4 ms·

These sorts of arguments always fall a bit flat with me for one simple reason: They assume a false causality. Our forbearance doesn't force others to reciprocat

by chc 6y ago

These sorts of arguments always fall a bit flat with me for one simple reason: They assume a false causality. Our forbearance doesn't force others to reciprocate. If we try to stop people from encouraging the mass murder of protesters, sure, some people will look for ways to censor other ideas that I support. But if we don't oppose pro-murder propaganda, those people will still look for ways to censor ideas I support. When homophobia was the mainstream opinion, gay perspectives were commonly censored (in the sense we're talking about here of "powerful private parties not wanting to associate with them"). It seems pretty unrealistic to expect reciprocal generosity from someone who thinks protesters should be killed in the street, so I don't see how an argument based on ideas of "What if they did it to you?" could be persuasive.

jlawson 6y ago
By the same argument, you'd cheat and steal from literally anyone you could get away with cheating and stealing from. Because not doing it to them doesn't stop them from doing it to you. But this isn't really how it works. Forebearance actually does have value because it changes society as a whole, shifts expectations at a broad scale, and creates moral authority to demand better from others which is persuasive and powerful. At the end of the day, what kind of society do you want to live in? Will you contribute to making that society, or not?
- chc 6y ago
  I think you have drastically misunderstood my argument. To use your analogy, let's say Bob is constantly stealing from you. You urgently need some essentials, and you say, "I know, I can steal them from Bob." But somebody stops you and says, "Wait, you don't want to do that! If you steal from Bob, he'll steal from you!" You would probably not find this persuasive, because you know Bob will steal from you regardless. There probably are good arguments you can make against stealing from Bob, but that particular one doesn't jibe with reality.
  - jlawson 6y ago
    Let's say your spouse is constantly criticizing you. You feel frustrated, so you criticize them as well. Someone stops you and says, "Wait, you should criticize them less. Then they'll feel less frustrated and might also criticize you less." And you can, and do, and with some decent faith on both sides you can de-escalate. This is basically marriage counseling. This is how relationships improve. You're framing this as a simple prisoner's dilemma problem with sharp-edged binary choices - but it's much more fluid than that in real life. The fluidity non-binaryness of this is even more apparent given it's millions of people we're talking about, over time lasting generations. If life really was a prisoner dilemma cooperation would be impossible.
echelon 6y ago
We only have freedom of speech because the laws are stark and absolute. Where's our freedom of privacy? If we stop being freedom of speech absolutists, I can already tell you what's going to happen. edit: I do not for the life of me understand why someone would downvote this. The opposite of freedom of speech is fascism, and it is a tool that can be employed by any ideology to oppress and impose.
danShumway 6y ago
> But if we don't oppose pro-murder propaganda, those people will still look for ways to censor ideas I support. I can expand on this if you're really curious. The short version is that I don't think it's realistic to expect reciprocal generosity from a party that clearly has a double standard about what is and isn't censorship. But on the other hand, we can make a choice not to literally hand that party ammunition for their arguments. We know that laws around censorship are disproportionately targeted at minority/oppressed communities. We have over 100 years of history demonstrating that fact, from the draft protests, to McCarthyism, to the mass-deplatforming and threatening of the LGBTQ+ community, to moral panics about satan worshiping and sex in mainstream media. We also know the arguments that those people use to try and further their agendas. They will still use those arguments even if we have Free Speech principles. The difference is that neutral observers will be able to tell that they're being hypocritical. The difference is that they'll have fewer laws on the books that they can quickly repurpose to their agenda. When you know what someone's strategy is to attack you, when you know how Republicans are going to try and disrupt protests and attack critics, you don't play into that strategy. You try to set up an environment that is hostile to their talking points. That's how Free Speech advocacy responds to bigots -- it tries to make a general social environment where, for example, the recent Florida laws trying to shut down protests look unusual and bad and repressive even to casual observers who haven't researched the issues. We don't expect racists and homophobes to play fair, that's why we're building a set of laws and social standards that make it harder for them to argue that it's OK to pull funding from schools that teach critical race theory. These people are better at censoring than you are; if you let them set all of the rules of engagement, then they will win. ---- The opposite is also true. Free Speech and Free Association are more helpful to progressive organizations than they are to regressive movements, because most of the time regressive movements are trying to shut down conversation and to stop social evolution. You can see this happening with critical race theory, you can see this happening with BLM protests, you can see it pop up with recent efforts to restrict counseling and support structures for LGBTQ+ youth. You can even see it with how much Conservatives have freaked out over company statements on voting rights and business decisions not to work with states that pass regressive laws. Regressive movements talk a big game about Free Speech, but so much of their ideology depends on nobody questioning the status quo of how we think about race, gender, and inequality, and on punishing and ostracizing anyone in their communities that listens to critics or evolves their views over time. Sure, they'll use Free Speech to try and argue against Freedom of Association or to claim that they're being oppressed because a football player had the "audacity" to talk about race in a public setting, but they're not particularly good at that kind of rhetoric. The arguments are ultimately unpersuasive and it's relatively easy to point out how they're being hypocritical. So by creating an environment that is Free Speech friendly, not only do we make their ideas about oppression less persuasive and harder to implement -- we also play to our strengths. We create an environment where it is easier to educate people about issues like trans liberation and to showcase the radical inequalities that exist in America. I don't think it's an accident that LGBTQ+ rights have progressed faster than other historical pushes for equality in an environment where it's easier than ever before to share information about people's day-to-day struggles and experiences. So much of regressive ideology relies on people being able to block out progressive movements and to filter/mischaracterize what progressive movements say. ---- So long story short, TLDR regressive/bigoted movements do abuse Free Speech to defend themselves, but it's mostly rhetoric. They are more reliant on censorship than on a free flow of information to further their goals. To the extent that they really care about Free Speech, they're mostly just arguing to get rid of Freedom of Association and to force people to stop criticizing them or kicking them out of privately owned spaces. So when we build societies that are resistant to censorship, we're not saying that those people will play along and respect our rules. And we do accept that on the tail-end of certain movements (esp conspiracy theories), Free Speech does genuinely make our job harder. But what we're trying to do is to create a battlefield for progressivism that (overall) plays to our strengths and exploits their weaknesses.

by chc 6y ago

jlawson 6y ago

By the same argument, you'd cheat and steal from literally anyone you could get away with cheating and stealing from. Because not doing it to them doesn't stop them from doing it to you. But this isn't really how it works. Forebearance actually does have value because it changes society as a whole, shifts expectations at a broad scale, and creates moral authority to demand better from others which is persuasive and powerful. At the end of the day, what kind of society do you want to live in? Will you contribute to making that society, or not?

chc 6y ago
I think you have drastically misunderstood my argument. To use your analogy, let's say Bob is constantly stealing from you. You urgently need some essentials, and you say, "I know, I can steal them from Bob." But somebody stops you and says, "Wait, you don't want to do that! If you steal from Bob, he'll steal from you!" You would probably not find this persuasive, because you know Bob will steal from you regardless. There probably are good arguments you can make against stealing from Bob, but that particular one doesn't jibe with reality.
- jlawson 6y ago
  Let's say your spouse is constantly criticizing you. You feel frustrated, so you criticize them as well. Someone stops you and says, "Wait, you should criticize them less. Then they'll feel less frustrated and might also criticize you less." And you can, and do, and with some decent faith on both sides you can de-escalate. This is basically marriage counseling. This is how relationships improve. You're framing this as a simple prisoner's dilemma problem with sharp-edged binary choices - but it's much more fluid than that in real life. The fluidity non-binaryness of this is even more apparent given it's millions of people we're talking about, over time lasting generations. If life really was a prisoner dilemma cooperation would be impossible.

echelon 6y ago

We only have freedom of speech because the laws are stark and absolute. Where's our freedom of privacy? If we stop being freedom of speech absolutists, I can already tell you what's going to happen. edit: I do not for the life of me understand why someone would downvote this. The opposite of freedom of speech is fascism, and it is a tool that can be employed by any ideology to oppress and impose.

danShumway 6y ago

> But if we don't oppose pro-murder propaganda, those people will still look for ways to censor ideas I support. I can expand on this if you're really curious. The short version is that I don't think it's realistic to expect reciprocal generosity from a party that clearly has a double standard about what is and isn't censorship. But on the other hand, we can make a choice not to literally hand that party ammunition for their arguments. We know that laws around censorship are disproportionately targeted at minority/oppressed communities. We have over 100 years of history demonstrating that fact, from the draft protests, to McCarthyism, to the mass-deplatforming and threatening of the LGBTQ+ community, to moral panics about satan worshiping and sex in mainstream media. We also know the arguments that those people use to try and further their agendas. They will still use those arguments even if we have Free Speech principles. The difference is that neutral observers will be able to tell that they're being hypocritical. The difference is that they'll have fewer laws on the books that they can quickly repurpose to their agenda. When you know what someone's strategy is to attack you, when you know how Republicans are going to try and disrupt protests and attack critics, you don't play into that strategy. You try to set up an environment that is hostile to their talking points. That's how Free Speech advocacy responds to bigots -- it tries to make a general social environment where, for example, the recent Florida laws trying to shut down protests look unusual and bad and repressive even to casual observers who haven't researched the issues. We don't expect racists and homophobes to play fair, that's why we're building a set of laws and social standards that make it harder for them to argue that it's OK to pull funding from schools that teach critical race theory. These people are better at censoring than you are; if you let them set all of the rules of engagement, then they will win. ---- The opposite is also true. Free Speech and Free Association are more helpful to progressive organizations than they are to regressive movements, because most of the time regressive movements are trying to shut down conversation and to stop social evolution. You can see this happening with critical race theory, you can see this happening with BLM protests, you can see it pop up with recent efforts to restrict counseling and support structures for LGBTQ+ youth. You can even see it with how much Conservatives have freaked out over company statements on voting rights and business decisions not to work with states that pass regressive laws. Regressive movements talk a big game about Free Speech, but so much of their ideology depends on nobody questioning the status quo of how we think about race, gender, and inequality, and on punishing and ostracizing anyone in their communities that listens to critics or evolves their views over time. Sure, they'll use Free Speech to try and argue against Freedom of Association or to claim that they're being oppressed because a football player had the "audacity" to talk about race in a public setting, but they're not particularly good at that kind of rhetoric. The arguments are ultimately unpersuasive and it's relatively easy to point out how they're being hypocritical. So by creating an environment that is Free Speech friendly, not only do we make their ideas about oppression less persuasive and harder to implement -- we also play to our strengths. We create an environment where it is easier to educate people about issues like trans liberation and to showcase the radical inequalities that exist in America. I don't think it's an accident that LGBTQ+ rights have progressed faster than other historical pushes for equality in an environment where it's easier than ever before to share information about people's day-to-day struggles and experiences. So much of regressive ideology relies on people being able to block out progressive movements and to filter/mischaracterize what progressive movements say. ---- So long story short, TLDR regressive/bigoted movements do abuse Free Speech to defend themselves, but it's mostly rhetoric. They are more reliant on censorship than on a free flow of information to further their goals. To the extent that they really care about Free Speech, they're mostly just arguing to get rid of Freedom of Association and to force people to stop criticizing them or kicking them out of privately owned spaces. So when we build societies that are resistant to censorship, we're not saying that those people will play along and respect our rules. And we do accept that on the tail-end of certain movements (esp conspiracy theories), Free Speech does genuinely make our job harder. But what we're trying to do is to create a battlefield for progressivism that (overall) plays to our strengths and exploits their weaknesses.