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Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

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Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#71

Post by UncleMeat »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #42
bckr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that will be used by shrill persons to claim censorship, etc, etc. However, I claim that the profession of certain opinions should make it impossible to make a living. EDIT: for certain values of "profess", which I'll expand as "go around telling everyone you frequently converse with"

I remember the days, just 15 years or so ago on Slashdot, people from a similar community as ours would have in their signature the quote: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I wonder how things changed so quickly and where this may lead us...

> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

People say this, but I've never seen it. Free speech absolutists weren't out there defending protest rights, lgbt activism, or union advocacy. The speech rights of the powerless have been consistently crushed by the powerful while the first amendment is used as a power defense of those who seek to harden existing power structures.

This quote often feels like a justification to support the speech rights of bigots while dodging the question of moral responsibility.

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#72

Post by UncleMeat »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #68
atoav wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up in a right wing province of southern Austria with neo nazis (and old original nazis) nextdoors I can tell you precisely what changed. Fighting for the other persons right to speak their thought is a good and noble thing as long as the other person doesn't fight against your right to say what you like and as long as their words don't turn into actions. The more of this happens the more tolerance…

We already know how to solve that problem. Freedom of speech doesn't cover violent threats. There is no need for hate speech regulations. Jihadism is not covered by free speech, nazism is not covered by free speech but racism is covered by free speech. You also seem to conflate jihadists with muslims - that's not the case. Jihadists are terrorists and they want war, other muslims integrate with other societies. There…

What is a violent threat? Why is it taken as an axiom that this is where the line is drawn for free speech? I am personally less concerned with individual violence than with political violence enacted by hate groups who gain legislative power.

For a long time, gay people could be thrown in prison for having gay sex. This was mass violence against gay people. It was absolutely within free speech rights to advocate for these laws and to vote for legislators who supported these laws. This, IMO, was far more violent to the gay community than an individual saying "let's go kill that f*g". So I question whether "violent threats unacceptable, hate speech acceptable" is the right boundary.

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#73

Post by pedrocr »

lmarcos wrote: post #61
UweSchmidt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the days, just 15 years or so ago on Slashdot, people from a similar community as ours would have in their signature the quote: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I wonder how things changed so quickly and where this may lead us...

> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Paradox: if I say: "I don't want freedom of speech for anybody but myself". Why would anyone defend my point of view? I don't think all ideas are defendable, but then I cannot make a list of what ideas deserve to be defended are what not: this always seemed to me like the notion of love (you don't know how to define it, besides the…

That's not a paradox. People will not defend your point of view, they will defend your right to express it even though they think you're wrong.

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#74

Post by andrepd »

feurio wrote: post #59
malwarebytess wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is from, at least partially, "Free Thought and Official Propaganda." https://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/br-free-thought.html

"Both these obstacles exist in every large country known to me, except China, which is the last refuge of freedom." Good to see how well that worked out ;-)

It's depressing how bad early 20th century China fucked it up

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#75

Post by andrepd »

bckr wrote: post #23
chmod600 wrote: post #18

Quotation (related only because it's from Russell): "The fundamental argument for freedom of opinion is the doubtfulness of all our belief... when the State intervenes to ensure the indoctrination of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favour of that doctrine .. It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions make it impossible to make a living." https://en.…

And that will be used by shrill persons to claim censorship, etc, etc. However, I claim that the profession of certain opinions should make it impossible to make a living. EDIT: for certain values of "profess", which I'll expand as "go around telling everyone you frequently converse with"

It's a hard balance. On one hand it is true that you're not free to profess an opinion if that opinion lets you be fired. On the other hand are your employees / colleagues / fellow citizens supposed to be forced to tolerate anything you say? There's no easy answer.

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#76

Post by nabla9 »

baoqdau wrote: post #9

I love Bertrand Russell man. His essays are so beautifully written. In praise of idleness is a banger. The conquest of happiness is a joy to read. His writings are so clear. The way he elucidates his thought process is sublime. What a cool guy.

He is so famous of his other achievements that people are frequently surprised to learn that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1950).

His writing is clear and his thinking is clear.

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#77

Post by salmo »

raffraffraff wrote: post #57
llaolleh wrote: post #28

I love Bertrand Russell's writing style. His piece on writing is a must read: http://personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/how... He translates this: "Human beings are completely exempt from undesirable behaviour-patterns only when certain prerequisites, not satisfied except in a small percentage of actual cases, have, through some fortuitous concourse of favourable circumstances, whether congenital or en…

I think that philosophers like Judith Butler write impenetrable prose to sound intelligent and to make it almost impossible to argue against their positions. Anything worth saying can be said simply.

I blame Heidegger for this. I'm sure someone can cite someone previous, but that was it for me as an undergrad.

It was so alluring at first. It sounds so smart, complex, and nuanced. But then it started to really kick in and I realized it was just opaque, vague, and unapproachable.

My CS/Math side kicked in. Complex statements should be able to be broken down into compositions of simpler ones. You have the Descartes and Rawls of the world, that were able to distill a topic to the point any college student could understand without knowing anything about Philsophy. Kant and, even more, Spinoza weren't exactly approachable, but were able to construct their work by deeply composing simple structures.

I came to agree that this artistic writing with overly complex sentence (or in Heidegger's case, compound word) structures, overuse of haughty philosophic jargon, etc. is mostly a large scale defense against argument. It becomes the gnosticism of philosophy: you think it's wrong because you just don't get it.

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#78

Post by matt-attack »

UncleMeat wrote: post #71
UweSchmidt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the days, just 15 years or so ago on Slashdot, people from a similar community as ours would have in their signature the quote: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I wonder how things changed so quickly and where this may lead us...

> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." People say this, but I've never seen it. Free speech absolutists weren't out there defending protest rights, lgbt activism, or union advocacy. The speech rights of the powerless have been consistently crushed by the powerful while the first amendment is used as a power defense of those who seek to harden existing power structures.…

> I’ve never seen it

A Jewish lawyer at the ACLU famously fought for the rights of Nazis to demonstrate in Skokie, Il.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_...

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#79

Post by UncleMeat »

matt-attack wrote: post #78
UncleMeat wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." People say this, but I've never seen it. Free speech absolutists weren't out there defending protest rights, lgbt activism, or union advocacy. The speech rights of the powerless have been consistently crushed by the powerful while the first amendment is used as a power defense of those who seek to harden existing power structures.…

> I’ve never seen it A Jewish lawyer at the ACLU famously fought for the rights of Nazis to demonstrate in Skokie, Il. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_...

The other way around. What I want is to see a Nazi free speech absolutist defending the rights of Jewish people.

Re: Bertrand Russell Is the Pope (2010)

#80

Post by matt-attack »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #68
atoav wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up in a right wing province of southern Austria with neo nazis (and old original nazis) nextdoors I can tell you precisely what changed. Fighting for the other persons right to speak their thought is a good and noble thing as long as the other person doesn't fight against your right to say what you like and as long as their words don't turn into actions. The more of this happens the more tolerance…

We already know how to solve that problem. Freedom of speech doesn't cover violent threats. There is no need for hate speech regulations. Jihadism is not covered by free speech, nazism is not covered by free speech but racism is covered by free speech. You also seem to conflate jihadists with muslims - that's not the case. Jihadists are terrorists and they want war, other muslims integrate with other societies. There…

> naziism is not covered by free speech

Are you not familiar with https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_...

Nazism was specifically defended by the ACLU and won. Speech is speech. And it was a Jewish lawyer who fought the case.

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