6 ms·

"Happy Holidays!" instead of "Merry Christmas!" certainly seems to offend a lot of people. So does saying "I'm an atheist" in many part of the US. Or, outrage f

by dalke 11y ago

"Happy Holidays!" instead of "Merry Christmas!" certainly seems to offend a lot of people. So does saying "I'm an atheist" in many part of the US. Or, outrage for saying "we need the same types of gun ownership restrictions that then-Governor Reagan pushed for California." The most recent outrage seems to concern transsexuals using something other than the cisnormative bathroom. You did mean to include those forms of outrage, right? Because to me those still look like "game on".

eru 11y ago
I know you are trolling. But to still give an honest reply: think more along the lines of the outrage about lambdaconf and Mencius Moldbug's alter ego speaking there.
- lucozade 11y ago
  I agree with maehwasu. These are all manifestations of a similar phenomenon i.e. what appears to be an increasing tendency for some groups to aggressively defend their "right" to not have to listen to people who disagree with them. As a tactic it seems to have been quite successful so it's not surprising that disparate groups are using it.
  - dalke 11y ago
    There's no "increasing tendency". Pick a random decade and you'll hear exactly the same things. Christopher Hitchens in 1994, for example, defended David Irving when St. Martin’s Press "de-platformed" (to use the modern term, that is, canceled its contract to print) Irving's edition of the Goebbels diaries. Look at the generations of people who insisted on the "right" to not hear certain racially charged slurs in casual conversation. Just watch 'Archie Bunker' episodes if you want a reminder of what that was like in the 1970s. I propose that it's only "increasing" because things that are recent, and which affect us and challenge us most directly, appear more important than things in the past. Even more so where we implicitly accept the views of the winning side - eg, woman's suffrage - as being correct, and don't think that those on the losing side also thought themselves as being correct.
    - lucozade 11y ago
      You are correct, I over generalised. I think there's an increasing tendency to aggressively use victimhood (or survivorship if you prefer) in a censorious fashion. Censorship simply because you don't like what someone says has been around forever.
      - dalke 11y ago
        So has the question about the boundary between "censorship" and "required to support someone you disagree with." When it's the government, is easy to say that censorship is when the government goes beyond time/place/manner restrictions on free speech. But with the migration of the public commons to private areas, is it censorship to prevent a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mall of the Americas? Occupy Wall Street managed to survive so long because Zuccotti Park was on a privately owned public space which was required to stay open 24 hours a day, and thus avoid city curfews in public parks. It's even less clear that a private entity like St. Martin’s Press must never change their mind about publishing a book, should they decide that doing so will give a Holocaust denialist the ability to use their name in support of his cause. When HN users flag a spam comment for maid services in London, and it's later deleted, is that censorship? We know all know of HN posts which cry out censorship for receiving downvotes. The few times I've looked into one of these controversies, it seems more like people are using "censorship" as synonymous for "criticism I don't like." (Certainly not all cases! Just a boringly common majority of them.)
        CM30 11y ago
        Yeah, there's an awkward boundary between freedom of speech and private property, and it's very, very hard to decide where that lies. At what point does it become wrong to decide what people are allowed to say on private property? A lot of people will say individuals can choose what's allowed in their own houses, but what about businesses? Does the small corner shop have more of a right to shut down discussions than the large private university? It's also a massive problem with the internet in general. After all, the internet doesn't have public property, ever. Every site is privately owned, so theoretically every site can choose what to allow. But without a public platform, that also means perfectly valid ideas can be basically banned from public view by way of large gatekeepers and popular communities banning them, regardless of their legality. Either way, it's a tricky thing to answer, since any 'solution' wil cause a lot of problems in one case or another.
maehwasu 11y ago
I know you're being sarcastic, but I DID mean to include those. The right is just as guilty of this outrage game as the left; in some areas the coalitions are such that they gain power from it. In more left-leaning situations, the outrage power swings left. I detest both. I want people to be able to say things without constantly being threatened with firings, no-platformings, and blacklists.
- gizmo 11y ago
  In 32 states it is legal to fire a person for being transgender. In practice people get fired illegally for attempting to unionize the workforce. Or for complaining about violations of labor laws. Or for being gay. Or for having the wrong political views. People get fired for expressing themselves all the time. And since business leans conservative right people on the left face the brunt of this discrimination. Free expression has never been without consequence in the United States or anywhere else. Any serious talk about free speech should focus on the core issue: people in power abuse their power to punish the powerless when they express themselves in the wrong way. Students have practically no power or influence in society. So even if these "SJWs" are entirely unjustified in their actions the impact on society is utterly negligible. This is why the panicky reaction in the linked article about student activists repressing free speech is so comical. If anything, the student activists increase free speech by giving a platform to those people who would otherwise go unheard.
  - golemotron 11y ago
    Two wrongs don't make a right. If there's anything to be learned in school, that's it.
    - gizmo 11y ago
      The moment you give people a little bit of power they'll find a way to abuse it. People can be really petty and spiteful. What happened at this university is no different from a secretary deliberating forgetting to book a hotel room for the person they like least in the group. No different from the clerk at the DMV sending you to the back of the line because you made a paperwork mistake. Where is the moral panic about this type of petty nonsense? Nowhere! Because we recognize it's petty nonsense, and not worthy of hand-wringing commentary or a national conversation. But when it comes to students and free speech and safe spaces every news channel and every major magazine is talking about it like it signifies the end of Freedom itself. It's totally absurd.
michaelbuddy 11y ago
who walks around saying "I'm an Atheist" it's a silly statement really. I'm not religious, had my enlightenment about 20 years ago now. But saying "I'm an Atheist" is like saying "I'm a non-whatever" It's just kind of immature. I mean if you're an activist speaking to people, I guess, but at that point you should expect to live in the space of constant criticism. You should expect outrage about gun ownership in california. Because you're saying that you are for taking people's rights away, or in general prevent them from something where the model isn't proven to necessarily be correct.
- dalke 11y ago
  My example was of someone who says "I'm an atheist", not someone who "walks around saying" that. I was thinking specifically of http://www.salon.com/2013/05/22/tornado_survivor_to_wolf_blitzer_sorry_im_an_atheist_i_dont_have_to_thank_the_lord/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/22/tornado_survivor_to_wolf_bli... . The news reporter Wolf Blitzer asked a tornado survivor if she "thanks the Lord" for her survival. Quoting that article: > Vitsmun hesitates for a moment and smiles. “I — I’m actually an atheist,” she said, laughing off the awkward moment. This brought her into the spotlight, with Rush Limbaugh declaring she must be the only atheist in Oklahoma ( http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/05/22/media_elites_confounded_by_oklahoma http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/05/22/media_elites_co... ) and Glenn Beck saying it was a setup (http://www.salon.com/2013/05/23/glenn_beck_cnn_interview_with_atheist_tornado_survivor_was_a_setup/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/23/glenn_beck_cnn_interview_wit... ). A better example would be teacher-lead mandatory school prayer, which has been illegal for decades, but it still occurs. Here's an example of a family which sued the school over mandatory prayer http://www.rawstory.com/2015/02/georgia-public-school-teachers-humiliate-kids-for-not-praying-to-god-our-father-lawsuit/ http://www.rawstory.com/2015/02/georgia-public-school-teache... . They did so anonymously for fear of retribution. Again, this is not someone who goes around saying "I am an atheist" but is instead someone who will likely face retribution for saying "I am an atheist" even once in public (or in private to a school official) in order to complain about illegal school practices. Neither of these two occurrences are "kind of immature" nor the result of an activist speaking to people.

by dalke 11y ago

eru 11y ago

I know you are trolling. But to still give an honest reply: think more along the lines of the outrage about lambdaconf and Mencius Moldbug's alter ego speaking there.

lucozade 11y ago
I agree with maehwasu. These are all manifestations of a similar phenomenon i.e. what appears to be an increasing tendency for some groups to aggressively defend their "right" to not have to listen to people who disagree with them. As a tactic it seems to have been quite successful so it's not surprising that disparate groups are using it.
- dalke 11y ago
  There's no "increasing tendency". Pick a random decade and you'll hear exactly the same things. Christopher Hitchens in 1994, for example, defended David Irving when St. Martin’s Press "de-platformed" (to use the modern term, that is, canceled its contract to print) Irving's edition of the Goebbels diaries. Look at the generations of people who insisted on the "right" to not hear certain racially charged slurs in casual conversation. Just watch 'Archie Bunker' episodes if you want a reminder of what that was like in the 1970s. I propose that it's only "increasing" because things that are recent, and which affect us and challenge us most directly, appear more important than things in the past. Even more so where we implicitly accept the views of the winning side - eg, woman's suffrage - as being correct, and don't think that those on the losing side also thought themselves as being correct.
  - lucozade 11y ago
    You are correct, I over generalised. I think there's an increasing tendency to aggressively use victimhood (or survivorship if you prefer) in a censorious fashion. Censorship simply because you don't like what someone says has been around forever.
    - dalke 11y ago
      So has the question about the boundary between "censorship" and "required to support someone you disagree with." When it's the government, is easy to say that censorship is when the government goes beyond time/place/manner restrictions on free speech. But with the migration of the public commons to private areas, is it censorship to prevent a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mall of the Americas? Occupy Wall Street managed to survive so long because Zuccotti Park was on a privately owned public space which was required to stay open 24 hours a day, and thus avoid city curfews in public parks. It's even less clear that a private entity like St. Martin’s Press must never change their mind about publishing a book, should they decide that doing so will give a Holocaust denialist the ability to use their name in support of his cause. When HN users flag a spam comment for maid services in London, and it's later deleted, is that censorship? We know all know of HN posts which cry out censorship for receiving downvotes. The few times I've looked into one of these controversies, it seems more like people are using "censorship" as synonymous for "criticism I don't like." (Certainly not all cases! Just a boringly common majority of them.)
      - CM30 11y ago
        Yeah, there's an awkward boundary between freedom of speech and private property, and it's very, very hard to decide where that lies. At what point does it become wrong to decide what people are allowed to say on private property? A lot of people will say individuals can choose what's allowed in their own houses, but what about businesses? Does the small corner shop have more of a right to shut down discussions than the large private university? It's also a massive problem with the internet in general. After all, the internet doesn't have public property, ever. Every site is privately owned, so theoretically every site can choose what to allow. But without a public platform, that also means perfectly valid ideas can be basically banned from public view by way of large gatekeepers and popular communities banning them, regardless of their legality. Either way, it's a tricky thing to answer, since any 'solution' wil cause a lot of problems in one case or another.

maehwasu 11y ago

I know you're being sarcastic, but I DID mean to include those. The right is just as guilty of this outrage game as the left; in some areas the coalitions are such that they gain power from it. In more left-leaning situations, the outrage power swings left. I detest both. I want people to be able to say things without constantly being threatened with firings, no-platformings, and blacklists.

gizmo 11y ago
In 32 states it is legal to fire a person for being transgender. In practice people get fired illegally for attempting to unionize the workforce. Or for complaining about violations of labor laws. Or for being gay. Or for having the wrong political views. People get fired for expressing themselves all the time. And since business leans conservative right people on the left face the brunt of this discrimination. Free expression has never been without consequence in the United States or anywhere else. Any serious talk about free speech should focus on the core issue: people in power abuse their power to punish the powerless when they express themselves in the wrong way. Students have practically no power or influence in society. So even if these "SJWs" are entirely unjustified in their actions the impact on society is utterly negligible. This is why the panicky reaction in the linked article about student activists repressing free speech is so comical. If anything, the student activists increase free speech by giving a platform to those people who would otherwise go unheard.
- golemotron 11y ago
  Two wrongs don't make a right. If there's anything to be learned in school, that's it.
  - gizmo 11y ago
    The moment you give people a little bit of power they'll find a way to abuse it. People can be really petty and spiteful. What happened at this university is no different from a secretary deliberating forgetting to book a hotel room for the person they like least in the group. No different from the clerk at the DMV sending you to the back of the line because you made a paperwork mistake. Where is the moral panic about this type of petty nonsense? Nowhere! Because we recognize it's petty nonsense, and not worthy of hand-wringing commentary or a national conversation. But when it comes to students and free speech and safe spaces every news channel and every major magazine is talking about it like it signifies the end of Freedom itself. It's totally absurd.

michaelbuddy 11y ago

who walks around saying "I'm an Atheist" it's a silly statement really. I'm not religious, had my enlightenment about 20 years ago now. But saying "I'm an Atheist" is like saying "I'm a non-whatever" It's just kind of immature. I mean if you're an activist speaking to people, I guess, but at that point you should expect to live in the space of constant criticism. You should expect outrage about gun ownership in california. Because you're saying that you are for taking people's rights away, or in general prevent them from something where the model isn't proven to necessarily be correct.

dalke 11y ago
My example was of someone who says "I'm an atheist", not someone who "walks around saying" that. I was thinking specifically of http://www.salon.com/2013/05/22/tornado_survivor_to_wolf_blitzer_sorry_im_an_atheist_i_dont_have_to_thank_the_lord/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/22/tornado_survivor_to_wolf_bli... . The news reporter Wolf Blitzer asked a tornado survivor if she "thanks the Lord" for her survival. Quoting that article: > Vitsmun hesitates for a moment and smiles. “I — I’m actually an atheist,” she said, laughing off the awkward moment. This brought her into the spotlight, with Rush Limbaugh declaring she must be the only atheist in Oklahoma ( http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/05/22/media_elites_confounded_by_oklahoma http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/05/22/media_elites_co... ) and Glenn Beck saying it was a setup (http://www.salon.com/2013/05/23/glenn_beck_cnn_interview_with_atheist_tornado_survivor_was_a_setup/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/23/glenn_beck_cnn_interview_wit... ). A better example would be teacher-lead mandatory school prayer, which has been illegal for decades, but it still occurs. Here's an example of a family which sued the school over mandatory prayer http://www.rawstory.com/2015/02/georgia-public-school-teachers-humiliate-kids-for-not-praying-to-god-our-father-lawsuit/ http://www.rawstory.com/2015/02/georgia-public-school-teache... . They did so anonymously for fear of retribution. Again, this is not someone who goes around saying "I am an atheist" but is instead someone who will likely face retribution for saying "I am an atheist" even once in public (or in private to a school official) in order to complain about illegal school practices. Neither of these two occurrences are "kind of immature" nor the result of an activist speaking to people.