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Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

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Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#81

Post by andrepd »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #68
atoav wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up in a right wing province of southern Austria with neo nazis (and old original nazis) nextdoors I can tell you precisely what changed. Fighting for the other persons right to speak their thought is a good and noble thing as long as the other person doesn't fight against your right to say what you like and as long as their words don't turn into actions. The more of this happens the more tolerance…

We already know how to solve that problem. Freedom of speech doesn't cover violent threats. There is no need for hate speech regulations. Jihadism is not covered by free speech, nazism is not covered by free speech but racism is covered by free speech. You also seem to conflate jihadists with muslims - that's not the case. Jihadists are terrorists and they want war, other muslims integrate with other societies. There…

We already know how to solve that problem. Freedom of speech doesn't cover violent threats.

This is a very childish way to look at the world. Unfortunately there's more "violence" than physically bonking people over the head. State oppression is violence, societal oppression is violence, widespread racism is violence; Hitler didn't have to openly call for violence against the Jews for quite some time. All he had to do was say that they're rats, traitors, subhuman, they're why Germany lost the war, etc. Every day the state and capitalism wield their violence on the people: if you don't comply they will kick you off your home. Point being there is more violence than simply saying "I will now proceed to punch this person".

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#82

Post by andrepd »

axguscbklp wrote: post #64
atoav wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up in a right wing province of southern Austria with neo nazis (and old original nazis) nextdoors I can tell you precisely what changed. Fighting for the other persons right to speak their thought is a good and noble thing as long as the other person doesn't fight against your right to say what you like and as long as their words don't turn into actions. The more of this happens the more tolerance…

>Fighting for the other persons right to speak their thought is a good and noble thing as long as the other person doesn't fight against your right to say what you like and as long as their words don't turn into actions. >People got killed, people got attacked, people got their rights violated in many ways based on that speech. Do you apply this logic to also justify being intolerant to anti-liberal, hate-filled, and…

> Do you apply this logic to also justify being intolerant to anti-liberal, hate-filled, and potentially violence-provoking speech that comes from the left?

Uhm, yes?

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#83

Post by stormdennis »

UncleMeat wrote: post #79
matt-attack wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve never seen it A Jewish lawyer at the ACLU famously fought for the rights of Nazis to demonstrate in Skokie, Il. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_...

The other way around. What I want is to see a Nazi free speech absolutist defending the rights of Jewish people.

And what about the Palestinians?

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#84

Post by Y_Y »

gnramires wrote: post #17

The principle of explosion! To me, no greater proof of the existence of truth and the value of truth, and the concept of truth. If you think "Well, maybe this truth thing isn't really necessary, things are all absurd anyways, isn't everything just an arbitrary construct?" Well, assume me a falsehood and I will explode your world.

Could you give a definition of this "truth"?

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#85

Post by mensetmanusman »

raffraffraff wrote: post #57
llaolleh wrote: post #28

I love Bertrand Russell's writing style. His piece on writing is a must read: http://personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/how... He translates this: "Human beings are completely exempt from undesirable behaviour-patterns only when certain prerequisites, not satisfied except in a small percentage of actual cases, have, through some fortuitous concourse of favourable circumstances, whether congenital or en…

I think that philosophers like Judith Butler write impenetrable prose to sound intelligent and to make it almost impossible to argue against their positions. Anything worth saying can be said simply.

One could argue that anything worth seeing can be said simply, but it might require vocabulary that has a large corpus of knowledge behind it.

For example, scientist couldn’t make quick progress if they couldn’t speak succinctly about Fourier transforms, but that concept is quite difficult for a large portion of the population to grok.

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#87

Post by Veen »

UncleMeat wrote: post #79
matt-attack wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve never seen it A Jewish lawyer at the ACLU famously fought for the rights of Nazis to demonstrate in Skokie, Il. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_...

The other way around. What I want is to see a Nazi free speech absolutist defending the rights of Jewish people.

There are no Nazi free speech absolutists, even if some Nazis pretend they are for pragmatic reasons. Freedom of speech is not valued highly in fascist belief systems relative to nationalism, social cohesion, etc.

That's rather the point, though. There are many who hold it essential to defend free speech for Nazis, even though Nazis would remove their freedom to speak. If you balk at that thought, then you don't support free speech at all, just speech within your personal boundaries of acceptability.

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#88

Post by coldtea »

andrepd wrote: post #74
feurio wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Both these obstacles exist in every large country known to me, except China, which is the last refuge of freedom." Good to see how well that worked out ;-)

It's depressing how bad early 20th century China fucked it up

Compared to some paradise that was 19th century China?

If anything, they improved a lot, in sovereignity, wealth, education, infrastructure, commerce, science, and tons of other fields besides...

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#89

Post by UncleMeat »

stormdennis wrote: post #83
UncleMeat wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other way around. What I want is to see a Nazi free speech absolutist defending the rights of Jewish people.

And what about the Palestinians?

What do you mean?

My claim is that "free speech absolutism" is more consistently used to protect the rights of those belonging to traditional power structures than the rights of the downtrodden. I am skeptical of it as a viable ideology when there are populations who enjoy the benefit of this ideology who'd waste no time throwing me in prison if they were granted a legislative majority.

This is why I don't find examples of historically oppressed groups (Jewish people) defending the rights of historically powerful groups (white supremacists) to be a compelling argument that free speech absolutism will actually protect my rights if it came to that.

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#90

Post by agumonkey »

kevinwang wrote: post #11
baoqdau wrote: post #9

I love Bertrand Russell man. His essays are so beautifully written. In praise of idleness is a banger. The conquest of happiness is a joy to read. His writings are so clear. The way he elucidates his thought process is sublime. What a cool guy.

if only principia mathematica could have been as clear :P

so that's how you do ? you put all the cryptic complexity in one book and pour the rest in your poetry compilation ..
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