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The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

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Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#61

Post by Grue3 »

DanBC wrote: post #53
Grue3 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultural domination. There used to be a time when countries such as UK, France, Germany were incredibly influential in areas such as music and film. Now they're barely a blip on the radar. All the famous movies and music artists come from the US. I'd argue that stronger protections of free speech is a major advantage that led to this happening.

I don't get it. If we outside the US lack freedom of speech how does that help US media companies, who'll have to obey our laws to sell in our territories?

The part that gets exported, the pop culture so to speak, is as uncontroversial as it can be. But it's just the end product of a creative process. And this creative process works best in a free society. Moreover, pop culture is the tip of the iceberg standing atop all sorts of cultures and counter-cultures that make up the free society. It wouldn't have been created if free thought wasn't allowed to flourish.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#62

Post by foldr »

Kalium wrote: post #55
foldr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, sure, but this particular example of police harassment isn’t especially disturbing. Do you not think that, for example, routinely shooting unarmed black men probably has a bit more of a “chilling effect” than this does? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-... As I said, I’d be wary of forming your opinion of what political discourse is like in the UK from reading news stories. How much ti…

You're right. Routinely shooting unarmed black men definitely has a great many unwanted effects, not the least of which are on the people who get shot. We're fortunate, then, that this is not something anyone is suggesting should be done in the UK! Nor is the question at hand the probative value of whataboutism. The question at hand is that of police in the UK turning up and asking you why you're making an arse of yo…

Come to think of it, does the First Amendment actually stop the police in the US doing the same thing? The article reports that the police acknowledged that no crime had been committed. I don't think that there's anything unconstitutional about a police officer calling someone up and asking them questions.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#63

Post by jajag »

richardhod wrote: post #27
yarrel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spiked Online is a successor to Living Marxism magazine. It's left contrarianism of the horseshoe theory kind.

Only partly true, I'm afraid. This source is hard right. I don't want to go down a non HN- rabbit hole bc we're here to talk mostly about tech and information related things, but in extreme cases it's worth noting. I had also once thought Soiked was left wing, its editorial bears no resemblance to the old Left whatsoever. You might call it alt-right-libertarian, and funded by the notorious Koch brothers. https://rati…

It's confrontational, but it certainly isn't alt- or hard-right. I mean, this is its current lead article: https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/05/14/why-it-was-right-to... - and the article is not kind to Ben Shapiro.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#64

Post by brigandish »

pjc50 wrote: post #42
brigandish wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans seem much more comfortable with the idea that both free speech and free gun ownership will get more people routinely killed; like car ownership, it's just part of the price, it seems. In 2013 there were 33,636 deaths due to guns. Even without breaking down those figures (2/3 were suicides) it would take 178 years to reach the 6 million regularly claimed to be the total for the Holocaust. That seems to be…

> 33,636 deaths due to guns .. or four Srebrenicas, or roughly the entire historical body count of the Troubles. If it was concentrated then we would say that it was genocide. The big threat of the moment is "stochastic terrorism". If you tell enough people that X is a threat that is coming for them - that they are going to be victims of a holocaust - then eventually one of them will follow the logic that they can us…

> or four Srebrenicas, or roughly the entire historical body count of the Troubles.

If you're going to compare the 300+ million population of the USA with something, it's better to do it with (German occupied) Europe than a place with a population of around 1% that of the USA. It's also strange to bring in wars, civil or otherwise, and again compare numbers when the entire population of the island has a population of around 2% that of the USA's.

> If you tell enough people that X is a threat that is coming for them - that they are going to be victims of a holocaust - then eventually one of them will follow the logic that they can use their gun to avoid the holocaust by pre-emptively murdering the threat.

I suppose we should stop saying "win at all costs" or "some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that." because maybe a Liverpool fan will go on a killing spree.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#65

Post by brigandish »

ben_w wrote: post #41
brigandish wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans seem much more comfortable with the idea that both free speech and free gun ownership will get more people routinely killed; like car ownership, it's just part of the price, it seems. In 2013 there were 33,636 deaths due to guns. Even without breaking down those figures (2/3 were suicides) it would take 178 years to reach the 6 million regularly claimed to be the total for the Holocaust. That seems to be…

Mass murders aren’t the the thing that spills over into genocide — they get stopped when the shooter runs out of bullets etc. — it’s hate speech which spills over because it gets the speaker an army which can replenish itself. To put it another way, it’s not like Hitler personally shot all the people he killed, he convinced other people to do it for him.

Good, we're agreed, hate speech is vile. What we're not agreed on is the response. I am convinced by John Stuart Mill that I am not infallible therefore I should not be judge of who can and cannot speak. I can, however, judge the speech and think it is wrong and oppose it with my own speech. If they move to violence I may defend myself or others.

Or I could claim infallibility and judge that this is hate speech but that is not so this person cannot speak or say these things but that person can. In Germany, the person doing the judging was Hitler and people who agreed with him.

It doesn't sound like the best system to me. A big help to his plans was that the people denied the right to hold weaponry for personal defence were… Jews. As Frederick Douglass pointed out when talking about the oppression of blacks in America, without the right to bear arms the work of the abolitionists would not be over. History proved him (and Mill) right in Germany too.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#66

Post by exolymph »

Simple_Guy wrote: post #31
peteretep wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you briefly outline how you think the USA has benefitted from this freedom, in a way that other rich Western countries haven’t? I guess I’m specifically thinking of Australia, New Zealand, UK, Canada, as all have broadly similar legal systems and robust judiciaries / policing, but not the singular focus on free speech.

Freedom is an end in and of itself. You don't have to show that a freedom will benefit a person in another way for it to have value.

No idea why this comment would be flagged, so I vouched for it.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#67

Post by Kalium »

foldr wrote: post #62
Kalium wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. Routinely shooting unarmed black men definitely has a great many unwanted effects, not the least of which are on the people who get shot. We're fortunate, then, that this is not something anyone is suggesting should be done in the UK! Nor is the question at hand the probative value of whataboutism. The question at hand is that of police in the UK turning up and asking you why you're making an arse of yo…

Come to think of it, does the First Amendment actually stop the police in the US doing the same thing? The article reports that the police acknowledged that no crime had been committed. I don't think that there's anything unconstitutional about a police officer calling someone up and asking them questions.

In the US, a pattern of police doing so could be actionable.

It would be rather difficult for most American PDs to justify devoting resources to investigating somoene being mean online unless it was in a fairly narrow set of categories (clear and specific threat, harassment, etc.).

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#68

Post by foldr »

Kalium wrote: post #67
foldr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come to think of it, does the First Amendment actually stop the police in the US doing the same thing? The article reports that the police acknowledged that no crime had been committed. I don't think that there's anything unconstitutional about a police officer calling someone up and asking them questions.

In the US, a pattern of police doing so could be actionable. It would be rather difficult for most American PDs to justify devoting resources to investigating somoene being mean online unless it was in a fairly narrow set of categories (clear and specific threat, harassment, etc.).

What's your basis for saying that it could be actiobable under the first ammendment?

It would be equally difficult for British PDs as far as I can see. But police in both countries don't always use resources wisely.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#69

Post by ben_w »

brigandish wrote: post #65
ben_w wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass murders aren’t the the thing that spills over into genocide — they get stopped when the shooter runs out of bullets etc. — it’s hate speech which spills over because it gets the speaker an army which can replenish itself. To put it another way, it’s not like Hitler personally shot all the people he killed, he convinced other people to do it for him.

Good, we're agreed, hate speech is vile. What we're not agreed on is the response. I am convinced by John Stuart Mill that I am not infallible therefore I should not be judge of who can and cannot speak. I can, however, judge the speech and think it is wrong and oppose it with my own speech . If they move to violence I may defend myself or others. Or I could claim infallibility and judge that this is hate speech but…

You say:

> A big help to his plans was that the people denied the right to hold weaponry for personal defence were… Jews.

Mill also said:

> That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

Which rather limits the effectiveness of — for example — the Jewish people taking up arms in self-defence in WW2. However, if you wish to argue that every victim of persecution was defending the other victims rather than themselves, the same argument would enable those same victims using their guns to shoot the propagandists. In fact, as Mill was a Utilitarian, I would expect [1] him to prefer that the free speech of literal-third-Reich-Nazis to be suppressed with a few literal bullets in the face, than to allow the holocaust to be escalated to 17 million dead.

[1] If someone resurrected him with an ancestor simulation, I’d expect him to have difficulty believing something that bad could happen and that it wasn’t merely a thought experiment like the utilitarian eyelashes thought experiment (whose formal name I’ve forgotten) or the trolley problem. However, as a note of caution to what I’ve written, although I’ve studied Philosophy formally, I got a poor grade and may be misrepresenting Mill without being aware of it.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#70

Post by brigandish »

ben_w wrote: post #69
brigandish wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, we're agreed, hate speech is vile. What we're not agreed on is the response. I am convinced by John Stuart Mill that I am not infallible therefore I should not be judge of who can and cannot speak. I can, however, judge the speech and think it is wrong and oppose it with my own speech . If they move to violence I may defend myself or others. Or I could claim infallibility and judge that this is hate speech but…

You say: > A big help to his plans was that the people denied the right to hold weaponry for personal defence were… Jews. Mill also said: > That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. Which rather limits the effectiveness of — for example —…

I think you've misunderstood the Mill quote. Immediately preceding the quote you used:

> the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection.

He's saying that others cannot compel someone to do things, even if it is for their own good. They may only interfere for their own self protection. This implies and supports the right to self defence.

Ending the paragraph containing the quote you provided:

> In the part [of his conduct] which merely concerns him, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

This does not in any way limit or argue against the effectiveness or right to self defence but instead, again, supports it. I'd encourage you to read On Liberty as, in my opinion, it is the greatest modern philosophical work.

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