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Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

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Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#341

Post by DubiousPusher »

XorNot wrote: post #238
DubiousPusher wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a coincidence that the postmodern thoughts that underpin a lot of this bullshit simply does away with intent Please make the connection between the disregard of intent and any rigorous definition of "post-moderism". Genuinely I don't see it. I think the degradation of intent is more at the hands of those who have used it as a shield than anyone else. We've seen entire regions of the world thrown into chaos…

The guy who says things were "just a joke" when he see's the frown of disapproval...but he never apologizes. And he also doesn't stop doing it. It's "just a joke" every time.

Perfect explanation of how "intentions" can come not to matter because we all know and hate this type of personal interaction. Well done.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#342

Post by kmeisthax »

yterdy wrote: post #291
kmeisthax wrote: post #224

>In 1989, the novelist Salman Rushdie went into hiding. The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had issued a fatwā calling on “all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world” to kill the writer without delay, for which the assassin would receive a bounty of $1 million. It's not a good look to start your article on how speech is not violence with a concrete example of someone using speech as vi…

>Fatwas are exactly the sort of thing I'd point at if I wanted to say that speech is violence. And there are plenty of examples of fatwas in the western world now. Hell, we coined the word "stochastic terrorism" to refer to them, because apparently you're not allowed to call a fatwa a fatwa unless it comes from the Champagne region of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling murder. I laughed, but it's important to poin…

Point taken. Is there a more specific term for "fatwas that call for someone's death" that I should be using?

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#343

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #335
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't think that credible threats of violence or harassment were protected yet they've become almost normalized.

I cant even remember the last time I saw a credible threat of violence online. It is hard for me to believe they are normalized.

I often hear of people having the Twitter mob descend on them so hard that it makes the news and they get a shitload of menacing violent threats on their voicemail or other harassment.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#344

Post by dqpb »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #262
dqpb wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terminating a millions-years-old family line is pretty harsh imo.

Is it? Nature does it all the time. Maybe it's a sentimentality thing.

lol, what?

If I killed someone, I can't be like "Whats the problem? Nature kills people all the time. Why are you so sentimental?"

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#345

Post by s1artibartfast »

Joeboy wrote: post #232
pugets wrote: post #205

Being liberal in the 90’s meant defending controversial or disruptive speech on the premises of the mantra, “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it.” This principle operated as a liberal self-preservation tactic. The Church had more influence in society than it does today, and if anyone was going to challenge the status quo, it had to be liberals. Hip hop music, feminist art, raunchy…

Maybe there's something to that, but I think the main thing that happened was that we developed incredible new technology that allowed all of humanity to communicate openly in real time on an equal footing without gatekeepers or censorship. Then we looked at it and decided we didn't like it.

>Then we looked at it and decided we didn't like it.

People were given the ability to seek out an unlimited reservoir of offensive content and decided they like it.

They like being outraged, They like feeling the martyr, They like to hate.

The overwhelming majority of offensive content is sought out and distributed by the offended.

Im sure there are detailed biological and social descriptions of why, but at the end of day, it is because people want to be offended.

It is quite a sad state of affairs.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#346

Post by Clubber »

robertlagrant wrote: post #45
fallingfrog wrote: post #8

The kinds of censorship that really bothers me is when people like Ron deSantis use the power of the state to force people like university professors to say specific things and muzzle them from saying other things. That's actual government censorship.

Can you give an example of compelled speech?

"In this case, the Court ruled that a state cannot force children to stand, salute the flag, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The justices held that school children who are Jehovah’s Witnesses, for religious reasons, had a First Amendment right not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or salute the U.S. flag."

This and other examples here:

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/933/compelled-s...

This was one in Canada recently.

"If someone refused to use a preferred pronoun — and it was determined to constitute discrimination or harassment — could that potentially result in jail time?

It is possible."

https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/features/canadas-gender-identi...

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#347

Post by [deleted] »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #43
Joeboy wrote: post #11

> few liberal-minded commentators seemed eager to say Rushdie was entirely without fault This does not match my recollection. As I recall things, Rushdie was vigorously defended by the left, which at the time quite liked the idea of freedom of speech. At least in the UK, can't speak for anywhere else.

I would say he was quite vigorously defended by liberals. Since the 1970s there pretty much hasn't been such a thing as the left, especially in Rushdie's hayday of the 80s-00s. If there was, I doubt it would've spent much time worrying about the fate of a bourgeoisie fantasist. Nothing against Rushdie btw. I loved the Satanic Verses. But institutional journalism (which provides the fundamental model most people use t…

[deleted]

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#348

Post by cmh89 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #334
cmh89 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a jew, I see the neo nazi groups with banners or Kanye ranting and just laugh. Who cares? Now if they want to come at me with physical violence then that's something else. I'll respond in kind You're acting as though the likely outcome of neo-nazi groups is some skinhead trying to fight you. What actually happens is neo-nazi groups radicalize angry young men who then go out a gun down a whole bunch of people at…

There are always consequences to freedom of ideas. Some good, some bad. The suppression of speech and ideas leads to a dictatorship. I think people that attack others verbally for who or what they are are bad people. I just think that the consequences of suppression of speech are worse. It's all good when the leaders we like are in power and stifle the speech of those we disagree with. It's not so fun when the pendul…

>The suppression of speech and ideas leads to a dictatorship.

That's not true. Nazi ideology is banned in Germany, and they are a far healthier democracy than the United States.

> I just think that the consequences of suppression of speech are worse.

So if a group of people were plotting to kill you, you'd only want the State (i.e. the police) to step in after they had gone through with their plot?

> Sometimes. Are you willing to ban Islam since so often it's ideals are corrupted and lead to groups like Isis or the Taliban?

You're making up things that I 'believe'. I don't personally think that nazi ideology should be banned.

I was merely pointing out that your fantasy of 'responding in kind' is nonsense. The end result of these hate ideologies is mass shootings and terrorism, not street fights you can be prepared for or defend yourself against.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#349

Post by freejazz »

throwawayacc6 wrote: post #269
freejazz wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it is literally possible to type a sentence, doesn't make it true... I'm not sure what point you think you are demonstrating past that.

You're almost there! This is an /r/selfawarewolves tier post.

Oh, I get it. You think you are demonstrating that the post you are mocking is meaningless because you can artificially insert other words to it in an arbitrary fashion that renders it meaningless? Shocking that you are being smarmy about it, but I guess that comes with the territory of not realizing the pie is in your own face.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#350

Post by vannevar »

autokad wrote: post #319
vannevar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tyranny isn't coming from me, it's coming from the people that own the company that's firing you. And the "tyrannical idea" you're referring to is called capitalism, and it has its upsides and its downsides. Don't shoot the messenger.

It appears that you are engaging in a logical fallacy by utilizing capitalism, which I assume is not something you hold in high regard, to silence someone's perspective during a discussion and attributing the blame to capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are primarily owned and controlled by individuals and private companies rather than by the gover…

A logical fallacy is a flawed argument that can be revealed by reasoning. For instance, someone suggesting that attributing blame to capitalism is a way to silence another's speech. That is a logical fallacy, because it omits any explanation of how such an attribution could silence another person. :-)

Seriously though, do you not see how private ownership of communication services impacts the question of who is allowed to use those services? And that if there were a truly public service, how that would dramatically change the situation with respect to First Amendment rights?

For the record, I'm a huge fan of capitalism. But it surprises me how many people don't understand that it has drawbacks, and that we should be honest with ourselves about those drawbacks. It's ok to say that you're pro-capitalism but that you also think that the Internet (or at least some of it) should be a public utility, for instance.

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