Objectively intelligent.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Look, we get it. You’re obstinate and obtuse and will write infinite words saying nothing (there’s a reason TM has abandoned this place) but you need to know this: I don’t read the vast majority of your words. You are unserious and do not engage in substance. You want endless “discussion” of the obvious. Nope.

So I don't get a response at all?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I don't think it's elliptical at all. He's responding to a bunch of people who have written a public statement fretting about the marketplace of ideas and urging, more or less, that the remedy to speech is more speech. He is saying, that only works if everyone is speaking in good faith, but many people are not, and it's not just right-wing trolls.



1) Holbo is not extreme left.

2) In what way does he lump together those people? What does he say about smart conservatives?



I'm not talking about the mob. I'm talking about Holbo. What does Holbo say that -- you think -- seeks to eliminate smart debate?

I think Holbo is more than happy to have a debate with anyone who will defend their first principles. He's a philosophy professor -- that's what they do.


Honestly, I have no idea what in Holbo's thread you think says this.

I think he has his finger on a very real problem, which is, what do you do when you are debating someone who is not speaking in good faith. A specific example is the people who raise concerns about transgender people and bathrooms:

He focuses on the right wing as the cause. He suggests that it is okay to respond to ideas with cancel culture because the right is acting in bad faith. That’s a perverse notion. When someone argues in bad faith, you reply by pointing that out, not creating a media culture in which the non-woke are deplatformed.

The Harper’s writers said “No more cancellation.” He says we should allow some cancellation. The world is imperfect, so the imperfect act of cancellation is okay. I see the logic. But it’s not persuasive where the easier argument is what the left is doing to dishonest people on the right already: Calling out their bullshit.

There can be no defense of blind orthodoxy. And that’s what Harper’s was challenging. The very words, “in logical defense of orthodoxy” are an oxymoron.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Google searches is not equal to doing the work😰🤬

I didn't call him Orwellian. That was Sebby. Try harder next time.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Ken and John both identify problems with the Harper's letter, which is fine, but I think that John does a better job of identifying the problems caused by people arguing in bad faith than Ken does, perhaps because he is a philosopher and Ken is a lawyer. Focusing on the First Amendment gets in the way when you are thinking about how the marketplace of ideas is working when the government is not involved.

I actually like the thread Adder offered. I have no problem with flagging the liars who call for an end to cancel culture while also trying to ban flag burning or have BLM protestors jailed as terrorists.

But I wouldn’t cancel them. I’d expose their hypocrisies. As loads of media outlets do every day!

But here’s where the thread is weak. The authors of the Harper’s piece are not such hypocrites. They are largely liberals who agree with me in the assessment that a person crying for a flag burning amendment while decrying cancel culture is demented and dangerous.

The problem is, those people cannot be cancelled. Their audience likes their hypocrisy. When the Twitter mob demands blood, in the absence of an ability to harm that enemy it instead satisfies itself with the sacrifice of some poor liberal or moderate editor or writer.

In other words, the thread makes a good point, but one of little practical application.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

That the GOP base is so pro-Trump that GOP candidates cannot to move away from him for fear of losing them, even though they know he is so unpopular and losing the middle. That the consultants understand the damage he is doing and do not like him but are nonetheless motivating by grievances about the media and the left (not a surprise to me -- I think it's the essence of conservatism -- but still was surprised to see it said in this context).

We’re more than four years into this and “conservatives” still haven’t realized that GOP voters are what Fox News (and places further right/nuts) say and not what “small government movement conservatives” think. Trump is what’s on Fox News. That’s how he beat the GOP. He told them what they already knew. While the GOP politicians wanted to feint that way but with humility. That’s why the GOP can’t challenge him. They thought they were creating their own reality when the nutso reality was creating them.

The ones who aren’t part of the nonsense can’t or realize they shouldn’t try to escape it.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Is there a difference between a children's book with a benign depiction of a policeman the same as "indoctrinating kids with pro-police propaganda"? If the only tool in your toolbox is a sledgehammer, you certainly end up pounding on everything.



Yes, of course there is. You may not care how you label things, but the point is that if you can label so much of everything as racist, the label carries less meaning.



As Tiny becomes less tiny, em will like things that are not 100% groovy, and you will be pushed to compromise more. Just warning you.

Then your child is 19 and pledging a frat.

A dire warning indeed. 😉

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The self loathing is really the icing on the cake.

You’re a middle aged, affluent white dude in a deeply racist America. If you don’t loath yourself at least a little, your head is in the sand.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

He focuses on the right wing as the cause. He suggests that it is okay to respond to ideas with cancel culture because the right is acting in bad faith. That’s a perverse notion. When someone argues in bad faith, you reply by pointing that out, not creating a media culture in which the non-woke are deplatformed.

I think you are misreading him. He says,

It's easy-and therefore very proper!-to point out cases in which people and things and ideas have been 'cancelled' when they clearly should have been tolerated/debated. Not easy to articulate a stable norm about this, even a rule-of-thumb. One of the main obstacles is the discourse ethics of partisanship. Partisanship is not bad faith, but partisanship is, to some degree, a thing that should be damped in debate. The whole point of arguing is to consider changing your mind, via trying to change others' minds. So, ideally, partisans should-not disarm, that isn't it-but observe exacting dueling protocols when entering the debate arena. But this is hard to articulate and enforce.

That first sentence is agreeing with you ("very proper!") that it's a problem that "people and things and ideas have been 'canceled' when the clearly should have been tolerated/debated." The rest of the paragraph is saying it's a hard problem to solve with norms.

The Harper’s writers said “No more cancellation.” He says we should allow some cancellation.

No. Stop being a lawyer for a second. It's not a piece about what is "allowed."

The world is imperfect, so the imperfect act of cancellation is okay.

Not okay, but it's not clear what is a better solution.

I see the logic. But it’s not persuasive where the easier argument is what the left is doing to dishonest people on the right already: Calling out their bullshit.

Well, go back and re-read his first paragraph:

The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other." ... This maxim is patently, grossly inadequate for governing a blog comment box... let alone a social media platform, let alone Public Reason and a Public Sphere. Ideally, we would live in a world in which this would be an ideal rule to follow. Ideally, the world contains no trolls, bots, bad faith actors—or few enough they can be dealt with retail not wholesale in the Marketplace of Ideas. In a world in which everyone were exchanging more or less in open-faced good faith, this rule would be good. In our actual world, however, it is not good. No, not really, sadly.

There can be no defense of blind orthodoxy. And that’s what Harper’s was challenging.

The Harper's letter can be understand as the expression of a liberal orthodoxy ('the best antidote to speech you don't like is more speech') that increasingly blind to what is going on all around us. To borrow from Public Enemy, You're blind, baby / You're blind from the facts on who you are / Cause you're watching that garbage.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

You’re a middle aged, affluent white dude in a deeply racist America. If you don’t loath yourself at least a little, your head is in the sand.

I loathe those like me who refuse to admit how much of their life accrues from dumb luck. I think those white dudes suck.

But I don’t loathe myself at all. I don’t take myself, or life, seriously enough to do so.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

We’re more than four years into this and “conservatives” still haven’t realized that GOP voters are what Fox News (and places further right/nuts) say and not what “small government movement conservatives” think. Trump is what’s on Fox News. That’s how he beat the GOP. He told them what they already knew. While the GOP politicians wanted to feint that way but with humility. That’s why the GOP can’t challenge him. They thought they were creating their own reality when the nutso reality was creating them.

The ones who aren’t part of the nonsense can’t or realize they shouldn’t try to escape it.

They don't want to escape it. They share his grievances about liberals and the media, and that motivates them more than anything they don't like about him.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

They don't want to escape it. They share his grievances about liberals and the media, and that motivates them more than anything they don't like about him.

Yup

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

A dire warning indeed. ��

I grew up in an industrial D suburb that was pretty much all white. I had/have shit to work through. My kids went to schools that were racially very diverse. I expect they have a much more evolved view, but they also do not see all black people as great and w/o flaw. They see black people as individuals, and with less bias.

Willing to bet the woman in the Rambles that called police on the bird watcher was raised by “woke parents.” Will your child go to public schools that are integrated? Kinda don’t know if that is possible in your city? Might be more important than controlling em’s reading?

I got no biz telling you about parenting, but think the best think to do is crash segregation so em knows black people beyond books.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

They don't want to escape it. They share his grievances about liberals and the media, and that motivates them more than anything they don't like about him.

You give the media too quick a pass. You clearly haven’t worked with these people, so I’ll give you a pass on what I think you don’t know.

The media, on both sides, trend young and naive. It’s a dumb person’s and egomaniacs’ game, even at management levels. They’re also generally full of hot air. They write shit people like us throw at each other on a chat board. Is Yglesias smarter than Sullivan? (No one but us cares.)

Trump’s critiques of the media are pathetic comedy because the media created him, he and the media have enjoyed a symbiotic/parasitic relationship that has ruined our public discourse, and his whine is basically a plaintive, “Why don’t you love me?” Retort: “Because you’re a dick. That’s your brand. Now dance for your dinner, and make us your enemy. Trump/Media Success Story Mark II.”

Our media truly sucks. The whole bag of dicks, flaccid.

So let’s not defend these shitballs. Let’s send them over the falls with Donald. Each deserves nothing more than to go where the other one lands. He who tangos with shit should have to wake up fucked by it. With all its stds.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I grew up in an industrial D suburb that was pretty much all white. I had/have shit to work through. My kids went to schools that were racially very diverse. I expect they have a much more evolved view, but they also do not see all black people as great and w/o flaw. They see black people as individuals, and with less bias.

Willing to bet the woman in the Rambles that called police on the bird watcher was raised by “woke parents.” Will your child go to public schools that are integrated? Kinda don’t know if that is possible in your city? Might be more important than controlling em’s reading?

I got no biz telling you about parenting, but think the best think to do is crash segregation so em knows black people beyond books.

Parenting is less fun if you can't be judgey about younger parents.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Parenting is less fun if you can't be judgey about younger parents.

Honestly not trying to be judgey. Trying to suggest some other steps.