10 ms·

Why It's a Bad Idea to Tell Students Words Are Violence

59 points by steamer25 9y ago

saurik 9y ago
I am going to go so far as to say this article is being actively and intentionally intellectually dishonest, as the author seems to understand enough of the issues surrounding violence and speech and yet wrote an incipiently long article whose first sentence admitted that some speech could be violent but did not once attempt to analyze Milo's speech to see if it even met the author's own test for violence; not a single time here am I seeing quotes from Milo designed to make his speech look OK not at any point does the author note the actual reasons why protestors claimed Milo's speech is violence: there is just a banal assumption drawn to the length of being what I will again call out as a dishonest straw man :/. So, the reason that people I know are so horrified by Milo is that he was calling out undocumented and transgendered students by name; not just talking about what he dislikes about these groups, but calling them before the mob of his audience on an individual basis, knowing full well that many of his audience members would go find that person and take out their issues on that person, all while not even trying to hedge the situation to demonized his own followers who turned to such levels; and, for the undocumented, essentially turning a microscope on them and making it highly likely they could find themselves deported. This, to me, fits a usage of the term "violence". Maybe you disagree. Maybe the author also disagrees, but I don't know, as I will now again say that as the author didn't even ask this question, which let them respond to a weird philosophy piece that also didn't seem to care to ask anyone involved, which I find so ludicrously questionable in their position and with their clear understanding of other issues as to be outright dishonest. This is an article talking with another article about a group of people, and yet those people were not consulted? This should not happen. Regardless, with this information, you now get to do what the author should have done: discuss whether you think this speech is violent--not just any speech, and not the perfect speech that this author might hope you are expecting, but the specific speech involved in the incidents on college campuses which are used in the author's examples and that are required to claim the reactions are incompatible. In all seriousness: even if you still disagree that Milo is violent, I hope we can at least agree that this article sucks.
- steamer25 9y ago
  I agree with you that cases of doxxing and/or incitement are different than broadly- or generally- offensive speech and there may be cases where it shouldn't necessarily be protected. I haven't heard those charges leveled against Milo before but that may not too surprising since I don't follow the news surrounding him too closely.
- isoskeles 9y ago
  I don't mean to be obtuse if the answer is obvious (I am ignorant of what actually happened), but how did Milo know these students he called out were undocumented, etc.?
- rmartelli 9y ago
  "he was calling out undocumented and transgendered students by name; not just talking about what he dislikes about these groups" This was a controversial case where a transgender person gave her name while she was on Milwaukee's TMJ4 News to talk about how she felt she was discriminated against. She was kicked out of the sauna. She said "At this point I don't look very female", and that her drivers license reflects a male identity and she hadn't started hormone therapy. Milo disagrees with her view and included a screenshot of that news clip to give some context of what someone's reaction may be when encountering her in an private setting. I would not call taking a critical stance on a controversial news topic as violence. If you are undecided, it's not hard to find the presentation on YouTube and make your own judgement about what he said instead of reading other people's opinion. It's not doxxing unless you believe TMJ4 also doxxed her when it displayed her name as she told her side of the story. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of him. But I like to correct the record when other people give a misleading spin.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > he was calling out undocumented Does this mean people in the country illegally? What's wrong with that?? edit: I mean what's wrong with reporting them
  - sharemywin 9y ago
    He wasn't reporting them he was calling them out to a mob. (according to grandparent. Don't have first hand knowledge.)
ryanx435 9y ago
This article is written as a direct response (although it isn't explicitly stated) of NPRs interview with Milo that was just released. Turns out Milo was completely reasonable in the interview, so NPR kept pushing back the publication date of the interview, so Milo published the whole thing on his own. Give it a listen before judging him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmQe1tWVBk8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmQe1tWVBk8
- smt88 9y ago
  Do we need to listen to that interview before judging him? He's done enough repulsive things outside of this one interview that it doesn't matter much what he says (unless he regrets all of it and vows to change his ways).
  - ryanx435 9y ago
    Your thinking is similar to that of the German people during the 1930s. "Do we need to listen to the Jews before judging them? They've done enough repulsive things that it doesn't matter much what they say (unless they renounce their faith and vow to accept Christ as their saviour)"
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - Sag0Sag0 9y ago
      Yes but the jews hadn't called out transgender students to be harassed.
      - ryanx435 9y ago
        Neither has Milo.
        Sag0Sag0 9y ago
        What was milo doing then?
girvo 9y ago
Andrew Bolt (an absolute piece of crap as far as I'm concerned), was feature in a video on twitter the other day being randomly attacked by two masked "antifa" people. Since when did we decide using the tactics of the people were fighting against is acceptable? :(
- Sag0Sag0 9y ago
  Since the second world war.
- tuxracer 9y ago
  "anti"fa uses violence in an attempt to terrorize people into not speaking about things they disagree with. They're effectively a violent terrorist organization. It's just a great reminder that extremism can form regardless of political or religious labels.
- danharaj 9y ago
  You're not fighting against them. That would involve having skin in the game.
kofejnik 9y ago
> She was kicked out of the sauna. She said "At this point I don't look very female", and that her drivers license reflects a male identity and she hadn't started hormone therapy. As a non-American, I don't understand. Do you mean that any male can claim to be a trans-female at any time and therefore expect to be allowed to use women's sauna? And this is how it should be? I mean, isn't there possibility for abuse? And not agreeing with this labels you a terrible person? While at the same time, feminists scream abuse when someone looks at them inappropriately on the street. I am completely baffled.
- influx 9y ago
  Correct, a gender fluid person may feel more male some days and more female other days. This has nothing to do with sexuality or genitals. In fact, cisgender heterosexual men who express a preference for women born with a vagina may be transphobic against women who have a penis.
  - kofejnik 9y ago
    I honestly cannot tell if you're being serious now
    - aaomidi 9y ago
      Why? Gender is a spectrum and you can fall anywhere on this spectrum. It is also not biological, it can change anytime and multiple times. As dragonwriter put it earlier, your claim relies on two fundamental assumptions that are plain incorrect.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - ljlkajlkdj 9y ago
        Are you defining gender, or mental disorders? Because "not biological, it can change anytime" sounds more like the latter.
woodandsteel 9y ago
Haidt and Lukianoff are saying that universities should be places where students learn to engage in reasoned debate and discussion, instead of being indoctrinated in a particular ideology. I agree. If you like what they are saying, check out their organization at heterodoxacademy.org/

59 points by steamer25 9y ago

I am going to go so far as to say this article is being actively and intentionally intellectually dishonest, as the author seems to understand enough of the issues surrounding violence and speech and yet wrote an incipiently long article whose first sentence admitted that some speech could be violent but did not once attempt to analyze Milo's speech to see if it even met the author's own test for violence; not a single time here am I seeing quotes from Milo designed to make his speech look OK not at any point does the author note the actual reasons why protestors claimed Milo's speech is violence: there is just a banal assumption drawn to the length of being what I will again call out as a dishonest straw man :/. So, the reason that people I know are so horrified by Milo is that he was calling out undocumented and transgendered students by name; not just talking about what he dislikes about these groups, but calling them before the mob of his audience on an individual basis, knowing full well that many of his audience members would go find that person and take out their issues on that person, all while not even trying to hedge the situation to demonized his own followers who turned to such levels; and, for the undocumented, essentially turning a microscope on them and making it highly likely they could find themselves deported. This, to me, fits a usage of the term "violence". Maybe you disagree. Maybe the author also disagrees, but I don't know, as I will now again say that as the author didn't even ask this question, which let them respond to a weird philosophy piece that also didn't seem to care to ask anyone involved, which I find so ludicrously questionable in their position and with their clear understanding of other issues as to be outright dishonest. This is an article talking with another article about a group of people, and yet those people were not consulted? This should not happen. Regardless, with this information, you now get to do what the author should have done: discuss whether you think this speech is violent--not just any speech, and not the perfect speech that this author might hope you are expecting, but the specific speech involved in the incidents on college campuses which are used in the author's examples and that are required to claim the reactions are incompatible. In all seriousness: even if you still disagree that Milo is violent, I hope we can at least agree that this article sucks.

steamer25 9y ago
I agree with you that cases of doxxing and/or incitement are different than broadly- or generally- offensive speech and there may be cases where it shouldn't necessarily be protected. I haven't heard those charges leveled against Milo before but that may not too surprising since I don't follow the news surrounding him too closely.
isoskeles 9y ago
I don't mean to be obtuse if the answer is obvious (I am ignorant of what actually happened), but how did Milo know these students he called out were undocumented, etc.?
rmartelli 9y ago
"he was calling out undocumented and transgendered students by name; not just talking about what he dislikes about these groups" This was a controversial case where a transgender person gave her name while she was on Milwaukee's TMJ4 News to talk about how she felt she was discriminated against. She was kicked out of the sauna. She said "At this point I don't look very female", and that her drivers license reflects a male identity and she hadn't started hormone therapy. Milo disagrees with her view and included a screenshot of that news clip to give some context of what someone's reaction may be when encountering her in an private setting. I would not call taking a critical stance on a controversial news topic as violence. If you are undecided, it's not hard to find the presentation on YouTube and make your own judgement about what he said instead of reading other people's opinion. It's not doxxing unless you believe TMJ4 also doxxed her when it displayed her name as she told her side of the story. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of him. But I like to correct the record when other people give a misleading spin.
Chris2048 9y ago
> he was calling out undocumented Does this mean people in the country illegally? What's wrong with that?? edit: I mean what's wrong with reporting them
- sharemywin 9y ago
  He wasn't reporting them he was calling them out to a mob. (according to grandparent. Don't have first hand knowledge.)

ryanx435 9y ago

This article is written as a direct response (although it isn't explicitly stated) of NPRs interview with Milo that was just released. Turns out Milo was completely reasonable in the interview, so NPR kept pushing back the publication date of the interview, so Milo published the whole thing on his own. Give it a listen before judging him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmQe1tWVBk8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmQe1tWVBk8

smt88 9y ago
Do we need to listen to that interview before judging him? He's done enough repulsive things outside of this one interview that it doesn't matter much what he says (unless he regrets all of it and vows to change his ways).
- ryanx435 9y ago
  Your thinking is similar to that of the German people during the 1930s. "Do we need to listen to the Jews before judging them? They've done enough repulsive things that it doesn't matter much what they say (unless they renounce their faith and vow to accept Christ as their saviour)"
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Sag0Sag0 9y ago
    Yes but the jews hadn't called out transgender students to be harassed.
    - ryanx435 9y ago
      Neither has Milo.
      - Sag0Sag0 9y ago
        What was milo doing then?

girvo 9y ago

Andrew Bolt (an absolute piece of crap as far as I'm concerned), was feature in a video on twitter the other day being randomly attacked by two masked "antifa" people. Since when did we decide using the tactics of the people were fighting against is acceptable? :(

Sag0Sag0 9y ago
Since the second world war.
tuxracer 9y ago
"anti"fa uses violence in an attempt to terrorize people into not speaking about things they disagree with. They're effectively a violent terrorist organization. It's just a great reminder that extremism can form regardless of political or religious labels.
danharaj 9y ago
You're not fighting against them. That would involve having skin in the game.

kofejnik 9y ago

> She was kicked out of the sauna. She said "At this point I don't look very female", and that her drivers license reflects a male identity and she hadn't started hormone therapy. As a non-American, I don't understand. Do you mean that any male can claim to be a trans-female at any time and therefore expect to be allowed to use women's sauna? And this is how it should be? I mean, isn't there possibility for abuse? And not agreeing with this labels you a terrible person? While at the same time, feminists scream abuse when someone looks at them inappropriately on the street. I am completely baffled.

influx 9y ago
Correct, a gender fluid person may feel more male some days and more female other days. This has nothing to do with sexuality or genitals. In fact, cisgender heterosexual men who express a preference for women born with a vagina may be transphobic against women who have a penis.
- kofejnik 9y ago
  I honestly cannot tell if you're being serious now
  - aaomidi 9y ago
    Why? Gender is a spectrum and you can fall anywhere on this spectrum. It is also not biological, it can change anytime and multiple times. As dragonwriter put it earlier, your claim relies on two fundamental assumptions that are plain incorrect.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - ljlkajlkdj 9y ago
      Are you defining gender, or mental disorders? Because "not biological, it can change anytime" sounds more like the latter.

woodandsteel 9y ago

Haidt and Lukianoff are saying that universities should be places where students learn to engage in reasoned debate and discussion, instead of being indoctrinated in a particular ideology. I agree. If you like what they are saying, check out their organization at heterodoxacademy.org/