And here is where you extend the issue too far. Real offenses are not limited by ideology. People who advance efforts trying to chill free speech are not limited to one side of the aisle.
This is true. But as far as I can tell, on the liberal side are some whiny undergraduates whining about having feelings hurt, and on the conservative side are legislators manipulating the political process to shut down institutions that disagree with them. Not only are things not lopsided the way the OP suggests, they’re actually lopsided in the opposite direction.
So, you deliberately used the wrong words.
Fair enough. I can now dismiss your complaint as deliberately distorted rather than mistaken.
In many cases not doing anything is better that taking an action which will create larger problems.
Suppose a woman clutches her purse shortly after a black man gets on her elevator. She is hailed before the university disciplinary commission on charges of “micro-aggression.” She has to miss class, suffer stress and worry, and hire an attorney.
Then it is shown that she was a mugging victim three years ago and clutches her purse when anyone, male or female, is near her. Or maybe when only men get near her because it was a man who mugged her. Or it was a black guy who mugged her and she clutched the purse, not out of racial insensitivity, but because of a split second reminder of the incident? Or the black guy had many of the same facial features as her mugger?
Possibly. I’m not sure it’s worth playing the game of counting efforts to chill speech. Just like it’s enough that some people see enough instances of police bad behavior to look sideways at all police, I think it’s enough to look sideways at free speech in the college environment. But outside of college, and in the realm of people with actual power, there’s this recent example:
I see the flaw in it.
Your assumption appears to be that some qualified people have been exercising peer pressure to do the right things for sufficiently long that peer pressure would have already ended the problem, thus we need to ratchet up the methods of opposition to the problem.
The reality is that peer pressure has been working quite well to slowly move more awareness and consideration through society, but that such effort simply does take longer than those who want immediate solutions would like to see. Legislating efforts to bypass peer pressure do nothing more than call attention to those legislative efforts, providing fodder for idiots like Limbaugh to mock and persons such as the OP to react in horror. And, of course, the legislative efforts will fail to actually reduce the problem, although they will probably allow various groups to employ the legislative actions to create new power groups to impose their own prejudices on the larger group.
(How long will it take before Ithaca’s program is buried under white hetero guys reporting insults directed at them or until some white hetero guy, “outed” for micro-aggression takes the school to court for interfering with his life?)
The Ithaca plan is stupid, but it is going to fail under its own weight and the over-reaction of the OP is as silly as the efforts of the Ithaca Student Government.
Huh. I’m having some trouble understanding exactly the problem either from the article or from their source. It looks to me like a highly technical rules change that the NRA (a bastion of sober objective reflection if ever there wasn’t one) objects to. It’s completely unclear that even if they’re right about the effects of the law, these are intentional effects. I hardly think it’s comparable to deliberately removing political critics from universities.
FWIW, if the effects of these changes are as the NRA describes (imprisoning people who discuss technical aspects of firearms online), and if they’re intentional, I’m happy to condemn the Obama administration.
And continuing the theme of free speech in jeopardy at college enviroments and ITAR restritions promulgated by the government, here are two historical court cases that illustrate the reality:
Bernstein v. United States where ITAR was used to try to limit speech.
There’s also Junger v. Daley which similarly ITAR was used to try to limit speech.
This case was decided after the first and in favor of the professor.
I raise these examples to illustrate the government, and how ITAR specifically can and has been used in the past to chill and limit speech.
That first post didn’t really “say” much of anything, so strong opposition isn’t even possible. I started this exchange by stating that I couldn’t tell from your first post, which started off with an ad hominem*, whether you had any comment about the actual subject under debate. It’s fine that you think it’s not worthy of debate because it’s a mole hill, and if you want to retract that post as “exaggeration for effect”, that’s fine, too.
*you’re not going to protest that characterization, are you?
Of course I am. Do you know what an ad hominem is? It’s most definitely not making fun of a person for holding a dumb position: it’s saying the position is dumb because of the person who holds it. What I wrote is like the exact reverse of an ad hominem.
This is beyond silly. I’ll open a separate thread if I want to berate what an ad hominem is with you.
I agree it’s beyond silly. Do that if you want to, but before you do, look up what “berate” means as well :).
Auto-correct is a bite.
You think calling someone a nigger is a microaggression?
You clearly do not understand at least one of those terms.
I’d be glad, giddy even, to donate $100 to whatever group of students will inevitably storm that horseshit website with an overload of phony “microaggressions.”
The greater good here is that the world, and especially the protected bubble of inanity that is the campus PC police, will suffer another blow as reality hits them in the face.
Adults don’t have time for this stupid bullshit.
opps
Rather a neologism, isn’t it? A newly coined phrase waiting to see if the general public will take it up. As such, it doesn’t have much in the way of nuanced distinction. Is “nigger” an aggression, while “spear chucker” is micro? How about “colored”? As a child in Texas, I was taught to prefer the term, as it implied a level of respect and consideration that spoke well of the speaker. Is that a “micro-aggression”?
I firmly believe in the ongoing effort towards justice and equality. Duh. But my experience is such that I also firmly believe that public civility will not be achieved by force or law, you cannot open a mind or a heart with a crowbar. To do so, or even attempt to do so, only allows the asshole a grievance, a marginally justifiable sense of his own oppression. And some of us will not be reached regardless. Like a dead tree, rotting by the water, they shall not be moved. And so it goes.
There is no “correct” response to such slurs, it depends. For me, its a snap judgement made with unreliable data, but if I feel he can be reached, can be persuaded, I will make the effort, move that needle however so slightly. If I feel I am in the presence of an utterly irredeemable asshole, I will not waste time or effort. Shake the dust from my shoes and hit the road, there are more worthy things to accomplish.
Also, there is the possibility of unintended escalation, provoking the asshole to be a violent asshole. If I do that, don’t I share some responsibility? I think the answer is “yes”, YMMV.
If progress is the irresistible force, then there is no immovable object. That isn’t quite true, of course, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Venceremos!
Yes - as you describe it - it’s naked, unjustifiable censorship. And I say that as a self-identified liberal Democrat. If there’s anywhere where the ideal of free speech should be honored, it’s a college campus.
Policing microaggressions is too big a step. Can they start with nanoaggressions?
Let’s look on the bright side; at least they’re finally learning the metric system.