This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Huge news from South America today.
A single judge in Brazil has not only blocked X in the country, but is requiring Apple and Google to remove VPNs from their phones, and is imposing a $9,000 daily fine (basically a year's salary) for anyone in the country caught using a VPN.
Elon Musk attracted the ire of this particular judge, Alexandre de Moraes, when he posted about the judge's previous autocratic attempts to silence free speech and to jail opponents of the current regime led by Lula da Silva. The legal system is very strange in Brazil, and apparently Supreme Court judges have huge unilateral powers to try cases and enforce laws as they see fit. This particular judge has done so thousands of times.
Now X is banned.
With dissent being silenced, and a corrupt socialist in charge, it seems that yet another Latin American country is set on the path to tyranny.
Many people will be opposed to this move on Brazil's part, but for the wrong reasons, chief among which is national pride. As a free speech absolutist, I'm opposed to this move because I believe any speech whatsoever should be legally permitted. This includes not just "wholesome" speech, but:
The justification is simple: sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you. To which the standard reply is: "but words can hurt too". To which my reply is: "no it can't, because to hurt is to cause pain, and pain is purely a physical sensation. There is no such thing as non-physical pain, the kind people talk about when they talk about e.g. losing someone they love. That talk of 'pain' is merely a figure of speech. ". To which the reply may be: "but phantom limb pain is non-physical". To which the reply is: "no it's physical in my sense. For pain to be physical it's not necessary that it's triggered by a physical stimulus. It suffices that it's experienced as physical, i.e. it has the distinctive qualia associated with pain and is locatable in some specific part of the body or a generic region of the body. And phantom limb pain meets those conditions."
You can oppose this also from pro freedom of speech grounds without being a freedom of speech absolutist.
Personally I find the issue incoherent but I find coherent to have a situation with more vs less freedom of speech but you do need to suppress some organized pollitical comisar factions. For example, eastern european countries post communism that blacklisted communists, are freer countries than western countries today, or their own communist past.
How do you protect freedom of speech absolutism if you allow people whose idea is to suppress all who go against the globohomo "our democracy" faction.
Or take the Jewish supremacist authoritarian faction. These people use their powerful companies and organisations, and donations and plausible epstein type blackmail rings to get their way. Plus, civil rights law and the idea of antisemitism. Should the ADL and Disney have the freedom to coordinate to oppose freedom? What about the influence of people speaking advocating for censoring ideas that offend the "Jews, blacks, women" are wonderful effect? Is AIPAC donation efforts something that should be suppressed? What about journalists citing the ADL to character assassinate people? Now, obviously they utilize censorship constantly, and freedom of speech absolutism is something they oppose. But also they are a faction which there is a legitimate both pro freedom and pro the rights of the groups they have it out against, and pro truth interest in suppressing.
How do you have freedom by not taking away the freedom of political comisars? How do you avoid not losing against more ruthless factions that don't care for a universal freedom of speech and want to censor your group, and allow maximum freedom for theirs?
And is freedom of speech absolutism extending to the kind of people you select to run the pro freedom of speech institutions?
Or is their desire to act otherwise subject to restriction there, and institutions should be run by people willing to abide by certain rules and following a certain perspective? And absolutism would then be for the platforms? That would make more sense. But you do have restrictions based on ideology somewhere, even if not on the platform. Or take judges, to have freedom of speech absolutism you would need judges with your preferences to be selected and judges against freedom of speech (who might express such views) be restricted.
Another issue that ought to be considered is people abandoning their legitimate interests and supporting immoral and unreasonable and even lies, or not making legitimate negative critiques due to fear of coordinated slander and reputation destruction. That is being defamed. People being afraid to speak, that is to say. To be fair, "cancel culture" can include the claim of free de-association in an one sided manner. Although there is also a part of it that is about pressure and fear of losing ones job. I am not sure freedom of speech absolutism works and you have a better system, of people not being afraid if people are restrained from defaming others over nonsense. Although I am a freedom of speech absolutist when it comes to people who are telling a plausibly necessary truth and are whistleblowing.
I am for maximum freedom for people like Gareth Jones and prefer that people like Walter Duranty were fired for spreading lies. And in his time, Gareth Jones was outnumbered because he was attacked by the communists, and friendly travelers in the American establishment while the apologist for the Soviet genocides Walter Duranty won a pulitzer. People at the time lacked the nerve to share Gareth Jones truthtelling in the face of such tactics.
The problem of people who are cowardly in the face of other people using their freedom of speech to label them, as a means of shutting them up, is not something I have seen adequately addressed, by people talking about freedom of speech absolutism. Although, perhaps with less consequences for those whose speech goes against such organized groups, there might be more courage. In general, I think we need a more sophisticated model than freedom of speech absolutism that distinguishes between courageous truth telling and attempts to suppress the truth. While I acknowledge outright censorship is a key part of this, but an important component is drowning good speech, with delegitimizing it on frivolous grounds, lies, fallacies, denials, misdirections and character assassinations. Plus, using their freedom to organize and advocate for cancel culture, and directly threaten people to go along with it, or else.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link