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Counterpoint: progress is messy. In an ideal world, we'd shape society through rational democratic debates where everyone is discussing in good faith. Maybe we

Counterpoint: progress is messy. In an ideal world, we'd shape society through rational democratic debates where everyone is discussing in good faith. Maybe we'll get there one day, but there are a lot of things in the way: poor education, economic hardship, inaccessible healthcare, wealth inequality, and biases deeply embedded in our culture. These factors not only make a lot of people unequipped to express nuance in their frustrations, they also don't exactly incentivize them to do so. (And even if these issues are resolved, there are also the complexities of crowd mentalities that affect even very rational people. To overcome these complexities will take a mindfulness not really currently studied or practiced at scale.) Throughout history, we've seen that change usually comes from very messy, ugly, forceful action. Polite discussion has its place, but when people are pushed to the limits, politeness is discarded and those who take action get what they fight for, polite or not. In those moments, enforcing "politeness" only works to preserve the status quo. Politically correct mobs are a form of this - they are ugly and indiscriminate, but effective at shaping culture by stigmatizing ideas that have been used to justify harm. I'm not saying it's great - this is only a description of what is, not what ought to be. But people being mean or annoying online is as old as the internet, and is not limited to politically left-leaning people. It just happens that the mean left internet people are on the side of society's conscience, and luckily for now it's generally working for the greater good by correcting some big imbalances in American history. Of course, the lack of accountability and balance makes this powerful hammer prone to swing wherever gravity carries it. It's dangerous, but to lash out against it is to lash out against the atmosphere for climate change - we need to address the root causes. We need to improve the livelihoods of everyone so they don't feel desperate and angry - this requires tackling hard economic and healthcare problems. We need to improve critical thinking so people can identify the truth - this requires solving difficult problems with our education system (which also tie into economics and healthcare). We need people to be more empathetic - this requires better urban planning, and all of the above. We need so many things and solve so many tough interconnected problems to get to the point where nuance and good-faith discussion rule society. Interestingly, these are all the problems that the mean left people are trying to fix. So it's possible to be on "their side" and not be in love with their techniques. It feels complicated, but isn't that what nuance is for? Pushing back against the mob for being too uncivilized is trying to stop the swinging hammer, when it's probably best to just stay out of the way, and help finish building what the hammer is working on.

TerminalSystem3 6y ago
But here's the problematic part of your statement: "Politically correct mobs are a form of this - they are ugly and indiscriminate, but effective at shaping culture by stigmatizing ideas that have been used to justify harm". How do you define "harm"? It seems that the modern edition of "progress" is trying to eliminate psychological harm by controlling people's speech. Is psychological harm really something worth trying to eliminate in our society? I'd argue no. Our society thrives on free speech and truth, and attempting to silence people for the sake of keeping the feelings of others intact is not a trade off that's worth making. A book I read that was very informative on the topic was "The Coddling of the American Mind" by Jonathan Haidt - I'd highly recommend looking into it.
- lifeformed 6y ago
  I wasn't saying that the harm necessarily comes from just the expression of certain ideas, but rather that the ideas are used to justify real physical harm, not just psychological harm. Ideas like white supremacy are of course used to enact real violence on real people, as well as more subtle grievances. Quashing those ideas has real benefits. Of course, the issue at hand is defining the boundaries of what needs to be stigmatized. But what's stigma is simply just what society deems stigma, not based on a fully rationalized top-down decision. We are all the mob. It's messy and there's no discrete boundaries of good and bad. It's tempting to therefore conclude that all ideas should be equal, but that's not very satisfactory to communities that have been ravaged by violent terrorism for generations due to certain bad ideas. There's no clean solution to how things should be, so I think instead of trying to come up with the perfect ruleset that allows everyone to be happy, we should acknowledge that maybe there's no happy state of equilibrium with the given conditions, so we should work to reshape those conditions, and maybe we can reach that equilibrium in the future.
- relaxing 6y ago
  The “harm” is the literal murder of black people, transgender people, gay people, etc. The tweets don’t do the murder, but status quo the tweets are supporting does. I think some here, when talking about freedom of political speech, lose sight of the actual stakes behind the politics.

TerminalSystem3 6y ago

But here's the problematic part of your statement: "Politically correct mobs are a form of this - they are ugly and indiscriminate, but effective at shaping culture by stigmatizing ideas that have been used to justify harm". How do you define "harm"? It seems that the modern edition of "progress" is trying to eliminate psychological harm by controlling people's speech. Is psychological harm really something worth trying to eliminate in our society? I'd argue no. Our society thrives on free speech and truth, and attempting to silence people for the sake of keeping the feelings of others intact is not a trade off that's worth making. A book I read that was very informative on the topic was "The Coddling of the American Mind" by Jonathan Haidt - I'd highly recommend looking into it.

lifeformed 6y ago
I wasn't saying that the harm necessarily comes from just the expression of certain ideas, but rather that the ideas are used to justify real physical harm, not just psychological harm. Ideas like white supremacy are of course used to enact real violence on real people, as well as more subtle grievances. Quashing those ideas has real benefits. Of course, the issue at hand is defining the boundaries of what needs to be stigmatized. But what's stigma is simply just what society deems stigma, not based on a fully rationalized top-down decision. We are all the mob. It's messy and there's no discrete boundaries of good and bad. It's tempting to therefore conclude that all ideas should be equal, but that's not very satisfactory to communities that have been ravaged by violent terrorism for generations due to certain bad ideas. There's no clean solution to how things should be, so I think instead of trying to come up with the perfect ruleset that allows everyone to be happy, we should acknowledge that maybe there's no happy state of equilibrium with the given conditions, so we should work to reshape those conditions, and maybe we can reach that equilibrium in the future.
relaxing 6y ago
The “harm” is the literal murder of black people, transgender people, gay people, etc. The tweets don’t do the murder, but status quo the tweets are supporting does. I think some here, when talking about freedom of political speech, lose sight of the actual stakes behind the politics.