to “design [an] algorithm for excluding material” (Cohen-Almagore 12).The notion of an algorithm blindly removing all content that gets caught in its net begins to feel like censorship because context is important to the meaning of content. For instance, a nude photograph is not pornographic, it is deemed pornographic through context. There is not enough manpower in the world to go through the entire content of reddit, piece by piece, let alone the entire internet. In punishing Brutsch, the state would set precedent for a regulated internet, which could be harmful to legitimately exercised free speech.
Furthermore, the state could only get to the point of punishing Brutsch after a determination of what constitutes a legal expectation of privacy on the internet, whether or not some of Brutsch’s speech is not protected by constitutional free speech, and whether or not Brutsch’s moderation of others’ speech on reddit makes him culpable for what he allows to be said. These concerns could result in legal battles being appealed for years, and perhaps never settled. All of these factors render the state ineffective in judgment and justice in the case of Michael Brutsch.
But where the state is incapable, the people are not. The people can still judge Brutsch. Not only can we judge him, but we should judge him according to Hannah Arendt. In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt condemned Eichmann for his failure to judge, “[f]or politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same” (375). For the purposes of the Violentacrez case, I imagine that Arendt might have rephrased her claim to the effect of “in society, permission and support are the same.”
For Arendt, judgment is a world-building practice, “[t]he notion of judgment, she notes, is based on a sense we have in common—a sense that should be understood as one among the several through which we experience reality” (Azmanova, 126). Failing to pass judgment on Brutsch weakens thesensus communis, the “‘community’ sense of a common realm of shared, communicative meaning” (Hayden, 177). I forge my community with others based on the process of determining what is acceptable to us. Thus, my judgment of Brutsch helps me determine my community, and also shapes the community by presenting a view that others can then, in turn, judge.
Beyond the simple fact that I judge Brutsch, which fares well in Arendtian philosophy, my judgment is further validated by several other Arendtian claims. To begin with, my judgment of Brutsch does not stem from any law or religious maxim. Arendt takes issue with both of these methods of judgment, for they are not processes of judgment, they are prejudices. The rule is determined, and it applies itself to the particular. Arendt saw this as a “fatal flaw in Kant’s (…) moral theory, a flaw associated with rule following” (Garsten, 1077). Kant advocated for the Categorical Imperative, not any religious or state law to provide the non-consequentialist procedure for judgment, but as Arendt pointed out in the case of Eichmann, it is easy for one to abuse this theory by replacing the Categorical Imperative with any other law derived from any other authority (Arendt, 136).
This is not to say that state laws or moral convictions (religiously derived or otherwise) are unnecessary or unwanted in a process of judgment. On the contrary, “prejudices are an elementary condition that make possible living in common with others” (Hayden, 171). The important distinction is that my judgment of Brutsch is the result of a process, not the application of a universal standard. Arendt claims that a process of judging should utilize “reflective judgment” and “enlarged mentality” (Azmanova, 123, 127). This requires empathy: judging from the perspective of imagined others. In my judgment, I make repeated claims on behalf of the community, specifically claims of harm done to my community by the actions of Brutsch. I can only make these claims by populating my mind with imagined others, for instance, a young teenage girl whose photo was posted in r/jailbait.
The flipside of this enlarged mentality, however, is the need to enlarge it as far as possible. In order to judge in the case of Brutsch, one must imagine the judgments of Brutsch and of his many supporters on reddit and around the internet. There are arguments to be made on his behalf. Brutsch supporters argue most plainly for two things: anonymity and free speech. These are two powerful ideals that I judge to be important. Many of the Arab Spring revolts are attributed to the anonymity and free speech provided by social media sites (Rosen). That’s not only an example of the democratizing power of free speech and anonymity, but also an example of a public engaged in a process of judgment. It is important to build up the arguments of imaginary others in this way when engaging in reflective judgment, such that one might be able to give reasons for one’s own judgment, for “where truth compels, judgment persuades” (Azmanova, 126). In Arendtian judgment, no one can know the truth (this is her rejection Kant), one must recognize that all judgment is an attempt to persuade the judgment of another.
Thus, I develop reasons for judgment of Brutsch. It would be a fallacy to “simply [adopt] the opinions or judgments of others as one’s own, since that would thoughtlessly subvert the activity of reflective judgment itself” (Hayden, 178). I cannot adopt the viewpoint of my imagined victim of the jailbait subreddit, as I might be tempted to do based off of my various prejudices. Instead, I offer these reasons to the imagined supporter of Brutsch before I come to my judgment: The freedom of speech that you value, in this case, in in direct conflict with the value of anonymity. Adrien Chen simply exercised his free speech by outing Brutsch. Brutsch could have been more careful with his identity, it did not take an act of the state with massive surveillance resources to discover his identity. Furthermore, in the case of the Arab Spring, a positive example of anonymity, the power of anonymity was used to promote public judgment, whereas Brutsch’s anonymity hindered the ability of the public to judge. In this practice of giving reasons to satisfy others, I can reflectively examine and strengthen my initial prejudice of Brutsch, effectively moving “from prejudice to judgment” (Hayden, 168).
As I show, both Locke and Arendt validate my judgment of Brutsch. I find him to be intolerable in Lockean language, and I reach that conclusion through an Arendtian process of reflective judgment, even though that process is not explicitly written in my address. What I must turn to now is my sentencing of Brutsch. I contend in my address that the punishment for his actions is the public knowledge of his real name. There is power in public judgment, and this is why Garsten uses Arendt to advocate for the “Spectator-Judge”, “they watch politics and they judge what is going on. A certain type of watching and judging is, it seems to me, a defensible way of being a democratic citizen” (1072). This power of public judgment is crucial to democracy, and was, according to Arendt, what was lacking in the public during the Third Reich as demonstrated by Eichman.
In the case of Brutsch, a member of the public, such as myself, is unable to judge him until his name is revealed. A judgment passed on Violentacrez is a judgment of the actions of trolls, which is a generality; it fails to capture particular judgment of the person Michael Brutsch. In this way, Brutsch used anonymity to curtail public judgment. Anonymity, as I show, does not inherently threaten public judgment, for it can often facilitate it. But Michael Brutsch’s anonymity put us in the place Eichmann, unable to judge, and therefore I find it indefensible. His doxing allowed the public to exercise the power of the spectator-judge, a power that, when deprived from us, weakens the community that we share. Thus, the only punishment that is fitting for Brutsch is judgment itself.
“Michael Brutsch, you have been identified as the creator and user of the reddit account ‘Violentacrez.’Under this alias, you have moderated and contributed content to subreddits such as‘Jailbait,’ ‘Creepshots,’ and ‘Beatingwomen.’ You have worked tirelessly to ensure that these subreddits, as well as thefour-hundred-some others under your moderation, were kept free of strictly illegal content, such as legally defined child pornography. You have not yourselftaken any action on the website that could be construed as illegal under state or federal law.
“What you have done, through subreddits you moderated or created, is endorsedvoyeurism, pedophilia, and hate speech. The citizenry of the United States, as a community, condemns acts of voyeurism, pedophilia, and hate speech on moral grounds, and in many cases finds them to be illicit. While your actions have managed stay within legal boundaries, and are thus exempt from state-sanctioned punishment, they are not exempt from judgment. I, as a citizen of the same country, and a user of the same internet, share community with you. It is your right to remain part of those communities, for you have not committed any crimes determined by their laws. However, I condemn your actions as intolerable to said communities, as they occupy a space in between what is benignly immoral and what is illegal. You are still deserving of punishment, to be exacted by the community that we share.
“I can think of no better punishment for your actions than the one that has already been doled out: the public revelation of your identity. You have been made accountable for your actions. The public’s ability to judge you, not just the faceless Violentacrez, has resulted in the termination of your job, your de facto ban from reddit, and your revilement by the community at large (Abel). These are punishments that any law abiding citizen can and must face as consequences of their actions, and they are consequences that you should not be exempt from.”
