721–730 of 1001 posts
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> You can avoid the whole thing by just not participating. Except when people don't participate they get nothing out of the exchange and there's no discussion or progress
Progress happens offline.
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I like to point out the Sedition Act of 1918 here. About 100 years ago, a law that literally made it a crime to criticize the government was not only enacted, but upheld by the courts. Can you even imagine that today? What people are finally noticing now is that non-government entities can also have negative impacts on free speech. They're not noticing because it just started -- e.g. lots of folks lost their jobs for…
> Can you even imagine that today? No need to imagine, the law never left. https://www.lawfareblog.com/seditious-conspiracy-real-domest... https://www.google.com/search?q=sedition+usa&tbm=nws
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Can you explain what it means to "deny the existence" of someone? I see this expression often, but I'm genuinely puzzled by what it means in practice. I agree with you that "purposely misgendering one's colleagues" should lead to firing, but I think this article isn't about that. It's about people who are tolerant of others and in general try to be nice people, but just disagree about certain things - for example, ho…
> Can you explain what it means to "deny the existence" of someone? Here's an example: "There's no such thing as a trans person. Trans is not a real thing, it's a mental illness and a delusion that needs to be cured. " If you hear that and you are trans, then you are bound to feel like someone is denying you actually exist. Its a strange feeling that someone whose existence has always been validated by society cannot…
(Is it more about denying trans people's suffering perhaps ?)
I guess that this dismissal of mental illness (and here also of trans people) also comes from equating "anormal" with "bad". At least I can see where the conservatives are coming from with this, but I have much more trouble to understand it when progressives fall into this trap !
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> it allows the reader to insert their individual grievances into the shape of the argument rather than reflecting on whether their grievances are actually well-founded. Given that it's specifically about the shape of these sorts of arguments, adding specific examples would produce tangents into the merits of the specific examples; omitting them encourages the reader to consider the pattern in the context of their ow…
"The shape of an argument" is the polite way to say that an argument is imprecise. Less politely: it's a way to beat around the bush about what you actually believe while maintaining plausible agreeability. Graham can't make the point that it's pervasive, because he won't provide any evidence to that effect. He won't do that because he knows that hand-wringing about "heresy" is much more agreeable than the interior p…
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The particularly uncharitable reading of that quote that jumped to my mind when I read it is "but why can't I, a white guy, say the n-word?" But this probably isn't what Graham actually had in mind. I think Graham is trying to operate in some idealized plane of pure logical statements where you can speak truthful axioms and reason from them. He misses that in the real world statements have a context, are part of an o…
This was also the example that came to my mind. It is perhaps one of the most iconic examples, and as such, absent a concrete example or further clarification, I don't see why you shouldn't assume that this is representative of what the author had in mind.
Because we shouldn't automatically assume the worst in each other?
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> “Ignorant” and “insensitive” are telltale signs of orthodoxy Some would call them telltale signs of knowledge, wisdom, and a moral framework that places great weight on respect for others, when used in a corrective context.
Indeed, some would. Would you ? Note that you reflexively express your position by reference to a putative consensus.
And when confronted with this feedback, instead of responding with humility, open-mindedness, and intellectual curiosity, they seek shelter in groups or try to clumsily defend their ignorance through whataboutism, slippery-slope arguments, unrelated grievances, or other forms.
Alternatively, they question the entire premise of social norms or morality, such as what PG has done here. People like him are intelligent enough to know that they cannot attack the truth and defend a lack of respect head-on. Instead, they try to mount a flank attack by publishing pieces such as this that appeal to selfish audiences who care more about their individual freedom than our need to work together to build a better society. It's not super surprising that they do this; after all, controversy and endless argument makes them money.
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I am not generally pro cancel culture, but a lot of the opposition to it is certainly whiney and low on evidence. For example, there's this notion that the advancement of knowledge is somehow being suppressed and that naked, barely-regulated free speech has been essential to Western dominance, and that, accordingly, to backpedal on the principle would have some material affect on society. However, no nexus between th…
But in actual intellectual discourse, if someone presents a point of view which is founded on a discredited idea, then we just ignore them. We do not show up at their talks and try to prevent them from communicating with others. Firstly because life's too short for that, and secondly because who knows, one day they might turn out to have been right or mostly right.
I think this is an important part: "Fortunately in western countries the suppression of heresies is nothing like as bad as it used to be. Though the window of opinions you can express publicly has narrowed in the last decade, it's still much wider than it was a few hundred years ago. The problem is the derivative. Up till about 1985 the window had been growing ever wider. Anyone looking into the future in 1985 would…
In 1985 you could say “homosexuality is a disease and all gay should be locked up” and you wouldn’t have to be too worried about your employment. Today you can say “I’m gay” and don’t have to worry about being fired for it. I like today’s freedom of expression better.
I think this is an important part: "Fortunately in western countries the suppression of heresies is nothing like as bad as it used to be. Though the window of opinions you can express publicly has narrowed in the last decade, it's still much wider than it was a few hundred years ago. The problem is the derivative. Up till about 1985 the window had been growing ever wider. Anyone looking into the future in 1985 would…
I like to point out the Sedition Act of 1918 here. About 100 years ago, a law that literally made it a crime to criticize the government was not only enacted, but upheld by the courts. Can you even imagine that today? What people are finally noticing now is that non-government entities can also have negative impacts on free speech. They're not noticing because it just started -- e.g. lots of folks lost their jobs for…