51–60 of 126 posts
> A significant portion of college students have become more hostile toward free speech * proceeds to use Milo Yiannopolous as an example *
Implying?
This is a strategy that was employed for real, as explained by this person who did it: https://observer.com/2017/02/i-helped-create-the-milo-trolli... They organised the event, and then organised a protest against the event.
What is the mindset of a college student who goes out of their way to shout down and prevent other people from speaking? This isn't rhetorical, I genuinely want to know why they think, in a place ostensibly dedicated to learning, it's acceptable (and seemingly even admirable) behavior.
I may be wrong, but from what I've seen, the majority of "prevention of other people from speaking" is done to people who are not really constructive and muddy the water. The article mention Milo Yiannopolous, for example. If you look at the person, it is quite clear that his contribution will not help learning anything, just spreading cliché and create polarisation that will both destroy intelligent debate and possi…
Isn't part of the point of controversial speakers that they're challenging that our goals and values are fully shared?
It sounds like the speech is being judged before it's given.
Maybe for speakers who have explicitly called for violence, this would be appropriate, but my guess is nearly zero of the speakers deplatformed were actually calling for violence.
I haven't been in University for over a decade now, but is this an actual real problem or just conservative provocateurs whining?
Lol, look into the huge chilling effect geneticists face in their research if you want to see a substantive effect this has. Combining your "searching for truth" program with a "purist political ideology" program is a bad idea. When you split facts down a political dichotomy, "conservative whining" is just a check engine light that you're blind to half the world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may be wrong, but from what I've seen, the majority of "prevention of other people from speaking" is done to people who are not really constructive and muddy the water. The article mention Milo Yiannopolous, for example. If you look at the person, it is quite clear that his contribution will not help learning anything, just spreading cliché and create polarisation that will both destroy intelligent debate and possi…
But surely "not really constructive" and "muddy the water" implies a judgment—a pre-judgment—that the speech itself ought to be allowed to face. If he speaks and his ideas are "not really constructive" and "muddy the water", then the listeners can decide what to do with the ideas, both within their own minds and in conversation afterward. If he's not allowed to speak, then the people preventing the speech are enforci…
In the case of Milo, this is a fair pre-judgement. Are we expected to ignore a person's entire corpus of work and treat them as an untouched field of snow every time they present themselves? We're to "rehash" their position every time they speak? That seems silly.
People like Milo form their careers on rage-bait. Shouting him down is the same as simply banning a troll or banning flame-bait on forums.
For the others, for the most part it's the same - reactionary speakers, especially in the USA, are mostly uninterested in good faith debate. They leverage rhetorical fallacy and outright disinformation to muddy the waters. See: the Trump election conspiracies, the antivax movement, the rewriting of the cultural history of gender fluidity to attack trans people's existence, etc etc etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Inconsistently protected rights are not "rights".
You must surely realize that your statement is nonsense. If it were true then there would be no rights. No right or law is ever protected with perfect consistency. The right to life, the right to make personal choices, the right to determine one's own identity—whatever right you may believe in, it is never protected consistently. All rights are "inconsistently protected." Therefore, by your statement, there are no ri…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may be wrong, but from what I've seen, the majority of "prevention of other people from speaking" is done to people who are not really constructive and muddy the water. The article mention Milo Yiannopolous, for example. If you look at the person, it is quite clear that his contribution will not help learning anything, just spreading cliché and create polarisation that will both destroy intelligent debate and possi…
But surely "not really constructive" and "muddy the water" implies a judgment—a pre-judgment—that the speech itself ought to be allowed to face. If he speaks and his ideas are "not really constructive" and "muddy the water", then the listeners can decide what to do with the ideas, both within their own minds and in conversation afterward. If he's not allowed to speak, then the people preventing the speech are enforci…
From what I can see, deplatforming attempts are in very large majority done towards people who already have demonstrated the quality of their ideas.
> because if the ideas were not really constructive or entirely lacked value, then the listeners could dismiss them thoughtfully.
If it was true, then racism, populism, or prejudice would not exist at all, because all of that is based on flawed logic that can be easily demonstrated. The reality is that intelligent debate LOSES in front of convenient fearmongering. Not because people are idiot, but simply mathematically: fearmongering is way easier and way more convincing than rationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
> Or could it be that modern students don't have the ability to think carefully about or make good judgments about speech?
I would say that maybe modern students are smarter than before and go further than the naive logic of "if it's incorrect, the rational side will win", which has been demonstrated incorrect again and again in history.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> actual real problem or just conservative provocateurs whining Can't tell if this is a joke or not. If not, can't you see the irony in your own typing?
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
Your comments is anecdotal proof of what the article tries to convey.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please tell us where the Maoist violence is occurring in 2024.
This is a loaded question and I can't see how it's related. A victim of Maoist violence was deplatformed by socialist students. Do victims of socialist governments represent such an abhorrent ideology?
What is the mindset of a college student who goes out of their way to shout down and prevent other people from speaking? This isn't rhetorical, I genuinely want to know why they think, in a place ostensibly dedicated to learning, it's acceptable (and seemingly even admirable) behavior.
I'm curious if you genuinely believe it's worth listening to the nuance of a racist's arguments. Not everyone getting shouted down at universities are avowed racists, but some are, or transphobes, or have vocally opposed women's humanity (you can't call for the removal of women's bodily autonomy and square that with believing they're equal humans to men). So for the racists, what is there to learn? Not to mention tha…
You're applying these labels to speakers (racist, transphobe, reactionary) and then claiming that if the label applies, engagement is pointless and they deserve to be shouted down.
Let's say I agree this is true, on net, for some set of beliefs. There's still some huge problems here:
1) How can we all agree which sets of ideas deserve this treatment?
2) How can we be certain these labels are being applied accurately?
Calls for violence are the only clear answer to the first question, but they're extremely rare - I'm guessing literally zero of the deplatformed speakers were actually calling for violence.
Beyond that, it's very hard to come up with a set of beliefs which we can all agree to. Socialism / communism killed tens of millions in the 20th century - should they be banned from speaking?
And who decides when these labels apply? I've personally seen examples of medical professionals using traditional scientific definitions of biological sex labeled as transphobes.
Given the difficulties drawing the lines, it seems better to have prudence when inviting speakers initially (fewer Milos) but then allow individuals to determine where those lines are themselves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
different spaces have different harassment problems. Academia can have an extreme concentration of leftist dogmatism while political society can have a far right one. Both can happen at the same time in different communities.
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…
Corrupting an institution that's (unfairly) used as the arbiter for scientific truth is not insignificant.