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

bigthink.com

431–440 of 480 posts

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

#431
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the law has generally done very good job of reminding us that this tends to be a VERY NARROW possibility, i.e. the harm has to be very specific and directed and measurable. Here in the US, yes. In the rest of the world (like, EU) they aren't very specific.

The one good thing about America.

There are other good things, but it is certainly a deficiency in Europe. Some criminalize insults pretty heavily. While the thought behind that might be decent, I don't believe it to work in the future.

For example in Germany the first amendment protects dignity. An ideal law nobody can really fully adhere to. It works because there is a societal consensus about its meaning. Nothing the law can really determine. I believe this consensus will not really survive the 21st century. Perspectives will be too different. Dignity in religious communities means something entirely different than in a secular society, and even in that values will diverge more and more.

A lot of these laws are ancient and many were intended to protect monarchy from vulgar peasants, so I am a bit surprised "progressive" forces seem to have found their love for it.

In the interest of civil liberties, these laws would need to be changed at some point. They basically allow authority to selectively punish anyone under almost any pretense.

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

#432
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no true scotsman. Doesn't mean we can't have truth

That's irrelevant. The fact is that we don't have neutral institutions. Even theoretically it would be extremely unlikely, and in practice it won't happen, chiefly because it would involve people in the in-group making comittiments to deplorable people in the out-group. This might be approximately possible in a united cohesive high-trust society... but that bond of kinship simply doesn't exist anywhere in the West to…

Journalists thought the same while feeling decently smart. They were neither smart nor produced articles worth reading in the end.

Anyone can strive to objectivity. Even if you can never reach it, the quality between someone who tries and someone who gives up is tremendous.

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

#433
post #232
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.

I really liked it. I think people have already forgotten how it was without these things. It was also predicted for years that small mindedness will become an enemy to such advancements.

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

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of compelled speech?

"Today, Florida honeymoon registry company Honeyfund.com, along with workplace diversity consultancy Collective Concepts and its co-founder Chevara Orrin filed a federal lawsuit to block enforcement of Florida’s HB 7, the Stop WOKE Act. The law purports to “fight back against woke indoctrination” by, among other things, barring employers from engaging in speech that “advances” certain “concepts” regarding race, sex,…

I should have been clearer: you said Ron DeSantis was using the power of the state to force university professors to say things. I was after a citation for that claim.

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

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that you "can't" say certain things what fact is that? who enforces the "can't" ?

According to the Twitter files, Silicon Valley enforces it at the behest of the federal government.

Not clear why you're getting downvoted, but this is the exact right answer. The Twitter files was proof that the Federal government put pressure on Twitter to censor specific viewpoints.

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

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wtf since when do presidents give book reviews?

He probably read it to see what all the fuss was about. I did. Its not a good book. Rushdie is a fucking boring writer.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is aimed at children, but fantastic. Can't comment on the others because I haven't read them.

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

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education standards are normal. Simple question do we agree we don't need a middle school teacher explaining in graphic detail how to have sex? Or maybe "alternative" theory like flat earth? If not I don't know how we reach a common ground if we agree though maybe just maybe we can agree that teacher shouldn't be teaching certain things at certain ages and not call that "censorship". You might disagree what ages or t…

Abstinence only education is known to not work, so unless your want to end up with a bunch of pregnant teenagers who think porn accurately depicts sex, having school teachers explain how sex works seems like the only reasonable conclusion. The only question then is at what age. Middle school starts off at 10-years old seems a bit young to me for graphic descriptions of sex. It is certainly old enough to have already…

> What age do you think is reasonable for schools to be teaching sex? Explicitly, how to use a condom, and the inaccuracies of porn.

I'm not going to play along with your attempt to deflect from your failure to answer. The specific age we choose doesn't really matter that much in the context of our discussion and you know that.

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

#438
post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never claimed to be an absolutist. In other posts I specifically say: "My beliefs regarding freedom of speech is that is should be just shy of absolute. Only limit should be believable threats of violence." There are likely other crime related caveats. Now with that said I am not advocating for freedom from social consequences just preventing the state from using its lock on violence to implement those consequences.…

>Never claimed to be an absolutist. You're whole premise is that the government shouldn't regulate speech, as it "leads to dictatorship" >In other posts I specifically say: "My beliefs regarding freedom of speech is that is should be just shy of absolute. Only limit should be believable threats of violence." That's fine if that's what you believe. 'Believable threats of violence' is a completely ambiguous and meaning…

hmmm, your entire argument appears to be overly focused and convinced on the supposed fact that everyone that holds negative views of a race or people becomes a mass murderer. That's very much not the case. If if was, there wouldn't be very many people left at all. 99.999999% of the time JewHater99 is just going to go about living a normal life and continue posting anonymously on the web.

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

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyday on the internet I see trans people threatened, disrespected, or legislated out of existence" Legislation in the US has actually made trans people vanish or are we using large amounts of hyperbole? People have been saying mean things about other groups for millennia, as long as its just words, its fine. I'm a jew, I see the neo nazi groups with banners or Kanye ranting and just laugh. Who cares? Now if they…

> Trans people are for some reason the only large visible group yelling that speech is violence and saying mean things about them should be illegal. this in an incredibly disingenuous take. Who is trying to make saying antitrans things should be illegal? last i checked trans people were still trying to access affirming medical care and not be attacked in the streets. If you are referring to like pronouns/names, I sti…

> by people who think a penis is the thing that makes you dangerous

It is the means by which a man can forcibly impregnate a woman. This is a very real risk to women, and is one reason why so many women are deeply uncomfortable with males imposing themselves in spaces where women are vulnerable, like bathrooms and locker rooms.

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

#440

I am not a liberal. Many people are not. The paradox of tolerance is the easy counterarguement to this. If you choose to never do anything in response to the things people say that's your perogative, I on the other hand can listen just fine to other people and my response to the things they say might be to tell them to stop saying it. "I don't believe you should be allowed to say this without consequence" is also a t…

Ah yes the paradox of tolerance. The "our enemies will stop us so we must stop them first" argument. Never found it convincing for some reason.

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