Day: October 10, 2025

Mark Bray, History Professor

Because the rulers of my adopted state of Florida hold freedom expression as so precious that they must decide who can exercise it and how one may do so, I must begin by stating that I condemn the use of political violence between Americans. I also, in general, condemn violence. I am, after all, a Christian and a philosopher. Hence, I’m all about talking and believe we should not kill.

As I am writing this, Dr. Mark Bray and his family are fleeing the United States in the face of death threats. Dr. Bray’s first attempt failed, and it appears someone cancelled his family’s reservations as they were about to board. Dr. Bray has been dubbed “Dr. Antifa” because of his scholarly works on anarchism and antifascism. He has also been accused of being a threat to conservative students at Rutgers and a petition has been created to remove him to “protect conservative students from political violence.” Despite Antifa being a political philosophy and not an organization, President Trump has attempted to declare it a domestic terrorist organization.

Following the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk, the right has professed an abhorrence of political violence and Republican leaders have pledged that action will be taken against people making threats or celebrating violence. Because of this, one might think that the threats against Dr. Bray would result in some action by the state. But the White House responded by claiming that “examples of Democrat violence are plentiful” and presented the murder of Kirk as an example. While the statistical data shows that right wing violence is more common (though all violence is to be condemned), the White House asserted that “The Trump Administration is focused on stopping this violence — Democrats are fueling it.” While it is odd to blame the Democrats for threats made against Dr. Bray, a red herring tactic and perhaps also some “whataboutism” are being used here. While there are some differences between the two rhetorical devices, the tactic is to shift attention from the original issue or question and thus not address or answer it. In this example, when folks on the right are asked about specific threats or violence against people on the left (or center), the tactic is to shift to talking about alleged threats or violence from the left. They are, in effect, saying “what about the left?”

While real left-wing violence and threats are matters of concern, the use of a red herring or whataboutism obviously does not address concerns or questions about right wing threats and violence. In the case at hand, saying that the left is violent does nothing to address the threats made against Dr. Bray.

These rhetorical techniques can be effective in that they can mislead people from the real issue and provide an opportunity to persuade people that the left is to blame even when the violence and threats are against people on the left (or center). The defense against this is easy: just ask yourself if the original issue or question has been addressed.  In this case, it has not. Ignoring right wing violence and blaming the left does not address the problem of right-wing violence. At this point someone who has heard of Dr. Bray might bring up the claim that he seems to have advocated violence and perhaps is reaping what he has sown. This takes us to the straw man technique.

In 2017 Dr. Bray appeared on Meet the Press and claimed that “when pushed, self-defense is a legitimate response to white supremacist and neo-Nazi violence.” For additional context, he added that “We’ve tried ignoring neo-Nazis in the past. We’ve seen how that turned out in the ’20s and ’30s.  A lot of people are under attack, and sometimes they need to be able to defend themselves. It’s a privileged position to say you never have to defend yourself from these kinds of monsters.” This view puts Dr. Bray in such radical company as the English philosopher John Locke. Locke presented a moral justification for self-defense that serves (knowingly or unknowingly) as the basis of moral arguments made for self defense by most Americans. Roughly put, because people have the God-given right to protect their life, liberty and property, they have the right to self-defense against unjustified attacks. If Dr. Bray had simply said “people have a right to defend themselves when attacked”, most Americans would be hard pressed to disagree with him. But he specified that this general right of self-defense would also apply to attacks from white supremacists and neo-Nazis and this triggered some of the right. As they also advocate self-defense, they had to mischaracterize his claims and use the straw man and present a distorted version of his claim.

The conservative site, Campus Reform, claimed he had “endorsed antifa’s violent protest tactics.” The President of Dartmouth at the time issued a statement that was also a straw man, saying Dr. Bray was “supporting violent protest.” Dr. Bray’s colleagues defended him by pointing out that Dr. Bray’s claim had been made into a straw man of his actual position.

Straw man tactics can be effective because they, by definition, contain a sliver of truth. Dr. Bray did advocate self-defense and did so in the context of defending against white supremacists and neo-Nazis. He also noted how peaceful efforts to resist such threats failed. But taking this to be advocating violent protest is like claiming that anyone advocating self-defense is thus advocating violence. While there is a sliver of truth, it ignores the full context and thus creates a strawman. As such, those who attack his view seem to be angry that someone would say that people being attacked by white-supremacists and Neo-Nazis have a right to self defense against their violence. This certainly helps explain why white-supremacists and Neo-Nazis would be mad at him.

As always, the defense against straw man tactics is to find the truth; although this is becoming increasingly difficult as independent journalism and fact checking is under ongoing and increasing attack.

Back in my graduate school days, I made extra money writing for science fiction and horror gaming companies. This was in the 1990s, which was the chrome age of cyberpunk: the future was supposed to be hacked and jacked. The future is now, but is an age of Tinder, Facebook, and Tik Tok. But there is still hope of a cyberpunk future: body hackers are endeavoring to bring some cyberpunk into the world. The current state of the hack is disappointing but, great things arise from lesser things and hope remains for a chromed future.

Body hacking, at this point, is minor. For example, some people have implanted electronics under their skin, such as RFID chips. Of course, most dogs also have an implanted chip. As another example, one fellow who is color blind has a skull mounted device that informs him of colors via sounds. As one might imagine, body hacks that can be seen have generated some mockery and hostility. Since I owe cyberpunk for my ability to buy ramen noodles and puffed rice cereal, I am obligated to come to the defense of the aesthetics of body hacking.

While some point out that philosophers have not given body hacking the attention it deserves and claim that it is something new and revolutionary, it still falls under established moral systems. As such, body hacking is a new matter for applied ethics but does not require a new moral theory.

The aesthetic aspects of body hacking fall under the ethics of lifestyle choices, specifically those regarding choices of personal appearance. This can be shown by drawing analogies to established means of modifying personal appearance. The most obvious modifications are clothing, hairstyles and accessories (such as jewelry). These, like body hacking, have the capacity to shock and offend people, perhaps by what is revealed by the clothing or the message sent by it (including literal messages, such as T-shirts with text and images).  Unlike body hacking, these modifications are on the surface, thus making them different from true body hacking.

As such, a closer analogy would involve classic cosmetic body modifications. These include hair dye, vanity contact lenses, decorative scars, piercings, and tattoos. In fact, these can be seen as low-tech body hacks that are precursors to the technological hacks of today. Body hacks go beyond these classic modifications and range from the absurd (a man growing an “ear” on his arm) to the semi-useful (a person who replaced a missing fingertip with a USB drive). While concerns about body hacking go beyond the aesthetic, body hacks do have the capacity to elicit responses like other modifications. For example, tattoos were once regarded as the mark of a lower-class person, though they are now accepted. As another example, not long ago men (other than pirates) did not get piercings unless they were willing to face ridicule. Now piercing is passé.

Because the aesthetics of body hacking are analogous to classic appearance hacks, the same ethics applies to these cases. Naturally enough, people vary in their ethics of appearance. I, as veteran readers surely suspect, favor John Stuart Mill’s approach to the matter of the ethics of lifestyle choices. Mill argues that people have the right to interfere with liberty only to prevent a person from harming others. This is a reasonable standard of interference which he justifies on utilitarian grounds. Mill explicitly addresses the ways of life people chose: “…the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow; without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong.”

Mill’s principle nicely handles the ethics of the aesthetics of body hacking (and beyond): body hackers have the moral freedom to hack themselves even though such modifications might be regarded as aesthetically perverse, foolish, or wrong. So, just as a person has the moral right to wear clothing that some would regard as too revealing or dye his hair magenta, a person has the moral right to grow a functionless ear on his arm or implant blinking lights under her skin. But just as a person would not have a right to wear a jacket covered in razor blades, a person would not have the right to hack herself with an implanted strobe light that flashes randomly into people’s eyes. This is because such things become the legitimate business of others because of the harm they can do.

Mill does note that people are subject to the consequences of their choices and not interfering with someone’s way of life does not require accepting it, embracing it or even working around it. For example, just as a person who elects to have “Goat F@cker” tattooed on his face can expect challenges in getting a job as a bank teller or schoolteacher, a person who has blinking lights embedded in his forehead can expect to encounter challenges in employment. Interestingly, the future might see discrimination lawsuits on the part of body hackers, analogous to past lawsuits for other forms of discrimination. It can also be expected that social consequences will change for body hacking, just as it occurred with tattoos and yoga pants.

One final point is the stock concern about the possible harm of offensive appearances. That is, that other people do have a legitimate interest in the appearance of others because their appearance might harm them by offending them. While this is worth considering, there does not seem to be a compelling reason to accept that mere offensiveness causes sufficient harm to warrant restrictions on appearance. What would be needed would be evidence of actual harm to others that arises because the appearance inflicts the harm rather than the alleged harm arising because of how the offended person feels about the appearance. To use an analogy, while someone who hates guns has the right not to be shot, he does not have the right to insist that he never see images of guns.

The discussion has shown that body hacking that does not inflict harm to others falls nicely under the liberty to choose a way of life, provided that the way of life does not inflict harm on others. But, as always, a person who strays too far from the norm must be aware of possible consequences. Especially when it comes to dating and employment.