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>The only way to stop them is to physically guard {Sacred Value} When the {Sacred Value} is participation in the marketplace of ideas, then guarding it against

>The only way to stop them is to physically guard {Sacred Value} When the {Sacred Value} is participation in the marketplace of ideas, then guarding it against unwelcome elements is the same as destroying it. When your justification can be used, identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of your beliefs, then it's not a logical reason, but a justification. Regarding the examples of criminal action, I'd heard of some of those events. I've also heard of a CNN host say that a teenager had a "punchable face" because he wore the wrong kind of hat and stood silently while being accosted by a screaming stranger banging a drum in his face. I've heard a lot of talk about punching Nazis, which seem to be a broader and broader group every year. I've heard of comedians jailed for jokes. I've heard of teenagers jailed for singing along to rap songs. I've I've heard of that quote by Trump, just as I've heard stories of news anchors standing in front of streets aflame, calling protests "mostly peaceful." It all reduces down to that Orwell quote, doesn't it? I'm insulated from most of this, I realize, by not being American and not having the same intense loyalty to your political tribes. But "the other group is doing all these terrible things to us" is not a very convincing argument for changing beliefs like this. Every group wants to claim it is being marginalized, and basically every group can point out specific examples of exactly that marginalization happening. Giving one group the right to cancel the civil liberties of the other group, as the paradox of tolerance suggests, does not strike me as a particularly wise idea, given the stakes involved. I have no confidence in any group to hold that power justly.

revolvingocelot 4y ago
>When the {Sacred Value} is participation in the marketplace of ideas, then guarding it against unwelcome elements is the same as destroying it. When your justification can be used, identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of your beliefs, then it's not a logical reason, but a justification. My "justification" is not usable identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of my beliefs, because they do not believe my beliefs. I, and you, and anyone else, can establish this by reading the cited links in my post above. Further, the {Sacred Value} under discussion isn't "participation in the marketplace of ideas", it's tolerance! Society does value "participation in the marketplace of ideas", but that's another can of worms; not entirely orthogonal to tolerance, but it's obviously not the same. In fact, I'd suggest that overreliance on the "marketplace of ideas", which, like any marketplace, is most easily dominated by those with the most money, is exacerbating society's problems with tolerance. >Regarding the examples of criminal action, I'd heard of some of those events. I've also heard of All the examples you cite (a CNN host, individuals talking about physically opposing self-identified Nazis, "comedians jailed for jokes", teenagers jailed for singing) are individuals. They may be being oppressed, in your view, by monolithic forces of intolerance, but they themselves are not monoliths baldly angling to protect in-groups which the law does not bind, alongside the exclusion of out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. Speaking of which-- >Giving one group the right to cancel the civil liberties of the other group But that's not what's happening. One group is cancelling the civil liberties of another, visibly, but they are keeping those rights for themselves. When the Black Panthers armed themselves, Reagan, of all people, instituted gun control, and now LGBTQetc groups protecting LGBTQetc events get called out by those who were previously using those same arms to threaten them; curtailing access to abortion is a great good, but "the only moral abortion is my abortion", and so those with means get 'em anyway from elsewhere. [0] >It all reduces down to that Orwell quote, doesn't it? Yes, some animals are more equal than others. That's what I'm saying. Rules are for the little people, not the important people. The important people can break the law and act immorally, and it's our fault for not stopping them. That's Murc's law. Popper's political solution only actually works if there are actual checks and balances, but most of them seem to be legally toothless and highly dependent on the moral standard of the individuals involved. It's my understanding, for instance, that every President since Nixon has voluntarily released their tax returns in order to promote trust; Nixon didn't for eerily similar reasons to those bandied about in modernity. >I'm insulated from most of this, I realize, by not being American and not having the same intense loyalty to your political tribes I'm not American. I assumed you were, by the examples of left-wing badness largely drawn from talking-head American media, and certain nuances of your defence of the political right. I don't like the American uniparty, but the simple fact is that one wing of it acts very differently than the other. They seem to functionally agree on like 75% of things (big military budgets, pro-Israel, the 1/5 of the GDP provided by for-profit medical care), but the wedge issues have become meaningful socially, and are being exported abroad. We all benefit from, and are all bound by, the Pax Americana. [0] https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/ https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-...
- endominus 4y ago
  >My "justification" is not usable identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of my beliefs, because they do not believe my beliefs. "If we tolerate {people with out-group beliefs}, they will take power and restrict our civil liberties, therefore we must guard {Sacred Value} from them" can be - and is - used by both sides to justify restriction of civil liberties. >All the examples you cite (a CNN host, individuals talking about physically opposing self-identified Nazis, "comedians jailed for jokes", teenagers jailed for singing) are individuals. I didn't know quite how to parse this. Are you saying that the victims are all individuals, or that the oppressors are? In both cases, that's not necessarily true. There were many people involved in calling that teenager a terrible person and harassing him - the force of the media, hate mobs on Twitter, and the like. And the people chilled into silence by "cancel culture" form a large group themselves. All of these groups, of course, are composed of individuals, but that doesn't seem to weigh on either direction. Of course the people who most acutely feel oppression are going to be individuals; how else would that work? Of course the oppressive group is going to be large; how else would it have any power? >One group is cancelling the civil liberties of another, visibly, but they are keeping those rights for themselves. And this is exactly what I mean about the symmetry of these arguments. I have heard this same idea repeated by right-wing people about the left! And they are able to produce examples of the same - that's what their complaints about cancel culture are. Here's an example of that; in the wake of the #MeToo movement, I have seen people on this very forum put forward the idea that allegations of sexual assault and rape are so serious and so traumatizing to the victims, that they should be assumed to be true and damning in the absence of evidence or trials. That is, that the accused should have their right to a fair trial, the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty, revoked. That's a really damned worrying thing to hear as a liberal who's actually interested in protecting civil rights! Apparently some people have never heard of Emmett Till. The thing is, the pop-culture paradox of tolerance - the idea under discussion - is literally about being able to declare some ideas "intolerant" and thus remove them from the discussion. It's a claim that some ideas are so dangerous that the public needs to be protected from them, and the claim that the group presenting that paradox are the people who should make that determination. I don't trust any group with that power. To do so would be to willingly place myself under the power of a despot.

revolvingocelot 4y ago

>When the {Sacred Value} is participation in the marketplace of ideas, then guarding it against unwelcome elements is the same as destroying it. When your justification can be used, identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of your beliefs, then it's not a logical reason, but a justification. My "justification" is not usable identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of my beliefs, because they do not believe my beliefs. I, and you, and anyone else, can establish this by reading the cited links in my post above. Further, the {Sacred Value} under discussion isn't "participation in the marketplace of ideas", it's tolerance! Society does value "participation in the marketplace of ideas", but that's another can of worms; not entirely orthogonal to tolerance, but it's obviously not the same. In fact, I'd suggest that overreliance on the "marketplace of ideas", which, like any marketplace, is most easily dominated by those with the most money, is exacerbating society's problems with tolerance. >Regarding the examples of criminal action, I'd heard of some of those events. I've also heard of All the examples you cite (a CNN host, individuals talking about physically opposing self-identified Nazis, "comedians jailed for jokes", teenagers jailed for singing) are individuals. They may be being oppressed, in your view, by monolithic forces of intolerance, but they themselves are not monoliths baldly angling to protect in-groups which the law does not bind, alongside the exclusion of out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. Speaking of which-- >Giving one group the right to cancel the civil liberties of the other group But that's not what's happening. One group is cancelling the civil liberties of another, visibly, but they are keeping those rights for themselves. When the Black Panthers armed themselves, Reagan, of all people, instituted gun control, and now LGBTQetc groups protecting LGBTQetc events get called out by those who were previously using those same arms to threaten them; curtailing access to abortion is a great good, but "the only moral abortion is my abortion", and so those with means get 'em anyway from elsewhere. [0] >It all reduces down to that Orwell quote, doesn't it? Yes, some animals are more equal than others. That's what I'm saying. Rules are for the little people, not the important people. The important people can break the law and act immorally, and it's our fault for not stopping them. That's Murc's law. Popper's political solution only actually works if there are actual checks and balances, but most of them seem to be legally toothless and highly dependent on the moral standard of the individuals involved. It's my understanding, for instance, that every President since Nixon has voluntarily released their tax returns in order to promote trust; Nixon didn't for eerily similar reasons to those bandied about in modernity. >I'm insulated from most of this, I realize, by not being American and not having the same intense loyalty to your political tribes I'm not American. I assumed you were, by the examples of left-wing badness largely drawn from talking-head American media, and certain nuances of your defence of the political right. I don't like the American uniparty, but the simple fact is that one wing of it acts very differently than the other. They seem to functionally agree on like 75% of things (big military budgets, pro-Israel, the 1/5 of the GDP provided by for-profit medical care), but the wedge issues have become meaningful socially, and are being exported abroad. We all benefit from, and are all bound by, the Pax Americana. [0] https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/ https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-...

endominus 4y ago
>My "justification" is not usable identically, word for word, by the same people who believe the opposite of my beliefs, because they do not believe my beliefs. "If we tolerate {people with out-group beliefs}, they will take power and restrict our civil liberties, therefore we must guard {Sacred Value} from them" can be - and is - used by both sides to justify restriction of civil liberties. >All the examples you cite (a CNN host, individuals talking about physically opposing self-identified Nazis, "comedians jailed for jokes", teenagers jailed for singing) are individuals. I didn't know quite how to parse this. Are you saying that the victims are all individuals, or that the oppressors are? In both cases, that's not necessarily true. There were many people involved in calling that teenager a terrible person and harassing him - the force of the media, hate mobs on Twitter, and the like. And the people chilled into silence by "cancel culture" form a large group themselves. All of these groups, of course, are composed of individuals, but that doesn't seem to weigh on either direction. Of course the people who most acutely feel oppression are going to be individuals; how else would that work? Of course the oppressive group is going to be large; how else would it have any power? >One group is cancelling the civil liberties of another, visibly, but they are keeping those rights for themselves. And this is exactly what I mean about the symmetry of these arguments. I have heard this same idea repeated by right-wing people about the left! And they are able to produce examples of the same - that's what their complaints about cancel culture are. Here's an example of that; in the wake of the #MeToo movement, I have seen people on this very forum put forward the idea that allegations of sexual assault and rape are so serious and so traumatizing to the victims, that they should be assumed to be true and damning in the absence of evidence or trials. That is, that the accused should have their right to a fair trial, the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty, revoked. That's a really damned worrying thing to hear as a liberal who's actually interested in protecting civil rights! Apparently some people have never heard of Emmett Till. The thing is, the pop-culture paradox of tolerance - the idea under discussion - is literally about being able to declare some ideas "intolerant" and thus remove them from the discussion. It's a claim that some ideas are so dangerous that the public needs to be protected from them, and the claim that the group presenting that paradox are the people who should make that determination. I don't trust any group with that power. To do so would be to willingly place myself under the power of a despot.