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On Being Blacklisted

aaronkunin.medium.com

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Re: On Being Blacklisted

#161

Post by schoen »

rayiner wrote: post #96

Kunin writes: “Look. I’m a weirdo. I have worshipped strange gods. I have strange opinions about various subjects, and I have published some of these opinions in books, essays, and poems. My sexual preferences are unusual, and I have written about them extensively. There are lots of statements in my published writing for people to take issue with. However, I must admit with some embarrassment that the views expressed…

> "All of this is summed up in his catchphrase the ‘weakening of Being,’ which he sees as a happy unburdening of the West, for weakening promotes tolerance, peace, and freedom. [...]"

That sort of reminds me of Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (although I read it when I was much younger and felt that I didn't full understand it, so maybe the connection isn't as strong as I imagine), or Singer's Unsanctifying Human Life (though maybe I'm reminded of the latter just because of the "disenchanted world"). Or, in another rather different direction, Haidt's moral foundations theory.

In my recollection Rorty and Singer (both writing from academic philosophical backgrounds and mostly associating themselves with the secular left) feel that, as we've lost touch with certainties and transcendent values, we've gained an opportunity to be nicer and more thoughtful, as well as less apt to fight each other. A rival view, which I think has been expressed on the right for generations, is that losing touch with certainties and transcendent values will mainly leave people casting around for other certainties and other transcendent values that will let them rediscover something to fight for!

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#162

Post by civilized »

rayiner wrote: post #96

Kunin writes: “Look. I’m a weirdo. I have worshipped strange gods. I have strange opinions about various subjects, and I have published some of these opinions in books, essays, and poems. My sexual preferences are unusual, and I have written about them extensively. There are lots of statements in my published writing for people to take issue with. However, I must admit with some embarrassment that the views expressed…

As a liberal, I feel there is plenty of moral clarity and purpose in defending liberalism against the extremists besieging it. They've always got their latest slick marketing for why the culture should become more totalitarian and illiberal, whether it's "RIGGED ELECTIONS!!!" Or "objectivity is white supremacy culture".

For me, defending good old liberalism from the loonies will never get boring.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#163

Post by monkeypizza »

schoen wrote: post #153
monkeypizza wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is a coherent, stable proposal. For a tolerant society to adopt complete tolerance, even of things designed to destroy their society, is unstable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

I'm kind of surprised at how the "paradox of tolerance" has gained so much currency in the past few years as if it were an obviously-established principle in free speech theory or something. In the recent past, this idea was much less accepted in the U.S. because it was not assumed that allowing people who were intolerant in some regard to express their ideas (or people who were hostile in some regard to U.S. society…

I was just bringing it up to get an admission that "there is a line". Everything else is about debating where that line is. The old ACLU set it really far into the "freedom" zone - recently people want to restrict it more, by for example talking about classifying relatively generic/common/vague speech as violence, when previously only direct incitement to violence was considered beyond the line.

My main point was that the GGP's concept of tolerance, as something which can have no line at all, has never been the case in the US, and doesn't seem advisable, since his argument that any resistance is invalidation of tolerance would lead it to be easily destroyed.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#164

Post by monkeypizza »

schoen wrote: post #160
monkeypizza wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your definition of tolerant, is it required to tolerate even attempts to destroy the tolerant person? i.e. is there a line beyond which tolerance doesn't apply? Where do laws fit in here? I honestly thought that tolerance already included this concept - it actually means tolerant of difference of opinion, except for attempts to overthrow and replace the system of tolerance itself.

I've thought that the "attempts to destroy" and "attempts to overthrow" are limited in the sense of "imminent lawless action" and not "mere teaching or advocacy". E.g. if someone says "we should have a dictatorship of the proletariat/guardianship of the Islamic Jurist/integralist monarchy/national socialism/etc. instead of the social order that we have now", that statement doesn't cause or create those systems. Toler…

Right. The original comment suggested that any prohibitions made by an allegedly tolerant society invalidate their claim.

I don't think that is a very useful definition of tolerance. The only stable system here, if there is one, might be something like hardcoded self-defense actions, plus otherwise general tolerance. Not saying it's logically or morally consistent.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#165

Post by dragonwriter »

manfredo wrote: post #131
ariabuckles wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And FYI nobody is arguing that any real, material history should not be taught. This is in the context of his literature courses. There are so many literary authors that aren't white men, that arguing that he should have the right to decide to only teach works from white men (if he deems them to be the best works), does seem to me like arguing that we shouldn't teach the history of marginalized people. If you only…

> There are so many literary authors that aren't white men, that arguing that he should have the right to decide to only teach works from white men (if he deems them to be the best works), does seem to me like arguing that we shouldn't teach the history of marginalized people. No, it does not remotely seem like arguing that we shouldn't teach the history of marginalized people. How do you go from "I should be able to…

> A course in classics is going to have overwhelmingly male authors, likely exclusively so.

Not of necessity; there are plenty of known women writers of the period (it's hard to imagine a broad survey excluding Sappho, but she's far from the only example.)

> The reality of the ancient Mediterranean was that patriarchy was extensive.

Perhaps, but also much less so than in the exclusively male, until very recently, academic society which did so much to shape the lens through which we see the classics.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#166

Post by refenestrator »

fatbird wrote: post #156
refenestrator wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really funny to me that this is 'inclusivity'. We have a tiny clique of upper-middle-class people who want to control all discourse in the name of 'inclusivity'. If you're one million percent sure that you're right about everything, that's justifiable. You're maximizing inclusivity. But if you're not?

No, what's really funny is suggesting that the editors of the Chicago Review and their contributors somehow CONTROL ALL DISCOURSE. It's as if Kunin has no other medium for the written word available to him. Of course I don't think I'm right about everything. But, as should be obvious, maximizing inclusivity means more than just ensuring an edgy, white, male poet with a university position is provided an audience.

Well, they're controlling what they can. And if we're gonna bring ethnicity into this, those people are mostly white too, no?

The average tech team I've been on is way less white than the woke median. And most of them don't buy it if you talk to them.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#167

Post by schoen »

monkeypizza wrote: post #163
schoen wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of surprised at how the "paradox of tolerance" has gained so much currency in the past few years as if it were an obviously-established principle in free speech theory or something. In the recent past, this idea was much less accepted in the U.S. because it was not assumed that allowing people who were intolerant in some regard to express their ideas (or people who were hostile in some regard to U.S. society…

I was just bringing it up to get an admission that "there is a line". Everything else is about debating where that line is. The old ACLU set it really far into the "freedom" zone - recently people want to restrict it more, by for example talking about classifying relatively generic/common/vague speech as violence, when previously only direct incitement to violence was considered beyond the line. My main point was tha…

Thanks for the clarification! I still don't really see why this is so. Lots of people in lots of countries want a theocracy, and are allowed to say so, but only a tiny number of countries have ended up getting one as a result. (I even think a fair amount of the advocacy in Iran in favor of the Islamic Revolution was probably illegal under Pahlavi, in which case its success isn't even much of a prophecy of what happens if that kind of advocacy is tolerated.)

I guess I don't understand the "any resistance is invalidation of tolerance" and "would lead it to be easily destroyed" part. Is it like this classic Onion article from 2003?

https://politics.theonion.com/aclu-defends-nazis-right-to-bu...

Like if you actively make a point of never opposing people who disagree with you in any way whatsoever, eventually they can take advantage of that in a more harmful or dramatic way?

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#168

Post by schoen »

monkeypizza wrote: post #164
schoen wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought that the "attempts to destroy" and "attempts to overthrow" are limited in the sense of "imminent lawless action" and not "mere teaching or advocacy". E.g. if someone says "we should have a dictatorship of the proletariat/guardianship of the Islamic Jurist/integralist monarchy/national socialism/etc. instead of the social order that we have now", that statement doesn't cause or create those systems. Toler…

Right. The original comment suggested that any prohibitions made by an allegedly tolerant society invalidate their claim. I don't think that is a very useful definition of tolerance. The only stable system here, if there is one, might be something like hardcoded self-defense actions, plus otherwise general tolerance. Not saying it's logically or morally consistent.

Thanks, I think I might be gradually understanding more of what you're saying.

I feel like I've often heard the paradox of tolerance invoked in regard to what U.S. free expression law would call "pure speech", but it seems like your point is more along the lines that there's no group or society that would literally do nothing at all to defend itself in any circumstances, and that that's an unachievable or unsustainable extreme. Maybe something like the most extreme form of pacificism, where people imply that they will literally allow themselves to be killed without trying to prevent it in any way.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#169

Post by baggy_trough »

ariabuckles wrote: post #104
baggy_trough wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any organization that concludes the ideas in that article are hateful or harmful can really no longer be considered an academic one.

Does the Chicago Review position itself as an academic organization? I'm under the impression it's a literary publication, which seems pretty different than a research publication in my lay eyes.

I’m not sure; my statement is a general one in response to yours.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#170

Post by baggy_trough »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #147
ariabuckles wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair. I should have said he's arguing for the right to not teach the history of marginalized people, not that he's arguing that others shouldn't (though he does seem to be arguing that others should be allowed to not teach it).

As I read it, he's arguing for the right not to have to choose what literature to teach on the basis of whether it came from marginalized people. He wants to teach the best literature, not black literature or brown literature or white literature. I mean, if you were teaching physics, you wouldn't teach ideas based on what race or nationality the person was who came up with the idea. I know, literature is different -…

Careful, you can’t say that now without people thinking you’re a racist.
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