ml1 said: doesn't it also depend on what the speaker is saying. If you're listening to a Neo-Nazi exhorting a crowd to go out and start beating up black people, wouldn't violence be justified in shutting that down? Free speech isn't, and never has been absolute. You can't incite a riot. You can't libel or slander someone. Closed ended survey questions with absolute responses can't address all the nuances of free speech rights.
drummerboy said: do you actually expect anyone to read all of that that? it's what tl;dr was made for.
Would you apply the same moniker (namely, "tl.dr") to a study posted by ml1? It appears to me that you are making a procedural argument and do not want to deal with the substance of Haidt's viewpoint.
Actually, I didn't read it, so I don't know the substance. Nor do I particularly care, but If you'd like to summarize his views in a couple of pithy sentences, then maybe we can go on.
drummerboy said: do you actually expect anyone to read all of that that? it's what tl;dr was made for.
Would you apply the same moniker (namely, "tl.dr") to a study posted by ml1? It appears to me that you are making a procedural argument and do not want to deal with the substance of Haidt's viewpoint.
Actually, I didn't read it, so I don't know the substance. Nor do I particularly care, but If you'd like to summarize his views in a couple of pithy sentences, then maybe we can go on.
Free speech is under siege on campuses both here and abroad. (RFA gave us that one already.) Here are some examples. Here is what we’ve done. Here is what we plan to do. Mill is my new favorite philosopher.
The links I clicked, to an op-ed that Haidt faulted and his rebuttal, made him sound a little too eager to jump to conclusions for my phlegmatic taste, but vive le vigilence.
Of Stevens and Haidt’s three claims, only the second is persuasive – and even then, it should be interpreted with caution. Caution, however, seems to be in short supply these days.
Yeah, the Salon piece is a good one, particularly since it picks up on my one liner about the absence of longitudinal data and thoroughly beats Haidt about the head with it.
every time this discussion gets dusted off, I note that the suppression of free speech surrounding the military and the troops is far, far more prevalent (and IMHO more dangerous) than a handful of college students shouting down Ann Coulter. It's so ingrained in our culture that most people disagree with me on this so vehemently, and they don't acknowledge that it exists at all. To the extent that I self-censor on this issue all the time. Who needs to have someone angry and ready to fight if they perceive that you've dissed the sainted "troops."
drummerboy said: And has there recently been a bigger suppression of free speech than that contained in all of Trump's caterwauling about Kaepernick?
And I'm supposed to be worried that Charles Murray had his fee fees hurt?
Excerpt from NYT on May 24, 2017 entitled "Dozens of Middlebury Students Are Disciplined for Charles Murray Protest":
"pushing and shoving Mr. Murray and his faculty interviewer, Allison Stanger, who suffered a concussion after someone grabbed her hair and twisted her neck.
After the two got into a car, protesters rocked it back and forth and jumped on the hood."
DB, suggesting that this was a matter of feelings being hurt is disingenuous at best. At the Middlebury incident, we have physical violence, injury of the faculty interviewer, fire alarms being pulled (in order to disrupt end the meeting - described separately in the same article), physical intimidation (rocking car while passengers inside) and jumping on the hood. If people from different POVs cannot speak to each other then all of us are going to have a very rocky future.
drummerboy said: And has there recently been a bigger suppression of free speech than that contained in all of Trump's caterwauling about Kaepernick?
And I'm supposed to be worried that Charles Murray had his fee fees hurt?
Excerpt from NYT on May 24, 2017 entitled "Dozens of Middlebury Students Are Disciplined for Charles Murray Protest": "pushing and shoving Mr. Murray and his faculty interviewer, Allison Stanger, who suffered a concussion after someone grabbed her hair and twisted her neck. After the two got into a car, protesters rocked it back and forth and jumped on the hood." DB, suggesting that this was a matter of feelings being hurt is disingenuous at best. At the Middlebury incident, we have physical violence, injury of the faculty interviewer, fire alarms being pulled (in order to disrupt end the meeting - described separately in the same article), physical intimidation (rocking car while passengers inside) and jumping on the hood. If people from different POVs cannot speak to each other then all of us are going to have a very rocky future.
You know what - given Murray's vile beliefs, he's exactly the type of person whose speech deserves this kind of treatment. The concussion is a bit much, especially since she was sort of innocently caught up in the whole thing. But this is the kind of reception he should get wherever he speaks. Maybe this will keep him in his hole where he belongs.
His very existence and fame and success is an attack on civil discourse, so eff him.
drummerboy said: And has there recently been a bigger suppression of free speech than that contained in all of Trump's caterwauling about Kaepernick?
And I'm supposed to be worried that Charles Murray had his fee fees hurt?
Excerpt from NYT on May 24, 2017 entitled "Dozens of Middlebury Students Are Disciplined for Charles Murray Protest": "pushing and shoving Mr. Murray and his faculty interviewer, Allison Stanger, who suffered a concussion after someone grabbed her hair and twisted her neck. After the two got into a car, protesters rocked it back and forth and jumped on the hood." DB, suggesting that this was a matter of feelings being hurt is disingenuous at best. At the Middlebury incident, we have physical violence, injury of the faculty interviewer, fire alarms being pulled (in order to disrupt end the meeting - described separately in the same article), physical intimidation (rocking car while passengers inside) and jumping on the hood. If people from different POVs cannot speak to each other then all of us are going to have a very rocky future.
You know what - given Murray's vile beliefs, he's exactly the type of person whose speech deserves this kind of treatment. The concussion ( a concussion from twisting your neck? Sure.) is a bit much. But this is the kind of reception he should get wherever he speaks. Maybe this will keep him in his hole where he belongs.
His very existence and fame and success is an attack on civil discourse, so eff him.
“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
You'd be much better off putting up your own full-throated defense of why his views on black intelligence are worthy of being debated, rather than marginalized.
it's also one incident that people on the right keep trotting out as an example. It's not a trend, and it's not indicative of anything widespread. But the right likes to hammer away at a half a dozen or so campus incidents over the past few years. It's really frustrating that studies of this issue show that free speech is alive and well on campuses, and people keep pointing to these anecdotes. IMHO, the biggest problem this country has right now is not these handful of free speech infringements. The biggest problem is that people can't be convinced by science, data, facts, reason to budge from their preconceived notions. We have a society of people who don't trust the scientific method, who don't trust experts, who don't care to know anything that might interfere with their ideologically derived notions.
ml1 said: it's also one incident that people on the right keep trotting out as an example. It's not a trend, and it's not indicative of anything widespread. But the right likes to hammer away at a half a dozen or so campus incidents over the past few years. It's really frustrating that studies of this issue show that free speech is alive and well on campuses, and people keep pointing to these anecdotes. IMHO, the biggest problem this country has right now is not these handful of free speech infringements. The biggest problem is that people can't be convinced by science, data, facts, reason to budge from their preconceived notions. We have a society of people who don't trust the scientific method, who don't trust experts, who don't care to know anything that might interfere with their ideologically derived notions.
Yes, and among those count the institutions where Mr. Murray speaks and is not faced with protests, but is rather embraced.
ml1 said: it's also one incident that people on the right keep trotting out as an example. It's not a trend, and it's not indicative of anything widespread. But the right likes to hammer away at a half a dozen or so campus incidents over the past few years. It's really frustrating that studies of this issue show that free speech is alive and well on campuses, and people keep pointing to these anecdotes. IMHO, the biggest problem this country has right now is not these handful of free speech infringements. The biggest problem is that people can't be convinced by science, data, facts, reason to budge from their preconceived notions. We have a society of people who don't trust the scientific method, who don't trust experts, who don't care to know anything that might interfere with their ideologically derived notions.
I would point to post-modernism for the POV that there is no objective truth.
The Consequences of Postmodernist Truth Relativism (excerpt)
One of the core beliefs of Postmodernism is this:
Proposition (1): there is no such thing as objective truth; all “truths” are culturally relative.
If one believes that there are no objective truths, then it follows that nothing you can say is objectively true, not even the statement that “there are no objective truths.” What sort of statement, then, is Proposition (1) if it is not objectively true? Is it rhetorical hot air? Is it akin to fictitious statements in poetry or novels? If not, what?
Moreover, why should anyone believe you? What justification do you offer to people to believe this proposition, if you do not even assert it as an objectively true statement?
Even worse, if Proposition (1) were true, then it would follow that all the propositions of Postmodernism are not objectively true, but merely “subjectively” true within the Postmodernism subculture. There is no reason why hostile people from other cultures or subcultures need believe them.
drummerboy said: oh please. You'd be much better off putting up your own full-throated defense of why his views on black intelligence are worthy of being debated, rather than marginalized.
Let's be clear, I am not defending Charles Murray or his views.
I disapprove of what Murray says, but I will defend to the death his right to say them.
Additionally, I often disapprove of what you say, but, once again, I will defend to the death your right to say it.
“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
drummerboy said: oh please. You'd be much better off putting up your own full-throated defense of why his views on black intelligence are worthy of being debated, rather than marginalized.
Let's be clear, I am not defending Charles Murray or his views.
I disapprove of what Murray says, but I will defend to the death his right to say them.
Additionally, I often disapprove of what you say, but, once again, I will defend to the death your right to say it.
But the question is would you"defend to the death" the right of Goebbels or Stalin to say what they said?
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history. - George Orwell -
The Orwell "quote" above is a misshaping of a passage from his essay, "Looking Back on the Spanish War". It's a warning, not acceptance. In fact, he argues against the position you're espousing.
This kind of thing is frightening to me, because it often gives me the feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. After all, the chances are that those lies, or at any rate similar lies, will pass into history. How will the history of the Spanish war be written? If Franco remains in power his nominees will write the history books, and (to stick to my chosen point) that Russian army which never existed will become historical fact, and schoolchildren will learn about it generations hence. But suppose Fascism is finally defeated and some kind of democratic government restored in Spain in the fairly near future; even then, how is the history of the war to be written? What kind of records will Franco have left behind him? Suppose even that the records kept on the Government side are recoverable — even so, how is a true history of the war to be written? For, as I have pointed out already, the Government, also dealt extensively in lies. From the anti-Fascist angle one could write a broadly truthful history of the war, but it would be a partisan history, unreliable on every minor point. Yet, after all, some kind of history will be written, and after those who actually remember the war are dead, it will be universally accepted. So for all practical purposes the lie will have become truth.
I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written. In the past people deliberately lied, or they unconsciously coloured what they wrote, or they struggled after the truth, well knowing that they must make many mistakes; but in each case they believed that ‘facts’ existed and were more or less discoverable. And in practice there was always a considerable body of fact which would have been agreed to by almost everyone. If you look up the history of the last war in, for instance, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, you will find that a respectable amount of the material is drawn from German sources. A British and a German historian would disagree deeply on many things, even on fundamentals, but there would still be that body of, as it were, neutral fact on which neither would seriously challenge the other. It is just this common basis of agreement, with its implication that human beings are all one species of animal, that totalitarianism destroys. Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as ‘the truth’ exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as ‘Science’. There is only ‘German Science’, ‘Jewish Science’, etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, ‘It never happened’ — well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five — well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs — and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement.
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history. - George Orwell -
The Orwell "quote" above is a misshaping of a passage from his essay, "Looking Back on the Spanish War". It's a warning, not acceptance. In fact, he argues against the position you're espousing.
This kind of thing is frightening to me, because it often gives me the feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. After all, the chances are that those lies, or at any rate similar lies, will pass into history. How will the history of the Spanish war be written? If Franco remains in power his nominees will write the history books, and (to stick to my chosen point) that Russian army which never existed will become historical fact, and schoolchildren will learn about it generations hence. But suppose Fascism is finally defeated and some kind of democratic government restored in Spain in the fairly near future; even then, how is the history of the war to be written? What kind of records will Franco have left behind him? Suppose even that the records kept on the Government side are recoverable — even so, how is a true history of the war to be written? For, as I have pointed out already, the Government, also dealt extensively in lies. From the anti-Fascist angle one could write a broadly truthful history of the war, but it would be a partisan history, unreliable on every minor point. Yet, after all, some kind of history will be written, and after those who actually remember the war are dead, it will be universally accepted. So for all practical purposes the lie will have become truth.
I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written. In the past people deliberately lied, or they unconsciously coloured what they wrote, or they struggled after the truth, well knowing that they must make many mistakes; but in each case they believed that ‘facts’ existed and were more or less discoverable. And in practice there was always a considerable body of fact which would have been agreed to by almost everyone. If you look up the history of the last war in, for instance, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, you will find that a respectable amount of the material is drawn from German sources. A British and a German historian would disagree deeply on many things, even on fundamentals, but there would still be that body of, as it were, neutral fact on which neither would seriously challenge the other. It is just this common basis of agreement, with its implication that human beings are all one species of animal, that totalitarianism destroys. Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as ‘the truth’ exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as ‘Science’. There is only ‘German Science’, ‘Jewish Science’, etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, ‘It never happened’ — well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five — well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs — and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement.
drummerboy said: oh please. You'd be much better off putting up your own full-throated defense of why his views on black intelligence are worthy of being debated, rather than marginalized.
Let's be clear, I am not defending Charles Murray or his views.
I disapprove of what Murray says, but I will defend to the death his right to say them.
Additionally, I often disapprove of what you say, but, once again, I will defend to the death your right to say it.
re-read what I wrote. I didn't ask you to defend what he says. I asked you to defend why his views should be granted the dignity of a civil discourse.
As for the absence of objective truth - that is exactly what Murray is purveying. He distorts reason and science to put forth his views.
“It makes sense that a witch lives in a swamp. Yeah,” he says. “Why?” It’s a hard one.
“Right. That’s right. You don’t know. It’s because those things hang together at a very deep level. Right. Yeah. And it makes sense that an old king lives in a desiccated tower.”
But witches don’t exist, and they don’t live in swamps, I say.
“Yeah, they do. They do exist. They just don’t exist the way you think they exist. They certainly exist. You may say well dragons don’t exist. It’s, like, yes they do — the category predator and the category dragon are the same category. It absolutely exists. It’s a superordinate category. It exists absolutely more than anything else. In fact, it really exists. What exists is not obvious. You say, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as witches.’ Yeah, I know what you mean, but that isn’t what you think when you go see a movie about them. You can’t help but fall into these categories. There’s no escape from them.”
What clowns these people are. Fakes, phonies, grifters. And they're the intellectual vanguard of the right.
Right wingers really are stupider than us lefties. Sorry. It's the truth. No two ways about it.
Is there anything on the left comparable to the endless array of scams (like this guy, but also TV preacher fundraisers, gold, political direct mail) that the right engaged in?
Some speech requires a lengthy prison sentence.
https://www.theguardian.com/me...