Civility, Passion, and the 1st Amendment
For the record, the left is famous for burning bras and draft cards, but never books.
I’m sorry you had trouble with Twitter. I looked through your posts and couldn’t find anything that violated their Terms of Service (which I scanned). I have a feeling it was the volume of posts rather than the content. They are trying to weed out bots that flood the system. So it was probably the AI that suppressed your posts, not the humans.
And, of course, Twitter has become a sewer similar to 4Chan. I think the owners want to clean that up as well but they are between a rock and a hard place. One person’s vile extremism is anther person’s passionate cause. I don’t envy them in the slightest. I post to Twitter (as one must) but never read it. If I ever became the object of a tweet storm, I’d never see it. And that’s my advice to you. Don’t read garbage. It stinks.
Free Speech
I got interested in free speech as an issue when my favorite obscure professor became the famous Jordan Peterson. (I was a slacker and a dilettante in college, soaked up everything and never got a degree. I’m still like that.) It took me a while to see the different quality in student protests from what they have had in the past. You protest to get your argument heard, not shut up the other guys. I understand why they want to “de-platform” people but they just need to stop. They need to learn to love the argument. I do. I love to talk back to vile ideas — and simply wrong ideas.
I hate it when someones threatens the livelihood of people who just said something they don’t like. I don’t really understand it and would never do it myself. It appears to be par for the course on Twitter.
Calling people names and trying to shut them up or out isn’t argument.
One of the things I hope those kids learn in college is how to evaluate arguments and how to argue their case.
When Jordan Peterson talks about psychology, relationships, child rearing, etc., he’s on the money. When he talks politics, it’s like all logic leaks out of his ears. I don’t want him to shut up. I want him to learn better. Read something besides friggin Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. Dip into a bit of Bertrand Russell, for heaven’s sake.
All that aside, the right wing and conservative ideas are very far from suppressed. They there is a vast right wing media industrial complex that disseminates those ideas non-stop.
I am willing to accept President Trump and all of his personal flaws over a group of humans who aggressively protest against free speech, organize boycotts, block electronic accounts, and emotionally demand the silencing of thought counter to their worldview. It is my position that these actions of the Progressive Left are much more harmful to our society than the actions of any individual.
the right has done all those things in spades. Boycotts, protests — I’ve been blocked from more right wing discussion boards than you can shake a stick at. I don’t like it when anybody does it. When persuasion looks hopeless, it’s time to examine your argument and those of your opponents (not enemies. I don’t have enemies) and craft better and more persuasive arguments. That’s the only way in a free society.
But it’s one thing for a 20-year-old on a college campus to threaten free speech and another when the President of the United States does it, as Trump has. One of these things is not like the other. Trump is trying to destroy Amazon because it’s owned by Jeff Bezos and Bezos also owns the Washington Post which says a lot of unkind things about Trump. He’ll fail, but it’s a much more serious threat than a bunch of kids with air horns.
I deleted my Facebook account (active since 2005) because of the negative feedback I received for being a “racist, bigot, homophobe, fascist, and anti-LGBTTTQQIAA”, but ultimately for being the reason why President Trump was elected.
I’ve been attacked on Facebook. I argue back until they wander off. If someone was really bad, I might unfriend them…but probably not. They’d have to get abusive or threatening for me to do that. Just disagreeing is fine. I’ll enjoy it. Step into my lair said the spider to the fly.
I’ll never delete Facebook. I’m too addicted to baby pictures, cat pictures and invites to local events.
Academics and their discontents
Though I never got a degree myself (see “slacker” above) I have several friends who are academics and I know May is not your favorite time of the year! So, no worries. Answer when you can.
