Tenure Ending Blog Post

[Terxpahseyton]

<shrugs> There is a lot of bias in the consecrated halls of higher education.

Sure. I don't doubt that. It is such a lazy statement - it must be true. It is just this childish "Buaaahhh I HAVE THE RIIIGHT!" - angle to it that is too lolworthy to not cherish it as such.

 

[Farm Boy]

I hear enough, "No, you don't" for that to be funny anymore. I decidedly lost my sense of humor when I realized our Martin Luther King Commons were not a university free speech zone.

 

[Senethro]

Free speech is good and all, but if we take this forums straight white male perspective on gay people, anyone other than white and women, has anything worthwhile ever been said? What is the point of free speech that just gets used to persecute or loudly talk over?

 

[Farm Boy]

That good ideas do win out over time while poor ones lose traction. I get few greater satisfactions than when somebody, possibly with a couple people in to, comes out with a big "God hates teh gay peoples" or whatever sign on a quad ranting and foaming with hate, shaming my holy text clutched in his hand, and everybody just walks on past like he's not even there. It's almost... poetic.

 

[Gori the Grey]

What, pray tell, is

this forum's straight white male perspective on gay people

?

 

[Senethro]

What, pray tell, is

?

Just google for discussions of feminism or rap in OT.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I thought not.

 

[Senethro]

I thought not.

I thought you wouldn't.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Does feminism and rap have a great deal to say about gay people?

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't think that any serious uni course has 'free speech' to the extent that the student taking the course may alter the focus/scope/program of the course. And this is not just good but inevitable, cause otherwise you no longer have a uni course but a chat with your m8s.

This includes philosophy, cause despite many philo profs being hipsters, the actual subject is anything but 'all over the place'. No person presenting philosophy can at the same time have a non-utterly tenuous relation with the subject, AND be of the view they can discuss just about any human thought.

 

[Senethro]

Does feminism and rap have a great deal to say about gay people?

Hmmmm?

 

[aelf]

I love the OP's attempt to create a liberal hate-fest, a kind of reverse circle-jerk. It's funny, since it's also ostensibly about the need for more open-minded discussion of controversial issues and about the harm of shutting down debate. I think it points once again to the fact that conservatives will shout about free speech and claim whatever rights when it suits them, not necessarily when it doesn't.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I hear enough, "No, you don't" for that to be funny anymore. I decidedly lost my sense of humor when I realized our Martin Luther King Commons were not a university free speech zone.

What does this mean, practically?

My problem with invoking this right is that often it seems to boils down to people demanding the right to be pompous jerks.

 

[Farm Boy]

And that's really fine for the most part. People are pompous jerks. The people best at being pompous jerks manage to be loud while those that disagree with them get ''moved on'' quietly by the powers that be. All very harmonious.

 

[Smote]

Would you really want to lose the right to be a pompous jerk? Say someone says

It is just this childish "Buaaahhh I HAVE THE RIIIGHT!" - angle to it that is too lolworthy to not cherish it as such.

Say someone gets offended. Would you want legal repercussions to be a possibility for the offender? I wouldn't. There's no implied physical threat to anyone, so I don't see a problem with it. Similarly, should comics against Mohammed be banned? What's the difference between something likely to offend all Muslims and something likely to offend all feminists? I think the most important difference is in popularity of these positions, in our country. But if we want to ban unpopular sentiments, perhaps we should bring back blasphemy laws too, because denying the existence of God might offend the Christian majority.

You see the whole problem with this? It hinders the advancement of ideas. Apparently, however, there is a state interest in hindering the advancement of certain, banned ideas based on inequality. The problem with this is simply that it's inconsistent and seemingly arbitrary. I think a lot of conservatives are really asking government to be consistent - it's not the rights themselves that are necessarily so important, it's the apparent lack of consistency by government that is so troubling. It's a fear of government overreach. If government is inconsistent here, who knows where else they will be?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Would you really want to lose the right to be a pompous jerk? Say someone says



Say someone gets offended. Would you want legal repercussions to be a possibility for the offender? I wouldn't. There's no implied physical threat to anyone, so I don't see a problem with it. Similarly, should comics against Mohammed be banned? What's the difference between something likely to offend all Muslims and something likely to offend all feminists? I think the most important difference is in popularity of these positions, in our country. But if we want to ban unpopular sentiments, perhaps we should bring back blasphemy laws too, because denying the existence of God might offend the Christian majority.

You see the whole problem with this? It hinders the advancement of ideas. Apparently, however, there is a state interest in hindering the advancement of certain, banned ideas based on inequality. The problem with this is simply that it's inconsistent and seemingly arbitrary. I think a lot of conservatives are really asking government to be consistent - it's not the rights themselves that are necessarily so important, it's the apparent lack of consistency by government that is so troubling. It's a fear of government overreach. If government is inconsistent here, who knows where else they will be?

The problem is that freedom of speech doesn't just protect people who are advancing ideas. "I think [slur] should just get crammed into freight cars and sent to [distant place possibly related to 'where they came from' but probably not], and if most of them die in transit so much the better" doesn't advance an idea, it just promotes hostilities. The people around the speaker are not being invited to have a discussion from which understanding may rise, they are being intentionally provoked in hopes that the person doing the provoking can have the fight that they want without being held accountable for starting it. Anyone in earshot with even a token amount of common sense knows it, but that doesn't keep freedom of speech from being grossly misapplied.

And no, I am not suggesting that I have the solution to the problem, or even claiming that I have never been the provocateur in such a situation myself*. I'm just saying that there is a definite problem there.


*(though my efforts are always targeted at certain employment groups, not race, gender, sexual preference, or any such)

 

[Smote]

It certainly does advance an idea - just an incredibly unfair one. It advances the idea that the long-term benefits of a homogenous society are worth the short-term costs of genocide.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It certainly does advance an idea - just an incredibly unfair one. It advances the idea that the long-term benefits of a homogenous society are worth the short-term costs of genocide.

While you are correct that the statement does advance the idea, that doesn't mean the person saying it has that intent, so I think I was also correct in saying that they are not advancing an idea. Their motives are as I already described, guaranteed.

 

[Smote]

While you are correct that the statement does advance the idea, that doesn't mean the person saying it has that intent, so I think I was also correct in saying that they are not advancing an idea. Their motives are as I already described, guaranteed.

I dunno. I think they have at least part of this idea. It's not much of a leap to say "society would be better off without X group." That's basically why they would want them to be moved elsewhere by train.

 

[Flying Pig]

What does this mean, practically?

My problem with invoking this right is that often it seems to boils down to people demanding the right to be pompous jerks.

Rights are pretty meaningless if the only people able to claim them are those that nobody's threatening. The right to free speech has to be the right to unpopular (which means irritating, obnoxious or objectionable, up to a point) speech or it's not a 'right', it's just window dressing on comfortable conformity.