A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

I haven't heard of this specifically, but the #MeToo movement bothers me greatly, because it implies that we suddenly learned you needed consent for sex; like it was some new revelation.

If you look at CDC numbers, just as many men are assaulted sexually as women, but yet the #MeToo movement felt very one directional and didn't talk about assault inclusively of all people.

The #BelieveWomen campaign actually goes directly against one of the principal tenants of progressive ideology: Innocent until proven guilty (a tenant of #BlackLivesMatter).

The point is these issues are COMPLEX! They are not simple. And when they're not simple, you need to be able to discuss them openly, and frankly. Deplatforming totally fucks that up. People who have never been on to Gab assume it's all hate speech and right-wring religious stuff (I mean .. it is .. or was, but most people didn't actually see it for themselves...they just heard about it and hated).

A good counter example: the documentary The Red Pill, where a feminist interviews several people in the Men's Rights movement and learns it was nothing like how it was portrayed as. She had an entirely incorrect view of what they themselves stood for because of all those people yelling at their platform.

De-platforming increases polarization. I know it's a meme, but we do live in a society. We need to be able to discuss our differences and find a synthesis between the thesis/anthesis to move forward in a way that's as fair as we can be to everyone.

When you push people off platforms, there is no longer speech and discussion. There is only "for us or against us." If you are a feminist in every way, but think trans-women should still be men on their birth certificates, then suddenly you're an anti-Trans, TERF, Fascist, Nazi and nothing you said should be listened to because you're wrong.

That's the direction we're heading, and that is sad and terrible. Most humans do act in good faith, and are reasonable, and we need to learn to listen again.

It's an ideological death-cult that won't stop eating itself until there are literally only two of them left, facing one another, pointing, and screaming "HERETIC" at the tops of their lungs.

This is why technology should be available to allow certain amount of dissent not be completely squashed. Cultural norms will always call for elimination of certain thoughts completely.

I'm not sure I agree with that, since the definition of intolerance is obviously rooted in societal norms. In 1950 the statement "two men should not be allowed to marry each other" would not have been seen as intolerant by almost anyone, regardless of political affiliation or sexuality. It would have been considered practically a tautology - so obviously true that no one even spent any time thinking about it. Today, many people in the USA would consider the statement intolerant. So I think your definition just kicks the can down the road to "how do we define who is tolerant?"

"Let's inquisit that heresy when we get to it."

SOME TIME LATER

"Truly, monsigneur, this escalation of the Crusade to extirpate the Lutherans could spiral out of our grasp and trigger a continental conflagration that would disturb the harmony of the Catholic Church and cause us to finalize the fracture in Christendom in its entirety!"

"Let us rupture that schism when we come to it."

SOME TIME LATER

"O Puritan Lawyers! I cannot abide this constant seeking of devilry amongst the burghers; for though thy use the Devil chained and cowed, if the Devil escapeth thine chains placyd upon hym, might he wreck also thine own soul's of pleasant Albion forevermore?"

"Let us burn that witch when we come to it."

SOME TIME LATER

"Je dis, this never-ending mission to purify France of the Anciens Regime could easily escape the control of the Bourgeosie and not only destabilize society but also cause us to perform inhumane deeds against the Third Estate that we will regret in the Eye of Providence for all recorded history!"

"Let's get a-head of that when the time arrives."

SOME TIME LATER

"I say, these attempts to civilize the Savages of the outer colonies could easily escape the oversight of the Provincial Governments and not only jeopardize our economic interests, but enable the performance by Europeans of barbarisms that would surely be worse than the practices of the Savages in the first place!"

"Let us lift the White Man's burden when we reach it."

SOME TIME LATER

"I don't know Comrade, this ten-year-old five-year plan to purify Russia of the Bourgeosie could easily escape control of the Central Committee and not only jeopardize the Revolution, but also cause us to engage in the same Tsarist evils of terror that the Revolution was launched to eliminate!"

"Let's rehabilitate that kulak when we get to it."

SOME TIME LATER

> We run the risk that the act of deplatforming can become as extreme as the hate speech it seeks to banish.

Let us cross that bridge when we get to it.