In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

Post by eli_gottlieb » Mon, Mar 23, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

kedean wrote: post #150

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, if the Left always gets more left-wing over time, while the mainstream always moves leftward, leaving nobody but a lone batch of online hyper-reactionaries defending decency and normality, where's my Communism? Worker-owned cooperatives? Commons trusts? Basic income? Only the last of those is even under the remotest mainstream consideration! And how is it that we've got the most hegemonically capitalist system…

The problem is that these particular college students are too far left, its that the ones who are being extremely leftist are also trying to silence everyone else and remove the intellectual environments from universities. It's not about which side their on, it's about the end result they're trying to achieve. Leftist college students in the past weren't trying to silence and terminate professors for expressing a vie…

Post by joeclark77 » Mon, Mar 23, 2015, 7:46 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #17

joeclark77 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You used to hear American liberals saying things like "I disagree with your position, but I would defend to the death your right to express it." It was part of the creed that they thought defined them as "progressive". Funny, you don't hear that much any more.

The thing is, I don't think there are all that many liberals out there who want to use the force of law to prevent objectionable speech; They do want to use the force of law to prevent businesses from discriminating among their customers, though, which is an important distinction. Hate black people? Sure, put up a klan poster, but you've still gotta serve 'em a drink.

Post by eli_gottlieb » Mon, Mar 23, 2015, 9:07 PM UTC

defen wrote: post #116

bobcostas55 wrote: post #54

Nietzsche has a great bit on these people. The Gay Science #359.

Here's a contemporary quote from Oscar Wilde that hits at the same issue, in a way that's easier for modern readers to digest: "I never came across anyone in whom the moral sense was dominant who was not heartless, cruel, vindictive, log-stupid, and entirely lacking in the smallest sense of humanity. Moral people, as they are termed, are simple beasts."

Post by onnoonno » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 4:59 PM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #152

onnoonno wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very good reason to generally attack/dismiss feminism IMO is that it is this morphing amoeba-like ideology. One's personal feminism is always different from 'those mainstream feminists', yet you do not see a lot of distancing from some of the very harmful feminist extremists that are around. ("NAFALT" - not all feminists are like that) It's gotten to the point where the analogue would be to label oneself a 'stalini…

I disagree just because an overloaded term is not necessarily a meaningless or low-value term - many of its definitions might be important. I do agree that overloaded terms are frustrating, though. It also doesn't help that some of the overloading of "feminism" is from its detractors.