College Students Are Ridiculously Infuriating Safe-Space/Mega-thread

[Alcon]

the most shocking thing about this thread is that people not in college care about student politics.

What does this have to do with student politics?  Or do you mean no one should care about what ideological or philosophical beliefs university students have?  Because...disagreed, considering university students subsequently become, you know, the vast majority of decision-makers in America.

[Alcon]

the most shocking thing about this thread is that people not in college care about student politics.

What does this have to do with student politics?  Or do you mean no one should care about what ideological or philosophical beliefs university students have?  Because...disagreed, considering university students subsequently become, you know, the vast majority of decision-makers in America.

Given than 99% of students don't care or involve in student politics, it is irrelevent.

I don't think you read my post correctly.

For the fairly obvious reason that these silly stories about students being very silly (and I observe that there has been little suggestion that the students in question are being anything other than very, very silly) pretty much only concern the Professional Student Activist 1% of the student body. And such people have always been utterly ridiculous (and habitually sell out within seconds of graduating...)

Have you not seen the age breakdown on polling about whether "offensive" political speech should be prohibited?  The Professional Student Activist 1% does not exist entirely in a vacuum, and plenty of people outside that core agree with their views, and very few feel comfortable speaking out against them.  If your entire argument is "a small group of political actors are disproportionately loud," true, but so what?  How is that phenomenon any different than the world at large?

I agree people tend to tone down after university, and I don't expect things quite this cartoonish to happen -- but the more moderate restrictions on political speech are popular with their age cohort, and I don't see why these views would disappear immediately after university ends.

[Alcon]

Have you not seen the age breakdown on polling about whether "offensive" political speech should be prohibited?

No. But absolute freedom of speech is rarely popular, although exactly what is deemed to be beyond the pale (and how that is described) will change over time.

Our generational cohort is much more likely than previous generational cohorts to deem political speech unacceptable, and support it being illegal, on the grounds it is "offensive."  Your argument is...what?  Are you rejecting these polls?  Are you arguing that these restrictions aren't destructive to the fundamental idea behind the freedom of speech?

You seem to be hand-waving this problem, but it's unclear why.

There are more serious concerns wrt universities (mostly involving the root of all evil, naturally) than online petitions against statues of the long dead or whether this guest speaker or that guest speaker to a pointless post six pm 'debate' should be allowed to turn up or not.

Wow, you're arguing that restricting political speech is not a big deal because you consider the topics and incidences silly?  That's horrible, dude.  If not, what are you arguing?

Also, not only did you choose the silliest possible examples here, but you're pretending that this silliness exists in isolation.  These kids also think it's acceptable to shut down conversation and debate in other forms, too.  You think they go, "oh, well, I'll be an anti-pluralist asshole...but only in situations Al considers silly"?  No, dude.

Or rather: ridicule is fine and frankly well deserved (WE DEMAND that our pianos are tuned as regularly as we're pretty sure those of the OTHER students are!!!!). But the pearl clutching - and there are way worse places for that than here - is absurd.

You seem to be under the very, very misguided belief that the concern here is how ridiculous this stuff is.  It's not that it's ridiculous, and these are ridiculous situations.  It's that it's toxic, and that it can -- and has -- affected situations that are not ridiculous.

[Alcon]

Whiny right wing kids running to their parents or their pastor because reality is playing out in front of them at school are more annoying. And get almost no derision.

Yes, the tendency for conservative traditionalists to want to "make the world go away" when it disagrees with their worldview is gross and troubling.  But do you expect they'll have much sociopolitical power in 10-20 years?  I don't.  There are quite a lot of people in academia, and in the younger generational cohort, who think censorious behavior from the left has moral license.

Added to that, I'm not opposed to freedom of speech. But too often, "freedom of speech" rhetoric is used as a cudgel against socially marginalized people(s) who are asserting their freedom of speech and association rights. That's what makes me uncomfortable about these discussions.

Are you arguing for restrictions on freedom of speech, because you're worried that "freedom of speech" allows powerful majorities to "shout down" minorities?  If so, I'm sympathetic -- I don't think pluralism works well when people are "shouted down."  However, how can you possibly get from that, to restricting political speech using institutional power?  That is way, way more dangerous and way, way more of an historical cudgel against marginalized people historically.  I realize that free speech and pluralism both can have suboptimal results, but how can you not be vastly more uncomfortable with the consequences of allowing institutional power to parse what political speech is too "damaging" to say?

Could you give me some sense of what limitations on political speech you're OK with, and why?

I dispute that this is true. I can believe that when phrased like that younger people right now are more likely than older people to support such a proposition, but I don't think that means a lot (particularly as what is implicitly meant is racist/homophobic speech etc, a matter on which there is quite a lot of generation difference). During the Cold War most Americans supported restrictions on the political rights of Communists, I believe. I suspect that right now there would not be a massive generation difference regarding the rights of someone to preach ISIS propaganda in the middle of NYC.

If you dispute that is true, please take a few minutes and look at recent polling on this.  It's true that the biggest age gap is about political speech that is offensive to marginalized people, but the younger cohort is significantly less likely to endorse the abstract concept of political speech too.  So what in my argument are you disputing?  If you don't believe what I'm arguing, I can link you to the polling on it.

Also, even if the older generations were comparably as censorious with communism I'd find that totally screwed up too -- and I imagine they also flagged leftist speakers with being "too reminiscent of communism" to allow.  Same behavior; also unacceptable.  My point here is not to criticize my generation for being inherently awful (whatever that means).  I would be criticizing other generations' varying moral warrants for the same behavior if I thought it was bullsh**t.

I think that the idea of freedom of speech has had foes far more formidable than a handful of drunken students who will likely soon sell out and work in Marketing.

Al, you're strawmanning the living crap out of my argument.  Please stop.  This is bordering on disrespectful.  I have made it clear that I am not talking about a "handful" of students, and you know that I am not referring exclusively to the more cartoonish "stunts," which I agree will diminish.  My concern is with the durability of their fundamental distrust and hostility toward pluralism.  I have made that very clear.

Also, the idea that the students with this belief set are mostly "drunken" and will just "sell out to Marketing" and abandon their beliefs is complete horse crap.  I doubt you have any evidence for this claim, and no one who's been around a college environment thinks those beliefs are that shallow.  You're talking like you're a 50-year-old who hasn't been around people between 18 and 30 for years.  I am directly in this cohort.  Do you actually believe that these views about pluralism disappear immediately after college graduation?  Hint: they don't, and most of the people in the Millennial cohort in the polls I'm alluding to are not currently in college, nor are they part of the activist 1%.

Well if that's how this is going to be then I'll say that it is also possible that I believe in freedom of association (another important democratic right!). I don't believe that an Assembly refusing to hear a particular person speak is an example of a restriction on freedom of speech, because that Assembly has a right to determine who has the right to speak to it. In the long history of student radicalism there have been incidences of things like attempting to influence what and is not taught in universities on political grounds and often backed up by violence (or the threat of violence). That is an assault on freedom of speech (amongst other things) and if there was much happening in that direction, then, yes; there would be grounds for a degree of concern (though it would have to be prefaced with: why is this happening, exactly?). But if the Students Union at Toad Suck Community College do not wish to hear the controversial figure Bill Dickhead speak at a public meeting because Bill Dickhead has said nasty things about [insert group here], then they are well within their rights to tell him that he is not welcome. Understandably Bill Dickhead would not be very happy about this, but he is not being silenced and his political rights are not being threatened. Now we can have a debate about whether it is a good idea to only hear from people who agree with you (you presume), but if the response is to get outraged about FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!! then this isn't going to happen because the student activists are just going to write you off as a young fogey not worth their time engaging with.

You really don't have to talk with examples and analogies.  I'm perfectly fine with you using direct arguments.  Also, I don't really need you to lecture me about what will prompt college students to dismiss me, considering the ridiculous crap about social justice-y students just being drunken future sell-outs with no sincere, durable beliefs.  Look, I obviously have a fundamental issue with their beliefs, but I don't deny that most of them are fairly sincere.  I don't know how anyone who knows a significant number of these people could.  Even if they're fairweather activists (and most of those holding these beliefs aren't the activist corps anyway!), their beliefs are sincere.

I'm obviously not just shouting "freedom of speech!!!!"  When in this thread have I done that?  I'm clearly making an argument that this is an attack on pluralism, which happens to be what freedom of speech is meant to help provide a space for, but which has utility that isn't just granted by the existence of the American First Amendment.

I don't think that refusing to invite someone is a violation of freedom of speech, either.  My interest in pluralism is not just in upholding the text of freedom of speech.  My interest in pluralism is that it's incredibly important to give people access to ideas that they can parse, challenge, poke, vent, reject and/or incorporate.  That is why we have freedom of speech in the first place.  My issue with the "disinvitations" and similar is that it shows fundamental hostility toward the idea of competition between ideas.  It reflects many students' belief that certain ideas are too dangerous or emotionally trying to be heard, and that it is acceptable for them to use their power to avoid doing so.  It's not because the ideas lack substantive merit.  If that were the issue, it would be incredibly easy to point out the flaws, or just ignore the speaker.  It's because they think they have the moral right to shut down ideas they dislike or think are societally damaging -- and that belief is troubling.

I seriously don't know where you got the idea that my entire argument was "but FREE SPEECH!!11" and nothing else.  Are you substituting other internet debaters for me for some reason?

[Alcon]

Whoa... #triggered much?

I'm not mad.  Your first post rebutted arguments I'm not making, narrowed down the scope of arguments I was making to the point where it ignored the broader import of my argument, and did a lot of vague hand-waving.  I think you know you were doing all three.  I also think you understand that this wastes my time and fails to directly address my argument.

But if I dispute that the polling is particularly meaningful then there's no point in showing me to the polling.

In what way?  You don't think that self-stated opinions about whether pluralism is a good idea matter?  It's interesting that you've decided that self-reported answers to an unspecified question are certainly "[not] particularly meaningful."

That's fine and you're totally entitled to that that stance, but most people who have grumbled on this matter have done so from the classic 'everything is going to the dogs' point of view. I think it is useful to point out that this is nonsense.

OK, again, I also realize there are worse things -- cancer, for instance, that's bad! -- but that doesn't stop this from being an incredibly toxic, common belief in my generational cohort.

I don't think I'm being disrespectful - or if I am then it certainly isn't intentional and neither is the rest of the reply - merely expressing a view that this problem, to the extent that it is a problem, is not a serious problem. I would suggest (for instance) that my country's libel laws are a greater threat to free speech (or whatever) than #triggered students, and that there are issues with universities across the world that are considerably more serious and which receive no attention (mostly involving money). Etc.

I agree that your libel laws suck.  My argument, again, does not exclusively limit itself to universities, and I have no idea why you keep framing it like it does after I've said that so many times.

If you don't think that most students maybe drink a little bit too much then I don't think you can have spent much time around a university environment either

not what I said

As for the selling out thing, such is the inevitable path of the student radical. Doesn't mean their views aren't sincere, but History has shown what will happen. Mind you, there's the alternative route: from student radical to minister of state for paperclip procurement in two decades.

You are, yet again, acting as if I'm exclusively talking about a narrow band of student radicals.  I agree that people tend to stop being pie-in-the-sky radicals.  My complaint is not limited to (or even particularly about) radical student activism.

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Whereas you...?

Graduated from a liberal arts university 2 1/2 years ago, and typed my last reply to you from its Political Science student lounge after giving a Q&A to 30 undergraduates.  Thanks for asking.

Most people, though, are barely political (sensible fellows!) and so any views they hold on 'pluralism' will be vague and not matter greatly to them. Certainly won't influence how they vote, for instance.

I agree with you, actually!  That's exactly why the 1% core of student activists is disproportionately powerful.  That's also why they get their way so often in universities.  Most of the people around them have weak convictions, and are swayed by the moral force of their delivery and, sometimes, hectoring.  That doesn't mean that they become deeply-grounded moral beliefs.  However, it does mean that they tend to defer and, yes, vote that way, as well as to some degree incorporate that stuff into their view of "goodness."  If you don't think that cohort views affect political behavior or moral belief, man, I don't even know what to say besides: you're blatantly wrong.

If your hypotheses were true that it has no sway over their later behavior, why the hell would those polls -- you know, the ones you are sure are irrelevant, despite not even knowing the phrasing or methodology (?!) -- reflect any shift in attitude toward pluralism?  Unless you totally sever anti-pluralist behaviors from overall anti-pluralist attitudes, which is absurd, it makes no sense.

But this is how I prefer to argue; we can understand nothing without context, therefore the more the merrier

I can understand plenty with simple syllogisms.

Actually what has been hilarious has been the sight of people who have spent decades supporting this protest or that boycott or called for this person to be barred from addressing that meeting or whatever suddenly turn around and howl in entitled outrage when their methods are used against them. I am not sympathetic.

You're proving my point for me.  That's exactly why pluralism is so damn important: because jackasses, when they get the first semblance of institutional power, use it to shut out people they don't want to hear from.  This whole "it's OK if we do it, because we're on the good side" crap is the problem.

Ah the famous free marketplace of ideas etc.

Try that next time with a snifter of scotch and a tweed jacket, for enhanced pseudo-profundity.

(I wouldn't call it a "free market" for the same reason I think "free market" can be a misnomer for the economic system.  I am aware of the complexities and troubles, because I'm not a dolt.)

That's one view. Another is that it is a rights matter (i.e. primarily about self-expression and perhaps even the sovereignty of the individual). Not that these positions are contradictory, automatically.

I know all of these words and concepts like the back of my hand, and that's a vague-ass trio of sentences if I've ever seen one.

Yes it does. But this is not automatically problematic in itself and is not a threat to free speech

Do you notice that sentence I wrote that you quoted one line earlier?  The sentence where I explicitly stated my concern wasn't about free speech, and then explained what my concern is?  This is what I said about wasting my time.

But it is acceptable, isn't it? Again, an Assembly clearly has the right to choose who gets to address it. I very much doubt that I would be allowed to address a meeting of my local Conservative Association, and if I did I think it certain that I would be shouted down. Again, you might suggest that it would be better if hostile speakers were heard out more frequently, but...

I did not deny that there is a right to choose speakers at an institution.  Would you like to try actually responding to my argument as I wrote it?  

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It is a belief held by about 99.9% of the population, however.

You think 99.9% of the population believes it is acceptable to use power to shut down substantive, sincerely-held political speech, because that political speech is emotionally upsetting and/or they think it would be bad if people were persuaded?

oh good thing you don't believe in polls or socio-psychological evidence so I'm just gonna have to believe you on that one

Anyway, what of the heckler? Is the heckler expressing his/her right to Freedom of Speech or is he/she a nuisance interrupting the Free Marketplace of Ideas? Or perhaps both?

I am happy to answer this question.  However, considering there were five instances in this post in which you addressed an argument I was not making, one literally one line after I'd explicitly said I'm not making it, I would like a formal promise that you'll actually address what I explicitly wrote.

If it makes you feel more comfortable agreeing to this, maybe you could start the promise off with something in character, like "Oh yes, contracts.  That old canard.  Quite."

[Alcon]

Perhaps I was putting forward an argument of my own, rather than merely responding to yours?

I mean, that's fine, but a little confusing when done in embedded replies to my post...

I've already explained how. Answers to surveys often depend to an alarming extent on how questions are worded, which is why I'm generally pretty dubious about survey-based quantitative research in general fwiw but that's getting all very tangential.

So...you're skeptical of the question phrasing, so you don't want to see how the question was phrased...?

Pretty much all the - now quite extensive - discourse about this whole thing here has been about universities.

...

But that's what this thread is about?

...

Its more that I don't believe that the views of the 1% shape particularly those of the 99%. Its hard to think of anything less important or relevant to most people's lives - students and former students included - than student politics.

This thread is about university students.  I am arguing a hypothesis that involves the behaviors of university students, and to some extent explains them, but extends beyond them.  

You seem to be posing a few "objections."  First, you object that student politics are trivial.  That doesn't negate my argument without committing the composition fallacy.  Second, you argue that the activist core doesn't have a huge effect on the larger populace at university.  I agree, but I think the relationship is two-way and more complex than that...

I could go into detail, but this is all fundamentally a waste of time unless we can establish agreement on whether distrust of pluralism is a norm among the broader group, beyond the student activists.  What sort of evidence would you accept for this claim, if not polls?  I understand the reluctance to extrapolate a core group of student activists to everyone.  I would reject that too.  But you seem to have excluded every available form of mass-observation, and yet you're not asserting you're agnostic on my claim; you're rejecting it.  Clearly you have some firmer evidence--share it?

Perhaps it goes the other way: after all we can say that the social condemnation of racism, homophobia etc has become firmer amongst young people in recent years, perhaps this influences the agenda of this generation of student radicals rather than the other way round?

That's definitely true...how is that mutually exclusive to what I'm saying?

A respectable viewpoint. I just don't believe that things have deteriorated recently.

Well, it's going to be hard to convince you of that if you dismiss the entire methodological approach of asking people what their beliefs are.

Not particularly.

But fine, an elaboration: one can believe that freedom of speech is primarily important as a right in of itself, rather than as a right that leads to something else (i.e. pluralism or whatever). This might lead you to different conclusions in certain cases if you thought of it mostly as a right-that-leads-elsewhere. Clearer?

Much, but I'm not sure what the point of observing that others hold this is an "a priori" right is.  I was explaining that I wasn't arguing freedom of speech as an inherent ends, and your response was "well, some people argue that it is, because..."  ...OK, and?

Of course. But I wanted to emphasis the point about free speech.

Again, when you're replying to points I made immediately after quoting me, it's kind of hard to expect me to know you're not replying to my argument!

That would just mean that I would type out the same words again. I can alter the combination of words, however: I think its fine to deny someone the chance to speak to a particular audience if that audience does not wish to hear them speak.

I understand, of course, that you don't think this, and that's fine: we have a disagreement.

Al, I'm not arguing that audiences should be forced to listen to people they refuse to hear.  Trust me, I live in a downtown area.  if I believed in that responsibility, I would spend half my life listening to liberal arts graduates try to convince me to donate $20/month to save the beavers.

Yes?

The number itself is purely rhetorical, of course, and not a real number.

...

Perhaps as an experiment you could try handing out pro-ISIS leaflets in the middle of a shopping centre tomorrow?

I like how you rejected a poll because the phrasing was imprecise, and then propose this as an experiment to isolate the proportion of people who think it's acceptable to "shut down" substantive political speech.  Much more controlled!

I really doubt 0.1% of people would want it forcibly shut down.  I'm sure plenty would--and I would disagree with those people.

Besides, let's be serious.  Flip the question.  What proportion of these students would find it an acceptable use of institutional power in a conservative society to "shut down" people for the dangerous act of promoting women's rights, religious pluralism, LGBT tolerance, and such?  Do they think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do for those with conservative theological views?  Do they think they are super down with Saudi Arabia and Russia oppressing that kind of political tolerance, even if they respectfully disagree?  Or do you think they should suddenly go: Oh wait, that's not OK, it's only OK to oppress minority viewpoints that I think are too dangerous to consider!?

Yeah, well.

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But who defines whether I have addressed what you have written or not? I might be satisfied that I have done, while you might disagree

Hmm, good question!  I suppose, by my system, you consent to responding to what I wrote, so that we can most efficiently compare, analyze, and discuss our positions, hopefully to strengthen them through an open-minded discussion of their advantages and weaknesses.

By your system, I guess we could figure out what the majority opinion is, and one of us could use institutional power and bullying to stop the other from advocating for his position, instead of responding to it.

I assume your support of the second system will be completely contingent on whether your opinion is the majority here, right?  Too bad you don't believe in polls so you can't check

[Alcon]

I've always been bemused by the notion that liberal freedoms are designed to promote "pluralism" because I've always seen the "freedom of expression" as an instrument of the "freedom of association". The freedom of expression gives individuals the ability to voice viewpoints/perspectives/ideas that can sway people to associate with other groups but, ultimately, the freedom of expression does not give anyone the right to "have their voice heard" or their opinions considered by another group or whatever nor should it. In fact, I'd argue that the viewpoint pluralism notion of the freedom of speech borders on an infringement of basic freedom: the freedom to have an utter disinterest in the opinions/views/beliefs of others. This is a deeply important implicit part of the "freedom of association". Because all human beings are social animals/political animals/non-atomized, we can't really conceive of freedoms as being separate to their role in the "social organism".

I don't disagree with any of this!  I'll add a caveat, though.  Plenty of people have had emotional attachment to ugly, screwed-up beliefs.  Cognitive dissonance sucks and is unpleasant.  There are so many cognitive biases and emotional commitments that lead us to want to re-affirm preexisting beliefs.  It's incredibly healthy (and I'd argue a personal duty) to avoid questioning illogical beliefs just because it's emotionally tough or draining.  That said, there is not -- and cannot -- be a legal obligation to do this.

(There's some complications with the public square -- like those dumb people who keep interrupting my damn phone calls on the street corner to ask me to save the beavers -- but that's another story.)

The freedom of expression is good but "viewpoint pluralism" is not necessarily good. In fact, it's often bad. No, I don't think that we should take stupid viewpoints seriously, however I define them. No, I don't think that people should be told that they must consider stupid viewpoints, they should not. They should run away from them because they are stupid. I support the rights of idiots to say stupid things out loud but I'm not going to listen to them and I hope that my peers will refuse to listen to them.

This is where you lose me a little.  It's one thing to say someone shouldn't engage stupid viewpoints...but not consider?  How the heck do you know if a viewpoint is stupid if you don't consider it?  

I think everyone has been on the receiving end of this before: "Your argument is so x I don't even have to consider it!" or "You're so y I don't even have to consider it!"  (Usually x is stupid, and y is terrible.)  I think sometimes it's pretty obvious this is just an attempt to avoid cognitive dissonance or possibly changing a fixed belief.  (Or maybe I'm just that awful because I didn't save those beavers?)

Again, not the domain of the law, but an incredibly important personal habit that a lot of people hate indulging in.  (And everyone dislikes sometimes.)

Anyways, this is just my take on liberal freedoms: they're good and worth defending but it's tiresome seeing certain political actors cloak their interests in the language of liberal freedoms/rights. It's "illiberal" to refuse to use student funds to finance a speech by some biovating hack or some moral cretin. It's actually well within the confines of the liberal tradition. What isn't particularly liberal is believing that "value pluralism" is the ultimate end of liberal freedoms: what Anglo-American political philosopher or theorist of note in the 20th Century has expressed that viewpoint? I have seen this view on a few blogs but the people who espouse this viewpoint mostly seem to be saddened by the fact that their right-wing libertarian or centrist perspectives are no longer taken seriously by young people, who have higher standards on issues of race, gender and sexuality.

We've had debates that clearly pissed you off in the past.  Do you think I'm a "bloviating hack" who should be shut down?  Did you, in the heat of the debate?

[Alcon]

I would like to officially apologise for this remark:

the most shocking thing about this thread is that people not in college care about student politics.

It is clear from the last page it has triggered many people. I promise not to hurt your safe space anymore.

Idk who you're making fun of with that?  I'm the only one who's really engaged that particular comment as far as I can tell, and do you not feel that I gave it a thoughtful reply?

[Alcon]

Mostly I would want to see clear evidence of the supposed different actually happening in the public sphere.

My claim is about troubling, broad philosophical beliefs about pluralism among university students and their broader cohort.  I offer to show you a poll on that.  You're arguing we should instead look at...anecdotal evidence of...something?

I'm not sure, but then I'm not sure if either of us are exactly engaging directly which may account for the oddness of this discussion.

How am I not directly engaging?  You quoted me and replied.  I replied very directly.  You replied to indicate I was wrong to assume you were originally replying to me, when you your entire reply between block-quotes of things I said.  Now, you're saying I'm not "directly engaging"?  Let me engage you directly when I say that makes no sense.

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Its a bugger isn't it, but that's the way it is. Though if that's the route you wan to go down you can try more detailed/less crude methods of surveying, perhaps. Or try to be clever about how you read other survey data, etc.

I am going to remind you that you continue to talk about a survey whose methodology you don't know, and that you rejected before you even read the question wording, and that you apparently prefer some unspecified anecdotal evidence over.

Then what are you arguing for/against? Or is it that you are more concerned with the climate that leads to 'fyck off' being said more often than with the fact that someone responded to a request to speak with 'fyck off'? I suspect that's so, right? But not easy to spot from your tone earlier, you see.

You don't need to read into my tone.  You could read into the words I'm saying.  You'll find a lot of those in your previous post -- the one you wrote, apparently while being afflicted by those bouts of uncontrollable spastic block-quoting that got me all confused.

Let me reiterate.  I'm not talking about cases where controversial ideas have no interested audience.  If you want my thoughts on that, see my response to DFB.  I'm talking about cases where controversial ideas do have an interested audience, and those who don't want to be part of that audience (or part of any sort of conversation) use institutional power to preempt the speakers from having any sort of audience.  

Ultimately most people are more interested in the results of a particular process than the process itself and would not regard the fact that political speech is massively infringed on in Russia as a reason for banning what they regard as hate speech in the United States.

I don't doubt that the Russians who support those speech restrictions also believe that the speech they're banning is destablizing and harmful.  I sincerely believe that most of Russia's virulent homophobes also believe that the suppression of homosexual behavior and content is crucial to social stability.  I also trust that most people who have executed the most f**ked-up, regrettable oppressive systems in history have believed they were doing good.

If you're arguing that restricting political speech is safe in the hands of those who consider themselves good, you're arguing that it's fine to put it in those hands.  If you're arguing that restricting political speech you consider harmful is reasonable because you are, in fact, convinced you're actually good, then those hands are yours.

Whereas for you the process is a moral question in of itself, yes?

At risk of destroying the rhetorical momentum of this post, and not "engaging directly": huh?

[Alcon]

Well in order to comment on a social phenomenon we probably need to be sure that it is real, don't we?

Like, I don't know, with a random, representative poll that directly asks people about their attitudes toward pluralism and free speech?

You've misunderstood me. That was not a criticism or an attack. I'm observing that we are going round in circles here and am speculating as to why this might be because I don't think either of us is engaging in deliberate obfuscation.

How did I misunderstand you?  You said you're "not sure if either of us are directly engaging."  I asked how I could possibly "directly engage" you more than directly responding to your statements and apparent rebuttals of mine.  It doesn't matter if it's a criticism or an observation...it's just not accurate.

Well you wrote 'poll' and I so I made some assumptions.

What assumptions did you make?  A "poll" is synonymous with "survey."  You then made some extremely vague criticisms of surveying, and advocated -- apparently -- for (apparently) looking at some unspecified anecdotal evidence instead.

Have there been many cases of this happening? Though normally speakers are booked for an event before it is clear if there is an audience.

Attempts to shut down speaking events because they were considered offensive or "too dangerous to be heard"?  Yes.  It even happened several times at my undergraduate.  Public research shows that our generational cohort is broadly sympathetic to the idea that speech (even political speech) can be restricted due to harm.  Additionally, there are a lot of people with an ideological conviction that oppressed causes can leverage whatever power they have -- including shouting people down or restricting political speech -- in order to try to combat their oppression.

It seems like a pretty big proportion of universities have had at least one student-led attempt to shut down or preempt a speaker who they didn't want to be heard, despite the existence of interest.

Regardless of how common this is -- and I think, in various scales, it's somewhat common -- can you not agree that it's screwed up?

I'm arguing that thats the position that most people seem to take, to one extent or other, no matter how they phrase it. That the process is just process to them; technicalities. And that even when it is claimed that this is not so, actually, it pretty much always is (like a lot of the people crying foul about a lot of this studenty nonsense are quite happy to have State crackdowns on speech in other contexts. Which... er... many of those students are not happy with. Lawd).

How is that any different from what I'm arguing against?

Whereas your concern is with the process, which (again) I observe that you see in essentially moral terms.

In what sense am I investing moral significance in the "process" (I'm assuming "the process" refers to unpoliticized pluralism)?  I don't think that's an inherent moral good in itself.  Rather, I think that politicizing the process has incredibly dangerous consequences -- that's not attaching moral significance to the process, any more than saying that anything is a good or bad idea is doing so.  Either way...why does it matter?  What are you trying to argue here?  I don't get the point of the observation you're making at all.

[Alcon]

Regardless of how common this is -- and I think, in various scales, it's somewhat common -- can you not agree that it's screwed up?

They don't agree, that's why they are here deflecting.

It always sucks to have someone hear a different argument than you're actually saying, so I don't think it's fair to presume that's the case.  Al hasn't said that explicitly, and I'm too confused about the meaning of his last couple of paragraphs to figure out what he's saying implicitly.

[Alcon]

The point is (and this is coming from someone who generally does speak in favour of Mr or Mrs Unpleasant coming to soeak if a society wants them is, on the rare chance I bother with student politics) is that it doesn't matter. People as a whole have never been in favour of "free speech" in the absolute form - although people as a whole probably think they are . Talking about it as if it's some crazy new anti-free speech trend perpetuated by dem PC JOOS is laughable paranoia.

Are you referring to the argument I've been making with this?  Because I'm not claiming that this behavior is new; people have wanted to shut up people they don't want to hear for ages.  I've said that, and that's part of why the recent trends are more bothersome to me.  I'm claiming that there's a moral warrant a lot of people in our age cohort attach to this that didn't previously exist, and I think that fuels and justifies this behavior pretty efficiently.  I've been articulating this for several pages right now, and I'm not sure why you're choosing to respond to a weaker form of the argument (I sure hope you are based on "dem PC JOOS").  If so, I don't understand why you're knowingly replying to the weakest form of an argument -- I haven't seen you do that in other threads IIRC.

Also, can you expound on your problems with the phrasing in the question in precise terms?  There's lots of good criticisms of nearly any poll phrasing, so I want to make sure I'm not presuming you're making the wrong objection.  Thanks.

[Alcon]

The point is (and this is coming from someone who generally does speak in favour of Mr or Mrs Unpleasant coming to soeak if a society wants them is, on the rare chance I bother with student politics) is that it doesn't matter. People as a whole have never been in favour of "free speech" in the absolute form - although people as a whole probably think they are . Talking about it as if it's some crazy new anti-free speech trend perpetuated by dem PC JOOS is laughable paranoia.

Maybe, so what's the harm in us making fun of it?  I mock attacks on free speech wherever they come from.  From social conservatives in American like Al Gore wanting to censor my Anthrax or social conservatives in the Middle East that want to censor me from drawing pictures of their silly prophet.  Or whiny children that don't want anybody to hear an opinion different from theirs.  They're all wrong, they all deserve to be made fun of and everybody that favors free speech should rub whatever stupid thing they fear in their face every chance they get until these people grow up.  Al Gore is just as big of a baby as some idiot beardo in Damascus who is just as big of a baby as the hipster trying to fit in at college by joining BDS.

OW the EDGE

I'm not even commenting on the substance of what he's saying, but there's a lot of obnoxious dismissiveness going on in this thread.  Do you actually think that he's only making that statement to appear edgy?  If not, what are you even making fun of -- the fact that he's phrasing his sincere argument in impolite terms?  No offense, Madeline, but I've definitely seen you be pretty dismissive in debates before, so I don't really get it.

It's kind of crazymaking to be in a topic where so many people are criticizing/mocking weak arguments you aren't making, and totally ignoring your argument.  Like, what's the point?  How can you mock the tenor of the debate and then do this kind of thing?

[Alcon]

The point is (and this is coming from someone who generally does speak in favour of Mr or Mrs Unpleasant coming to soeak if a society wants them is, on the rare chance I bother with student politics) is that it doesn't matter. People as a whole have never been in favour of "free speech" in the absolute form - although people as a whole probably think they are . Talking about it as if it's some crazy new anti-free speech trend perpetuated by dem PC JOOS is laughable paranoia.

Maybe, so what's the harm in us making fun of it?  I mock attacks on free speech wherever they come from.  From social conservatives in American like Al Gore wanting to censor my Anthrax or social conservatives in the Middle East that want to censor me from drawing pictures of their silly prophet.  Or whiny children that don't want anybody to hear an opinion different from theirs.  They're all wrong, they all deserve to be made fun of and everybody that favors free speech should rub whatever stupid thing they fear in their face every chance they get until these people grow up.  Al Gore is just as big of a baby as some idiot beardo in Damascus who is just as big of a baby as the hipster trying to fit in at college by joining BDS.

OW the EDGE

I'm not even commenting on the substance of what he's saying, but there's a lot of obnoxious dismissiveness going on in this thread.  Do you actually think that he's only making that statement to appear edgy?  If not, what are you even making fun of -- the fact that he's phrasing his sincere argument in impolite terms?  No offense, Madeline, but I've definitely seen you be pretty dismissive in debates before, so I don't really get it.

It's kind of crazymaking to be in a topic where so many people are criticizing/mocking weak arguments you aren't making, and totally ignoring your argument.  Like, what's the point?  How can you mock the tenor of the debate and then do this kind of thing?

I'm not interested in debating any of what he's saying. I just find the way in which he's saying it funny. Of course he's not saying it just to be edgy, but hilarious edginess is the (presumably unintentional) outcome of his rhetorical style.

All right, fair.  Didn't mean to come on as demanding as I did, re-reading my post.  But any thoughts on the argument I'm making?

[Alcon]

This will probably strike you as deranged rambling, but...

What I'm getting at is that it isn't certain how much this would actually tell us. While, granted, it hangs onto much of its postwar prestige in North America (and amongst journalists everywhere of course), elsewhere the intellectual credibility of positivist quantitative social research has crumbled somewhat over the past third of a century for very good reason (although there were always sceptics; the famous 'rule' about statistics in British India etc).

Basically the issue is this: I might ask a hundred people for their views on a particular social question, but I cannot be sure that they will all interpret the question in the same manner. This is a problem because if they don't then I cannot be sure that the data collected is objective or even exactly accurate. Depending on the circumstances it might even be misleading and through no technical fault on my part. At its worst you get situations where, like, an awful lot of 1960s social surveys are useless as historic documents except as examples of 1960s social surveys. Apparently sending round some well-spoken Oxbridge undergrads to ask workers in a car factory what they think about about class or a bunch of farmers what they thought about the relationship between the country and the city was not the greatest of ideas.

Let's say the question is about unacceptable speech. It is obvious that I'm asking about the acceptability of speech deemed by some to be racist, homophobic etc. Someone older being polled might well give a more 'liberal' answer to the question than if they assumed it was related to the security of the state. The inverse might well be true of someone younger.

Does this render any such survey as useless or inherently unreliable? No. But it does mean that the data is not pure, that the findings should not be regarded as an objective social fact, even if they could be used as an example of something indicative.

That's not rambling or incoherent at all...it's just not a remotely effective rebuttal of my argument, if it was intended to be one.

Your argument, as far as I can tell, is that the phrasing of questions, and the context in which those questions are asked, can affect the answers given.  Yes.  You're pointing out that the way this answer was framed might capture those who are willing to restrict free speech based on harm caused to individuals (often younger people), but fail to pick up those who are willing to restrict free speech based on more conservative concerns about the state or moral decency (often younger people).  Yes.  And?  How does that negate my argument in any way, shape, or form?  Unless you have a reason to believe that the question-asking or question-answering process here is flawed in a way that negates the point I'm making, this is logically irrelevant.  The fact that other cohorts would abuse restrictions on political speech is not a rebuttal of my argument; it is part of my argument.

If it feels as if we're arguing across three separate rooms and over the noise of a washing machine about to give up the ghost then I think its fair to conclude that there must be an element of mutual misunderstanding going on.

I'm genuinely not sure what you're on about.  You have not identified a single part of your argument I've misunderstood or failed to respond to.  As far as I can tell, the only "misunderstanding" I had is when I assumed you were responding to me in a post where you were quoting lines of my post.

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An issue in American public discourse - as in something that people with letters after their name are prepared to defend - since the early 1990s, not a new development. I agree that it is absurd and distasteful. And generally counterproductive.

This may not be new.  It wouldn't surprise me if this was a rather old idea in academia and student life.  People who feel their belief systems or way of life are "threatened" tend to exercise control over whatever space they can, even if it's a tiny slice of the world.  My concern is that people in our age cohort tend to be unusually sympathetic to the idea that institutional restrictions (including by government) can often be warranted because some political speech is too offensive to certain oppressed groups; because power structures mean that pluralism "stacks the deck" against oppressed groups; and because certain ideas are too "offensive" or "destabilizing" of tolerant society.

I do not think all of those beliefs are limited to this generational cohort (especially the last one -- a big thing among the right for years, obviously) but I think a lot of people in the cohort have ideological beliefs that push them toward those beliefs, or are at least very sympathetic to them.  Like I say, I don't think that's totally unique to this generation (even if the form is a little new), but it's pretty damn troubling to me.

Depends on the circumstances; i.e. whose event is it, who takes decisions over speaker invites etc. ?

I'll address this in my next reply to Andrew, since I think we're getting at a similar issue.

I mean the process of political rights rather than the (or 'a' or 'an') end result. It appalls you to see even a theoretical abuse, and if such a reaction is possible then morality is not far behind. You are in this respect an extremely ardent old fashioned liberal, way more so than a lot of people who use that sort of label. This is not an insult.

It's not that I'm insulted.  It's that I'm confused about how this observation adds anything that my argument itself doesn't.   Like, you seem to be saying that I vest moral value in "the process" in the sense that I think it's a bad idea to selectively compromise "the process" of deciding who can talk based on an inherently political standard.  That's true...but you're basically just paraphrasing my argument, no?

[Alcon]

Let's simplify this.

A campus is a home. That's what it is, ultimately for students who live there. Every home up and down the country has 'house rules'. Sometimes you're asked to not to swear, sometimes you're asked not to bring up certain issues. Do people bang on private homes and demand that 1st Amendment rights be protected? No. Say anything homophobic in my home and your out the front door in my home. Does that make us 'special snowflakes?' No.

Sometimes students just don't want sh-t brought through their front door, because they are concerned about people they live with. That's all it is. They will leave college and that will be the end of that. But while they are in college, they might be a little sensitive about the people they are sharing their communal space with. That's all it is. And it's not new.

Interesting.  You think that a university should effectively function as a private residence, where the household "decision maker" is the majority will of the students in that school (or something similar), and that this discretionary power overrides any obligation (if any) to provide a platform for academic or intellectual freedom?  If not, what are the limitations of the analogy you're making?

I think this conversation also may lead toward dealing with the point Al raised about the specifics of at whose event/invitation/etc. the political speech in question is.

[Alcon]

The Emory email listed on the Twitter account is fake.

Also "Dr. Rumack" is Leslie Nielsen's character from Airplane!, so there's that.