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I don’t understand why people think giving space and respect to odious beliefs is somehow virtuous. What it does is normalize those beliefs and enable them to p

I don’t understand why people think giving space and respect to odious beliefs is somehow virtuous. What it does is normalize those beliefs and enable them to propagate while simultaneously exhausting those who oppose them. See Sarte’s comments on Anti-Semitism; the holders of odious beliefs are generally not “playing the same game” as those who oppose them, and giving space to all ideas, no matter how awful, is actually conferring an advantage on the worst.

haberman 8y ago
> the holders of odious beliefs are generally not “playing the same game” as those who oppose them Maybe a few years ago I would have found this argument convincing. But here is the current state of the Internet (from the article): > it was always that the the thread was “dominated by” or “only had” or “was an echo chamber for” homophobic transphobic alt-right neo-Nazis, which always grew into the claim that the subreddit was dominated by homophobic etc neo-Nazis, which always grew into the claim that the SSC community was dominated by homophobic etc neo-Nazis, which always grew into the claim that I personally was a homophobic etc neo-Nazi of them all. I am a pro-gay Jew who has dated trans people and votes pretty much straight Democrat. I lost distant family in the Holocaust. You can imagine how much fun this was for me. I think it's hard to claim that even people with truly Anti-Semitic beliefs are somehow playing a more deceptive game than this, or appealing more to people's biases and irrationality.
berberous 8y ago
Who defines what beliefs are odious? The point is not to convince the person you are talking to, which is very difficult given how much people stick to their political beliefs, but to convince the lurking third party, who has weakly held opinions. If they can see in the debate that one person has the stronger argument, you can convince that third person. If they see one side refuse to debate, angrily yell, and banish the other to places like the_donald, well, maybe the undecided lurkers will wonder if perhaps the person got angry because they had no good counter-argument, decide to go explore a place like the_donald, or some other echo chamber where they just become more convinced, that also has no counter-acting voices of reason. The people in the_donald agree with you by the way, and don't give space or respect to people with odious blue tribe beliefs. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
The counterargument is: Odious as defined by who? By me? Heh, eschaton, your beliefs might not come out so well by that measure. Defined by you? No thank you. Defined by society? Twenty years ago, homosexual marriage was an odious belief by that standard. Today, it's not (instead, opposing it is now considered odious). Same with racism sixty years ago. Same with slavery 160 years ago. "Odious" is a moving target. But for your argument to have any force, "odious" has to have some real moral weight to it, not just be society's current consensus. That leaves odious as defined by a group of right-thinking people. Problem is, there are many candidates proclaiming themselves as being the right-thinking group, and they all contradict each other. How are you going to pick one? By what you most agree with? Again, no thank you. (Note well: This is not "no thank you" specifically to eschaton. It's "no thank you" to any individual who wants to set themself up as the arbiter of what is "odious". I don't want anybody to have that power - unless it's me, of course.)
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  I assume you have not read Sarte's comments, then? Whenever you participate in a community you accept that there are going to be individuals controlling the discussion to an extent and cleaning up things that affect the site in a negative way. For example no matter how kindly you might argue or how much data you may provide on how the Jewish people should be eradicated, that sort of comment would get you rapidly flagged on HN. The definition of odious does evolve over time according to a societies standards, and I don't think it's a particularly big leap to say calls for genocide are odious. Communities do eventually need to take a stand for what they represent, for allowing people with said beliefs on their platform means those people represent the platform.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    I have read Sarte's comments (at least I think I have - no link, so I'm not sure). Look, I'm glad that racism and genocide are banned on HN, and that I don't have to wade through the garbage. CW wasn't trying to be HN, though. It had moderators, but they had a different set of filters, and they let a lot more through. That was by intent and design. Then some people decided that, because it allowed stuff from the far right, it was supporting the far right, and that wasn't OK - any forum that allowed it at all had to be shut down, even if they allowed it from the far left as well. From what it sounds like from the article (not an unbiased source, I know), the CW moderators were doing pretty well at their intended task, and a pretty interesting community was flourishing there. But some outside people decided that their definition of "odious" should be the one enforced, and threw various increasingly dishonest hissy fits until CW shut down. Is that really a good thing? Is it really a good thing if more than one group figures out that they can do it? The urge to censor viewpoints that we consider odious is strong, but I'm really not sure it's the most righteous course (especially as it was practiced here).
dvtrn 8y ago
It's interesting to behold that every response to this comment in the last hour, with the most recently made response being posted 56 minutes ago (as of, at least before the time I hit the 'reply' button) are ALL downvoted to light grey. I await my turn for making this observation.
- chc 8y ago
  The responses are also mostly expressing the exact same hollow moral relativism — "Who is to say what is odious?" — so it's not surprising that they're voted similarly.
  - sullyj3 8y ago
    People are not making the claim that nobody is right, so labelling it "relativism" is inappropriate. Merely pointing out that these norms are applied to everyone, and cut both ways. if somebody else thinks your views are odious and you ought to be silenced, what principled reason do you have for saying you ought not to be? you can take the route of saying that in fact your own views are not odious so you shouldn't be silenced, but your opponents are and therefore should be. But in that case all you've done is engendered a situation where every side feels comfortable and justified in attempting to silence their opponents. Because obviously, every side thinks they're right and their opponents are terrible people (note that I'm still not claiming that neither side is right). Discourse quality is degraded. And people start looking around for the next rhetorical nuke to throw at their percieved enemies. it's a race to the bottom, and the bottom contains mainly shouting, hatred, and fearmongering. Norms like "people shouldn't be silenced even if their speech is despicable" are the Geneva convention in the war of the words. They're social technologies which allow people who disagree to coexist peacefully. These are the insights of the enlightenment, and liberalism as the word originally meant.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    I suppose that's where I'm going to disagree, the idea that these responses are 'hollow' by daring to ask such a question. Maybe it's because I had the honor of living at a time in the US when certain behaviors were not only deemed socially odious but were codified in law as odious until enough people stood up and asked "who are you to say sending my daughter to a segregated school is odious" or "what is so odious about my mother choosing to sit at a certain place in this eating establishment" that sweeping legal and social change (with much room for continued progress to be made, mind you) came as a result of such 'hollow' and 'relativist' inquiries-as you call them.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
closeparen 8y ago
You share democratic institutions with sincere adherents of those odious beliefs, and they win elections at least some of the time. Understanding the “other” population and how to reason with it, or at least negotiate with it, is required if those democratic institutions are to continue. Today’s dogma was yesterday’s odious belief. If we feel that the correctness of consensus opinion is on the rise, shouldn’t we be hesitant to freeze out future changes? If we feel it is falling, shouldn’t we want some protection for today’s correct ideas when they become odious again? I can really only imagine subscribing to this viewpoint from within a long-term stable utopia whose primary threat is that someone will spoil it. EDIT: >What it does is normalize those beliefs and enable them to propagate while simultaneously exhausting those who oppose them. I think this is is simply a mistaken view of human nature. Nothing confirms a conspiracy theory quite like jack-booted thugs who are actually out to get you for saying it. Nothing galvanizes a cause quite like official suppression. See the Streisand Effect or, for that matter, Christianity.
Nasrudith 8y ago
I think the Devil and Daniel Webster is a better reference here - if you chop down all the laws and norms that shield the Devil what is left to shield you? By condoning silencing there is the risk you will be silenced - and the article demonstrates how the same means of suppression may be applied when your norms are judged unacceptable and it is intolerable for another to not censor. Both have valid points and the precise answer is likely nuanced and/or a matter of opinion.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  > First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— > Because I was not a socialist. > Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— > Because I was not a trade unionist. > Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— > Because I was not a Jew. > Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. A translation of the German poem by pastor Martin Niemöller [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
  - heurist 8y ago
    Germany censors Nazis now, though. What lesson do we take from that?
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      Yes, they've been censoring Nazis (and Swastikas and a whole lot of other symbols) ever since the end of WWII. They censor blood in games, too. The quote is from a German pastor, not a representative of the German government or its people.
    - weregiraffe 8y ago
      >Germany censors Nazis now, though. What lesson do we take from that? Kill Nazis before they kill you.

haberman 8y ago

> the holders of odious beliefs are generally not “playing the same game” as those who oppose them Maybe a few years ago I would have found this argument convincing. But here is the current state of the Internet (from the article): > it was always that the the thread was “dominated by” or “only had” or “was an echo chamber for” homophobic transphobic alt-right neo-Nazis, which always grew into the claim that the subreddit was dominated by homophobic etc neo-Nazis, which always grew into the claim that the SSC community was dominated by homophobic etc neo-Nazis, which always grew into the claim that I personally was a homophobic etc neo-Nazi of them all. I am a pro-gay Jew who has dated trans people and votes pretty much straight Democrat. I lost distant family in the Holocaust. You can imagine how much fun this was for me. I think it's hard to claim that even people with truly Anti-Semitic beliefs are somehow playing a more deceptive game than this, or appealing more to people's biases and irrationality.

berberous 8y ago

Who defines what beliefs are odious? The point is not to convince the person you are talking to, which is very difficult given how much people stick to their political beliefs, but to convince the lurking third party, who has weakly held opinions. If they can see in the debate that one person has the stronger argument, you can convince that third person. If they see one side refuse to debate, angrily yell, and banish the other to places like the_donald, well, maybe the undecided lurkers will wonder if perhaps the person got angry because they had no good counter-argument, decide to go explore a place like the_donald, or some other echo chamber where they just become more convinced, that also has no counter-acting voices of reason. The people in the_donald agree with you by the way, and don't give space or respect to people with odious blue tribe beliefs. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

The counterargument is: Odious as defined by who? By me? Heh, eschaton, your beliefs might not come out so well by that measure. Defined by you? No thank you. Defined by society? Twenty years ago, homosexual marriage was an odious belief by that standard. Today, it's not (instead, opposing it is now considered odious). Same with racism sixty years ago. Same with slavery 160 years ago. "Odious" is a moving target. But for your argument to have any force, "odious" has to have some real moral weight to it, not just be society's current consensus. That leaves odious as defined by a group of right-thinking people. Problem is, there are many candidates proclaiming themselves as being the right-thinking group, and they all contradict each other. How are you going to pick one? By what you most agree with? Again, no thank you. (Note well: This is not "no thank you" specifically to eschaton. It's "no thank you" to any individual who wants to set themself up as the arbiter of what is "odious". I don't want anybody to have that power - unless it's me, of course.)

fzeroracer 8y ago
I assume you have not read Sarte's comments, then? Whenever you participate in a community you accept that there are going to be individuals controlling the discussion to an extent and cleaning up things that affect the site in a negative way. For example no matter how kindly you might argue or how much data you may provide on how the Jewish people should be eradicated, that sort of comment would get you rapidly flagged on HN. The definition of odious does evolve over time according to a societies standards, and I don't think it's a particularly big leap to say calls for genocide are odious. Communities do eventually need to take a stand for what they represent, for allowing people with said beliefs on their platform means those people represent the platform.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  I have read Sarte's comments (at least I think I have - no link, so I'm not sure). Look, I'm glad that racism and genocide are banned on HN, and that I don't have to wade through the garbage. CW wasn't trying to be HN, though. It had moderators, but they had a different set of filters, and they let a lot more through. That was by intent and design. Then some people decided that, because it allowed stuff from the far right, it was supporting the far right, and that wasn't OK - any forum that allowed it at all had to be shut down, even if they allowed it from the far left as well. From what it sounds like from the article (not an unbiased source, I know), the CW moderators were doing pretty well at their intended task, and a pretty interesting community was flourishing there. But some outside people decided that their definition of "odious" should be the one enforced, and threw various increasingly dishonest hissy fits until CW shut down. Is that really a good thing? Is it really a good thing if more than one group figures out that they can do it? The urge to censor viewpoints that we consider odious is strong, but I'm really not sure it's the most righteous course (especially as it was practiced here).

dvtrn 8y ago

It's interesting to behold that every response to this comment in the last hour, with the most recently made response being posted 56 minutes ago (as of, at least before the time I hit the 'reply' button) are ALL downvoted to light grey. I await my turn for making this observation.

chc 8y ago
The responses are also mostly expressing the exact same hollow moral relativism — "Who is to say what is odious?" — so it's not surprising that they're voted similarly.
- sullyj3 8y ago
  People are not making the claim that nobody is right, so labelling it "relativism" is inappropriate. Merely pointing out that these norms are applied to everyone, and cut both ways. if somebody else thinks your views are odious and you ought to be silenced, what principled reason do you have for saying you ought not to be? you can take the route of saying that in fact your own views are not odious so you shouldn't be silenced, but your opponents are and therefore should be. But in that case all you've done is engendered a situation where every side feels comfortable and justified in attempting to silence their opponents. Because obviously, every side thinks they're right and their opponents are terrible people (note that I'm still not claiming that neither side is right). Discourse quality is degraded. And people start looking around for the next rhetorical nuke to throw at their percieved enemies. it's a race to the bottom, and the bottom contains mainly shouting, hatred, and fearmongering. Norms like "people shouldn't be silenced even if their speech is despicable" are the Geneva convention in the war of the words. They're social technologies which allow people who disagree to coexist peacefully. These are the insights of the enlightenment, and liberalism as the word originally meant.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  I suppose that's where I'm going to disagree, the idea that these responses are 'hollow' by daring to ask such a question. Maybe it's because I had the honor of living at a time in the US when certain behaviors were not only deemed socially odious but were codified in law as odious until enough people stood up and asked "who are you to say sending my daughter to a segregated school is odious" or "what is so odious about my mother choosing to sit at a certain place in this eating establishment" that sweeping legal and social change (with much room for continued progress to be made, mind you) came as a result of such 'hollow' and 'relativist' inquiries-as you call them.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

closeparen 8y ago

You share democratic institutions with sincere adherents of those odious beliefs, and they win elections at least some of the time. Understanding the “other” population and how to reason with it, or at least negotiate with it, is required if those democratic institutions are to continue. Today’s dogma was yesterday’s odious belief. If we feel that the correctness of consensus opinion is on the rise, shouldn’t we be hesitant to freeze out future changes? If we feel it is falling, shouldn’t we want some protection for today’s correct ideas when they become odious again? I can really only imagine subscribing to this viewpoint from within a long-term stable utopia whose primary threat is that someone will spoil it. EDIT: >What it does is normalize those beliefs and enable them to propagate while simultaneously exhausting those who oppose them. I think this is is simply a mistaken view of human nature. Nothing confirms a conspiracy theory quite like jack-booted thugs who are actually out to get you for saying it. Nothing galvanizes a cause quite like official suppression. See the Streisand Effect or, for that matter, Christianity.

Nasrudith 8y ago

I think the Devil and Daniel Webster is a better reference here - if you chop down all the laws and norms that shield the Devil what is left to shield you? By condoning silencing there is the risk you will be silenced - and the article demonstrates how the same means of suppression may be applied when your norms are judged unacceptable and it is intolerable for another to not censor. Both have valid points and the precise answer is likely nuanced and/or a matter of opinion.

Fnoord 8y ago
> First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— > Because I was not a socialist. > Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— > Because I was not a trade unionist. > Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— > Because I was not a Jew. > Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. A translation of the German poem by pastor Martin Niemöller [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
- heurist 8y ago
  Germany censors Nazis now, though. What lesson do we take from that?
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    Yes, they've been censoring Nazis (and Swastikas and a whole lot of other symbols) ever since the end of WWII. They censor blood in games, too. The quote is from a German pastor, not a representative of the German government or its people.
  - weregiraffe 8y ago
    >Germany censors Nazis now, though. What lesson do we take from that? Kill Nazis before they kill you.