The Paradox of Tolerance

[Ran]

The sentence _is_ there, however, for everyone to see. What is your point?

No more absurdist theatre, please.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Eggegg said:

If anything it creates a paranoia and an underground feeling of togetherness amongst certain groups that they need to fight back against governments.

The point is precisely that it is *underground*.
I have given you several reasonable answers to your question. Others could be brought forward, I'm sure. Now, even if you don't agree with me, simply ignoring what I've said and repeating that you "cant for the life of [me] see how enforcing limits on free speech has changed anything" shows that you are not actually trying to engage in a discussion but simply want to make a point. Because ultimately your lack of imagination is your problem, not ours.
Most importantly, I don't see what tolerating the KKK or the nazi party has brought the US anyway (beyond the recent marches I mean). Perhaps you could illuminate me on that?
If I understand correctly where you're coming from, you're trying to argue that "Beliefs should always be open to challenge, nobody gets to have their ideas walled off from the world and protected" which means, I gather, that we should always be willing to discuss even the most heinous concepts and ideas.
I disagree.
First, because we've seen that heinous ideas can actually prevail in the public debate (that's what WWII was all about). Second because even when they don't prevail, heinous ideas still translate into facts (i.e. discrimination, hate crimes or segregation). And third, because in most cases there actually is no debate to be had: racism or non-racism is binary, you are racist or you are not. There is nothing to be won by tolerating racist ideas because ultimately racism is actually a belief, not an idea.
Ultimately some beliefs are wrong, period. And yes, I think humanity would be better off protected from them. Since such beliefs are so resilient, perhaps even more should be done to eliminate them.

[Seli]

1 hour ago, Eggegg said:

... If anything it creates a paranoia and an underground feeling of togetherness amongst certain groups that they need to fight back against governments.

Yes, that is the point. Since it also gives a sense of togetherness of the people within the consensus rules of our societies. And it gives them the tools to fight back against the extremists that are out to destroy society as it exists.

Humans have a tendency to think in us versus them. And for sake of stability societies need to use that tendency to get an 'us' that will continue society rather than destroy it.

[Knight Of Winter]

I believe in more liberal approach with regards to tolerating deviant, even outright bad ideas expressed through speech. And yes, that would include even nationalistic, sexist, chauvinistic, fundamentalist and other regressive ideas - as long as speaker doesn't preach discrimination, pogroms and other kind of illegal behavior. Now, the speaker should get some flak, he should in fact get quite a lot of it. He should be ridiculed, he should be shoved aside, he should be ignored, he should be beaten with valid counterarguments etc. but one thing he should not be is denied his right to freely express his ideas in a non-violent way.

The opposite behavior is frankly, a bit patronizing, even condescending towards humanity as a whole. Instead of believing that each and every human can and should listen to any idea, value its merits and decide on its worth; we instead take the position of benevolent censor - deciding that humans simply aren't capable of doing that, that they're are easily misguided and thus we need to protect them from "inappropriate" information which would lead them astray. If the idea is wrong or unethical, it should be exposed to the light where everyone can see its "wrongness". It should definitively not be forbidden and hidden in some dark corner, where it can survive, grow and attract more people to it.

Ultimately, one more problem with statements such as these:

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Ultimately some beliefs are wrong, period. And yes, I think humanity would be better off protected from them. Since such beliefs are so resilient, perhaps even more should be done to eliminate them.

is not that they are wrong (they aren't), but because in practice it's often impossible to draw a line. One great recent large-size example are communist states of eastern Europe which existed till early 90ies: USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, as well as various Soviet puppet states. Just as fervently and earnestly as we believe in universal human rights, equality of sexes and races, democracy and liberal economy, just as staunchly as we oppose any, even the slightest distance from our "holy" ideas - communists believed in their system just as fervently. They genuinely considered that they've discovered the ultimate form of human society we should all adhere to. And just as we now want to censor beliefs which don't agree with our philosophy, so did the communists feel the need to shield the public from this pesky western values. And the biggest reason it failed was exactly what I mentioned eariler - flow of information. People got their radios and TVs, saw the capitalism through them, and decided for themselves to try that different system they were told is wrong for so long. What ultimately killed the idea of communist state wasn't censorship, but its exact opposite. Same principle should be applied to other, shall we say less-than-optimal ideas as well

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Eggegg said:

Yes we should be completely fine with the tiny levels of terrorism that we are experiencing now. It’s all totally fine isn’t it. Those 3 major terror attacks in the UK just this year aren’t what are making people scared, but the right wing press hyping up the paranoia.

I don't believe I said this. Please do not engage in strawmanning, it is a feeble and intellectually dishonest argumentative response.

I would, however, dispute that people are "scared". People are obviously concerned about the situation, want better work done to mitigate the problem of Islamic terrorism and crime - not stripping the police force to the bone as the Conservative government has done and doubling down on dubious military interventions abroad as both the Tories and New Labour have done - but they are not cowering in fear in their homes. They are going out, doing what they normally do and living their lives. To do otherwise would be to be hand ISIS and its ilk a victory. I am disappointed you think so little of British people that you think the people who endured the Blitz and decades of terror attacks from the IRA and similar groups would be terrified of these up-jumped cowards.

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and still Europe has a far greater problem with right wing extremism than the US, despite supposedly helpful hate speech laws. We have outwardly racist parties almost getting into power in many of the major countries in Western Europe, I cant for the life of me see how enforcing limits on free speech has changed anything. If anything it creates a paranoia and an underground feeling of togetherness amongst certain groups that they need to fight back against governments.

 

This opinion is not contiguous with reality, where an openly racist, homophobic, elitist and misogynistic party and president are in power in the United States and is doing everything they can to reverse or at least halt all of the societal progress that has been achieved in the past several decades. They have also legitimised far-right hate groups, which have killed people, and are propagating a society where white people can murder and rape with little fear of recrimination (as long as they are from rich families or are in college) whilst black people can be murdered for the vaguest suspicion of wrongdoing, without fear of penalty. The United States has a horrific problem with right-wing extremism which may ultimately prove an existential threat to that country, at least as we know it.

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Delete that one sentence and the rest of it is clearly trying to diminish the threat of Islamic terrorism 

 

Whilst you are trying to blow it out of proportion and feed into a hysterical culture of fear-mongering which is based on tabloid sensationalism, not factual reality. Islamic terrorism needs to be confronted and neutralised. This is not accomplished by pretending we are in some kind of unprecedented situation when, in fact, Europe has dealt with far bloodier periods of terrorism less than half a lifetime ago and overcame it.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Knight Of Winter said:

I Instead of believing that each and every human can and should listen to any idea, value its merits and decide on its worth; we instead take the position of benevolent censor - deciding that humans simply aren't capable of doing that,

They aren't.

1 hour ago, Knight Of Winter said:

that they're are easily misguided

They are.

1 hour ago, Knight Of Winter said:

If the idea is wrong or unethical, it should be exposed to the light where everyone can see its "wrongness".

And what if everyone doesn't?

I used to think like you do. That is, I believed that people were fundamentally reasonable and logical, and that it was easy to expose wrong or heinous ideas.
Except it isn't. Recent history should have made that painfully obivous. In fact, the veery opposite happens. Confronted with facts they don't like, most people simply dismiss or ignore them, or even invent some of their own. Humans live in the realm of perceptions, not facts.

The main problem with your perspective is that it assumes people have been taught to think in a logical, almost scientific manner, and will just assess concepts, ideas and facts with a critical mind. It also assumes people have a shared basic knowledge of history, politics or physics (among many others).
That is not humanity as it is today.

1 hour ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Just as fervently and earnestly as we believe in universal human rights, equality of sexes and races, democracy and liberal economy, just as staunchly as we oppose any, even the slightest distance from our "holy" ideas - communists believed in their system just as fervently. They genuinely considered that they've discovered the ultimate form of human society we should all adhere to.

You don't know much about communism, do you? Or have you forgotten that communists also believe in universal human rights, equality of sexes and races, and democracy?
The reason why these regimes failed is because they didn't offer what they claimed to. It wasn't a case of belief at all, but a case of betrayed promises. And yet, for all their flaws, these regimes did offer many basic human rights that our liberal democracies do not, and they were much closer to equality of the sexes then liberal countries at the time.

See? You need some common knowledge about history and politics to talk assess belief systems correctly. For instance you just confused communism with the worst cases of marxist-leninism. Which means you have fallen prey to common misperceptions about such ideas and are thus probably not able to make valid political choices.

 

[Knight Of Winter]

35 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

They aren't.

They are.

And what if everyone doesn't?

I used to think like you do. That is, I believed that people were fundamentally reasonable and logical, and that it was easy to expose wrong or heinous ideas.
Except it isn't. Recent history should have made that painfully obivous. In fact, the veery opposite happens. Confronted with facts they don't like, most people simply dismiss or ignore them, or even invent some of their own. Humans live in the realm of perceptions, not facts.

The main problem with your perspective is that it assumes people have been taught to think in a logical, almost scientific manner, and will just assess concepts, ideas and facts with a critical mind. It also assumes people have a shared basic knowledge of history, politics or physics (among many others).
That is not humanity as it is today.

No, it's not - I agree with you here. Yet whatever problems humas have with accepting or discrediting their beliefs, concept of "benevolent censorship" can't be the correct solution. Societies can change over time, yet it's usually a slow intrinsic change rather than forced extrenal one.

One more thing is - whenever you censor somebody, you're not proving he's wrong, you're only proving that you're afraid. Afraid that whatever he has to say can somehow influence your or others' beliefs and thus needs to he hushed up. By doing so, their beliefs do not go away, they just continue to grow and develop "underground", lulling society into thinking they vanished. And when they suddenly reappear (2016 US election, for example), people start wondering where does it come from.

And finally, if you subscribe to the belief that some values and beliefs  need to be upheld - basic question would be: by whom? Which members of society deserve the right to decide what society's values should be?

49 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

You don't know much about communism, do you? Or have you forgotten that communists also believe in universal human rights, equality of sexes and races, and democracy?

The reason why these regimes failed is because they didn't offer what they claimed to. It wasn't a case of belief at all, but a case of betrayed promises. And yet, for all their flaws, these regimes did offer many basic human rights that our liberal democracies do not, and they were much closer to equality of the sexes then liberal countries at the time.

See? You need some common knowledge about history and politics to talk assess belief systems correctly. For instance you just confused communism with the worst cases of marxist-leninism. Which means you have fallen prey to common misperceptions about such ideas and are thus probably not able to make valid political choices.

 

Sorry, I think you misunderstood my point (I'll resist the urge to be condescending and write something like You need some common knowledge in reading comprehension ). I never claimed or implied communism doesn't share some values with our belief system (except democracy - where did that come from? USSR, China, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Vietnam, Czechoslovakia, Northern Korea - virtually every present or past communist country wasn't democratic at all).

My point was this: just as fervently as we believe in our values, communists believed in theirs. Just how we censor sexist, racist, nationalistic etc. beliefs as fundamentally opposed to our system; communists also did the same with anti-communist ideas. Just how an idea of communist state was partially destroyed with information flow, so should we do with beliefs that contradict ours. Just like how censorship failed to instill communist ideas into its citizens (hence, it's not a effective solution), our censorship fails at that exact same point (thus various Trumps appear all over the world). I wasn't analyzing the substance of communist ideas at all, I was trying to use well-known example from history to explain my beliefs about ideas and their censoring.

 

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

No, it's not - I agree with you here. Yet whatever problems humas have with accepting or discrediting their beliefs, concept of "benevolent censorship" can't be the correct solution. Societies can change over time, yet it's usually a slow intrinsic change rather than forced extrenal one.

It's certainly shown to be better than the free marketplace of ideas one. If you have a better idea, by all means - but we have a lot of evidence that free market idea sharing leads directly to very bad consequences because humans suck. 

3 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

One more thing is - whenever you censor somebody, you're not proving he's wrong, you're only proving that you're afraid. Afraid that whatever he has to say can somehow influence your or others' beliefs and thus needs to he hushed up. By doing so, their beliefs do not go away, they just continue to grow and develop "underground", lulling society into thinking they vanished. And when they suddenly reappear (2016 US election, for example), people start wondering where does it come from.

False comparison. The ideas never went away, nor were they censored in the US. Point of fact, the US explicitly forbids said censorship. Other countries do not forbid said censorship, and as a result both their culture and their political systems are SIGNIFICANTLY less rightwing, reactionary and hate-filled compared to the US. 

Allowing these ideas to exist without censorship has the standard effect of making it allowed to have them, which in turn makes them more acceptable and more mainstream. And this is precisely what happened in the US. 

3 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

And finally, if you subscribe to the belief that some values and beliefs  need to be upheld - basic question would be: by whom? Which members of society deserve the right to decide what society's values should be?

The better ones. And you need a way to deal with change, but not one that simply throws all the ideas into the mix and sees what the most popular one is that arises. You need some democratic principles combined with benevolent censorship and dictatorship. One system isn't nuanced enough for it to work. 

3 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

My point was this: just as fervently as we believe in our values, communists believed in theirs. Just how we censor sexist, racist, nationalistic etc. beliefs as fundamentally opposed to our system; communists also did the same with anti-communist ideas. Just how an idea of communist state was partially destroyed with information flow, so should we do with beliefs that contradict ours.

Communism largely fell because of economic conditions. It did not fall because of open revolt. Ideas weren't the thing that caused Berlin to open up; it was money, and better living conditions. 

3 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Just like how censorship failed to instill communist ideas into its citizens (hence, it's not a effective solution), our censorship fails at that exact same point (thus various Trumps appear all over the world). I wasn't analyzing the substance of communist ideas at all, I was trying to use well-known example from history to explain my beliefs about ideas and their censoring.

Communism currently leads - very successfully - the largest country in the world. Complete with censorship, strict control of ideas, strict control of ideology and values. The notion that Russian communism is the only one that matters is obviously false; the idea that ideas are the thing that cause communism to fail is clearly false. 

As to censorship failing and Trumps all over the world - the Democratic country with the least censorship has Trump. The countries with more censorship do not, and aren't really particularly close, and in fact have repudiated those values for the most part. 

[Ran]

To steal from Churchill: constitutional freedom of speech is the worst system of idea-sharing, except for all the others.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Knight Of Winter said:

One more thing is - whenever you censor somebody, you're not proving he's wrong, you're only proving that you're afraid.

But I am afraid, I have no problem admitting that.

1 hour ago, Knight Of Winter said:

By doing so, their beliefs do not go away, they just continue to grow and develop "underground", lulling society into thinking they vanished. And when they suddenly reappear (2016 US election, for example), people start wondering where does it come from.

The US is the worst example you could choose since we always knew that the ideas were there. What was surprising was how many "mainstream" Republicans voted for a candidate that seemed to embrace them. In other words, what was surprising was how tolerant Americans have become to neo-fascism or neo-nazism.

There is this oft-repeated assertion that if you censor something it will grow faster underground. What is this based upon? If anything the latest elections have shown the very opposite: that such ideas are more likely to gain political power in countries where they are not censored.

1 hour ago, Knight Of Winter said:

And finally, if you subscribe to the belief that some values and beliefs  need to be upheld - basic question would be: by whom? Which members of society deserve the right to decide what society's values should be?

That's what "democracy" is for.
If a society can't agree that condoning or even advocating crimes against humanity like genocide and ethnic cleansing is wrong and can be outlawed, then said society has a problem.

1 hour ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Sorry, I think you misunderstood my point

I understood your point very well and tried to explain to you why it is wrong. I'll try again.
There's this myth that marxist-leninist regimes like the Soviet Union were brought down thanks to the popularity of foreign ideas or values.
This is not true. It's a myth generally spread by people who have read too much triumphalist literature from the right (shitty books like Schweizer's) and/or misunderstood Fukuyama.
To some extent, foreign ideas were popular, but not to the point where they could trigger much by themselves. Foreign culture (cinema and music especially) were actually far more popular than ideas. The fancy theory that "democracy" has an inherent appeal to populations has been proven wrong, again and again ; in actuality, humans don't care that much about political power... They primarily care about material wellfare. As long as people can live fairly carefree and comfortable lives on a day-to-day basis they are unlikely to rebel much.
What really did it was that these regimes did not deliver on the promises of welbeing they had made. Not only that, but they lied about it, and these lies gradually became obvious to everyone. And of course, propaganda also lied about the state of affairs abroad.
So it wasn't censorship of foreign ideas that weakened these regimes (you'd be surprised how much the Soviets knew about the US I think), but censorship of information on the state of their country. "Communism" in these countries didn't fail because foreign ideas were more popular, it failed because it obviously wasn't working. Or wasn't working well enough compared to the supposedly "inferior" liberal nations. As long as the Soviet Union could safely claim that its citizens were at least as well off as Americans or West Europeans, the ideology itself was rather popular (if not the regime). But throughout the seventies and the eighties it gradually became clear that this was not the case. Glasnost was the nail in the coffin because it allowed a lot of dissident voices to be heard. But not because these dissidents were preaching foreign ideas. Quite the contrary, most of them were trying to find ways to fix the system, a system in which they still believed for the most part. That's why Sakharov actually collaborated to some extent with Gorbachev and the regime after 1986 (to the dismay of some Western observers who didn't understand the Soviets at all): they actually had a lot of common goals. Of course it didn't work out... For many reasons, it was simply too late to fix the system.
The reason why you're so far removed from the historical truth is that you don't seem to understand what communism is. Read up on it. Then you might understand some of the issues that the Soviet Union had to contend with, and understand what actually brought its end. It certainly wasn't the growing underground popularity of liberal ideas.

And as Kalbear has pointed out, communism is actually succeeding. Your insistance on using the past tense is ridiculous.

 

[Knight Of Winter]

34 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

1) It's certainly shown to be better than the free marketplace of ideas one. If you have a better idea, by all means - but we have a lot of evidence that free market idea sharing leads directly to very bad consequences because humans suck. 

2) False comparison. The ideas never went away, nor were they censored in the US. Point of fact, the US explicitly forbids said censorship. Other countries do not forbid said censorship, and as a result both their culture and their political systems are SIGNIFICANTLY less rightwing, reactionary and hate-filled compared to the US. 

Allowing these ideas to exist without censorship has the standard effect of making it allowed to have them, which in turn makes them more acceptable and more mainstream. And this is precisely what happened in the US. 

3) The better ones. And you need a way to deal with change, but not one that simply throws all the ideas into the mix and sees what the most popular one is that arises. You need some democratic principles combined with benevolent censorship and dictatorship. One system isn't nuanced enough for it to work. 

4) Communism largely fell because of economic conditions. It did not fall because of open revolt. Ideas weren't the thing that caused Berlin to open up; it was money, and better living conditions. 

Communism currently leads - very successfully - the largest country in the world. Complete with censorship, strict control of ideas, strict control of ideology and values. The notion that Russian communism is the only one that matters is obviously false; the idea that ideas are the thing that cause communism to fail is clearly false. 

2) As to censorship failing and Trumps all over the world - the Democratic country with the least censorship has Trump. The countries with more censorship do not, and aren't really particularly close, and in fact have repudiated those values for the most part. 

1) Lol, I don't have one. I'm neither educated, clever or patient enough to think up a better system (compared to one we have had for millenia) for the purpose of this discussion I do however think that current system is not the best one, and improving it could include more liberal approach. A bit of historical perspective:

Ancient Egypt. Peasant says that Pharaoh is a piece of shit and unjust oppressor. Pharaoh is god-king on earth and kills the peasant. Yet, civil wars and rebellions against Pharaoh happen occasionally.

16th century Germany. Martin Luther protests against catholic church. Pope tries to seize Luther and stop his "heresy". Lutheranism becomes dominant religion in many European states.

19th century patriarchal America. Women rights movement is founded. Many members of society, including many powerful men of influence, disagree with it, oppose, ignore or ridicule it. Yet, over the course of (many many) decades, women got the rights they were fighting for (I know, many types of sexism are still prevalent today, but that's topic for a different time)

Modern world. Random rasist proclaims that the white race is superior. Politicians and human rights associations immediately attack the speaker and force him to (insincerely) apologize. Do you think rasist beliefs will diminish as a result?

Now, regardless of what I personally believe about Luther and women activists on one hand, and rasist guy on the other - the fact is that all four examples include people who expressed ideas contrary to societal norms, and in all four cases they were attempted to be hushed down in one way or another. And each and every time, their ideas didn't disappear nor did they vanish into obscurity. Sometimes, they even prospered.

When you hear some regressive speech being uttered on television, maybe your first visceral reaction is: Shut your mouth, you sexist/nationalistic/rasist piece of shit. I know that mine is. But basic psychology says that this is not the way to persuade anyone to your point of view. If you have large portion of your society believing stuff you don't want them to believe, telling them to shut up isn't gonna change that. Time and time again, history had showed us that smarter approach is needed.

You know how could one solve the problem with aforementioned rasist guy? I'd not criticize him at all, I'd celebrate him and invite him into national television's prime time talk-show. I'd have him express his views to the entire multi-million audience. Next to him, I'd sit most charismatic and most eloquent person who holds the opposite view (lets say Neil deGrasse Tyson) and have two of them discuss the problem for half an hour. Maybe it's a good idea, probably it's a terrible one - but it's different; and by now I think it's obvious some kind of different approach is called for.

2) I read all the posts here, but I'm still not convinced about whole America-Europe dichotomy. That is, is there is truly a cause-consequence relationship here and not post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy? And if Europeans have one approach based on their history with WWII and America doesn't (and that causes the difference), how do other countries like e.g. Australia or Canada approach this subject? Or how would one explain e.g. France (where Marie Le Pen won 40% of votes in 2nd round of presidential elections), Hungary (where their prime minister is right-wing mini-dictator) or Italy (who elected SIlvio Berlusconi - horribly corrupt clown full of shit - three times)?

Can you elaborate, please - I find this idea interesting and would like to learn.

3) I utterly agree here. If one could find e.g. 1000 most intelligent, noble and educated people to write my society's norms, I'd be the first one to enthusiastically support them. The only problem is: how to find them? Who would choose them? And on what criteria? Americans apparently think Trump should be the one to represent them - though he is hundreds of miles away from the best America can offer. In my country, there's currently a well-organized and pretty popular initiative of several ultra-conservative organizations (anti-gay, anti-abortion, patriarchy etc.) who consonantly push for their agenda - and I hope they'll not be the ones to define what is right and what isn't. "You need some democratic principles combined with benevolent censorship and dictatorship. One system isn't nuanced enough for it to work. " sounds great on paper, but how to achieve it is a question yet unanswered by each and every state in the world.

4) Fall of communism is a complex problem with many probable causes, far more complex for something that's basically a digression to the main subject of discussion. For the sake of simplicity, I'll say that information flow was, IMO, one of leading causes, though certainly not the only one. Yes, there were better living conditions and money in the West, but how did people learn of it (for commerce of people, ideas and goods was fairly restricted in communism, at least compared to capitalist world)? Radio, TV etc (ergo information flow). Yes, people rose up against their leaders who they realized were full of shit - but how did the organize into meaningful groups - information flow. Etc.

[Ran]

I do find it bizarre that people are touting the fall of the Soviet Union as being some kind of economic-only thing. It collapsed economically because it had practiced politicization of truth, science, and thought for decades. The repression of ideas directly led to the economic and social depression seen in the Soviet Bloc. Read up on the damage Lysenkoism as an early example of the disasterous effects of this kind of political determination of what was true and what was false, what could be discussed and what could not be discussed. Why did the Soviets send so many spies out to try and get information on industry, academics, etc. in the West? Not because they were trying to figure out how to counter our weapons, but because they had so reduced their own scientific and technical resources through efforts to police thought (re: Lysenkoism, thousands of scientists were left without jobs, imprisoned, or -- in some cases -- actually executed because they pursued research that the Soviet authorities considered bourgeois corruption from the West) that they had to steal from the West to be able to keep up. 

To quote Gorbachev, who I think everyone here would agree had a better grasp of why the Soviet Union failed than most:

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The Soviet model was defeated not only on the economic and social levels; it was defeated on a cultural level. Our society, our people, the most educated, the most intellectual, rejected that model on the cultural level because it does not respect the man, oppresses him spiritually and politically.

To bring this back on topic, I guess I should just say that I have a very jaundiced view of revisionist history, re: the Soviet Union, being tied to paeans for benevolent censorship. It feels like people are working backwards to try and justify a difficult-to-swallow position.

[Rippounet]

As far as marxist-leninist regimes go, I think one should make a clear distinction between oppressive regimes and their socio-economic system. Oppression breeds resentment and revolt regardless of the socio-economic system. Censorship will always be seen as oppressive if its aim is to protect a failing socio-economic system. Less so when the system is seen as *working*.
While we're at it, let's bear in mind that censorship does not always come from the state.

18 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

When you hear some regressive speech being uttered on television, maybe your first visceral reaction is: Shut your mouth, you sexist/nationalistic/rasist piece of shit. I know that mine is. But basic psychology says that this is not the way to persuade anyone to your point of view.

You're still starting from the premise that they can be persuaded that their views are wrong.

It's a fight for the heart and soul of our societies. This isn't some abstract game ; what is at stake is far too important to risk losing our societies to ideologies that we already know are terrible.

Perhaps censorship is counter-productive sometimes. Perhaps. I remain unconvinced. As long as a huge majority of the population agrees that the censorship makes sense it is only counter-productive at the margins. And if a majority of the population turns against hate speech laws then all is lost anyway.

18 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

2) I read all the posts here, but I'm still not convinced about whole America-Europe dichotomy. That is, is there is truly a cause-consequence relationship here and not post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy? And if Europeans have one approach based on their history with WWII and America doesn't (and that causes the difference), how do other countries like e.g. Australia or Canada approach this subject? Or how would one explain e.g. France (where Marie Le Pen won 40% of votes in 2nd round of presidential elections), Hungary (where their prime minister is right-wing mini-dictator) or Italy (who elected SIlvio Berlusconi - horribly corrupt clown full of shit - three times)?

I think this is the interesting part. Are hate speech laws efficient, politically speaking?
It's difficult to know for certain.
If we look at someone like Marine Le Pen, her success begs the question. On the one hand, she has only managed to reach 40% of votes because she has very openly rejected the racism and anti-semitism of her father, who was condemned for hate speech multiple times and never got more than 18% ; she even "purged" her own party of some of the more despicable elements. On the other hand, this might simply mean she is far smarter than her father and thus a far more insidious threat.
I'm tempted to say that hate speech laws don't necessarily affect the political process as much as we'd like to think they do. After all, I don't believe many people came to power by openly preaching the need for genocide or ethnic cleansing.
I think hate speech laws are useful in other ways though. They affect the general climate within a society. When some ideas are not allowed to be seen as normal it affects the behavior of individuals, if not their vote.

 

[Seli]

3 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

No, it's not - I agree with you here. Yet whatever problems humas have with accepting or discrediting their beliefs, concept of "benevolent censorship" can't be the correct solution. Societies can change over time, yet it's usually a slow intrinsic change rather than forced extrenal one....

 

Yes. That is an argument for social censure, for excluding people who refuse to live in mainstream culture, for legal protections of the status quo. Because the nazis, the fascists, etc are the external force.

1 hour ago, Knight Of Winter said:

...

Modern world. Random rasist proclaims that the white race is superior. Politicians and human rights associations immediately attack the speaker and force him to (insincerely) apologize. Do you think rasist beliefs will diminish as a result?

...

That is quite an deviation from the previous examples. The racists seem to be the reactionaries, who lost the revolution and try to turn back time.

[maarsen]

12 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Yeah, and Constantinople was part of the Christian Empire. Should we revert to the original borders? And just how far back do you want to go?

And before that it was Roman and before that Greek. The parade of humanity that came from central Asia to populate Europe includes probably a good chunk of your ancestors. They weren't Christians either. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

24 minutes ago, maarsen said:

And before that it was Roman and before that Greek. The parade of humanity that came from central Asia to populate Europe includes probably a good chunk of your ancestors. They weren't Christians either. 

My point exactly. So clearly who lived where historically won't get us very far. The Neanderthalls predated us all in Europe, after all.

[Theda Baratheon]

I'm intolerant of intolerance to preserve tolerance.

[Knight Of Winter]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

The US is the worst example you could choose since we always knew that the ideas were there. What was surprising was how many "mainstream" Republicans voted for a candidate that seemed to embrace them. In other words, what was surprising was how tolerant Americans have become to neo-fascism or neo-nazism.

There is this oft-repeated assertion that if you censor something it will grow faster underground. What is this based upon? If anything the latest elections have shown the very opposite: that such ideas are more likely to gain political power in countries where they are not censored.

To my knowledge, many sources credited lot of Trump votes to several key groups sorely neglected in previous elections: average workers with jobs insecure from immigrants and factories moving to China/Vietnam etc. , conspiracy theorists and climate change deniers, losers of globalization etc. In short, people who could not voice their opinions because they were politically incorrect or plainly wrong. In a way, these groups constituted "silent majority" (well, maybe not majority - but significant part) of people whose opinions and concerns were systematically brushed of and ignored, with politics instead debating about stuff they couldn't relate to at all. Thus, a big part of Americans were in a way "censored".

And then HE appeared. HE who finally understood what troubles the common man, the Average Bob of America. Who wasn't afraid to say climate change is Chinese conspiracy, or to talk trash about immigrants, or to speak about forcing Mexico to pay for a thousand kilometers long wall. Meanwhile, the rest of society was simply baffled. When Trump went into presidential race, people started wondering how could this kind of misogynistic, nationalistic, sexist asshole who speaks monumentally dumb stuff start gaining more and more support. Who exactly in their right mind could support him? Answer was: all those marginalized groups whose politically incorrect opinions was "censored" for years. Again, censorship didn't help, in fact, it made the problem hidden instead of addressed.

I'm sure the entire problematics of Trump getting elected is way more complex than this - but this simplified version hopefully explains what I meant.

 

4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

That's what "democracy" is for.

If a society can't agree that condoning or even advocating crimes against humanity like genocide and ethnic cleansing is wrong and can be outlawed, then said society has a problem.

Yes, indeed it has. Though I'm not sure how it relates to the issue we're discussing.

 

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

You're still starting from the premise that they can be persuaded that their views are wrong.

Perhaps some can. Some people respond to cold reason, some to gentle persuasion, some to ridicule, some to other stuff. And some don't respond at all. But my biggest concern would be that by ignoring and "censoring" troublemakers (let's call them that), one achieves nothing other than blinding ourselves to the problem.

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

It's a fight for the heart and soul of our societies. This isn't some abstract game ; what is at stake is far too important to risk losing our societies to ideologies that we already know are terrible.

Agree 100% absolutely. Not a single person here wants to see his society fall prey to various terrible ideologies - just our methods are different.

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Perhaps censorship is counter-productive sometimes. Perhaps. I remain unconvinced. As long as a huge majority of the population agrees that the censorship makes sense it is only counter-productive at the margins. And if a majority of the population turns against hate speech laws then all is lost anyway

What grossly influenced my viewpoint is living on the other side of censoring fence. I live in a society which also has some "unquestionable truths" that one is wise not to challenge. For example, some less-than-pleasant or shameful facts from our recent history. Seeing media, politicians and journalists avoiding these sensitive issues and not saying what they really mean - can be really disheartening and disappointing. All around me I see ill society which refuses to stand by it's values, instead almost deifying them and harassing anyone who publicly speaks against them. It kills one's hope of any kind of improvement, really.

And the fact that your "unquestionable truths" and infinitely morally superior and higher than "unquestionable truths" I'm fighting against - mean little on a conceptual level. The merits of censorship don't relate to the quality of values they're trying to protect.

 

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I think this is the interesting part. Are hate speech laws efficient, politically speaking?

It's difficult to know for certain.
If we look at someone like Marine Le Pen, her success begs the question. On the one hand, she has only managed to reach 40% of votes because she has very openly rejected the racism and anti-semitism of her father, who was condemned for hate speech multiple times and never got more than 18% ; she even "purged" her own party of some of the more despicable elements. On the other hand, this might simply mean she is far smarter than her father and thus a far more insidious threat.
I'm tempted to say that hate speech laws don't necessarily affect the political process as much as we'd like to think they do. After all, I don't believe many people came to power by openly preaching the need for genocide or ethnic cleansing.
I think hate speech laws are useful in other ways though. They affect the general climate within a society. When some ideas are not allowed to be seen as normal it affects the behavior of individuals, if not their vote.

Good points. And interesting subject to discuss.

 

2 hours ago, Seli said:

Yes. That is an argument for social censure, for excluding people who refuse to live in mainstream culture, for legal protections of the status quo. Because the nazis, the fascists, etc are the external force.

That is quite an deviation from the previous examples. The racists seem to be the reactionaries, who lost the revolution and try to turn back time.

Not the good examples. E.g. even before proclaiming himself basically a dictator, Hitler already had the relative majority in German parliament. Nazis weren't space aliens who violently imposed themselves on unsuspecting Germans, they were product of then-culture of German people. Mussolini, likewise, was head of then-popular movement.

"Lost the revolution" . Lol, I like this phrase.

But anyway, that was my entire point. No matter how different the appearance is (religious reformator vs reactionary rasist, for example), their essence remains the same: a person who holds opinion contrary to "official" one held by most of his group/nation/society. The fact that their beliefs and radically different isn't relevant to my point.

[Bonnot OG]

It's adorable how some here think discourse can beat back bigotry

[Ran]

Pew 2017.

Lets take just one example. What non-discursive things happened in 14 years to literally flip opinion? What form of violence, what censorship, was needed to cause that?
The answer is nothing like that was needed to begin defeating bigotry. What was needed was positive discourse, from campaigns among LGBT organizations to portrayals in media to improved education.