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Campus free speech was in trouble in 2018, and the data shows worsening

greglukianoff.substack.com

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Re: Campus free speech was in trouble in 2018, and the data shows worsening

#71

Post by major505 »

bloopernova wrote: post #31

Ah, the old tolerance of intolerance quandary. I don't tolerate people who want to remove rights from and do harm to others. Such as the right to bodily autonomy for women. The right to get married and receive its protections and benefits, like visiting your spouse in hospital. Or for people to express their gender identity safely and without right wingers directing hatred at them.

What you call bodily autonomy cant be easily defined like that. What you dont tolerate is not up to you to decide if they can be silenced.

And look Im not telling I dont agree with you in many of this topics. ISt just that is easy to not listen and thing you are an iluminated person because you think the way you think.

Re: Campus free speech was in trouble in 2018, and the data shows worsening

#72

Post by hotdogscout »

defrost wrote: post #44
hotdogscout wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a far cry from the context he painted. Socialists were absolutely not under that kind of violent lynching level of abuse and it was quite the opposite in Academia. [Just to be clear, did not know about Red Summer and I concede that point.]

I haven't looked at the treatment of socialists - I just addressed the stoning of blacks. IIRC union busting in the US was quite violent and sometimes involved the police and | or military aiding in charging and beating strikers with clubs and occasional deaths, frequent injuries. Again, not stoning but would count as violence towards socialists | communists | workers. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_un…

I wouldn't say unions are socialist at all. In fact unions are the first thing to go out the window under socialist governments.

(The relevant part of the Wiki article is highlighted) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China#:~:....

Re: Campus free speech was in trouble in 2018, and the data shows worsening

#73

Post by cauch »

hotdogscout wrote: post #64
cauch wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how it answer to what I say. What I've said is that: 1) the majority of attempts are not successful, so "yet it can consistently expel people from it for disagreeing" is just incorrect, so there is no paradox. 2) the people organising or allowing the events in the first place are the one in charge. If indeed the "complainers" are in charge, how is that possible that the event got the initial green light,…

>1 I'll need to look at data on that before conceding or disagreeing. (Not your job I'll look later) >the people organising or allowing the events in the first place are the one in charge How come? If I go to a town square to speak and I get lynched, am I the one in power because I organized my speech? You're extrapolating a lot of power from being able to allocate time in a anphitheater from the University. >3 Sure…

For 1: I guess I'm on the clear, because the affirmation "obviously, the majority are successful" was made without checking the exact numbers. On my side, it's just a guess, but based on the fact that there are tons of universities, tons of events, and tons of people disagreeing with these events, I would say it is very reasonable to expect that if the majority was successful, the amount would be overwhelming.

> How come? If I go to a town square to speak and I get lynched, am I the one in power because I organized my speech?

But people don't just "show up" to universities and, bam, they can jump on stage and do an event. The events are always vetted by the people in charge. The events and their contents are reviewed and agreed. If it was not the case, how do you explain that companies don't go there to do a "speech" that happens to promote their product, or that extremists communities cannot easily go there and do their sermon, or that politicians cannot just go there and do their campaigning?

> being able to allocate time in a anphitheater from the University

Do you ever participate to such process? (not an attack, a genuine question. Maybe I'm wrong on how I imagine it works)

For 3: How do you judge "worst offender"? As I've said, it's very tricky, especially if the harassment from the "right" has become the norm. Or worst, when the harassment from the "left" is partially organised by the "right" (https://observer.com/2017/02/i-helped-create-the-milo-trolli...)

But does it even matter to the initial argument? Even if the "right" was the worst offender, the metric used in the article is still flawed.

And even if the "left" is the worst offender, if there is 95% of "right-wing" events cancelled and 5% of "left-wing" events cancelled, then, the presence of 5% is the demonstration that the left-wing is not in power (otherwise, it would be 0%).

More realistically, left-wing is the worst offender because they are the one using the protest tool more, while the people in power are not left-wing, they are just trying to ease the protest, but would act the same way if it was a right-wing demand.

Re: Campus free speech was in trouble in 2018, and the data shows worsening

#74

Post by cauch »

hotdogscout wrote: post #60
komali2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe that leftist dogmatism and associated deplatforming in the context of universities is equivalent in the application of real world harm to reactionary dogmatism and "deplatforming" in the context of a nation? I would be surprised if you're suggesting equivalence between a usually quite well off and at least somewhat famous speaker being shouted at from a few people in a crowd (who are usually quickly es…

I don't think they're equivalent on the west (why is it relevant?) but I do think you're softening a lot the harm of the academic example because the violence against the speaker is just the tip of the iceberg. If a victim of socialist violence can't speak, can you acknowledge that phenomenon in that institution? Will grants or even studies that acknowledge that socialist state violence be taboo when recruiting stude…

Things are more complicated: some people get more fame and more founding that their work would normally require because they present themselves as cancelled. There are even "anti-leftist-dogma university" initiatives coming out, which means that right-wing academic will have an easy position available there while left-wing academics don't have any such advantage.

It does not compensate, but that's one thing.

Another element that I find telling is that people talk about US academic sector as if the academic sector was not extremely international. If your very good and very true research is black-listed in leftism-dogmatic US universities, if it is indeed very good and very true, this article will be supported by universities in other countries.

Re: Campus free speech was in trouble in 2018, and the data shows worsening

#75

Post by cauch »

SamPatt wrote: post #63
cauch wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But would you say someone who says "I call for violence against pedophiles" deserves to be more deplatformed than someone who says "hm, I've heard that vaccine is linked to autism, just google it (and avoid classic media, they are all in the conspiracy anyway), and based on that take the correct decision for your children (knowing it will impact all the other children at school too)"? Not saying you are wrong, I just…

Yes, the call for violence is more deserving of censorship. It's not about trying to make a net utilitarian estimate of how much harm each claim might make. It's about the acceptability of the behaviors proposed. We may not like the idea of people choosing different medical treatments than we'd choose, but that's their right. Even if it's a foolish behavior to reject modern science, they can choose foolishness. They…

> We may not like the idea of people choosing different medical treatments than we'd choose, but that's their right. Even if it's a foolish behavior to reject modern science, they can choose foolishness.

The point I was trying to make is

1) the anti-vaxx discourse is spreading falsehood, the "violence against pedophiles" is not. The anti-vaxx is not just "opinion", is "demonstrably stupid opinion", while the second is "different moral than mine".

2) anti-vaxx will kill anti-vaxxer kids AND non-anti-vaxxer kids (because it will reenforce dangerous diseases). The anti-vaxx discourse is harming your innocent children, the "violence against pedophiles" will not harm innocent people (of course, you can imagine downward slide, but for sake of argument, let's say it's not the case here).

You say that you are ok if people have different opinions, which themselves have direct impacts on people, but then, you say you are not ok if people have different opinions, because they have direct impacts on people.

You have good point against the person having the "violence against pedophiles" opinion (and I agree with you that this opinion is not good), but you can build similar and exactly as valid arguments for the anti-vaxx one.

So, it looks like that your choice of "violence is more deserving of censorship" is just you having specific moral opinion of what is worst and what is better. But other opinions are as valid as yours. So it's a bit strange to talk about "free speech" and explaining that someone is just wrong because they don't have exactly the same morals as you.

Re: Campus free speech was in trouble in 2018, and the data shows worsening

#76

Post by snapcaster »

ecmascript wrote: post #57
snapcaster wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really a political partisan, what I'm attempting to ask is if this is a real problem affecting genuine academics and others or if it's just people like Milo (grifter) being mad they can't run their grifts on campuses anymore

So only certain people should have free speech? Who determines who is a grifter? You? The angry mob? Your comments is anecdotal proof of what the article tries to convey.

If i was paying tuition or donating to a university I would for sure not want someone like Milo (come on man, just admit he's a grifter) on the campus

Re: Campus free speech was in trouble in 2018, and the data shows worsening

#78

Post by hotdogscout »

cauch wrote: post #74
hotdogscout wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they're equivalent on the west (why is it relevant?) but I do think you're softening a lot the harm of the academic example because the violence against the speaker is just the tip of the iceberg. If a victim of socialist violence can't speak, can you acknowledge that phenomenon in that institution? Will grants or even studies that acknowledge that socialist state violence be taboo when recruiting stude…

Things are more complicated: some people get more fame and more founding that their work would normally require because they present themselves as cancelled. There are even "anti-leftist-dogma university" initiatives coming out, which means that right-wing academic will have an easy position available there while left-wing academics don't have any such advantage. It does not compensate, but that's one thing. Another…

I'm not American and I wasn't thinking of the US exclusively. I think it's a problem of democratic western academia, but there's no data outside the US as far as I know. If academic institutions of rich reputation champion, for example, denial of the Cambodian genocide, is the harm undone if another institution admits it happened?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial#:~....

>Things are more complicated: some people get more fame and more founding that their work would normally require because they present themselves as cancelled. There are even "anti-leftist-dogma university" initiatives coming out, which means that right-wing academic will have an easy position available there while left-wing academics don't have any such advantage

I think the worst of the deplatformed people enjoy this fame, which is not great. I'm a lot less concerned about Milo's exclusion than I am of Xi Van Fleet's. Drawing the ~line of acceptability~ at human rights is fine but academia is drawing it at leftist interest.

Re: Campus free speech was in trouble in 2018, and the data shows worsening

#80

Post by richrichie »

oo0shiny wrote: post #35
hotdogscout wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implying?

"In 2018, Yiannopoulos told at least two news organisations who had requested comments that he wanted vigilantes to shoot journalists. He wrote in a text message 'I can't wait for vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight'."

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