Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popularity

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Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popularity

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http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... nd/399356/

This piece lays out in detail the wrong turn that the political left has taken on college campuses and how it is suppressing thought and discussion by enforcing an ideological status-quo and equating words with violence. I was reading (yet another) Slate blog piece on the bewildering popularity of Donald Trump in the polls, and how the mainstream GOP has created a monster by stoking the fears of the majority's fading hegemony and opened up the path for bombastic idiots to come right out and say the things that other candidates have been dog whistling for decades. I do agree with that, but I can't help but think that his popularity is also due to an anti-PC backlash that has built against recent campaigns like the one that got Brendan Eich fired from Mozilla for supporting Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage proposition, or the successful rallies to have conservative speakers like Condeleeza Rice dis-invited from speaking at colleges. Note that Eich never came out and said anything bigoted about gay people and no one could point to any evidence of discrimination against gay employees, he just didn't support gay marriage, which is a personal political belief that had fuck-all to do with running a company. I could go on listing examples like the journalist who was fired for her "just kidding, I'm white" plane trip or the comedians and celebrities who were called to apologize for poor choices of words even though they were clearly not meant to be hateful. These misguided campaigns have made lot of mainstream Americans feel like everyone has to walk on egg shells, so an unapologetic buffoon like Trump starts looking like the antidote.

As tempting as it is to blame the new low in bombastic political stupidity that Trump represents on conservatives, I think those of us who are left of center need to shoulder a lot of the blame and put an end to witch hunts and the word police. It's good that a critical mass of people finally wants to address racism, sexism, and classism, but only inclusive, thick-skinned discussion is going to achieve results. Public shaming will get us nowhere except to build a backlash and give ammunition to status-quoters and social regressives.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

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Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... nd/399356/

This piece lays out in detail the wrong turn that the political left has taken on college campuses and how it is suppressing thought and discussion by enforcing an ideological status-quo and equating words with violence. I was reading (yet another) Slate blog piece on the bewildering popularity of Donald Trump in the polls, and how the mainstream GOP has created a monster by stoking the fears of the majority's fading hegemony and opened up the path for bombastic idiots to come right out and say the things that other candidates have been dog whistling for decades. I do agree with that, but I can't help but think that his popularity is also due to an anti-PC backlash that has built against recent campaigns like the one that got Brendan Eich fired from Mozilla for supporting Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage proposition, or the successful rallies to have conservative speakers like Condeleeza Rice dis-invited from speaking at colleges. Note that Eich never came out and said anything bigoted about gay people and no one could point to any evidence of discrimination against gay employees, he just didn't support gay marriage, which is a personal political belief that had fuck-all to do with running a company. I could go on listing examples like the journalist who was fired for her "just kidding, I'm white" plane trip or the comedians and celebrities who were called to apologize for poor choices of words even though they were clearly not meant to be hateful. These misguided campaigns have made lot of mainstream Americans feel like everyone has to walk on egg shells, so an unapologetic buffoon like Trump starts looking like the antidote.

As tempting as it is to blame the new low in bombastic political stupidity that Trump represents on conservatives, I think those of us who are left of center need to shoulder a lot of the blame and put an end to witch hunts and the word police. It's good that a critical mass of people finally wants to address racism, sexism, and classism, but only inclusive, thick-skinned discussion is going to achieve results. Public shaming will get us nowhere except to build a backlash and give ammunition to status-quoters and social regressives.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Brother-Captain Gaius »

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:As tempting as it is to blame the new low in bombastic political stupidity that Trump represents on conservatives, I think those of us who are left of center need to shoulder a lot of the blame and put an end to witch hunts and the word police. It's good that a critical mass of people finally wants to address racism, sexism, and classism, but only inclusive, thick-skinned discussion is going to achieve results. Public shaming will get us nowhere except to build a backlash and give ammunition to status-quoters and social regressives.
I agree entirely, and I've had a quote in my sig to that effect for awhile now. The American left (though I can't speak for other countries) has gone off-track, and many segments of it seem to be more concerned with what you say and how you say it rather than what's actually being done about it. It's unhealthy for a free society, no matter how well-intentioned the censuring might be.

Now, here's the fun part. I came across this interesting piece recently. I don't entirely agree with every detail, certainly not its Gamergate biases, but somehow it seems like that's what makes the following article so important. Disagreeable political opinions have become verboten - the Right has been doing it to the Left for at least a decade, but it's come full circle and now the Left is doing it to... well, pretty much everything that isn't the gospel of cultural over-sensitivity.

Breitbart (yes; now read it)
A new force is emerging in the culture wars. Authoritarians of all stripes, from religious reactionaries to left-wing “social justice warriors,” are coming under fire from a new wave of thinkers, commentators, and new media stars who reject virtually all of their political values.

From the banning of Charlie Hebdo magazine across British university campuses on the grounds that it promoted islamophobia, to the removal of the video game Grand Theft Auto V from major retailers in Australia on the grounds that it promoted sexism, threats to cultural freedom proliferate.

But a growing number of commentators, media personalities and academics reject the arguments that underpin these assaults on free expression, in particular the idea that people are either too emotionally fragile to deal with “offence” or too corruptible to be exposed to dangerous ideas.

In a recent co-authored feature for Breitbart, I coined a term to describe this new trend: cultural libertarianism. The concept was critically discussed by Daniel Pryor at the Centre for a Stateless Society, who drew attention to the increasing viciousness of cultural politics in the internet age.

There is a reason for the sound and fury. Like all insurgent movements, the emergence of cultural libertarianism is creating tensions, border skirmishes, and even the occasional war with lazy incumbent elites. Some of these rows can be breathtakingly vitriolic, as self-righteous anger from social justice types collides with mocking and occasionally caustic humour from cultural libertarians.



WHAT THEY’RE FIGHTING

Cultural authoritarians from both the left and right occupy most positions of power in government, academia and the media. Both argue that art and expression can be harmful. Conservatives say that overly-violent video games and movies are the cause of school shootings and youth crime. This was the view of Jack Thompson, who led a crusade against violent video games and rap lyrics in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Progressives argue that “problematic” media can lead to racism and misogyny. In the words of left-wing culture critic Jonathan McIntosh, “oppressive media representations can be damaging sociologically.”

Underlying both Thompson’s and McIntosh’s arguments is the idea of culture as a corrupting influence, one that must be policed. This view has little scientific evidence to support it. A recent long-term study found no link between video games and sexism, and violent crime has been in decline for decades despite the growth of violent media. Nonetheless, arguments for a link continue to surface.

The new authoritarians aren’t merely concerned with policing art and entertainment, but also everyday expression, especially in advertising. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and free speech advocate Greg Lukianoff recently published an article for The Atlantic in which they describe a new movement to “scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offence.” By controlling the language of society, cultural authoritarians hope to control society itself.

Cultural libertarians disagree. Liberal columnist Nick Cohen points out that changing words and changing society are two different things. “The lie that you can change the world by changing language is back,” he writes. “I cannot tell you how many good people [are driven] out of left-wing politics … because they did not realise that words that were acceptable yesterday are unacceptable today.”

In order to control what they see as dangerous expression, authoritarians often resort to casual and spurious accusations of misogyny, racism, and homophobia. The goal is to manipulate the boundaries of acceptable speech by smearing their targets with socially unacceptable labels and to write off speakers they don’t like as bigots so they don’t have to engage with the speaker’s arguments.

The range of socially acceptable speech and art is sometimes called the “Overton window.” The purpose of much contemporary criticism, according to cultural libertarians, aims to move or simply narrow that window.

Culture critics from the right and left claim that art can be harmful, but never provide adequate evidence of how this might be so. What cultural libertarians have worked out is that if you simply refuse to apologise, and reject outright any baseless claims of intolerance or bigotry, nothing bad happens.

Some of them, of course, go a step further and actively goad their critics. Spectacular social media meltdowns are now commonplace from social justice warriors who don’t get their own way.

They’ve also worked out that the people leading the charge in social media mobs have vastly disproportionate influence thanks to their publishing platforms and that not only are they hopelessly out of touch with popular opinion but that their tactics are unpleasant and hectoring, often veering into outright cruelty and persecution.

Other liberals in good standing are slowly backing away from extremists on their own side: Jonathan Chait, writing in New York magazine, admitted early this year that “the language police are perverting liberalism.” Columnist Freddie deBoer, while scolding Chait for being patronising, endorsed his core argument.

Cultural libertarians recognise that efforts to police language and expression are not only counter-productive, but also fragile. The people pushing for greater control are a small segment of the population, whose voice is amplified by media support. To fight them, all you have to do is ignore them – or, better yet, mock them.

Because the social justice tendency takes apparently fringe issues and elevates them to the status of historic civil rights battles, and because humour can be in short supply wherever you find authoritarian points of view, cultural libertarians have found needling their foes with waspish critiques and satire highly effective.

Cultural libertarians can frequently be found skewering critics who take themselves too seriously or are excessively earnest, especially when making specious arguments about the supposed “real-world effect” of violent or allegedly offensive media. Their attitude is refreshing for readers tired of being lectured to by newspaper columnists and east coast bloggers, and one of the reasons cultural libertarianism is gaining traction so quickly.

LibQuotes



WHAT CULTURAL LIBERTARIANS BELIEVE

Free expression. No idea is too dangerous for cultural libertarians, who want total artistic and intellectual freedom. They often indulge in deliberately outrageous jokes and wacky opinions to test the boundaries of acceptability. Little wonder that the movement’s leaders often attract large followings from the the chaotic, politically incorrect world of anonymous imageboards like 4chan.

Resisting identity politics and public shaming. The movement can also be seen criticising modern methods of cultural control and the neo-puritanism they say has infected modern cultural criticism. The newest of these is a rash of social justice-inspired online vigilantism where professional offence-takers use the power of social media to destroy the reputations and careers of their targets. Justine Sacco, who faced global outrage and the loss of her job over a single politically-incorrect joke, is one well-known victim. Astrophysicist Dr. Matt Taylor and biochemist Sir Tim Hunt were also victims of this modern form of thuggery.

A sense of humour. Cultural libertarians combat anger with ridicule. There is a certain preposterousness to bloggers and social media addicts setting themselves up as a new priesthood, which makes them easy targets for comedy. As MIT Technology Review editor Jason Pontin puts it: “Tyrants, authoritarians and activists all hate the sound of laughter.” Cultural libertarians understand this instinctively.

An end to nannying and “safe space” culture. Arrayed against the cultural libertarians is the control freakery of the establishment, left and right, and the second coming of political correctness as embodied in campus safe space movements. This latter movement claims that students are too fragile to be exposed to dangerous ideas, and that even mildly offensive speech can cause permanent emotional damage. On the internet, these activists enjoy the support of outlets like Vox and Buzzfeed.

Defending personal freedom. Cultural libertarians may have their own opinions about how people should live their lives, or have low tolerance for offensive speech. But what distinguishes them from their opponents is their rejection of attempts to impose personal standards on others.

Defending spaces for uncomfortable opinions. Reason columnist Cathy Young is a critic of the “misogynistic rhetoric” of masculinist bloggers like Daryush Valizadeh, but nonetheless defended Valizadeh’s right to speak after activists launched a campaign to ban him from Canada. Cultural libertarians are serious about protecting the the freedoms of people they despise.

Fact over feelings. Hand in hand with their commitment to free speech goes a loathing for narrative-led journalism. Cultural libertarians are highly critical of “feelings over facts” in general, but particularly where it gives rise to failures in reporting such as the Duke Lacrosse case, the Rolling Stone debacle, “Mattress Girl” Emma Sulkowicz and GamerGate.

Standing up for consumers and producers over hand-wringing middle-class panic merchants. Cultural libertarians are the natural allies of consumers and want fandoms to have access to a wide variety of culture and ideas. They also stand up for the right of publishers and content creators to experiment wildly with art and believe that nothing should be “off-limits” however uncomfortable it may make some people.

Celebrating culture in all its forms. Cultural libertarians can be divided into three broad categories: vanguard hell-raisers who generate headlines by provoking social justice warriors, followed by a loose coalition of academics, journalists and social commentators who provide intellectual substance to the movement.

Finally, comedians, directors and movie stars who recognise the threat to creative freedom posed by cultural scolds bring up the rear, cautiously interjecting when authoritarian critiques overreach.



HOW TO SPOT A CULTURAL LIBERTARIAN

Identifying a cultural libertarian is easy. You’re likely to find them facing a wave of accusations of sexism, misogyny, rape apology, racism, homophobia, transphobia and islamophobia. Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos and British TV personality Katie Hopkins, in particular, deliberately seek out battles in order to mock hand-wringers and appear to take pride in being labelled by their enemies.

But even moderates like feminist academic Christina Hoff Sommers and Cathy Young regularly face groundless accusations of “rape denialism” designed to shut down debate, to isolate them from other moderates and to have speaking invitations rescinded.

Cultural libertarians often have maverick or rebellious attitudes: the feminists among them tend to refer to themselves as “dissidents.” Mainstream publications can be reluctant to hire cultural libertarians, so they build their own audiences on platforms like YouTube, with its hands-off approach to independent commentators.

Carl Benjamin is perhaps the best example, but other video personalities such as Sh0eonHead, thunderf00t, and Alpha Omega Sin have attracted significant audiences with videos such as ShoeOnHead’s “oppression olympics” generating hundreds of thousands of views.

When cultural libertarians do seek an established platform, it is typically a libertarian or conservative one. They often complain that there doesn’t seem to a space for classical liberalism on the modern progressive left, nor on many technology platforms such as Twitter and reddit, which have arbitrary and censorious approaches to free speech. Reason, Spiked, The Rebel, and Breitbart have all made regular space for dissident commentators.

But don’t let that fool you. Cultural libertarians are united only by their opposition to authoritarianism and their robust views on free speech and free expression and cannot reliably be placed on the left-right spectrum.

Liberals like Bill Maher wouldn’t normally coexist on lists alongside Breitbart journalists, for example, but this new dimension in the culture wars has generated unexpected alliances. GamerGate, in particular, drew support from across political boundaries.

On the internet, there are several hubs of cultural libertarianism. Although one of the most heavily policed places on the internet, reddit still just about supports some well-trafficked communities that are essentially culturally libertarian: TumblrInAction, the forum that monitors the excesses of far-left activists on the blogging site Tumblr, is one example. So is gamer community KotakuInAction.

The uncontrollable, anonymous world of online imageboards also provides a natural home for cultural libertarians. It isn’t unusual to find a prominent cultural libertarian followed by thousands of Twitter accounts with anime avatars and pseudonymous account names.

Finally, cultural libertarians often preside over a young and diverse fan base which responds strongly to their irreverent attitude and propensity to stick two fingers up at the nannying media establishment. These young fans enjoy responding to controlling attitudes with mischief and ridicule.

That fan base can be highly eclectic, comprising gays and lesbians tired of the perpetually offended LGBT lobby, transgender individuals horrified by the finger-wagging habits of their own self-appointed representatives in the media, fans of populist political movements such as Occupy Wall Street, UKIP and the Tea Party, gamers, hackers, sci-fi fans, free speech activists, students, comedians, authors, classical liberals and of course traditional economic libertarians.



WHO THEY ARE

This list isn’t remotely comprehensive, of course, but here are a few figures in this blossoming movement of whom you should definitely be aware. Heavyweights from the past like Christopher Hitchens, Camille Paglia and Richard Dawkins inspired many of the people on this list, but we’ve selected either new faces who have risen to prominence in the last few years or veterans of the free speech movement whose recent comments or campaigns are worthy of note.

christina-hoff-sommersChristina Hoff Sommers
Feminist academic

The American Enterprise Institute’s “factual feminist” has been fighting authoritarian ideologies for most of her career. Her 1994 book Who Stole Feminism? took aim at contemporary feminists for moving beyond their 1960s goals of equality of opportunity and political liberty. Then, in One Nation Under Therapy, she highlighted how society’s growing prioritisation of self-esteem and feelings was eroding self-reliance. Sommers’ personal ideology is called equity feminism, an increasingly popular branch of the movement that avoids victimhood narratives, emphasises freedom of choice, and does not seek to suppress the natural preferences of either sex.

imageJon Ronson
Author

Social media was once a control freak’s playground. Buzzfeed and Gawker regularly ginned up outrage mobs, turning Twitter into a kind of public stockade. Two events changed this. One was the GamerGate rebellion in 2014, which smashed the dominance of social justice warriors on social media. The other was Jon Ronson’s 2015 book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, which challenged the argument that sociopathic, vindictive public shaming, so beloved of social justice warriors, was always the best way to achieve political goals.

56187005_SS024Bill Maher
Comedian and talk show host

Bill Maher wouldn’t describe himself as a libertarian, but his strident opposition to the language police does make him a textbook cultural libertarian. Like Sommers, he was a leading figure in the fightback against the 1990s wave of political correctness: one of his early shows was named “Politically Incorrect”. He recently returned to the subject with a segment called “explaining jokes to idiots,” designed to poke fun at easily-offended viewers. An outspoken atheist, he has also been contemptuous of attempts to suppress criticism of Islam with the allegation of “Islamophobia.” He’s a liberal who has been famous for 20 years so hardly qualifies as an insurgent, but his recent statements have made him a guilty pleasure of free speech fanatics across the political spectrum.

chris rockChris Rock
Comedian

Chris Rock told New York magazine in 2014 that he had stopped playing gigs on college campuses, saying political correctness was “back [and] stronger than ever.” He was ahead of the curve by about a year: Jerry Seinfeld, Amy Schumer, Dave Chappelle and Stephen Merchant have all since warned that comedy faces an existential threat from progressive culture warriors. Seinfeld got the bigger headlines, but it’s Rock whose commitment to free speech and unrestrained comedy earns him a spot on the list.

1431372554398Milo Yiannopoulos
Journalist

Knowing Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos, I suspect he would balk at any association with libertarianism. Nonetheless, there are few who have done more damage to modern authoritarianism than him. His reporting on GamerGate was a vital part of its early momentum. Yiannopoulos has a habit of saying the unsayable and reporting on subjects no one else will touch, with a level of flamboyance that defuses the chilling aura of seriousness that authoritarians like to maintain around certain topics. Why? “The best response to outrage culture is to be outrageous,” he says.

pasted_image_at_2015_08_23_12_33_amAdam Baldwin
Actor

Well-known figures in arts and entertainment have begun to speak out against the return of political correctness. Film director Eli Roth has made an entire movie mocking the social justice warriors of the internet. But conservative firebrand Adam Baldwin was there first. As early as 2009, he was publishing in-depth analyses of political correctness on this very website. Baldwin was credited with coining the term GamerGate, which described a year-long battle against outrage-mongers in video games. In revenge, activists tried to ban him from a conference in Australia. In a sign of the growing influence of cultural libertarians, Baldwin eventually won.

5967e4719b8fe932a269ae2c2de1fe83_400x400Cathy Young
Journalist

When a dominant ideology decides the time has come to Right a Great Wrong, the rights of individuals are often sidelined in pursuit of the cause. The best modern example of this is the feminist crusade against “rape culture” in America. Despite the fact that official figures show the crime is in steady decline, activists have steadily chipped away at the due process rights of suspects, with Vox editor Ezra Klein suggesting that even if innocent defendants suffer, the overall goal is more important. Checking their efforts is Reason contributor Cathy Young, who has been following feminist excesses for more than a decade. Her calm, detached interview of “mattress girl” target Paul Nungesser remains one of 2015’s journalistic highlights.

hEa_I6EDLauren Southern
Politician

Last July, we broke the story of a Canadian libertarian party candidate who was fighting an internal battle with senior members of her own party. Southern’s public challenge to a feminist rally in Vancouver, in which she raised a sign proclaiming “there is no rape culture in the west,” had gone viral, and feminists within the party hoped to oust her. Southern’s eventual victory, in which she was restored to her candidacy and her rivals quit the party, sent an important message to the wider movement: libertarianism isn’t just about Bitcoin and weed anymore.

Spiked
Online magazine

If there were a competition for the most culturally libertarian publication, the rebellious British journal Spiked would snatch the title comfortably. Under gadfly editor Brendan O’Neill, Spiked has waged war on everything from hate speech laws to the plain packaging of cigarettes. Spiked takes particular interest in campus censorship, recently establishing a ranking system to track student censoriousness on British universities. O’Neill himself is so hated by authoritarian campus activists that they’ve created a national “Ban Brendan O’Neill” day.

British muslim Maajid Nawaz addresses aMaajid Nawaz
British politician and anti-extremist

One of the most-watched clips of last year’s British Liberal Democrat party was a defence of free speech by the anti-extremist activist and Parliamentary candidate Maajid Nawaz. Left-wing activists responded to the Charlie Hebdo massacre by banning copies of the magazine on college campuses. Nawaz, a former Islamist, stood up for the magazine’s right to blaspheme. His critiques of the illiberalism of contemporary Islam made the progressive left so furious that he became the subject of a widely-criticised article in the Guardian, featuring anonymously-sourced pejorative remarks about Nawaz. This led to a stern public rebuke from the Guardian readers’ editor, who called the piece “insidious” and “wrong.”

sargonpakmanCarl Benjamin
YouTuber

Carl Benjamin, better known online as Sargon of Akkad, is one of the most popular anti-authoritarian commentators on YouTube, with close to 30 million views and over 160,000 subscribers on his channel. Benjamin’s This Week in Stupid series is essential viewing for cultural libertarians, regularly breaking the 100,000-viewer mark. Benjamin is a left-wing European, but enjoyed a lively discussion with conservative actor Adam Baldwin, in which they disagreed on almost everything – except, of course, cultural freedom.

London Celebrity Sightings - Februrary 9, 2015Katie Hopkins
TV personality

British columnist and TV personality Katie Hopkins has built a reputation as the country’s leading provocateur. Her comments about fat people, suicidal prisoners, and gingers are designed to enrage. Deliberate offensiveness plays an important role in the fight against cultural authoritarianism, however, showing that with a little cleverness, it’s possible to express controversial opinions and not just survive but become a cult hero.



FREE SPEECH ON THE RISE

The backlash against political correctness in the 1990s achieved results: facing pressure from intellectual behemoths like Paglia, Hitchens and Dawkins, the PC fad died off. But it did not produce organisational structures and networks that would stop the problem from arising again. Free speech is always and everywhere under threat. As Sommers is fond of saying: “We won the arguments, but they quietly assumed the assistant professorships.”

This time, things could be different. The conservative commentariat, aware that the movement has lost on gay marriage and is in deadlock on abortion, is eager to open up more winnable fronts. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol recently made a cautious attempt to understand the GamerGate controversy, while David Frum attracted considerable attention for his comments on the crisis at Reddit. The ASI think tank in London has also displayed interest in the new culture wars.

graph
[ Levels of interest in selected cultural libertarians. Blue–Lauren Southern; Purple–Milo Yiannopoulos; Red–Christina Hoff Sommers; Yellow–Cathy Young; Green–Spiked Online. (Source: Google Trends) ]

They are right to sense an opportunity. Social surveys show that millennials are the least racist, least sexist, least homophobic generation in the history of the species. Yet in the absence of overt racism, progressive culture warriors invented “microaggression theory”, frightening millennials with allegations that they are still racist, sexist, and homophobic, just on a subconscious level. It was only a matter of time before the anxiety culture warriors created was replaced by irritation.

Classical liberalism has typically survived because journalists have cared about it. But it hasn’t attracted the support of well-funded major institutions, because most people want to control something. But, faced with the rise of a new totalitarianism, figures from across the political spectrum are beginning to converge on a new libertarian consensus. Once they are properly organised, it will mean dark days for control freaks on the left and the right – and clear blue skies for lovers of cultural freedom.
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Arthur_Tuxedo
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Arthur_Tuxedo »

This article is an example of the difficulty in finding the treacherous middle ground. It's clear that PC is back and nastier than ever, but the most vocal opponents are social conservatives using anti-PC language to argue that we should stop caring about the fight for racial, sexual, and class equality. Personally, I don't see what's wrong with identifying as a warrior for social justice, and scratch my head when SJW is used as an insult, but getting people shamed and fired over word choices and trying to get people to police their language is not the way to do it, and will just result in a critical mass of the public getting angry and turning against social progress. I wish there was a coherent movement for people who fight for social progress, but are against humorlessness and language policing.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

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Brother-Captain Gaius wrote: HOW TO SPOT A CULTURAL LIBERTARIAN

Identifying a cultural libertarian is easy. You’re likely to find them facing a wave of accusations of sexism, misogyny, rape apology, racism, homophobia, transphobia and islamophobia
Aaaand that's where I stop reading. It wasn't so bad until then.
cultural libertarianism... rejects the arguments that people are either too emotionally fragile to deal with “offence” or too corruptible to be exposed to dangerous ideas.

...

No idea is too dangerous for cultural libertarians, who want total artistic and intellectual freedom.
That is a good idea, but if you are facing "waves" of accusations of bigotry, you are almost certainly a bigot.

The "college word police" issue is an urban myth. Actually I'd go so far as to call it a moral panic, on par with the satanic daycare molestations and (as the article pointed out before i stopped reading) video game violence. I guess it's been too long since the last missing white girl.

At campuses of as many as 100,000 students, a handful can get together and issue a statement or even just one can ask a professor to skip a lesson, and despite it having absolutely no effect in the real world, it gets dozens of breathless articles written about it in major newspapers and magazines.

The only way a moral panic goes away is for everyone to forget about it, and the best way for everyone to forget about it is for people to stop talking about it. So everyone please shut up about this ridiculous fake issue.

PS, I post about police brutality and the failures of the criminal justice system, especially towards black people, on the Internet. I'm pretty sure this makes me a "social justice warrior". (Although I have never been to Tumblr for anything besides porn) To anyone who doesn't like me because I post about "social justice": fuck you sideways, asshole.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Brother-Captain Gaius »

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:Personally, I don't see what's wrong with identifying as a warrior for social justice, and scratch my head when SJW is used as an insult [...]
To your point,
Dominus Atheos wrote:PS, I post about police brutality and the failures of the criminal justice system, especially towards black people, on the Internet. I'm pretty sure this makes me a "social justice warrior".
I don't think so (at least, not that I've seen personally here on this board). The 'SJW' pejorative, at least as I've seen it, refers specifically to people whose moral outrage has begun to infringe on other people's expression, which is why it's so annoying and why it's become a pejorative in the first place. Even if it's outright proselytizing (and thus annoying in that sense), campaigning against police abuse doesn't actually negatively impact what anyone else is saying; you're just saying "cops shouldn't be such assholes." The 'SJW' being complained about is the sort who says media, art, or speech should be censored or censured to conform to the moral outrage being expressed.

For example, you would be an SJW (in this pejorative sense we are discussing) if you loudly petitioned the SD.net administration to ban Kamakazie Sith, a cop, from posting counter-arguments to the articles that you post on police abuse, on the grounds that Kamakazie Sith is somehow part of the problem you are crusading against. As far as I know you haven't done that, and the counter-arguments he often adds to police threads stand and must be addressed on their own merit, rather than being squelched outright for the sake of the moral crusade.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Ziggy Stardust »

The "college word police" issue is an urban myth. Actually I'd go so far as to call it a moral panic, on par with the satanic daycare molestations and (as the article pointed out before i stopped reading) video game violence. I guess it's been too long since the last missing white girl.

At campuses of as many as 100,000 students, a handful can get together and issue a statement or even just one can ask a professor to skip a lesson, and despite it having absolutely no effect in the real world, it gets dozens of breathless articles written about it in major newspapers and magazines.

The only way a moral panic goes away is for everyone to forget about it, and the best way for everyone to forget about it is for people to stop talking about it. So everyone please shut up about this ridiculous fake issue.
This. Exactly this. It's all such a load of bullshit. As I've said in another thread, it's just like whenever a discussion of feminism comes up, and everyone starts alluding to mythically omnipresent breeds of psychotic feminists bent on castrating all men, etc. etc. It's just a strawman that assholes and bigots are using to try and turn things around and make it seem like THEY are the ones being oppressed.

Claiming that there is some authoritarian liberal PC conspiracy to crush your freedom of expression is no less ridiculous than the Christian fundamentalists claiming that there is a homosexual agenda, or that gay marriage infringes on their freedom of religion, or whatever. It's doubly ironic because most of the morons that complain about these issues are exactly the ones who most loudly shout down people THEY disagree with in an argument.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Brother-Captain Gaius »

Ziggy Stardust wrote:This. Exactly this. It's all such a load of bullshit. As I've said in another thread, it's just like whenever a discussion of feminism comes up, and everyone starts alluding to mythically omnipresent breeds of psychotic feminists bent on castrating all men, etc. etc. It's just a strawman that assholes and bigots are using to try and turn things around and make it seem like THEY are the ones being oppressed.
Heh. You may want to re-read the definition of 'strawman.'

Even if the argument were to conform to your particular interpretation, and it really is just "assholes and bigots" (which, I will concede, probably do compromise some of the backlash; see Arthur_Tuxedo's point about Trump), that doesn't really illuminate any particular problem with the argument you've distorted. So what if the argument is being put forth by assholes and bigots? Should assholes and bigots not be heard from? Are their arguments somehow invalid as a result of their bigoted assholery? Is it impossible for an argument - no matter how assholish it may seem - to, in fact, be correct?

I freely admit to some assholery on my part; but more because it feels like it's increasingly necessary. Whether you are aware of it or not, there is a very real streak running through American (and I suspect British and other Anglophones, but I am less well-informed in the way their socio-political winds blow, though more on that in a bit) society right now that seems to want to censor assholery. Now, I am aware that it's a pretty assholish thing to argue in support of assholery, and I do so with admitted reluctance because there are assholes who say some pretty awful shit, but I think it reflects worse upon the censor than the asshole when the censor tells the asshole to shut-up. "You can't say that." Why the hell not? Because someone might get their feelings hurt?

Look at this very board. Now, please understand that I am not challenging the SD.net admins, and I full well understand that they can run the board however they damn well please. Rather, it serves as a poignant example of things which cannot be said. For good reason, you might argue. But there is an explicit list of words, which if I were to add to this post, would get be summarily banned by an admin. Very few of these have to do with the sort of thing an internet forum could reasonably be concerned about: links to illegal software, pornographic material which is illegal in some circumstances, etc etc. Most of the things that would get me banned are words and phrases which hurt people's feelings. They're wrong words which I ought not say, so sayeth the admins. Now, I have no personal interest in saying any of them, and yet they hang there like Damocles' Sword, threatening to do away with me if I use any of these verboten words, phrases or just plain tone in a fit of pique.

In that light it seems a little absurd to say that this cultural phenomenon is non-existent, when the very forum you are posting on is unapologetically party to it.

Again, I have no interest in saying any of the banned things - and whether I want to or not is irrelevant to the argument, and a distortion ('strawman') thereof. Rather, it is telling that I have to deliberately tip-toe around them, stuck assuming you know what I'm referring to without explicitly stating any of it. Already I can hear the posts-yet-to-be-made from this forum's Shitpost Squadron, decrying my clear and patently obvious homophobic misogynistic transphobic racism that I most certainly hold in spades, for even daring to suggest that banning a word might not be a very productive solution to a wider social problem.
Claiming that there is some authoritarian liberal PC conspiracy to crush your freedom of expression is no less ridiculous than the Christian fundamentalists claiming that there is a homosexual agenda, or that gay marriage infringes on their freedom of religion, or whatever. It's doubly ironic because most of the morons that complain about these issues are exactly the ones who most loudly shout down people THEY disagree with in an argument.
As the bulk of my argument is above, I will leave this anecdote here instead. My favorite part is where Sam Harris gets more than two words out over the (literal) red-faced accusations of racism.

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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Channel72 »

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Look at this very board. Now, please understand that I am not challenging the SD.net admins, and I full well understand that they can run the board however they damn well please. Rather, it serves as a poignant example of things which cannot be said. For good reason, you might argue. But there is an explicit list of words, which if I were to add to this post, would get be summarily banned by an admin. Very few of these have to do with the sort of thing an internet forum could reasonably be concerned about: links to illegal software, pornographic material which is illegal in some circumstances, etc etc. Most of the things that would get me banned are words and phrases which hurt people's feelings. They're wrong words which I ought not say, so sayeth the admins. Now, I have no personal interest in saying any of them, and yet they hang there like Damocles' Sword, threatening to do away with me if I use any of these verboten words, phrases or just plain tone in a fit of pique.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s. Back then it was pretty much acceptable to casually say "faggot", both as a general insult and as a means of demeaning someone's self-worth, personhood and sexual identity.

I really wouldn't recommend going back to that. It was ... deeply, deeply pathetic. When I look around at the way things are changing in the 21st century, at least in the West, I'm actually pleasantly surprised. Far from being threatened with what I might perceive as some kind of oppressive censorship or thought police, I actually see a world that is taking a few very small steps towards being a better, more rewarding, more inclusive, more civilized place.

There are some negative side effects to inclusiveness and political correctness - toxic ideas like fundamentalist Islam or evangelical Christianity are allowed to thrive and propagate. But the alternative - going back to the 60s, 70s and 80s - back when the default white vanilla Christian male perspective served as an anchor and reference point for all of society ... that is really very much worse for a whole lot of people.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Brother-Captain Gaius »

*Ghetto edit: I said I would follow up on British socio-political winds and forgot to go into further detail before posting. I'll keep it brief and point to Maajid Nawaz, a Pakistani-British Liberal Democrat and former Parliamentary candidate (in fact, it was he I got the article I linked to from, he is also mentioned in it). I'll let his views speak for themselves for those curious.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

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Channel72 wrote:I grew up in the 80s and 90s. Back then it was pretty much acceptable to casually say "faggot", both as a general insult and as a means of demeaning someone's self-worth, personhood and sexual identity.

I really wouldn't recommend going back to that. It was ... deeply, deeply pathetic. When I look around at the way things are changing in the 21st century, at least in the West, I'm actually pleasantly surprised. Far from being threatened with what I might perceive as some kind of oppressive censorship or thought police, I actually see a world that is taking a few very small steps towards being a better, more rewarding, more inclusive, more civilized place.

There are some negative side effects to inclusiveness and political correctness - toxic ideas like fundamentalist Islam or evangelical Christianity are allowed to thrive and propagate. But the alternative - going back to the 60s, 70s and 80s - back when the default white vanilla Christian male perspective served as an anchor and reference point for all of society ... that is really very much worse for a whole lot of people.
Sure. Individually, I don't disagree that it seems to, devoid of context, make sense to ban this word or that word, because they're harmful. But it's a slippery slope. That's how it started right here on SDN. I don't remember which word was banned first, but then another followed, and another, and then phrases, and then just general demeanor. Look at some of the recent bannings: All banned for what seems like good reason (they were clearly idiots and I shed no tears for them, in case there's any doubt). But both Kaku and Andrew Fireborn were banned for essentially posting unpopular opinions; as repugnant as they may have been, I think it's telling that that's what they were ultimately banned for.

Again, I'm not arguing with or challenging the actions of the SDN admin team; that's not the point here. Rather, it should be food for thought, and a lens into something wider than just one internet forum. As nice as it may be to simply do away with "bad" opinions or "mean" words and then dusting off your hands, Mission Accomplished, I think it's neither productive nor healthy. In eliminating the "bad" opinions that are, you know, so obviously bad that no one should ever hear them and they should be silenced because they're so bad, you have deprived yourself of all dissent, and silenced a debate that, while it may appear to have only one proper conclusion, nonetheless still ought to exist for debate's sake.

There is the futility and pointless of banning a word, too. Words change meanings all the time - in Millennial common discourse, "bitch" is a term of endearment half the time. Even if you do away with "bad" words, people will only create new ones - "autist" and "autistic" are the new pejoratives of the day. "Wow, could that comment be any more autistic? What a loser." I would wager, in the case of "faggot," that positive social change, generational overturn, and concerted political pressure on Congress, the Supreme Court, and the President have done a hell of a lot more to make the US a nicer place for gays than banning the word "faggot" ever has. I'd argue that the behavior behind using certain words is a wee bit more important than the word itself, but that distinction seems to have been lost on a lot of people. I mean, surely you can see the difference between a comedian saying "faggot" and a Westboro Baptist saying it?
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Channel72 »

Sure. Individually, I don't disagree that it seems to, devoid of context, make sense to ban this word or that word, because they're harmful. But it's a slippery slope. That's how it started right here on SDN. I don't remember which word was banned first, but then another followed, and another, and then phrases, and then just general demeanor. Look at some of the recent bannings: All banned for what seems like good reason (they were clearly idiots and I shed no tears for them, in case there's any doubt). But both Kaku and Andrew Fireborn were banned for essentially posting unpopular opinions; as repugnant as they may have been, I think it's telling that that's what they were ultimately banned for.
But the word itself is not banned, at least not in the United States. You can say "faggot" all you want and the government has no power to shut you up. But any privately owned enterprise or non-profit organization (like this web forum) who you involve yourself with is also free to forcefully cut ties with you for any reason. In fact, an organization is free to reject you or cut ties with you because you're not racist enough. I probably couldn't join the KKK myself - as a Jew - I don't think they'd let me. What a tragedy really - those white robes look so comfortable.

I think that what you're doing here, like many people who are threatened by the phantom of total intellectual stagnation via political correctness overdrive, is conflating actual authoritarianism with the fact that "people just think you're a dick now if you say faggot ..."

Real authoritarianism and political censorship exists. You can easily perceive it in places like Saudi Arabia, or even more "friendly" places like the United Arab Emirates. They might actually fucking arrest you for saying some shit. In the West, the worst that will happen is that you'll just be ostracized or lose your job because people think you're a dick. It's really not the same, and frankly, you probably are a dick if you're using words like "faggot" anyway.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

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I think what is happening now is that social change is accelerating to a pace (in the USA at least) where people are left out of date and out of joint in their own lifetimes, hell possibly before they hit middle age. Things that were normal growing up aren't acceptable anymore, and it gets harder to adapt as you get older, and very often any progress forward they make isn't enough and they get scorned rather than encouraged for making the effort.

This is perfectly normal, mind you. We are still operating off the Hunter Gatherer 1.0 brain operating system, which expects the world to be fairly constant from maturity until death. I'm just curious if this pace is just the current generation catching up, meaning the pace of social change will slow down in the future, or if it will remain, likely making today's activist into tomorrows arch-conservative neo-Trump.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

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Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:I freely admit to some assholery on my part; but more because it feels like it's increasingly necessary. Whether you are aware of it or not, there is a very real streak running through American (and I suspect British and other Anglophones, but I am less well-informed in the way their socio-political winds blow, though more on that in a bit) society right now that seems to want to censor assholery.
What do you mean by "right now"? When do you think it started? Before or after 2010? Before 2000?
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Brother-Captain Gaius »

Channel72 wrote:But the word itself is not banned, at least not in the United States. You can say "faggot" all you want and the government has no power to shut you up. But any privately owned enterprise or non-profit organization (like this web forum) who you involve yourself with is also free to forcefully cut ties with you for any reason. In fact, an organization is free to reject you or cut ties with you because you're not racist enough. I probably couldn't join the KKK myself - as a Jew - I don't think they'd let me. What a tragedy really - those white robes look so comfortable.

I think that what you're doing here, like many people who are threatened by the phantom of total intellectual stagnation via political correctness overdrive, is conflating actual authoritarianism with the fact that "people just think you're a dick now if you say faggot ..."
If I were making a legalistic argument about the actions of the US government or its agencies, you would have a point. But I'm not. I'm perfectly aware that SDN is well within its rights to enforce whatever rules it wants; again, I was explicit in my argument: I am not taking issue with SDN's actions, rather I am citing it as a salient example of this phenomenon in action. Likewise, you're free to think I'm a dick if I say "faggot." What you can't do - or rather, what you oughtn't do - is dismiss an argument I make or something I say just because I'm saying "faggot." As silly as it may sound, that's dangerous for any free society.

Though really, I'm not really sure why I need to demonstrate the problem any further - the article in the OP goes into vastly more detail about the reality of it. You may not agree that it's a problem, or may even be outright oblivious to it, but try to realize that this criticism of the Left is coming from the Left. The liberal-intellectual wing of the spectrum (Bill Maher, Sam Harris, etc) is calling foul on the rest of the liberal US... I mean, why? It's not like we want to see the American Left fail. Quite the opposite, hence the sharp and vocal alarm: "Hey, fellow liberals. So you know how the Republican party used to be sane, and then the inmates took over the asylum? So, yeah, speaking of which... we need to have a chat about the direction liberalism is going."

This isn't just some right-wing assault on cultural progress (though I'm sure their voices get mixed in) here. This is real liberals saying we have a real problem. To Arthur_Tuxedo's point: How can we, the Left, claim to have any kind of moral high ground over the Right, unless we are actually safeguarding those moral truths through rigorous self-examination? If we lose that, we lose the argument, because we're no longer in the right. Right now, it's the conservatives in the US who are actually right for a change (or at least, have struck upon a kernel of truth), and that is 100% the Left's fault for ceding that ground through willful stupidity. That's where this is coming from, and it's more than a little worrying when liberals prefer to bury their heads in the sand, shout "LA LA LA" and appear hellbent on copy-pasting the Republican Strategy for Evicting Intellectuals and Reasoned Argument from the Party that started picking up speed in Reagan's day and we now see the consequences of today in all its ugly glory.

You want to chase the Left's thinkers out, just like the Right did to itself over the past few decades? This is the way to do it. We're not the enemy here, we're the designated driver slapping you upside the head and informing you that you are way too goddamn drunk to drive right now, now give me your keys. Because I really don't want to give the current Republican party any more ammo than it already has.
Real authoritarianism and political censorship exists. You can easily perceive it in places like Saudi Arabia, or even more "friendly" places like the United Arab Emirates. They might actually fucking arrest you for saying some shit. In the West, the worst that will happen is that you'll just be ostracized or lose your job because people think you're a dick. It's really not the same, and frankly, you probably are a dick if you're using words like "faggot" anyway.
Is Saudi Arabian state-religious censorship worse than the US or other western democracies? Yes, obviously. That does not absolve the latter just because they're less bad. That's a fallacious rebuttal. Incidentally, you can get fined for saying something "wrong" in the US, but that's another argument for another day. And I don't know if you live in the US, but while it's not as bad as a Saudi Arabian prison, losing your job because you tweeted a bad joke is still pretty damn bad.

As further evidence that while this may not be state-sanctioned, it is a real cultural force, look at the recent Hulk Hogan incident. While I'm sure he has plenty of money stashed away from being famous and all, he got taken to the goddamn cleaners because some years-old video got leaked of him getting mad in a (verbal) fight and yelling something I'm sure he's come to regret. One damn word, that I seriously doubt he actually had any real conviction behind - more likely, it was the first mean thing that came to mind, which he spit out because he was angry. So you can think Hulk Hogan is a dick; that's your right. WWE can strip him of the (figurative) clothes off his back; that's their right as his employer. I'm not arguing the legality of it. I'm arguing the sanity of it. This is getting out of hand.

I mean, I could go on. The scientist with the pin-up girl shirt. Daniel Tosh. Michael Richards (to answer your question, Dominus Atheos, I think the Michael Richards incident is a pretty good milestone for when this current movement really started to form, so 2006 if one must peg a date on cultural gestalts). This has been building for awhile now, and it's not non-existent. We are tripping over ourselves concerned with the perceived offense caused by bad, racist misogynist homophobes. Never mind that Richards and Tosh are comedians, and are not only inherently harmless but also tend to help foster positive social change through jokes and laughter. Never mind that science and liberals go hand-in-hand these days; that scientist wore a bad shirt! He must be punished for his evil shirt choice (that dirty misogynist!). It's ridiculous. It's unhealthy. And it's bad for the Left which purports to uphold liberty while viciously censuring the liberty to be a dick in the same breath. I'm not defending being a dick on a personal level - of course you should strive to be nice to people, and not call them "faggots" -, I'm defending it on a political and ethical level.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Brother-Captain Gaius »

Darmalus wrote:I think what is happening now is that social change is accelerating to a pace (in the USA at least) where people are left out of date and out of joint in their own lifetimes, hell possibly before they hit middle age. Things that were normal growing up aren't acceptable anymore, and it gets harder to adapt as you get older, and very often any progress forward they make isn't enough and they get scorned rather than encouraged for making the effort.

This is perfectly normal, mind you. We are still operating off the Hunter Gatherer 1.0 brain operating system, which expects the world to be fairly constant from maturity until death. I'm just curious if this pace is just the current generation catching up, meaning the pace of social change will slow down in the future, or if it will remain, likely making today's activist into tomorrows arch-conservative neo-Trump.
This is interesting, and I think you might be on to something.

My own interpretation is that social change and progress has begun to exceed a sustainable clip. Conservatism, in the classical sense (not in the modern Republican sense) is a political philosophy which warns against pushing social change too hard and too fast. I mean, let's look at the past decade (in the US) - Massive gay rights advances in all sectors of society, including military service and marriage, not to mention overall societal perception. Increased awareness of trans issues - obviously, not as far along as gay rights, but definite progress with TV shows like Transparent. Some racial growing pains, but a black President, and increased awareness of flaws in the justice system and police procedure. Some awkward, lurching steps toward better physical and mental health care. And so on.

I'd say we've been doing pretty well as a society, despite Republican intractability. Now, I'm not advocating we stop, but it might behoove us to take our foot off the gas and apply a little brake for awhile (the alternative being that Republicans take the wheel and they dictate where we drive for a decade or so). Especially since we seem to be driving a little drunk, here.

I could prognosticate on Millennial influence on American politics vis-a-vis Gamergate and similar re-definitions of political alignment versus the old standard of Social/Economic Center-Left Democrats versus Social/Economic Right-Wing Republicans, but that is probably neither interesting nor particularly prescient.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Grumman »

The big problem is the willingness to use economic sanctions as a tool of first resort for resolving trivial problems, when it should be treated as your nuclear option. Short of getting the government to censor their speech or committing violence against their person or property, cutting all economic ties with somebody and getting your "side" to do the same is basically the most powerful weapon you can muster, but you can only do it once and using it without good reason invites retaliation.

Squandering boycotts and sanctions on trivial complaints like "He expressed doubt that destroying someone's career over comments made in private is a good thing!" means you can't boycott him harder if he actually does something worth opposing, and it promotes a Balkanization of society into opposing groups who have openly declared that the other has nothing of value to offer, which in the long run seems like a good way to encourage sectarian violence instead of peaceful co-existence.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Simon_Jester »

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:If I were making a legalistic argument about the actions of the US government or its agencies, you would have a point. But I'm not. I'm perfectly aware that SDN is well within its rights to enforce whatever rules it wants; again, I was explicit in my argument: I am not taking issue with SDN's actions, rather I am citing it as a salient example of this phenomenon in action. Likewise, you're free to think I'm a dick if I say "faggot." What you can't do - or rather, what you oughtn't do - is dismiss an argument I make or something I say just because I'm saying "faggot." As silly as it may sound, that's dangerous for any free society.
To take another example, Channel72 is Jewish. Should he have to listen to people using "jew me down" as slang for the act of excessively greedy bargaining, regularly, and watch everyone else casually accept this as though it was normal, as though nobody had any problem with the idea of thinking of Jews primarily in terms of the stereotype as greedy moneylenders and penny-pinchers?

As I see it, you have a choice.

One, you can create a society in which people ostracize you for using ugly words that are historically undeserved insults aimed at a specific group.

Or two, you can create a society in which minority groups aren't being constantly shit on, with the tacit approval of the rest of society, by the actions of the 'bluntest' people in society (i.e. those who care the least about insulting minorities).

Is the goal of choice number two so unimportant that it means we shouldn't even consider ostracising people for racist/sexist/etc language?

...

The bigger problem comes when we take this principle and crank it up to eleven by applying a massive complex of institutional hypersensitivity. There's clearly a limit, it is not healthy to try and remove every person and every word that might, conceivably, give offense or be harmful.

But complaining "why can't I say 'faggot' anymore" is NOT a good way to illustrate the existence of this limit.
You want to chase the Left's thinkers out, just like the Right did to itself over the past few decades? This is the way to do it. We're not the enemy here, we're the designated driver slapping you upside the head and informing you that you are way too goddamn drunk to drive right now, now give me your keys.
If this comment is directed at me or anyone who approaches the issue as I approach it, then I will vehemently deny your claim.
Never mind that science and liberals go hand-in-hand these days; that scientist wore a bad shirt! He must be punished for his evil shirt choice (that dirty misogynist!). It's ridiculous. It's unhealthy.
Now see, this supports your position better.

Because the argument "it's ridiculous to scream at someone about a shirt" is more reasonable than "it's ridiculous to scream at someone about racial slurs."

The countervailing argument is... until very recently, almost no one was talking about certain issues. Like women being displayed in an oversexualized way. Or women being afraid of violent men who stalk them and threaten to attack them (which came up a lot in the Gamergate stuff).

Thirty years ago if you complained about all the bikini babes demeaning women and promoting an attitude of disrespect and objectification, you were going to get a "you are a humorless idiot and probably need to get laid" response. THAT is an opinion which can be censored TOO.

And to stop that opinion from being censored, you may need to uproot some weeds- some toxic arguments and attitudes which prevent us from actually having a serious conversation about whether we are indirectly hurting women or racial minorities or whoever by the way we set up our society.

That uprooting sentiment can get misdirected or be excessive (the shirt thing probably did get out of hand). But if we try to outright remove it we are likely to go back to a world where we have nominal "equality" for minorities, but where any serious discussion of actual equality for minorities is pooh-poohed into oblivion by most of the audience. Roughly where race and gender relations were in 1970, in other words.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by cmdrjones »

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:This article is an example of the difficulty in finding the treacherous middle ground. It's clear that PC is back and nastier than ever, but the most vocal opponents are social conservatives using anti-PC language to argue that we should stop caring about the fight for racial, sexual, and class equality. Personally, I don't see what's wrong with identifying as a warrior for social justice, and scratch my head when SJW is used as an insult, but getting people shamed and fired over word choices and trying to get people to police their language is not the way to do it, and will just result in a critical mass of the public getting angry and turning against social progress. I wish there was a coherent movement for people who fight for social progress, but are against humorlessness and language policing.
If you are fighting for "social justice" without using such tactics, then technically, you are NOT an SJW.
To one of those reactionary assholes (like myself) the fight for 'racial, sexual, and class equality,' is like fighting for unicorns, Elves and Leprechauns.... a little silly, but as long as you don't involve me in the struggle for things that do not exist, then I have no problems.
Terralthra wrote:It's similar to the Arabic word for "one who sows discord" or "one who crushes underfoot". It'd be like if the acronym for the some Tea Party thing was "DKBAG" or something. In one sense, it's just the acronym for ISIL/ISIS in Arabic: Dawlat (al-) Islāmiyya ‘Irāq Shām, but it's also an insult.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Channel72 »

Brother Captain Gaius wrote:Though really, I'm not really sure why I need to demonstrate the problem any further - the article in the OP goes into vastly more detail about the reality of it. You may not agree that it's a problem, or may even be outright oblivious to it, but try to realize that this criticism of the Left is coming from the Left. The liberal-intellectual wing of the spectrum (Bill Maher, Sam Harris, etc) is calling foul on the rest of the liberal US... I mean, why? It's not like we want to see the American Left fail. Quite the opposite, hence the sharp and vocal alarm: "Hey, fellow liberals. So you know how the Republican party used to be sane, and then the inmates took over the asylum? So, yeah, speaking of which... we need to have a chat about the direction liberalism is going."
Bill Maher and Sam Harris are making a specific point about how the Left reacts to radical Islam. They're not saying what you're saying - that the left is overall becoming too dismissive of racists or politically incorrect verbiage. I really don't think you can extend their point to cover a wider argument about overall political correctness gone awry.

Furthermore, I agree with both of them to an extent regarding the specific issue of radical Islam. There's the perception (or at least, I have the perception) that American liberals at least, are more likely to be critical of radical Christianity, while sort of giving radical Islam somewhat of a pass by explicitly contextualizing the actions of extremists within the context of a wider Muslim world that isn't extremist. Harris's point is that the "wider Muslim world" actually is a bit more extreme than we're comfortable admitting. And I agree with him.

The thing is, most liberal-minded people are often in "recover/apologize for bad shit we did in the past"-mode, which includes constantly correcting for the past sins of our own society - and this entails embracing (rather than shunning or persecuting) other ethnicities and cultures. Unfortunately, a philosophy of multiculturalism is vulnerable to the "oh shit this culture is insane" problem, often hypothetically demonstrated via the "would we tolerate Aztec human sacrifice?" thought experiment. Fortunately, we haven't encountered a real world culture of immigrants that demands crazy shit that like, but the "wider Muslim world" is definitely becoming a challenging case of culture-clashing, and many liberals are sort of unsure how to react. Their instinct is often to err on the side of acceptance. If anything, it's probably healthier for an individual (and society) to tends towards criticism of your own culture's intolerance rather than the intolerance of other cultures anyway.

But all of that is mostly a distraction, because Sam Harris isn't saying that liberals are becoming too dismissive of racists or politically incorrect verbiage - he's talking specifically about how the left reacts to radical Islam.

As for Trump - he appeals to lowest common demoninator bullshit. I hardly think you can blame hyperactive political correctness for a phenomenon like Trump. The various factors that led the American Right down into the abyss of insanity is pretty well understood, and it's not a result of the Left becoming too politically correct.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by TheFeniX »

Darmalus wrote:I think what is happening now is that social change is accelerating to a pace (in the USA at least) where people are left out of date and out of joint in their own lifetimes, hell possibly before they hit middle age. Things that were normal growing up aren't acceptable anymore, and it gets harder to adapt as you get older, and very often any progress forward they make isn't enough and they get scorned rather than encouraged for making the effort.
How, by words being taboo? Seriously, my grandparents saw a much large change over a not too much longer time. Women could vote, enter the workplace, blacks went from using back of stores, segregation, having racial slurs yelled at them in the streets as a matter of course to being full-fledged citizens who can't be discriminated against legally.

I can't think of much that's actually changed for my generation except maybe not being able to say "Dude, that's gay." And homosexuals can now get married, which too way too fucking long to get over with because conservatives are dumb. The biggest social change was watching people sign away all their rights after 9/11. That had more impact on my generation than any number of "you can't say that anymore."

Now, with the Internet, I have learned there's a whole load of bullshit out there passing by at the speed of light. If anything, I think that grants us the illusion that things are changing more than they really are.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Ziggy Stardust »

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote: Heh. You may want to re-read the definition of 'strawman.'
Apparently, so do you, with your massive strawman in the next few sentences:
Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Even if the argument were to conform to your particular interpretation, and it really is just "assholes and bigots" (which, I will concede, probably do compromise some of the backlash; see Arthur_Tuxedo's point about Trump), that doesn't really illuminate any particular problem with the argument you've distorted. So what if the argument is being put forth by assholes and bigots? Should assholes and bigots not be heard from? Are their arguments somehow invalid as a result of their bigoted assholery? Is it impossible for an argument - no matter how assholish it may seem - to, in fact, be correct?
I never said the argument was invalid only because the people putting it forth are assholes and bigots. I'm saying the argument is blatantly false, and like any moral scare, is one that advances the causes of assholes and bigots. Remember when "everyone" thought that Dungeons & Dragons led to satanism? This is the same idiotic logic. The argument is stupid on its face, because it always vaguely appeals to a situation that isn't actually happening. It's like going up to a black man and saying "Nigger," then crying "PC POLICE!!!" when he naturally gets upset. The fact that different people have different thresholds for what they consider offensive, and will occasionally disagree about it, does NOT equate some massive cultural movement actively trying to oppress free speech, as you have implied with your posts. That's what your entire argument is; one person on these internet forums disagreed with you on whether some random thing was offensive, and now suddenly you are being oppressed by evil liberals.

I don't have time to read the rest of your long posts here right now, but I had to respond to this.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Darmalus »

TheFeniX wrote:
Darmalus wrote:I think what is happening now is that social change is accelerating to a pace (in the USA at least) where people are left out of date and out of joint in their own lifetimes, hell possibly before they hit middle age. Things that were normal growing up aren't acceptable anymore, and it gets harder to adapt as you get older, and very often any progress forward they make isn't enough and they get scorned rather than encouraged for making the effort.
How, by words being taboo? Seriously, my grandparents saw a much large change over a not too much longer time. Women could vote, enter the workplace, blacks went from using back of stores, segregation, having racial slurs yelled at them in the streets as a matter of course to being full-fledged citizens who can't be discriminated against legally.

I can't think of much that's actually changed for my generation except maybe not being able to say "Dude, that's gay." And homosexuals can now get married, which too way too fucking long to get over with because conservatives are dumb. The biggest social change was watching people sign away all their rights after 9/11. That had more impact on my generation than any number of "you can't say that anymore."

Now, with the Internet, I have learned there's a whole load of bullshit out there passing by at the speed of light. If anything, I think that grants us the illusion that things are changing more than they really are.
Good point, I wonder if the internet has made things seem more intense than they really are, or allowed scattered individuals who could never meet or communicate before to gather into a critical mass of opposition (or at least noise making). Of course, the converse is also true, if the internet had existed long ago would it have allowed lots of people with low level dissatisfaction to unite (by virtue of easy coordination compared to snail mail and so forth) and work strongly against women's suffrage or interracial marriage?

But that may be getting slightly off track, since I think the main thrust of the OP was about things like this: http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... &p=3906260

Though I wonder if this might just be a result of our culture getting more legalistic with each generation, rather than any fundamental change. Using the tools you know, all you have is a hammer, etc.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Covenant »

I honestly don't see how getting someone disinvited or relieving someone of their position because of their support for something really equates a new low. On the face it may seem that way, but these are organizations that are responding to pressure in one way rather than another way. Either the problem is that people found Rice and Eich offensive, which is hardly surprising, or the problem is that organizations are choosing to boot people rather than face social backlash.

Where is the fire?

We are seeing a lot of repercussions from personal speech, to be sure, but that was always the case. Rice was disliked because of her association with the Bush administration, which is an entirely different reason than coming out and supporting Prop 8 or other legislation. The word police are frustrating, to be certain, when you get caught afoul of using language that someone finds offensive, but people using their ability to make their voice heard is normal and good. People up the stream responding to it is also good. These two goods are, combined, not a bad thing.

I think the real problem lies at the heart of the vilification of each opposing side. Expressing an opinion is expressing solidarity with a faction, and no factions can amiably disagree or come to the table and discuss things. Disinviting Rice is entirely reasonable if she is massively offensive to the student body, right? And if she was, the University is better off listening to their students than causing a ruckus by inviting someone horribly offensive to give their commencement, right? But the question of "is she really that offensive?" lies down in the very angry and embittered hearts of those students.

Shaming people for being offended is absolutely worse than shaming someone for being offensive, so that is not the route to take, which the moral panic "wah wah PC police" crowd want. But we really should try to change the "I hear something I dislike, I shall immediately jump on you" culture of hair trigger identity politics that encourages people to strictly define their cultural tribes and to prove their own purity by aggressively out-grouping the ones who fall aside. Right now people want to be right more than they want to make the world better, usually, which is a terrible situation.

This is the same stupid behavior which makes two people of similar views hate each other more than their opposition. It also only fights towards a hideous compliant future where brainless, pointless, useless moral rage is a virtue and discussion is a sin. It's really hard to change people's minds, but it's damned near impossible when you meet them with this kind of holy justice attitude.
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Re: Atlantic piece on college word police and Trump's popula

Post by Arthur_Tuxedo »

Simon_Jester wrote:
Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:If I were making a legalistic argument about the actions of the US government or its agencies, you would have a point. But I'm not. I'm perfectly aware that SDN is well within its rights to enforce whatever rules it wants; again, I was explicit in my argument: I am not taking issue with SDN's actions, rather I am citing it as a salient example of this phenomenon in action. Likewise, you're free to think I'm a dick if I say "faggot." What you can't do - or rather, what you oughtn't do - is dismiss an argument I make or something I say just because I'm saying "faggot." As silly as it may sound, that's dangerous for any free society.
To take another example, Channel72 is Jewish. Should he have to listen to people using "jew me down" as slang for the act of excessively greedy bargaining, regularly, and watch everyone else casually accept this as though it was normal, as though nobody had any problem with the idea of thinking of Jews primarily in terms of the stereotype as greedy moneylenders and penny-pinchers?
I had a friend who sincerely didn't realize that "Jewed him down on the price" had any connection with the religious and ethnic group. He had simply heard the term his whole life as a synonym for bargaining. If he had tweeted it these days, it could have gotten him fired.
As I see it, you have a choice.

One, you can create a society in which people ostracize you for using ugly words that are historically undeserved insults aimed at a specific group.

Or two, you can create a society in which minority groups aren't being constantly shit on, with the tacit approval of the rest of society, by the actions of the 'bluntest' people in society (i.e. those who care the least about insulting minorities).

Is the goal of choice number two so unimportant that it means we shouldn't even consider ostracising people for racist/sexist/etc language?
Isn't this a false dichotomy? Either let boors get away with boorishness without comment or wage public shame campaigns against people expressing an unpopular opinion? I don't have a problem with twitter campaigns against unrepentant racists or boycotts against companies with hateful or discriminatory policies, but when the lynch mob is allowed to run amok and discussion goes out the window, social progress is going to be tossed out with it. When calm discussion is being drowned out, the people that always win the ensuing shouting match are the bigots, the ignorant, and the intolerant. When the average voter feels that free speech is being infringed and the left is to blame, you can kiss any hope of further progress on lessening racism in police procedures and the (in)justice system, closing the income and wealth gaps across lines of race or class, etc.
...

The bigger problem comes when we take this principle and crank it up to eleven by applying a massive complex of institutional hypersensitivity. There's clearly a limit, it is not healthy to try and remove every person and every word that might, conceivably, give offense or be harmful.

But complaining "why can't I say 'faggot' anymore" is NOT a good way to illustrate the existence of this limit.
I'm not so sure. There's a difference between hate and ignorance. A lot of straight white males truly don't understand why it's not OK for them to say the F-word, the N-word, or various others. They don't understand the built-in advantage to applying for a job when your name is Scott and not Jerome, so they see attempts to correct those imbalances as special treatment. They really don't know what's wrong with saying "All Lives Matter", or "Police Lives Matter". It's not that they're bigots, it's just that they have no perspective and haven't been educated. Shouting them down, shaming them, and getting them fired is not going to help matters. Very much the opposite.
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