Identity, politics, and the in-fighting of the left

Great Debates
321

And I am any against restrictions on speech unless they advocate for violence or are the result of harm.

What restrictions are you wanting to impose?

Not sure what you mean here, by “hate from all sides”. It is not hate that is banned in places that have such restrictions, it is the expression of hate that is not permitted.

And it’s not just a matter of saying, “I hate broccoli”, and suddenly the hate speech police show up and throw you in a cell for hating something.

There is a fine line in the US that most other countries don’t have. I can’t say, in the US. “See that guy over there, we should go kill him.” Most countries this would be illegal.

What is legal in the US, and not in some countries that have hate speech laws is, “See that guy over there, we really hate him, and we hope that someone would kill him.” No call to action, so fine in the US, but many other countries have determined that such speech does run afoul of their hate speech laws.

And if that is what you are talking about when you refer to “hate speech laws” then I would agree. If such a thing were to be implemented, it should apply to anyone. I’m would not advocate for such a law, but I wouldn’t consider it to be an imposition on essential rights were one to be enacted.

You may have a different definition of “hate speech” that you have gotten from various misleading news outlets who seek to obfuscate the issue.

What do you mean when you say “hate speech”?

322

How about this proposed hate speech law from Scotland:

There’s a lot more of it, including some defences, but those requirements are pretty damn broad.

https://beta.parliament.scot/-/media/files/legislation/bills/current-bills/hate-crime-and-public-order-scotland-bill/introduced/bill-as-introduced-hate-crime-and-public-order-bill.pdf

323

Has anyone done a proper survey of censorship in US universities? Here’s one from the UK, which includes a lot more than just cancelled speakers:

https://media.spiked-online.com/website/images/2019/02/21153835/FSUR-PACK-2018.pdf

324

Well, thing is that I would not rely on a group that even closed the department that produced that non reviewed study, Like many that claim expertise they closed their department claiming that they already won.

As if this issue would had an end.

All others organizations and university studies mentioned in the Vox article continue to report and collect data. Seems that the spiked guys are not getting their checks from Koch anymore.

325

It seems like the requirement is either an intent or a likelyhood of causing harm to others.

Not really all that broad, and I can certainly see the reasoning for it. If what you are saying is intended to, or is likely to cause harm to others, then it does seem that the govt could have a legitimate interest in not allowing you to do so.

Still not something that is likely to be accepted in the US, even if somehow it got past the 1st amendment.

But, as a hate speech law, on its own I do not see it as problematic or one sided.

Your only comment on it was “how about it”. Do you actually have any thoughts on the citation that you have brought to the thread?

326

I already said I think the existing hate speech laws should be repealed, not extended as this act would do.

And this one is particularly bad. It doesn’t mention causing harm to others, it doesn’t require intent, it says ‘it is likely that hatred will be stirred up against such a group’ as a result of something you said. That’s way too broad in my opinion, and I’m also concerned about adding ‘insulting’ to ‘threatening or abusive’ in the previous section. It should not be illegal to insult someone; I think this law may actually be stricter than the board rules on here, which is ridiculous.

Here’s what the national secular society says about it:

Are you glad this is all theoretical to you as you are protected by the 1st amendment, or do you wish your government could also criminalise hate speech?

327

Not sure if you’re asking me, but I prefer the first amendment. I advocate for social consequences (like critical speech) for hateful speech, not legal or criminal consequences.

328

re: Weiss and Sullivan. I used to read Sullivan quite a bit back in the day, but I stopped when he seemed to be going too far into the deep end. I actually read a few of his New York Mag articles and then realized no, I’m not doing that anymore. I find his comments to be a silly on this matter. He was one of the highest paid writers on NY Mag’s payroll. He was also quite clear that he generally doesn’t ‘go into the office’. When NY Magazine is facing financial issues, and fired a number of people, why would he, with his large salary, consider himself to be safe? I get the feeling that NY Magazine did not get the page views they expected when they hired him in the first place - he was definitely not nearly as much in the zeitgeist as he was when he was writing The Dish.

As for Weiss, she was part of the same newspaper that employs Ross Douthat, David Brooks, and Bret Stephens. I don’t follow Stephens, but neither Douthat nor Brooks said anything about Weiss’s claims. Douthat especially tends to be critical of a more left leaning viewpoint of the Times (and thought the paper should have published the Cotton op-ed). But I get the feeling they thought Weiss was a little too much in discussing a hostile work environment. Heck, the Times keeps rewarding Douthat by, lately, putting him on a podcast with Frank Bruni and Michelle Goldberg (it’s called The Argument and it’s actually pretty decent).

329

A new study has been making the rounds recently:

Keeping Your Mouth Shut: Spiraling Self-Censorship in the United States

The basic finding is that today, 40% of Americans feel they aren’t free to speak out about their political views, a number that has increased starkly in recent years. Back in 2005, it was at 25%; in 1955, the heyday of McCarthyism, it was at 13.4%.

Now, first of all: to the best of my ability to tell, this hasn’t been through peer review yet, and, while on its face, the statistical analysis doesn’t seem to raise any red flags, I’m not a social scientist capable of evaluating their methodology. I’d be interested if anybody sees some obvious lapses there, or points of contention.

The other point is, of course: is that, in and of itself, a bad thing? Perhaps people hold the same loathsome views today as they always did, but the social climate has changed towards these views being no longer acceptable. Isn’t that rather a sign of progress? Moreover, the views being presented in society shape those of future generations: children can’t learn what their parents don’t teach them. So if nobody teaches them bigotry, even if only thanks to the fact that these bigoted views are socially repressed, then don’t we stand to hope that these children will themselves genuinely hold the tolerant views their parents only feel socially obligated to espouse?

Still, I have to admit, this bothers me. A large segment of the population feels forced to cover up their true views. I’ve said earlier that one ‘good’ thing about the recent rise of the AfD in Germany was to demonstrate just how widespread racist and bigoted views still are over here. I prefer that knowledge over my earlier naivety. Views not uttered aren’t views not present, and what seethes below the surface may come to the fore again, provided conditions are right; and if nobody knew it was there in the first place, we stand to be taken by surprise. Do we want people to merely pay lip service to progressive ideals, keeping mum about their divergent views in a ‘Spiral of Silence’?

The study quotes the following:

Exposure to dissimilar views has been deemed a central element—if
not the sine qua non—of the kind of political dialogue that is needed to maintain a democratic
citizenry

I would tend to agree. The quote comes from a study which puts this assertion to the test—both statistically, and within a laboratory setting. So I think that the sort of self-censorship fostered by the current social climate is something that should concern us, as it may tend to impede the sort of dialogue needed within a democratic society.

330

When ‘consequences’ includes violent assault from unhinged crazies one learns to be careful.

331

I think maybe Americans are complacent about this because they are used to having their freedom of speech protected by the constitution. I just had several people in another thread tell me essentially that government censorship is bad because free speech is a constitutional right, not that it’s a constitutional right because censorship is bad…!

You can bet all these people with ‘inappropriate’ views are going online and finding a whole bunch of people who agree with them… and then forming parties like the AfD. Trying to suppress all disagreement is just going to make the left look bad and turn more people away, and it baffles me that intelligent people can’t see that.

332

You are so hard done by. Truly a martyr of the silent majority. Statues will be erected. And then pulled down by angry unhinged mobs of crazies.

333

But that’s not just counting racists, that’s counting everyone who is not free to speak about their political views.

That would include people like myself. If I were to freely talk about my political views, then I’d probably lose 75% of my clients.

I always like the weasel word “essentially”, as it allows you to then assert something utterly different from what was actually said.

The only thing that was said was that, in order for you to have the ability to speak without consequence would be to restrict the freedom of speech of others. It was pointed out that censorship from the government is a far different and far more dangerous thing than having people speak up about disagreeing with you.

They’d be going online and finding people that agree with them whether or not we dare speak up against their beliefs. This constant worry that if racists aren’t allowed to spout their hatred in public without any criticism from others that they will become more racist is a ridiculous notion that only rationalizes and justifies their hatred.

334

As you say, it’s not a very in-depth study and for the sake of relatively easy analysis, the surveys ask the same questions as they did since 1954. I can understand why they took this approach. What’s very obviously missing in the evaluation and conclusion is the role that silo-ing of modern news networks, social media (internet) and the relative anonymity of participants has had on society and political discourse. I don’t think it was an oversight of this study. I think they chose to avoid it due to the complexity it would introduce to analysis and comparison to data preceding the introduction of internet social media.

I think that face to face interactions would yield results closer to older studies as people tend to be less strident and more empathetic when speaking directly to someone. Additionally, they do not have an audience or immediate feedback loop of allies or opponents with which to guage their opinion and tone.

335

Yes? Why on earth is this only supposed to be about racists? I feel like we’re trying to have one conversation and other people are replying to a totally different one. You’re actually one of the people affected by this and yet you’re all in favour. It’s baffling. Don’t you think politics would be better in your state if people like you could be more open about your views, without fearing losing business?

Re the other thread:

Readers can judge if I described it accurately, but I gotta say, I had no idea posters here were so enamoured of free market economics and corporations being persons. I always thought it was a left-leaning board.

336

This would be wonderful! How do you suggest this be accomplished? Maybe we just wait until all the Trump supporting bigots and misogynists have died?

337

Well, I’m in favor of free speech. That doesn’t seem all that baffling to me. And if keeping my political views to myself in public is the sacrifice I need to make in order to protect free speech, then that’s acceptable to me.

That doesn’t mean that I never express my political views. You see me doing so right here and now. I also talk with friends who I find agreement with, and argue with family with whom I don’t.

But I know, and I don’t think it’s all that weird or unexpected or evil, that many of my clients have very different political views than I do, and if I were to start mixing my business with my political advocacy, then my business will suffer for this.

This is double the case if I am using the resources of my business to promote my view. If I am just some guy talking politics, then who cares? I disagree with many of you on this board, but if I found out you worked at a place I frequent, I would not boycott them or anything.

However, if you were in a position of power in your business, and you were using that position to give extra weight to your efforts to influence, then you are the one who has brought your business into this conversation.

I don’t think it is wrong, and I don’t see anyway that it could be prevented without seriously undermining the freedoms that we value.

I’ve asked you before what your solution was, and you don’t have one, other than we should stop criticizing those who say things with which we disagree.

Do you have a better solution to the problems that you see with censorship other than, “Shut up”?

If you find yourself surprised by the reactions you get, then maybe the problem was your assumptions, not that we didn’t all fill the roles to which you assigned us.

That you don’t understand the difference between the govt making a law prohibiting forms of speech, and people criticizing speech they find offensive baffles me, but until you manage to grok that rather simple concept, I’m not sure that there is any further progress that you can make in your quest to understand.

338

How have you ever accomplished anything in politics? By campaigning, protesting, trying to educate people… why the defeatism now?

339

It has been my lifelong experience, that racists are the least shy about expressing their views. Predictably, they are the least likely to be talked out of it. However, what I find happens more often than not is that people who express other unpopular views are more effectively silenced because their positions are less ideologically fixed. So while we lose nothing in effectively silencing a bigot, we do lose something in silencing a more nuanced though unpopular view.

340

It’s pretty damn ironic you’re keeping your views to yourself to protect free speech, but I think I understand what you mean a bit better now. Sure, if you started arguing politics with customers at work, that would be pretty inappropriate. And I don’t think it’s unexpected or evil that your clients have different political views, in fact I thought that was what the pro-cancel culture side believed.

Would you also be afraid to eg go on a BLM protest, in case your customers saw you and boycotted your business? That’s the sort of thing I think we should be discouraging, except in the most egregious cases, maybe.

Can you give an example of someone using their position of power in a business to aid their efforts to influence? We’ve talked about journalists, but it’s basically their job to express their opinions, so it’s a rather different situation.

To be fair, that thread was a train wreck from the start. But now I’m wondering if it wasn’t the other way around; the posters were assuming I was a conservative like the OP and so would find arguments about the free market convincing. Ironic, if so.

That wasn’t what I was asking about, though. I was talking about corporate censorship vs government censorship. That doesn’t (necessarily) have anything to do with people criticising anything, it could be the whims of executives, or billionaires using their power to control what appears in the media.