9 ms·

I find it really hard to believe this article is presenting a fair argument when it makes claims like: > People as different as Condoleezza Rice, a former secr

by eridius 11y ago

I find it really hard to believe this article is presenting a fair argument when it makes claims like: > People as different as Condoleezza Rice, a former secretary of state, and Bill Maher, a satirist, have been dissuaded from giving speeches on campuses, sometimes on grounds of safety. There are some really good reasons why students protested to prevent the school from paying $35k for a 35-minute speech (Condoleezza's speaker fee for the speech in question), such as the fact that many people consider her to be a war criminal (which IIRC was in fact the basis for the protest, that and her role in an administration that promoted torture, not some unsubstantiated claim about feeling unsafe). I was unfamiliar with the Bill Maher speech issue before, but a quick search shows that the protest there was about remarks Bill made on his show that students felt were racist towards Muslims.

hackuser 11y ago
The essential point is that it's a grey area. We won't accept people behaving just any way at all but also we want to maximize people's freedom. As much as people want to apply a hard rule, there is no simple answer to how to draw that line.
nickff 11y ago
I can come up with moral and ethical objections for any given speaker; if one does not want money going to morally debatable speakers, they should object to all paid speakers. I believe objecting to all paid speakers on campus to be a defensible position, but paying for a variety of speakers also seems to be a strong position.
- thedz 11y ago
  Everyone has their own lines for when a speaker is too objectionable, I honestly don't have a problem with someone protesting some speakers but not others. I mean, isn't that precisely what protesting something is? (That said, there are definitely I think good and bad ways to protest, and also reactionary protests that escalate way past what's acceptable)
  - MCRed 11y ago
    If the college republicans weren't able spend their portion of student fees to bring some Republican I found repugnant to campus, how would I ever have the opportunity to ask him very uncomfortable questions during the Q&A after his speech? Back when I was a college leftist we welcomed these opportunities. The idea that they should be censored was abhorrent. In fact, we joined forces with them when the college papers editor decided that he could re-write and censor letters published by both groups (and in the process inflaming hostility between us, until we discovered our words had been changed as had theirs.) I think liberalism has lost sight of the mission of defending ALL people's rights, even ones you disagree with. "I will defend to the death your right to say it" and all that. ---- (so was I downvoted for challenging republicans or because we joined with the college republican to challenge the censorship in the school paper? Oh, maybe it was criticizing "liberalism"? I guess that's not PC.) ---- PPS -- This was during the days of "political correctness" when any position taken from the left was shot down with "that's just political correctness" and it was an insult- like you could never think that you're just being PC. Which of course as not in the least bit true. Back then. Alas, reality has become a parody of history.
    - eridius 11y ago
      There's various levels of offensiveness. And also bear in mind that both of these cases were for a commencement speech. Commencement speeches are not the places for divisive speakers. If the Young Republicans want to raise money to pay for someone to come speak, that's very different than the school paying the equivalent of free tuition for 3 students for a year for an extremely controversial speaker to give a 35-minute commencement speech.
  - malandrew 11y ago
    I mean, isn't that precisely what protesting something is I'd say that it's generally considered better form to protest ideas over events and to protest events over people. Protesting individuals is intolerant and petty. Engaging with and debating their ideas (when they are promoting them) is a more reasonable solution.
- woah 11y ago
  That's not really an argument because you don't define any selection criteria, which is what the whole issue is about. Would you say that it's acceptable to have a neonazi speak, who charged $10000 per minute?
  - malandrew 11y ago
    I would call that an ad hominem justification and a poor use of financial resources (a reasonable thing to object to). What matters is what this individual (regardless of which of the many labels that apply to them you want to focus on will talk about). For an example, check out the Curtis Yarvin Strangeloop situation: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/curtis_yarvin_booted_from_strange_loop_it_s_a_big_big_problem.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/cur... Furthermore, your argument is a strawman. Where is the line drawn? How about a neocon? A communist? A socialist? A fascist? A liberal? Lots of people have ideas that are objectionable to someone. If they are talking about something unrelated to those ideas you find objectionable, what's the problem?
    - tptacek 11y ago
      What of Yarvin? A small private conference invited a speaker to talk about a marginal piece of technology, unaware that the speaker was best known as a noisome defender of chattel slavery. The invitation was rescinded. I don't know why Auerbach sees this as a "big problem", but then, I don't know why Auerbach writes much of what he writes at Slate. He's not very good. Slate was probably better off with Farhad Manjoo.
      - SamReidHughes 11y ago
        > > For an example, > What of Yarvin? It was an example.
        tptacek 11y ago
        Of what? There's bogus demand for "safe spaces", but there's also bogus whatever- the- opposite- of- that- is, and that's what the Yarvin case is.
tzakrajs 11y ago
I may be splitting hairs here, but Muslimism is not a race. Muslimism is the belief in the philosophy of Islam.
- eridius 11y ago
  I don't really know the details, but the source I found used the word "racism" so that's what I used. And anti-Muslim sentiment is very closely tied to racism against people of middle-eastern descent anyway, because most people (or at least most Americans) tend to equate the two.
mc32 11y ago
Students would put those "problems" all aside, if the speakers had ideologies more in line with theirs. Like the Asian student at Claremont who at first was supported by the movement then disenfranchised when her narrative diverged from theirs when she recounted experiencing racism from the protesters' own ethnicity. In other words they wanted a very simplistic narrative, not one muddled with the nuances of real life.
- eridius 11y ago
  It sounds like you're dismissing the students' complaints by saying effectively "if the speaker wasn't offensive to the student, the student wouldn't complain". But that's kind of a given, isn't it? If you find someone that everybody can agree is a good speaker to have, then it should be obvious that nobody will protest it.
  - mc32 11y ago
    I'm saying that as I student, I should be able to manage offensiveness. Not meanness, but offensiveness. I should be able to process divergent and disgusting and disagreeable views without getting overworked. We deal with all kinds of offensive things in our daily lives, we don't need to be coddled. We may not always live in the US or Europe (what "we're" used to, we may have to travel to other places (or vice versa) and we'll need to be able to manage unfavorable opinions on all kinds of things.
    - eridius 11y ago
      But there's a vast difference between saying "I should be able to tolerate opinions I disagree with" and saying "I'm ok with my school spending many thousands of dollars for an enormously controversial speaker to give a commencement address, which is both a tacit endorsement by the school of the speaker itself (which is worth protesting all on its own), a flagrant waste of money, and it's an event where the speaker should be someone that the entire student body can recognize as being qualified to speak and give advice to the student body regardless of any minor disagreements".

by eridius 11y ago

hackuser 11y ago

The essential point is that it's a grey area. We won't accept people behaving just any way at all but also we want to maximize people's freedom. As much as people want to apply a hard rule, there is no simple answer to how to draw that line.

nickff 11y ago

I can come up with moral and ethical objections for any given speaker; if one does not want money going to morally debatable speakers, they should object to all paid speakers. I believe objecting to all paid speakers on campus to be a defensible position, but paying for a variety of speakers also seems to be a strong position.

thedz 11y ago
Everyone has their own lines for when a speaker is too objectionable, I honestly don't have a problem with someone protesting some speakers but not others. I mean, isn't that precisely what protesting something is? (That said, there are definitely I think good and bad ways to protest, and also reactionary protests that escalate way past what's acceptable)
- MCRed 11y ago
  If the college republicans weren't able spend their portion of student fees to bring some Republican I found repugnant to campus, how would I ever have the opportunity to ask him very uncomfortable questions during the Q&A after his speech? Back when I was a college leftist we welcomed these opportunities. The idea that they should be censored was abhorrent. In fact, we joined forces with them when the college papers editor decided that he could re-write and censor letters published by both groups (and in the process inflaming hostility between us, until we discovered our words had been changed as had theirs.) I think liberalism has lost sight of the mission of defending ALL people's rights, even ones you disagree with. "I will defend to the death your right to say it" and all that. ---- (so was I downvoted for challenging republicans or because we joined with the college republican to challenge the censorship in the school paper? Oh, maybe it was criticizing "liberalism"? I guess that's not PC.) ---- PPS -- This was during the days of "political correctness" when any position taken from the left was shot down with "that's just political correctness" and it was an insult- like you could never think that you're just being PC. Which of course as not in the least bit true. Back then. Alas, reality has become a parody of history.
  - eridius 11y ago
    There's various levels of offensiveness. And also bear in mind that both of these cases were for a commencement speech. Commencement speeches are not the places for divisive speakers. If the Young Republicans want to raise money to pay for someone to come speak, that's very different than the school paying the equivalent of free tuition for 3 students for a year for an extremely controversial speaker to give a 35-minute commencement speech.
- malandrew 11y ago
  I mean, isn't that precisely what protesting something is I'd say that it's generally considered better form to protest ideas over events and to protest events over people. Protesting individuals is intolerant and petty. Engaging with and debating their ideas (when they are promoting them) is a more reasonable solution.
woah 11y ago
That's not really an argument because you don't define any selection criteria, which is what the whole issue is about. Would you say that it's acceptable to have a neonazi speak, who charged $10000 per minute?
- malandrew 11y ago
  I would call that an ad hominem justification and a poor use of financial resources (a reasonable thing to object to). What matters is what this individual (regardless of which of the many labels that apply to them you want to focus on will talk about). For an example, check out the Curtis Yarvin Strangeloop situation: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/curtis_yarvin_booted_from_strange_loop_it_s_a_big_big_problem.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/cur... Furthermore, your argument is a strawman. Where is the line drawn? How about a neocon? A communist? A socialist? A fascist? A liberal? Lots of people have ideas that are objectionable to someone. If they are talking about something unrelated to those ideas you find objectionable, what's the problem?
  - tptacek 11y ago
    What of Yarvin? A small private conference invited a speaker to talk about a marginal piece of technology, unaware that the speaker was best known as a noisome defender of chattel slavery. The invitation was rescinded. I don't know why Auerbach sees this as a "big problem", but then, I don't know why Auerbach writes much of what he writes at Slate. He's not very good. Slate was probably better off with Farhad Manjoo.
    - SamReidHughes 11y ago
      > > For an example, > What of Yarvin? It was an example.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        Of what? There's bogus demand for "safe spaces", but there's also bogus whatever- the- opposite- of- that- is, and that's what the Yarvin case is.

tzakrajs 11y ago

I may be splitting hairs here, but Muslimism is not a race. Muslimism is the belief in the philosophy of Islam.

eridius 11y ago
I don't really know the details, but the source I found used the word "racism" so that's what I used. And anti-Muslim sentiment is very closely tied to racism against people of middle-eastern descent anyway, because most people (or at least most Americans) tend to equate the two.

mc32 11y ago

Students would put those "problems" all aside, if the speakers had ideologies more in line with theirs. Like the Asian student at Claremont who at first was supported by the movement then disenfranchised when her narrative diverged from theirs when she recounted experiencing racism from the protesters' own ethnicity. In other words they wanted a very simplistic narrative, not one muddled with the nuances of real life.

eridius 11y ago
It sounds like you're dismissing the students' complaints by saying effectively "if the speaker wasn't offensive to the student, the student wouldn't complain". But that's kind of a given, isn't it? If you find someone that everybody can agree is a good speaker to have, then it should be obvious that nobody will protest it.
- mc32 11y ago
  I'm saying that as I student, I should be able to manage offensiveness. Not meanness, but offensiveness. I should be able to process divergent and disgusting and disagreeable views without getting overworked. We deal with all kinds of offensive things in our daily lives, we don't need to be coddled. We may not always live in the US or Europe (what "we're" used to, we may have to travel to other places (or vice versa) and we'll need to be able to manage unfavorable opinions on all kinds of things.
  - eridius 11y ago
    But there's a vast difference between saying "I should be able to tolerate opinions I disagree with" and saying "I'm ok with my school spending many thousands of dollars for an enormously controversial speaker to give a commencement address, which is both a tacit endorsement by the school of the speaker itself (which is worth protesting all on its own), a flagrant waste of money, and it's an event where the speaker should be someone that the entire student body can recognize as being qualified to speak and give advice to the student body regardless of any minor disagreements".