Quote one line where I advocated 'violence and intimidation through force'. — StreetlightX

Quote one line where I alleged or stated that 'anything other than speech amounts to violence'.

And again the the apparently exhaustive duopoly: speech or violence. Nauseating. — StreetlightX

I'm not condemning anything that isn't speech, I'm condemning violence and intimidation through force (at least in the context of a Shapiro event). There's an obvious difference you're expected to grasp.

Well no they don't, because they were banned from most forms of popular media. Can't have a large online following if you are banned from most popular platforms. — Maw

Oh yes you can. Anything indexed by the google search engine counts as a platform, and as click-baity provocateurs, there are an unfathomably large number of news outlets willing to air their ideas, whether to profit from the stink, or that good old time smell.

s it? I thought Fascism, Nazism, White Supremacy, or whatever Spencer, Milo, Bannon, et. al. are selling were thoroughly defeated by the end of WW2, and yet somehow you feel that we still need to confront these ideas via debate and counterargument? — Maw

The trouble is that Spencer, Milo, and Bannon (and Shapiro) are great at positioning classically far right and Fascist ideas something else. To an average white seventeen year old, all they will see is someone claiming to represent their interests with some fancy sounding ideas about religion and government. The deeper they get into alt-right circles the more they're being exposed to mountains of misleading bull-shit that individually they have little hope of refuting (shit about "white genocide/death", shit about anti-semetic conspiracy theories, shit about "the muslim invasion", shit about "the evils of diversity", shit about "race and IQ" and more). Once the damage is done and they've accepted the basic alt-right program of bat-shit ideas, dissuading them is like talking to a flat-earther who cites nothing but obscure, convoluted, and misleading arguments to make their case.

And what happens when you tell a "flat-earther" that their ideas are too stupid to even be considered or debated, let alone refuted? They say "Aha! You're so brainwashed that you're unable to give me an answer! I must be right!". This is why Shapiro DESTROYS... are so popular. It's not that his ideas are really being challenged and showing their merit in any meaningful way, what pleases them is that where leftists and liberals are unable to respond, they claim the chemical rewards of victory without ever needing to leave their comfort zone. Granted, many of their ideas aren't fit for daytime T.V, and willingly getting into a serious debate with them is downright masochistic, but short of a firing squad it's dirty work that inevitably needs doing.

These 17 year olds that Bannon et al. are recruiting will soon be voting age, and they're already on platforms you and I haven't yet heard of.

That these ideas can still take hold over segmented populations (despite the last 70+ years) shows that far-right ideology actually thrives when placed in the light and publicly confronted. — Maw

Online social media has been segmented for years (which is a part of the problem). People like Spencer were never out in the light. Almost nobody had ever heard of him until a video of him being sucker-punched went viral and we all asked the question "Is it O.K to punch a Nazi?". Maybe it's O.K to punch a Nazi, but it falls short of a rebuke, and it's not a good look (and regrettably, looks matter; by going overboard we undermine our own political goals).

They can't lose. Far-right ideology is inherently irrational. It cannot be defeated by debate and countering rhetoric. In that regard, it's actually very practical to disallow their speech on platforms, whether on popular publications, or social media, or college campuses. — Maw

I would like to point again to how a conservative British interviewer was able to "destroy" Shapiro simply by keeping his composure and asking straight-forward questions. By refusing to respond with emotion, Shapiro was disarmed of his "Aha!, Triggered leftist!" shtick, and being completely unprepared to defend the actual ideas in that moment, he fell flat on his face. I'm positive that that event had a negative influence on his popularity (maybe the only blow to his popularity in recent memory).

Sure, but my point is that it's not unreasonable to protest Shapiro for lecturing on college campuses. — Maw

I never said that it is unreasonable to protest Shapiro, I am saying that it's unreasonable to use force against him, and that both protesting him and using force against him are less effective than beating him at his own game.

Simple - the right has coopted liberals into mass hysteria over anything that isn't 'speech'. — StreetlightX

I would hardly describe my objections as hysterical (certainly no more so than what I'm criticizing). And to thrice clarify, I'm not condemning anything that isn't speech, I'm condemning anything that is violence (at least in the context of a Shapiro event). There's an obvious difference you're expected to grasp.

Should you respond with some allegory about how Shapiro's events amount to force in the first place, please tell me how much force we ought to use in response (a practical example would be dandy).

'Private political event' is an oxymoron. Politics is disruption, and the liberal 'stay in your lane' take on politics is not politics at all, but its destruction. If it were up to liberals Rosa Parks would have been chastized for inconveniencing poor bus riders who just wanted to get where they were going. She ahould have just made a really good fucking argument, maybe written a letter instead. — StreetlightX

Rosa Parks refusing to yield a seat on the bus (an act of civil disobedience) is not quite the same as physically disrupting and shutting down an event via force.

There's a stark difference. If you think the harm caused by Shapiro's words or the policies they inexorably support warrant more than civil disobedience in active response, I would be glad to hear your position (as opposed to the peanut shells you've given me so far).

The choice that either one 'responds' to Shapiro's words or does not; It's as if the world does not exist; as if one could not aim to change the conditions in which Shapiro's words have any hold at all, make them ring false on their own terms, from the moment they leave his mouth. Words, words, words, the thin reed of liberal dinner party politics — StreetlightX

Bandying words at dinner parties is more productive than vaguely preaching fool-hearty revolution from an armchair. You've given up on words as a means to progress or resistance, but it's Shapiro's words (the persuasive power they hold) that helps prevent the world you desire from actually existing.

The disunity Shapiro causes in the body politic is a great way to divide and conquer that mythical vox populi, but instead of trying to win his followers to gain the base you would need to institute change (unity is roundly required for any revolution), you would instead have them tarred, feathered, and dunce-capped, which then makes my job at the dinner party unnecessarily difficult and awkward.

This is nonsense. Richard Spencer, Steve Bannon, and Milo were deplatformed and have all but been removed from public conversation, save for Bannon when he's occasionally invited to speaking engagements. Deplatforming works, and just because Shapiro may be persuadable, doesn't mean he deserves to be heard. And it's not as if someone who says Muslims are bad, or doesn't understand transgenderism deserve to be heard. — Maw

You're missing the point: it's not about who deserves to be heard, it's about who is influential, what they are saying, and responding to it directly. Milo, Bannon, and Spencer don't get much play on CableTV, but they still have large online followings, and their influence is still able to spread through the unregulated new media. Whether or not Bannon is verboten, if he is still gaining followers in whatever platform, then the answer is to address his rhetoric directly rather than just pushing him onto the next platform.

We could ban them from every existing platform, but as long as they have an extant following, they could simply create platforms of their own (we would also have to ban all of their followers from very platform). I'm saying it's not practical to disallow their speech on whatever platforms they manage to get invited to, instead it is far more practical to counter their rhetoric directly when and where arises.

Shapiro is a bit more tame than the three other provocateurs you've named, so I'm not sure lumping him in with the rest is entirely warranted. Shapiro does represent a very large ideological demographic in America, so unless you want to get rid of political-pluralism altogether, it might not be the best move.

No but speech can undoubtedly lead to violence. Shapiro is emblematic of that. — Maw

Speech that leads to violence is the kind of speech that we want to censor, but where do we draw the line? In my opinion, if someone calls for, condones, or advocates for violence against a specific individual or group, then we should be able to prosecute them for hate speech, but legislating that in practice is a tricky affair.

Why not protests - if one so wishes - and engagement - if one so wishes? Why not disinvitation and invitation? — StreetlightX

As long as the bullhorns and barricades of the former don't crowd-out the benefits of the latter, then absolutely. And this is how we've always done it, so what's changed in recent years?

This is one of the reasons talking about 'free speech' as a general concept is so meaningless. Free speech where? In what context? With respect to which audience? In what medium? Among which institutional arrangements? Liberals would flatten these questions out, and bray out the tautology and speech is speech is speech. But it's not, not to anyone for whom politics is anything more than a mild-mannered salon conversation - which is to say, not to most people, everywhere. — StreetlightX

Rather than flatten the conversation out, it's only practical to examine the issue on a case by case basis, which is what I've tried to do. In the case of Shapiro (which I realize is not that relevant to your position), it's not a plain matter of to invite or not to invite, it's whether or not to disrupt the private political event of another group with force. As nebulous as the free speech discussion has become, you can at least agree to a distinction between speech and violence, and that when it comes to achieving political goals, the means should not undermine the ends.

Why? — Maw

Because either:

Shapiro's rhetoric is meaningless, persuades nobody, and need not be protested whatsoever, let alone censored.

OR

Shapiro's rhetoric does persuade people, in which case we must try to counter his persuasive power with persuasion of our own, a large part of which entails addressing the underlying substance of his claims and beliefs. (Given he is persuading people, censorship or no, clearly de-platforming alone isn't the answer for the left)

but they have every right to protest the event — Maw

Yes they do have the right to protest.

in particular against someone who thinks women shouldn't have reproductive rights, that Muslims are mostly religious extremists, etc. — Maw

We should not encode what we can and cannot protest beforehand (for good reasons). People are free to protest against water, air, earth, and fire if that's what tickles their political fancy.

If Ben Shapiro, who claimed that Left Jews are bad and undermine Judaism, came to my university, then why should I, a Left/Secular Jew, standby as a person who dehumanizes and delegitimizes me is offered a platform? — Maw

If it's not your platform that he is being invited to, how much authority should you have to veto his invitation?

You cannot expect that when a person's views are essentially a protest against others, they are not challenged and confronted in turn by it. That's a consequence of free speech. — Maw

This is all well and good, but I draw the line at responding to speech with physical force, intimidation, or violence. Violence is not speech, and using force to silence the speech of other groups likewise is not speech.

No need to challenge his views directly if he's not invited or discussed on a public, wide-reaching platform further amplifying his voice. No one owes Ben a conversation, any more than they owe me a conversation. He has his own website (funded by billionaire brothers, of course) so he's free to publish his views there (insofar as he is profitable). — Maw

There are two errors in this formulation:

The first is that Shapiro's views are already out in the wild, and regardless of our whack-a-wing-nut high-score, Shapiro or whoever else will manage to find or build a platform of their own. We need not invite him to platforms of our own, but his views must still be challenged.

The second error is that nobody is suggesting we're obligated to invite Shapiro to any of our platforms: the specific issue is that one group of students is claiming the right to dis-invite Shapiro from the platform of another group of students who do want him invited. While it is true that platforming pundits for the purpose of rebuke is sometimes worthwhile (albeit risky), specifically what I'm condemning is forced de-platforming by third party groups. If Berkeley wants to succumb to social pressure and disallow Shapiro, I can respect that, but protestors should not use extortionate physical force and disruption to make it happen, nor should they use force to disrupt the event should they not get their way.

It really doesn't matter who or what he is if he is able to win followers. We do need to challenge his rhetoric (or at the very least question it), or he will likely continue to win followers.

To combat Shapiro, he should not be invited to cable news to speak, he should be protested when giving lectures at college campuses, and he shouldn't be coddled in major publications because he says nothing of value and has no journalistic merit. He shouldn't be violently confronted because I'm not convinced he's anything other than two five-year-olds stacked on top of each other in a suit. — Maw

I mostly agree, but I think the left can actually gain from earnestly engaging with him (although not many let wing pundits are well prepared to do so). Shapiro's gaff on the BBC is a great example of how a calm approach can be effective. Too many people think his ideas do have merit (of whatever kind), which makes them disagree with your assessment that he should not be platformed, hence the protests and counter-protests, and the general escalation of conflict.

if you think anything other than speech simply is, or can only be, violence or censorship — StreetlightX

You're grossly mischaracterizing my position, yet again. I condemned violence as a means to censorship, and apparently that makes me a howler worthy only of passive aggressive pejoratives. You're either not bothering to read my posts, or you're too incensed even for less than serious engagement.

Whatever political action it is you think will save us all, please tell us (or share a video of it, because speech is for liberal daydreamers fascist enablers).

The rest of us aren't privy to your advanced solutions.

the only thing I've been doing is pointing out that the liberal grounds for 'non-censorship' are rubbish. My argument is against an argument; not a position on Shapiro being 'censored' or not. Living outside the shithole that is the States, I'm lucky enough to hardly be graced by anything he says or does. — StreetlightX

The standard marketplace of ideas line is an oldie, and it's still in many ways a goodie, but my practical argument has yet to be addressed: censorship per se isn't the only issue, it's also the method of censorship that causes problems. I condemn the forceful censorship of Shapiro not only because I want to preserve my own right to be free from forceful censorship, but also because when applied to someone like Shapiro, it only elevates their celebrity.

I could better understand your position if I was defending someone like Spencer, whose views arguably amount to hate speech (the Canadian version), but I don't see how Shapiro warrants the same sort of response. If the orthodox conservatism Shapiro spews really does exacerbate the sources of harm you listed earlier, isn't it imperative that we successfully counter him and their effects? Banning books and speakers alike just makes them more popular.

And if Shapiro's views are really a major threat, isn't the current white house the final boss? If there ever was a looks based popularity contest, the U.S presidential election cycle is it. Screaming in anger just won't achieve anything.

Unfortunately, how we look does matter, but so does what we say and what we do, especially in the eyes and ears of young university students.

That Shapiro is able to win informal popularity contests upsets the left, and then many individual overreactions only serve to make him even more popular by comparison. It's the same bottom up force that helped put Trump in the white house (which hasn't been a very good thing for many of the problems you've mentioned). By condoning the forceful censoring of Shapiro you're giving him more attention and losing the petty popularity contest/grudge match that politics has apparently become.

Then there's nothing to discuss. Fascists and racists are always a 'minority' in the liberal imagination. Right up until the point they're not. Because there are no racists and fascists, only ever racist and fascist ideas, ripe for the acedeme debate. What a joke. — StreetlightX

The joke is that Shapiro is a meme of your own making, just like Trump.

Who needs debates or voting booths when you have undying righteous indignation?

I'm arguing that people like Shapiro got to where he is by means far beyond that of his power of speech alone, and to restrict responses to those means to speech alone is asymmetrical and democratically fatal. — StreetlightX

I don't see the asymmetry of means between political camps that you do. Corporations invest in both sides to subvert them as best they can, old and new media certainly aren't dominated by the right, and anecdotally it seems like there's a well funded pundit for every political niche. As the absolute majority, a full embrace of force might be in our short or long term interests, but not if we abolish democratic safeguards in the process. I would much rather discuss erecting new safeguards to defend against those as yet unnamed "means" which you say are democratically fatal (corporate influence perhaps? Individual wealth?).

Speech is not the only useful form of political action, but in the past, violence as political action has caused unpredictable and oftentimes undesirable results.

How does Shapiro fit into all of this. Is it that he supported Trump?

And this is all to say nothing about the reductive and myopic tertium nom datur that is speech or violence that you keep pushing. — StreetlightX

I say: "we shouldn't use violence or physical force against Shapiro", and then you say: "stop restricting my political freedom, and fuck your myopic excluded middle!".

Let's clarify. Are you arguing for the use of force or violence against Shapiro? (For example, by using intimidation and force to block, shut-down, or disrupt his events?) Or are you in support of something less drastic? (Like, for example, a peaceful protest).

Most of those having their au courant whine about deplatforming or whatever are responding less to incidences of violence - rare and sporadic as they are - than to the sense of damage done to their bourgeois sense of dinner table manners ('let the man speak, chérie'). Violence is rarely at issue, and to pretend that it is is misdiagnosis, either deliberate, ignorant, or both at the same time. In any case the right - who have been pushing just this line, to their infinite benefit - couldn't be happier with exactly that framing of choice — StreetlightX

What is the issue?

That Trump got elected, therefore the left should have used greater forced against the likes of Shapiro?

I'm genuinely trying to connect the dots between saving our souls and barricading a Berkeley auditorium against Shapiro. Is it the harmful nature of his policies or the way he manipulates young minds in support of them? Or both? If so, can't you see that your attitude and approach toward Shapiro et al. only empowers them? If not, why should we cross any moral lines to take down Shapiro when he's neither the source nor the sustaining force of our problems?

I'm telling you to let the man speak because throwing him out of the saloon makes us look weak and stupid, and is exactly the sort of attitude that propelled the bad orange orangutan himself all the way to the white house. It wasn't the fascists and the racists that got him elected, they're a clear minority; it was that too many on the left got fed up with their own dogmatic bullshit. The alt-right grew for a reason, and it certainly wasn't because the left wasn't radical enough.

What is it about political favouritism that is unfair? — Isaac

Because of the existing "social contract" between Berkeley and its students. What I mean by this is that it's an unwritten agreement which, when broken, leads to problems for both sides. I've explained this every which way, and in the end you can just say "That's just like, your opinion, man", but I think you understand the idea that people should be free to explore political ideas. Do you think that your own correct beliefs should be the only permissible beliefs hold?

People think its OK to just walk past a homeless person because others do so too. — Isaac

But sometimes the homeless person is grouchy or drunk...

No, they're not. No one is 'debating' anything. They're rabble-rousing and it needs to be stopped before a rabble gets roused. Their words have real impact on the lives of actual people. Ethnic minorities, the poor, immigrants... These people are actually harmed by the rhetoric of fascists, racists and the alt-right. — Isaac

Why do you make me defend Shapiro? He's not a fascist, he's not racist, and he's not alt right. (He's the son of Jewish immigrants if that helps persuade you).

Why is 'scuffling' particularly responsible for creating these "emotionally riled up individuals" yet words are completely immune from having such an effect? — Isaac

Are you asking why violent combat tends to invoke emotion more so than words?

No, I want a non-hypocritical political sphere. One in which the politics at work in platforming some dickhead like Shapiro is acknowledged as political, and not the outcome of some 'natural', merit-based, extra-poltical process. Where money is similarly acknowledged as a political tool that anyone who holds it knows it to be. What is 'undemocratic' is the (pseudo-)depoliticization of what is obviously political: of putting these things out of democratic play. I want more democracy not less. But this requires a less shallow, less emaciated understanding of democracy than just what happens in 'voting booths'. — StreetlightX

So you're arguing that because moneyed interests are supporting Shapiro, and because ideological merit has nothing to do with politics or democracy these days, the use of intimidation, force, and violence to silence him is well justified?

Why do we even have voting booths if the real politics are decided through money and might? Merely tradition?

And if Ideas mean for so very little, what's the harm in not using force against Shapiro?

I want a non-hypocritical political sphere too, but vague and violent grand-standing against the likes of Shapiro by alleging that he is somehow vaguely violent is itself hypocritical (he has access to those rings levers of power I guess?).

He's just a pundit, and the attitude of forceful mobilization against him does nothing but feed the troll.

I don't think the liberal has any capacity to think of political action beyond political speech. Words simply float free of any gravity of worldly consequence, and the whole content of politics lies entirely in the ephemera of 'argument' or 'agreement', which now come to bear the entire weight of politics. Nevermind that the world around the lectern is literally on fire - what happens out there, beyond the charmed circle of intellectual spar and parry simply cannot so much as even be thought. The liberal literally doesn't even have the vocabulary to deal with it, let alone act upon it. — StreetlightX

And Shapiro himself is The Joker? Holy bubbeleh!

Shouldn't you be posting all of this in underground revolutionary networks committed to toppling the current status quo of exploitation, slavery, and death? After all, it's not like our tiny digital pulpit serves any pursuit other than the hubris of an ego massage...

I wish you would be more specific than "the world around the lectern is literally on fire", because I'm not sure what you mean; it reads like a traumatized war-veteran trying to describe what it's like out in the shit (and I'm the innocent green boy ignorant useful idiot who is incapable of fathoming a hard world outside his toy chest). In what way has my advocacy for non-violent methods of protest against Shapiro triggered your world weary stress syndrome? How does bringing down Shapiro put out any of the fires you have yet to name?

I'm not 'equating' the political sphere with anything. What counts, and does not count, as political, is the political act par excellence and the liberal con is to imagine that one can set out, in advance, what ought to, and ought not, count as political. The neutralization and sterilization of politics passed off as sensible political theory. Trash. — StreetlightX

You're right that what counts most is determined in the field (voting booths mostly), but we embrace the use of force at the expense of the use of sensible political theory, where instead of the merit of a representative's ideas lending them success, it will be the amount of force employed by their supporters.

I'm not saying violence can't be political, or that there's not a time and a place for it, but I am saying it's undemocratic. Hooliganism from either side convinces no one, and seems to only serve the opposition by energizing them and fueling their rhetoric, so why bother?

Why do you want a no-holds barred political sphere?

Short of declaring Spencer an enemy of the state, how to we defeat fascism, and does protesting Shapiro contribute to that fight?

I'm willing to accept (culture) war in principle, but I think you might be escalating things rather quickly, especially you think if Shapiro's followers are beyond persuasion.

Love how having money somehow puts one beyond the sphere of politics. B-b-but they paid for it! This means they have rights!

Pathetic. — StreetlightX

I don't get what you mean, who is suggesting money buys civil rights?

Or are you just broadly equating the political sphere with force?

You have some stupid antifa. Then you have the ones that counter protest white nationalists. I'll be more sympathetic to this comparison when you can give me news articles of antifa killing people. or acting to kill people, for their political beliefs. — fdrake

I'm reluctant to go into specifics because I'm not looking to tit-for-tat justify violent actions from either side, I'm saying that embracing violence in arenas which are meant to be democratic is antithetical to democracy. I'm rebuking left wing actions here in this thread (given its context, and especially given they're the democratic party), but it doesn't mean I don't rebuke the other side (my main point has become that rebuking the other side on moral, ideological, and factual levels in spite of its violence is the only apparent solution, where meeting force with force just compounds the root cause of the problem).

Even violence at protests; most of which is done by antifa in self defense; all political ideologies have violence somewhere - faultlines of power are semipermeable membranes for our conduct -, the presumption that antifa violence is just as unjust and indifferent to life as memeing your car into a group of left protestors, killing an island conference of schoolchildren, or beating the shit out of unarmed black teenagers is quite reductive.

Wheres the nuanced treatment of the antifa? Why is the presumption there that the antifa are aggressive in the same way as the people they counterprotest? Surely there should be more nuance here. — fdrake

Shapiro is a lot of irritating things, but I don't believe him to be white nationalist, and he doesn't condone violence so far as I know. Nuance for Scruton (and by tangential extension, Shapiro) is my objective here.

The fast and loose way in which we associate Shapiro with these heinous acts provides great emotional fodder to motivate a basic protest even though it might not be accurate, but it also causes some individuals to become emotionally enraged and to resort to violence. The idiotic minority of antifa who go overboard and undermine the movement are magnified by the opposition and used to paint a caricature, which then becomes the fast and loose rhetoric that motivates and radicalizes individuals on the other side.

It's almost never productive to protest for emotional reasons alone, because without a coherent ask it's just a rowdy waste of time. If the people who are protesting Shapiro are asking him to go away, then they're also asking the conservative students who invited him to go away, which is an unreasonable request if Berkley wishes to show some semblance of political impartiality

Why do you think it would not be 'fair'? — Isaac

It's not "fair" because banning conservative views on campus would be gross political favoritism. Conservative students are paying customers, and as long as they're behaving peacefully, banning them would be unjust.

It's also not fair to Berkeley to use force to compel them to play political favoritism.

If alt-rioters shut down an event you that happened to be attending and support, I'm guessing you would object to their use of force against you and yours, right?

One cannot argue morality, there are no moral facts, only opinions. Even if we could agree on some basic moral and argue the facts of how it is achieved, what evidence do you have to justify your belief that evidence-based persuasion is the best way to change someone's opinion? — Isaac

Often times people hold particular political views because they believe that they represent the best way to achieve fundamentally important moral goals (like a secure, stable, and prosperous society).

As it turns out, conservatism and progressivism are often after the same ends, people just disagree about how best to achieve them (both sides are interested in "fairness" for example, but they disagree about the facts of the playing field).

So, with the right evidence, it is actually possible to show people that their views are not practical or are not likely to achieve the desired results.

We didn't get where we are today by randomly succumbing to our moral whims, we actually held debates as best we could, and were able to find mutually beneficial compromises.

I've just read this morning that Alabama have just banned abortion even for victims of rape and incest. How did the logical persuasion of liberals go there? — Isaac

What logical persuasion?

Merely condemning abortion without appealing to facts isn't evidence based persuasion, it's based on an emotional appeal. Alabamians are well insulated from reasonable pro-choice speakers, so it's unlikely that many of them have ever seriously considered the issue. The problem is that many of them have pre-decided, on emotional grounds, that they're correct, and that listening to the opposition is nothing but harmful; and because they're surrounded only by people who reinforce that view, how can they get away from it?

When the left comes in and calls them monsters as a rebuke, they're only strengthening their resolve.

This is the politics of feelings over facts, and it stinks...

That's a ludicrous argument. If racists and fascists started debating their ideas in open forums would you then advise we switch to violent insurrection lest we become fascists by copying their tactics? — Isaac

I think your analogy is a bit lopsided. Racists and fascists are debating their ideas in open forums, and you're advising violent insurrection to be used against them. I'm not saying copying the fascists and racists is necessarily bad, I'm saying that violent insurrection is bad. Racists and Fascists have historically used violent insurrection to achieve their ends. I'm trying to draw an ironic ideological connection between your advocacy of the use of force as political speech with the self-same directive of the original fascists (see: brownshirts & blackshirts).

As I said, I'm not an advocate of serious violence unless it is strictly necessary (responding to serious violence). — Isaac

Tell me again why barricading the doors of Shapiro's events is necessary force?

You said because the lives of marginalized folk are on the line. You might interpret that as only condoning barricades, but why can't someone else say that it condones the use of artillery?

If lives are on the line when Shapiro speaks, can't your argument also justify his assassination?

Yes, that's the point. Within one's community, why would we not be allowed to proscribed certain speech acts? We proscribe all sorts of other behaviour, even very trivial stuff of virtually insignificant harm. What is it about speech that you're so opposed to circumscribing? — Isaac

Because lots of people disagree, so what you're asking for leads inexorably to conflict and political segregation.

The whole point of democracy is to work through our disagreements about what policies and moral aims we should enshrine into culture and law. We don't police the thoughts of other citizens because we've collectively decided to protect the right of individuals to think and speak freely, so that through a marketplace of our ideas, we may identify the best and most appealing principles by which to govern.

The same way you regulate the non-scuffing mob. Why has the fact that it is scuffling suddenly rendered it difficult to regulate? — Isaac

How can you even ask this?

Are you really wondering what could make a scuffling mob harder to control than an organized crowd (i.e: not a mob)?

Here's how: emotionally riled up individuals within the scuffling mob take aggressive action, which engenders an aggressive response from opposing individuals, and then when the rest of the mob sees this, they tend to escalate their degree of scuffling.

Inexperienced at what? — Isaac

Exactly. They don't even yet know what they don't yet know, and if they skip their business classes then they may never know.

We're not talking about how to balance the cash flow, we're talking about desicions about who to allow to speak on campus. What level of experience is the CEO guaranteed to have here that helps them make the 'right' decision? — Isaac

If you think it would stop at deciding who gets to speak on campus, then you're kidding yourself beyond measure, but let's assume that's all they're after:

An edict is issued banning any and every conservative speaker, which causes the conservative student union to start protesting, and to lose faith in the institution's ability to impartially educate them.

Next year enrollment figures are way down as a result, and the university needs to think about what it's going to cut, or sell, or who it will layoff to balance the budget. Because "progressive" students are the ones using forceful extortion, they might have no choice but to down-size and start openly pandering to assuage the students' ire.

And what would all this do to the academic integrity of the institution in the long run? How could Berkeley field a political science major and at the same time shield them all from even entertaining mainstream conservative political beliefs? It's farcical.

The point about some views not having platforms is not that it justifies action for those groups, it's to re-affirm that we live in a society where denial of platforms is a perfectly normal commonplace event. If I went to Berkeley conservative Union and asked to speak, they would say no. They would deny me a platform, it's normal practice. We're arguing about how and why, not whether — Isaac

Then my argument is that one political faction of Berkeley U's students should not be able to control the platforms of an opposing faction through force. The opposing faction may have rented a venue from Berkeley U, and you can say that conservative views are immoral, therefore students ought to censor it, but the opposition could make the same blanket statement as justification for shutting down an event that you or I might support. I'm saying that just because some students feel like they have the right to occupy Berkeley doesn't make it so. It's not fair to Berkeley and it's not fair to the opposition which would be censored.

If you want to actually establish that the opposition is immoral, delivering an argument or a rebuke at the event in question would be your primary means to actually persuade them.

It may not, but there's nothing I can do about that. Purging our community of undesirables is happening all the time. What we're arguing over is the method, not the activity. Look at a community in rural Afghanistan, a community of Australian Aborigines, a community of middle class New Yorkers. Are you supposing that the almost complete homogeneity you see within those communities (when compared to between them) is random? No, it's the result of purging undesirables, and it's usually done by ostracisation.

There's a reason why there aren't any mainstream fascists here in Europe, and it's not because we debated their ideas. It's because we shot them. — Isaac

You're advocating for using the tactics of the racists and the fascists in order to get rid of them, and because of that you run the risk of merely replacing them.

It's really as simple as saying that some attitudes are simply not tolerated within a community. Again, this is perfectly normal practice, the debate is (or should be) about what attitudes are disallowed and what means a community can engage in to make that position clear. That some attitudes are disallowed, and that some methods are employed to make that clear is unquestionable. — Isaac

If you want to censor Shapiro's ideas, then I'm worried that you would wind up censoring basically everything else that you don't agree with.

One of the few kinds of speech I'm in favor of censoring is speech that calls for violence against a specified group or individual. Why, again, must Shapiro be purged?

Personally, when anti-immigrant and anti-welfare sentiment is at risk of being escalated thousands of people's lives and livelihoods are at risk. I think a little scuffle is a more than justified way of demonstrating how unwelcome that sentiment is. — Isaac

How do you regulate the scuffling mob?

Once you've framed the issue as one of preserving life and livelihood, where force in general is sanctioned, how will you stop the mob from going too far?

Can't they do both? — Isaac

Student's can't run the university because they don't know how. They're teenagers who lack knowledge and experience; most of their time needs to be dedicated to learning their course material and attending lectures, and the rest of it needs to be spent goofing off to diffuse stress. They're customers, not faculty/staff; they pay for a service, they didn't buy the business.

This really is a case of suggesting that the inmates should run the asylum. We don't let the most inexperienced among us make the most critical decisions for the rest of us, because people with no experience at a thing generally suck at that thing.

I don't think I've yet mentioned my position. Its certainly not popular as I've barely heard it repeated in the media. The point I'm making here is about the right of communities to determine (forcefully if necessary) who they want as contributing members. — Isaac

As far as I can gather, you're a socialist leaning anti-fascist.

In any case, the views of the Berkeley students who use force to shut down conservative events seem to have ample platforms of their own.

And there's an irony afoot. The "Antifa" movement of today mirrors some of the tactics and attitudes of the original fascists. Purging our communities of undesirables might not turn out like you'd hoped...'

Put simply, my view is that the people of Berkeley University form a community (from CEOs to cleaners), that community collectively are responsible for Berkeley (regardless of legal property rights, with which I do not morally agree here), a community demonstrates its moral code by ostracising those who do not adhere to it. Where there is disagreement, there will be clashes as one group tries to ostracise the other. — Isaac

I understand what you're saying in principle, it's called "distributive justice", but in the broader "community" of which Berkeley is just one part, there is disagreement about what is moral, and who we should therefore ostracize as a result. A huge swath of the American people hold conservative views, so if Berkeley and every progressive institution closes their doors to conservative leaning students, we'll just be creating division which will lead to more conflict instead of cooperation or mutual compromise.

If I were one of those groups I would certainly be looking to ostracise the other with as little violence as possible because I believe causing unnecessary harm is generally bad, but I wouldn't rule it out. It depends on the threat.

I have no wish to prevent someone like Shapiro from speaking anywhere in the world (unless no community supports him). I'm defending the right of one given community to demonstrate (by whatevermmeans prove necessary yet remain moral) that he is not welcome to contribute. — Isaac

It's that "by whatever means necessary, yet remain moral" line that gives me pause.

Are you defining what is moral by appealing to what you think is necessary?

The ends always justify the means?

The only mechanism I'm aware of that can remove a law in most Western countries is the democratically elected government. Is there some force I'm unaware of which prevents people from electing governments for reasons other than the prevention of anarchy? If not, I'm struggling to see what would force a government to remove laws not designed only to maintain civil order. — Isaac

Courts often strike down laws in practice because they violate more fundamentally important and well established laws (namely, individual rights). Politicians and bureaucrats draft bills, parliamentary/senatorial representatives ratify them, police enforce them, and then the courts interpret them. If a certain law cannot be justly enforced, or if a given interpretation makes no sense, then individual judges can essentially overturn or reject said law (and in doing so they can set an influential precedent, which we all learn from). Case law works because it's constantly being put to the test; it can evolve according to whether or not it's actually working, or as the values of the people change. If the enforcement of a particular law causes too many problems or upsets for too many people, judges might strike them down and politicians/bureaucrats will have them addressed.

I really don't think explaining how worker owned coops function would be on topic here. Suffice to say many do, and the manner in which they do varies. — Isaac

Students attend university to learn, not to occupy or control it.

No, it's about the fact that when it comes to the right to speak at Berkeley, you play the nihilistic and say hat Berkeley is a private institution and has the right to allow or disallow whomever it wants. If we're basing rights here solely on law, then the protesters have the 'right' to block entry, in fact do absolutely anything that it is not actually illegal. But when we talk about the protesters, you switch terms. No longer are we talking about what they have a right to do by law, we start talking about what they should do, in terms of not escalating violence, not fanning the flames etc. So why is it legitimate to talk of what the protestors should do morally in their actions, but not about what Berkeley should do morally in controlling the speaking platforms they own? — Isaac

There's no such "right to block entry" in this context, except to one's own property. By barricading doors to interfere with others, we're approaching dangerously close to intimidation, and we're likely trespassing. I'm no lawyer, but this isn't rocket-law.

I think that students absolutely have the right to protest and lobby their university, but I don't think they should be able to use physical force against the university or any other law abiding citizen in order to achieve their political ends. I'm saying don't use physical force or violence to achieve political goals (especially in as round-a-bout a way as shutting down the events of the opposition, which merely energizes them).

No, I'm saying in order to be popular you must be popular in principle. What will be popular is not a mystery, advertising companies predict it all the time. In order to popular you must be one of the things which it is known is going to be popular. — Isaac

Only controversial views sell advertising space, if your views are not controversial you will not have the same platforms available to you as controversial views.
Only popular views are worth promoting. What is going to be popular is fairly well predictable and if your views don't fit into these categories you will not have the same platforms available. It is pretty unequivocal (and to be honest a fairly uncontroversial view) that certain ideas are more 'sellable' than others for reasons other than their actual merit. So no, censorship of the kind I'm advocating is not the only barrier to political persuasion, its not even close. — Isaac

I said that the only hard barrier to platforms is censorship. My claim is more specific than the one you've addressed, and my criticism is that your own position is both controversial and popular, and is already highly platformed in new media.

If your political ideologies already have ample platforms, why barricade Shapiro's?

What we are 'supposed' to be and what we absolutely evidently are, are two different things. Your faith in humanity is misplaced. Between 18 and 31% of Americans don't even believe in evolution. Is that the crowd you're expecting to critically appraise what the association with Berkeley 'really' means? — Isaac

I'm an atheist, but I don't see why people's belief in angels and demons is a problem that can't be mitigated. After all, America remains the leader of the free world despite all that (and so far, despite Trump), so the long term trajectory is against you.

And the law by which that prosecution is made came about as a considered means of avoiding anarchy? That was my question. I was asking for the evidence of the avoidance of anarchy being the motivating factor in creating a law, not the protection of the property of those responsible for creating it — Isaac

Whether the original intention of a law is to preserve order or not, they tend to only stick around if they do. Ostensibly the modern world upholds laws in order to maintain civil order (both to protect individuals from each-other, and to protect individuals from the government itself). Lots of times we have retarded reasons written down in old dusty books and documents (such as "Under the divine auspices of Her Majesty's authority blah blah blah"), but by now everyone knows why we still need them.

Some of the law protects the citizens of the country from unjust harm. Some of it doesn't. Some of it actually perpetuates unjust harm. So 'the law' doesn't mean anything in moral terms. One still has to make an independent decision about whether one's actions are moral, and whether they are against the law or not need not enter into that. — Isaac

Sometimes the law corresponds to what is moral, but you also have the democratic right to try and have the law changed. If changing the laws you disagree with is completely impossible, then maybe insurrection is the right rub, but maybe the harm you would or could cause in doing so would outweigh your initial justification. In more common terms, do your ends justify your means?

They're not inmates. They're students and workers. And yes, let them run the companies — Isaac

How should they decide who gets to be CEO of their shiny new companies? Should they take it in turns in some sort of semi-autonomous anarcho-syndicist commune, with ratification of major decisions by simple majority?

This is where "merit" really has a lot of merit...

No. I'm a strong opponent of the second ammendment. Why would I want everyone else to be armed too? Just my family, armed illegally, would be the most secure insurance. — Isaac

I'm willing to bet that, statistically, owning a gun decreases one's life expectancy...

You see, when I talk about entitlement to be heard, you play the nihilist and say "no one has a right to anything", when I use the argument that we're entitled to use whatever tactics we see fit, you play the noble and say "there is a moral right as to what tactics one should avoid". Which is it? Are we arguing about what should be (in which case your counter with regards to a 'place at the table' should be a normative one, not a descriptive one), or are we arguing about what actually is (in which case we actually can use whatever tactics are legal)? — Isaac

You're equivocating "the right to be heard" with "the privilege to speak at Berkely", and you're also equivocating "not having the right to speak at Berkeley" with "not having any rights at all". You're trying to justify the use of force as political speech, but you're consistently equivocating in your attempt to do so. You complained that you have never been invited to Berkeley and used that as evidence showing you have no right to be heard.. I have tried to be very specific, and I certainly didn't state "no one has a right to anything"... "We don't have a right to any seats to any tables" means just what it says. Private tables are private platforms, and access to governmental seats are decided through votes, not passion.

Specifically, you're using your undefined notion of what should be to justify your argument that the use of whatever tactics are justifiable, and I'm saying that legally, democratically, pragmatically, and morally, your tactics are wrong.

No, we couldn't. Not if the representative in question represents an unpopular or non-commercialisable view, because the mechanisms by which Shapiro became popular require those two things. What we're talking about about here is the situation where a person (or small group of people) believe a view to be right, in a moral sense, but neither popular, nor commercial. Should they then just give up, or what other means do you think they have to bring about what they think is right? — Isaac

You are saying that in order to be popular, first, you need to be popular, which makes no sense.

Why is your view non-commercializable or unpopular?

Is trying to bring about what you think is right an entitlement only of those whose views are popular or commercial enough to have a public figure they can put their support behind? If not, what recourse do these people have? — Isaac

If the alt-right is commercial enough to have public figures, then you can have figures too. The argument that your views aren't commercial enough to get their own pundit is not at all realistic (in fact, corporations platform progressive views more than any other). Ironically, the only hard barrier to any political persuasion finding representatives is the very censorship which some have advocated for in this thread.

If the university allows the lecture to go ahead, they are deciding for the other members of that community that his ideas are OK to legitimise by association with their university. — Isaac

We're not supposed to be unthinking lemmings who look to an intellectual authority to decide whether or not a private group of students should be permitted to discuss their beliefs. By telling conservative students their beliefs aren't "legitimate" and that they have no right to express them, we're legitimizing worse.

I thought you said it was his hard work and popularity? — Isaac

Shapiro had been growing his popularity for around ten years, but it wasn't until antifa started barricading his events that the mainstream media finally started giving him undue attention. The story became how there's this "culture war" with racists on one side and PC babies on the other (depending on who you ask). The rise to his current level of fame is thanks to the negative attention given to him by the left, and his ability to spin discussions in his own favor.

Do the students own Berkeley? — VagabondSpectre


...yes. — Isaac

Actually, The Berkeley Group Holdings plc owns UoBerkeley. The students are just paying customers (the conservative and the liberal students alike).

This is too much to get into here. Suffice to say I disagree that the institutions you list are a means to safely and consistently navigate from feelings to force. The history of modern civilisation has been an almost unbroken fight for power on the basis of force. — Isaac

It's been an almost unbroken fight in terms of military vs military and nation v nation, but the deaths resulting from war have continuously plummeted, and while they are still too numerous, are proportionally smaller than perhaps ever before. I think that at this point in history we're more free (in the west) than ever before from abusive government, but we also happen to be more beholden than ever before to corporations, which are forces unto themselves.

In the senses that corporations use undue force in politics, I do want to see change (which may inexorably require force) but I don;t want to see it achieved through the whimsical arbitrariness of mob impulse.

Look to your history books. If you can detail me a single instance of a law protecting property coming about after a community-wide discussion about the anarchistic ramifications if we don't, I'd be fascinated to see it. All I've found so far is laws put in place by wealthy landowners in order to apply the force of the army to back up their claim to land. — Isaac

When police arrest thieves and return the stolen property to the victim...

It happens every day. But my point isn't that laws protect everyone equally, my point is that if we don't have laws then the alternative would be worse. For example, a few hundred years ago, if I wrongfully accused you of horse or cattle theft in a frontier town where there were no marshals/police, all it would take to have you unjustly killed would be to get enough people angry about it. This point is deeper than the value of democracy, it's one of the pillars of civilization itself.

We don't need to consider the anarchistic ramifications every-time we uphold the law, and every-time an innocent person is declared not guilty, and a guilty person is found guilty, in a fair court of law, it's a victory for civilization itself (our ability to live together and successfully in large groups).

Have you any evidence to back this up. I could point to the many successful community run enterprises and worker-owned companies in opposition — Isaac

Let the inmates run the asylum? :chin:

Well, the latter is coming. To quote one of my favourite passages from Stephen Emmott when asked what he would do in response to the current global situation he replied "teach my son how to use a gun". — Isaac

That's just not the right attitude...

First you teach him what guns are, and what they are for, and why they are dangerous. Then you teach him about gun safety. Start him off with a pellet gun, and teach him how to load and shoot targets safely. Once he is old enough, and under direct and expert guidance, then he can learn how to shoot a gun.

So I take it you're a supporter of the second amendment (gun rights)?

I wonder...

If you were attending a gun safety seminar, and a group of anti-gun rights activists showed up to disrupt and vandalize the event, how would you respond?

All of which suggests a direct correlation to the sort of politics involved. What's inviting is a take down of these (supposedly) wrong and inaccurate ideas of the left/liberals. This would not seem to be merely "aesthetic" bringing in viewers, but be drawing on a present desire amongst viewers to see the left/liberal understanding of society and its problems taken down.-- i.e. it's part of the white supremacist positions or sympathies already present in our culture. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Maybe, but I contend it's also an unfortunate ramification of progressive excess.

For example, when you make the argument that all white people/men are by definition "racist/sexist" because statistically they tend to benefit from a system that disproportionately distributes benefits and burdens in their favor, there's this large swath of the population (mostly young white men) who feel unfairly generalized by it, and as a result they tend to want to see such an argument rebuked (and if that rebuke can be severe, then they get emotional catharsis to boot).

Alleging that wanting to see your argument "destroyed" is evidence of supremacist tendencies only makes sense because your argument hinges on the premise of a supremacist system operating as the dominant causal factor determining all social outcomes in the first place.

It's a Kafka trap, where my denial will be evidence of my guilt. You've got to do better than that.

Opposing the left is not tantamount to white supremacy.

What's missing from your argument here is the mechanism by which this happens. Are you suggesting that there's some system in place which ensures everyone skilled at what they do rises through the ranks? If so, I'd be interested in what this is, if not, then we can agree that some people skilled at what they do rise through the ranks, whilst others equally skilled do not. If this is the case, then the reason Shapiro rose (as opposed to others skilled at what they do) needs to be something else. — Isaac

Can't our society be even a teensy bit merit based? What if there is more than one reason for the rise of Shapiro, and among are his quick thinking and rhetorical skills?

This is an aside that doesn't count for a whole lot in our discussion, but it's not a black and white situation; it's complicated.

I'm talking about the very general notion of taking the arguments of pundits seriously (debating them, allowing them platforms in academic institutions), purely because they are famous. — Isaac

But which came first, the famous chicken or the famous egg?

The point is we do not simply debate ideas on merit. If you were to counter Shapiro's arguments right now, no matter how good your argument is, it will only ever be heard by the four people who might read it here. If one of those people (by some bizzare means) happened to be Shapiro, his counter would be heard by millions. And none of this disparity is because he is more knowledgable, well-educated, better informed than you. It's because his ideas are more popular than yours. — Isaac

If I attended a Shapiro event and get in line to ask him a question, my question would be heard by his millions of followers, as would his response. If my question challenges the merit of his political views, then he's going to have to debate their merit.

Even though I'm not entitled to Shapiro's followers, I'm still able to support pundits of my own, including a few that are willing to debate him (such as Sam Harris).

Yes, democracy is mostly a popularity contest, but should we lose, we ought not up-end the entire system; we should try to be more popular.

So, it goes back to my "seat at the table" metaphor. Not everyone is going to get one. It would be a good thing for society if seats at the table were distributed on merit, but one cannot 'argue' that merit with them, it's not amenable to debate, so groups have to be able to say "no" to potential participants on the basis of the person, not the ideas. — Isaac

You're not entitled to any seats at any tables, neither am I, and neither is Shapiro. We're all entitled to scream loudly in the wilderness, passionately on a soap box, financially through political donation, and discretely through our votes. Shapiro happens to have many seats at many tables, and we can ask ourselves why we don't have those same seats, or we could choose our own informal representative, and through mutual support, put them in a seat at one of those tables (that's what Shapiro's followers did).

Yes, that's my memory too, but it doesn't change the public image, and it's the public image that matters in legitimising his ideas. — Isaac

How can we justify the ethical right to decide for other citizens which political ideas are O.K or not O.K to legitimize?

Democracy is supposed to be about everyone being entitled to their opinions and their input (through the aforementioned rights, not privileges such as an invitation to speak on a campus), so aren't you kind of throwing democracy out the window by assuming that your own ideas and beliefs are the final and correct politics (or that Shapiro's conservatism should be verboten)?

It's still written up as Shapiro's "talk at Berkeley" and not Shapiro's "talk at a conservatives union (which happened to be in Berkeley)". But really, that's not the only issue. The issue is also one of who 'owns' the table. Remember, if the liberal students had just turned up to the event and rebuffed his ideas, they've already lost the battle they really wanted to fight. The battle they're fighting is "you are not one of the people who deserve a place at the table". To win their battle over who gets a place, they need to prevent him from speaking, just like you and I are already prevented from speaking. — Isaac

So the issue isn't just that we need to seize the property of our political enemies (because they use it to spread propaganda), it's also that we need to have them banished from the political arena and revoke their right to a political opinion?

This is how they would respond, and allowing that rebuke to go unaddressed helps to validate their caricatures of the left. If the liberal students turned up to rebuff his ideas (rather than disrupt, shut-down, silence, intimidate, and ignore) then they would not have given him the attention that has propelled him to his current level of fame, and they might have even dissuaded a few of his followers....

And of course, entering into a debate with him also means hearing his ideas, which apparently are too harmful to be heard (we run the risk of being persuaded by him!). But if his ideas aren't actually good ideas, or if our ideas are better, what the heck are we afraid of?

someone's right to try and prevent someone from speaking on a platform — Isaac

"The right to try and prevent someone from speaking". I missed that one in civics class...

someone's right to try and prevent someone from speaking on a platform they feel some ownership of. — Isaac

There's really no feelings involved in property ownership, except maybe in some edge dispute cases (like squatters rights and such). Berkeley owned the venue (IIRC) and they legally rented it to the conservative student union. Trespassing without permission with the intention of disrupting a private event may result in both criminal and civil suits (criminal for the crimes, civil to sue for damages resulting from torts).

Do the students own Berkeley?

This, I would agree with to a point. I just think things like barricading lecture theatres is sometimes the minimum amount of force required to prevent someone from abusing a platform you feel some ownership of or connection to. — Isaac

I can't express just how complacent I find this position to be. From feelings to force is the story of all mankind; it encapsulates all human behavior. But in the modern world, we've created relatively sophisticated systems (moral, ethical, political, legal, rational, scientific, empirical, metaphysical, theological, secular, etc, etc, etc...) that help us navigate safely and consistently from feelings to force. We have laws protecting individual rights (such as property rights) because if we allow ourselves to act fast and loosely according to our felt connections, we're not guaranteed to behave any better than an angry mob, and we just wind up creating more problems for ourselves and everyone else. If student groups really did start to claim ownership of their universities, then many of them would promptly go out of business and liquidate their assets, because if they aren't allowed to control their own property, then they have no way of controlling their own financial and physical security.

For some reason many people here seem to think that a bit of force against right wing pundits is a callback to the American civil-rights movements of the 60's (it's not; the 60's civil rights movements were marked by dignity, not rebellious violence). In my view, it's a callback to Russia, circa 1905. Dissatisfaction with the capital-having bourgeois elites was Lenin et al.'s call to arms, and as much as I want to see economic reform and wealth redistribution, Shapiro and Berkeley have little and nothing to do with it.

As I said before, I urge you to seek reform before revolution, if only because we might not survive the latter.

But this is no different than saying that demonstrating over and over how Trump is a liar, a shit business man, or a hypocrite etc. is a great way to undermine the influence he has over his followers. It's demonstrably untrue — Maw

Trump is a bit of a unique case because he is impossibly low brow, and outright name-calling is the game he excels at. And to be sure, Spencer does have racist and supremacist beliefs, but he is willing to say anything that will help him get attention.

Yes. So none of this relates to his "hard work" at all. It's an aside, but it riles me this reference to "hard work" to imply some virtue to the top of any heirachy. — Isaac

I italicized "hard work" in to imply ambiguity. I'm not trying to rally behind him, I'm just describing the fact that he is skilled (and dedicated) at what he does, which is why I think he rose through the ranks compared to others (and of course, there are niche institutions that have supported him along the way, but they don't endow him with his persuasive power).

The question is why, out of the pool of pundits all working hard, did Shapiro rise to fame. The answer to that, I'm claiming, is that his ideas were controversial enough to commodities, and supportive enough of industry to attract funding. Not because lots of people were persuaded by he logic of his arguments. — Isaac

Look at the Youtube videos featuring his "take-downs" of "the libtards". Look at the view numbers, the ratings, and the comments. It's not just his corporate-given ubiquity that makes him successful...

Corporations rely for their profits on selling us 'stuff'; but we don't need any more 'stuff', no one in their right mind actually wants a plastic watering can that plays God Save the Queen every time your plants need watering (or whatever other throw-away crap they're selling). So what's to be done? You have to turn the consumer base into exactly the kind of un-thinking moron who would. Shapiro, Facebook, the 'green movement'...are all just part of that scheme.

Its not tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theory though. I don't think anyone is pulling the strings, it's just the natural consequence of everyone doing their jobs. — Isaac

I believe that Shapiro and "god-save-the-Queen" paraphernalia are symptoms of a broader trend, not the disease itself. They may do something to reinforce the trend, but ultimately us plebeians are still to blame. Our nature makes us vulnerable to fear-based group think (and gives us an emotional need for a protector), and our technological dice-rolling has given us more powerful group-think-tools than we've ever had to contend with in the history of our species. We knew there would be unknown risks, and our apparent inability to use social media responsibly and rationally is evidently one of them. Corporations are trying to adapt to change and scale just like the rest of us, we just need to make sure they don't take the whole store in the contemporary shake-up (because given their inexorable motives, we should trust them less than anyone).

But I still-hold out a lot of hope that grass-roots initiatives still mean something (even if that is very little compared to corporate will), and I think the interests of the people can still recapture influence. Present times might be a bit of a hiccup, but the grass is also more fertile than ever as a result.

I actually think this is where we differ (as I agree Shapiro's influence is minor). I don't think there are any persuasive element to his rhetoric. His "game" is to act as a rallying post for the sorts of vaguely right-wing positions he espouses and he does this exactly by lending them faux-intellectual rigour. It's this method that I feel so strongly about preventing. Neither you nor I will ever be invited to speak at Berkeley, yet I've no doubt either of us would be able to dismantle Shapiro's reasoning relatively easily — Isaac

Generally we hope that what's persuasive to us is also truthful, and much of what Shapiro says is a good example of how things can be persuasive but ultimately untruthful or inaccurate. It begs direct redress.

s this tendency for fame to justify a platform to speak that I'm opposed to, and debating with him doesn't solve that problem because the moment you debate, you've accepted his right to a place at the table. A right denied to you and I. — Isaac

Specifically (if memory serves), and I think this might be a very important point, Shapiro was invited by a conservative student union, not the University itself. He wasn't arbitrarily given platform by a respected institution, paying members of that institution rented a physical platform within it and offered it to him. If Berkeley was playing political favorites, they might simply be boycotted as a thoroughly partisan University (and students who are politically opposed to it would know not to apply and pay to attend).

1. The other side only ever responds exactly in kind - in this case, as long as your physical response stays below 10, so will theirs.

2. The other side have a tendency to respond higher than your last action - in this case they're going to move to a 6 (first physical response) in response to your 5. So 5's must be avoided. And we end up with a hangman's paradox. — Isaac

The way we respond isn't exactly linear in this respect. Certain kinds of perceived threats can invoke different flight or fight responses in different situations, but when flight is not an apparent option, the greater the perceived threat, the more likely people are to escalate a conflict to a higher level. There's seemingly no escape from the woes of modern political controversy in the contemporary world, and dissatisfaction with political outcomes on both sides are driving everyone to extremes. We can try to game-theory out the appropriate amount of force to use, but ultimately, since the less force, the more room there is for reason and reasonable persuasion, I think the ideal approach is to ourselves minimize our use of force, and to minimize the ways in which the other side can declare us a threat to themselves, which is (same as us) what drives their own use of force.

Chapo Trap House and Left youtube (Contrapoints, PhilosophyTube, Hbomberguy, Shaun and InnuendoStudios to name the major figures) are addressing this hole and, by the looks of it, actually having a positive effect through their excellent mockery and long form, funny, video essays respectively. — fdrake

You-tube seems like the perfect microcosm of the broader political scene. Those obscure Youtube pundits actually seem to get more play than almost anything else, and a lot of times they do a very good job of it. Youtube is home to pundits of all persuasions, and following clashes and interactions between them can actually be quite revealing about the broader real-time political spectrum. Given that Youtube is 99% grass-roots, issues tend to appear there before they get picked up or mowed down by the mainstream. In that sense, social media like Youtube does seem to have some merit, but at the same time unless you know how to cross the boundaries of Youtube's sub-networks it can be just as much of an echo chamber as anywhere else.

For me, the important question is not really how to rehabilitate discourse, but how to use its shifted form to correlate action internationally so we can address the global problems we face. This requires broad correspondence between communities irrespective of national lines; the brutality the global south faces when it tries to organise should be resisted in the home of the companies that brutality benefits as well as at the scene of our daily humanitarian disasters. Social media could let us do that. — fdrake

I think I get what you mean. You would have us use the cognitive exploits that social media makes available to overcome our creeping existential threats. But how can we wield the dark magic of social media without being influenced and manipulated by corporate psychopathy?

This is, I think, a necessary part of a winning strategy, but it's missing something. The left and the right are already in maximum pander mode, and there's not much more either side could do to improve their optics (except maybe learning how to persuade the other side instead of offending them). At this point, the more we pander to one side, the more we offend the other. I would say the solution is to pander to both sides, but that inherently doesn't work (hence, sides). The only things that can really bridge this kind of divide are facts and reason which can't be easily ignored or misunderstood. I realize how naive that sounds, as if "facts" have hold any sway these days, but if you present the right facts in the right way they are still effective tools. As idiotic as we tend to behave in groups, individuals are almost always smarter than we give them credit for, which is where cold hard facts and well supported arguments are absolutely vital.

Being able to successfully organize and take action against our globalized disasters is made more and more difficult by petty polarization that distracts and entrenches us, so we should be putting some limits in how much we're willing to favor form over content if too much direct emphasis on form leads to greater polarization. The alt-right is primarily a symptom of our susceptibility to form over rational function, so in the sense that such aesthetic appeals have become normalized as rational merit, I do think our discourse needs rehabilitation.

If someone's going to deny the Holocaust, for example, you can't do much to shift their denial through reasoned argument most of the time; and how people come to believe it is not through reasoned argument using reliable sources. — fdrake

You're absolutely right, but they do come to believe it through a series of cognitive steps which if, are well understood, can be effectively challenged and undermined. It's true that to actually dissuade a holocaust denier, a "white ethno-nationalist", or someone who propagates a conspiracy theory alleging global "Jewish control of all media, militaries, and finances", that we're going to have to pull the right emotional strings (where solid evidence alone won't do much), but form and emotion alone almost never get the job done (and can be reversed with a change of mood). Actually dissuading these types in practice is nearly impossible without a thorough grasp of their platform, its supporting beliefs, and their underlying emotions (along with a wide range of material that is included among their many and often fallacious appeals). It simply can't be done without meeting them on a level they can actually understand and relate to, and it often can only happen between individuals (there are very few open debates about such topics because they are so uncouth, but they do happen). It's a very messy affair, and other than maybe wising up as they age, it's the only way to actually dispossess them of their delusions. Shapiro's ideas, which are less dangerous, better formed, but just as polarizing and irritating, require the same robust and personal redress if we're to pull his followers closer to the middle.

The three specific delusional positions I mentioned share many common roots, the deepest of which are fear and paranoia. The alt-right-at-large is a mostly flat, unsophisticated, and horizontal political structure comprised of a mix of specific and often unrelated ideas and beliefs, but all of them incite fear. If our focus on form is constantly spun as anti-white rhetoric which feeds their fear and paranoia then we should adapt our approach accordingly. If we refuse to address their positions and pursue censorship, they see it as yet more validation for their delusions. We can't sweep them under the rug, because that's where they matured in the first place, so the only solution that I see is pulling them out into the open and dealing with them directly. Their views are alien to our own, and utterly reprehensible, but they're also a part of us (many of them yet children), so we really ought to try. Even if having such debates publicly would offend the majority of us, it's the only way to truly sanitize the problematic political minority.

P.S, sorry if my response misses the mark slightly. Our discussion is so broad and similar to my parallel discussion with @Isaac that I'm starting to misplace some details with reference to previously made points.

Big mistake to assume that Richard Spencer doesn't believe in what he says. What is that even based on? — Maw

I've listened to everything Spencer has to say, and it turned out that he just reads crowds (live-stream chat-rooms mostly) in order to maximize his number of cheers and subsequent donations. I've heard him say, and then have to recant, the most absolutely ridiculous shit because he was just reflecting the mass lunacy of the live-chat attached to the event. He may hold run-of-the-mill conservative views or typical far-right views, but his current career and business model is entirely based around maximizing the donations he gets through inlets like Youtube "super-chats" (a built in donation function), PayPal, cryptocurrency, Patreon, Hate-reon (now defunct), StreamLabs, merchandise sales, sales for his white-nationalist publishing house, and any other source of monetization that he still has access to. In short, he is a human crowdfunding algorithm catering to a niche and gullible market segment for the sake of maximizing his personal wealth.

Demonstrating his own intellectual dishonesty is actually a great way to undermine the influence he has over his followers, and even if he doesn't believe many of the things he says, the things he says still need to be debunked and rebuked (because his followers DO believe it). What makes it a mistake?

Pain is there. We need a way to process it. Screaming at a random white guy who said the wrong word is one way to process it. Block that path and we'll find another. We're going to scream at somebody. We have to. In an ideal world, our processing of pain would be victimless. Is your point that we should try harder to make it so? — frank

Aside from getting people to stop using the word in a hate filled sense (applies to everyone), I want people to scream less at each-other in general (even when they're clearly justified to do so). We scream if we must, but we mustn't let it poison our personalities and cause us to respond to hate with only hate.

In part, sensitivity to the word gives it its negative power, and while I am sympathetically forced to rebuke people who use it in a hateful sense, I want to do so in the most dignified way possible. I'm not black so it's not as if I can ambassador myself to racists on behalf of black communities, but I can still try to set an example. I really don't have the answers here, I'm just trying to get by by expressing myself.

laissez faire a concept truly ruined by economic theorists but here might be the beginning, middle and end to an appropriate response. — thedeadidea

Even if we wanted to interfere, what knobs could we fiddle?

It's just unique. I can't really explain it. The trouble with it is its historical meaning, and the hate that its use can stand for, but it has come to have great utility in the seemingly ambiguous ways it can be used (for example, as with the hitter translation, it can in fact be a term of respect or an acknowledgment of power).

Its usage in the black community is controversial on the whole. Black people who aren't interested in hip-hop, and generally elderly blacks (the ones I have known), really don't like hearing the word being used by anyone, but then there are some families that use it profusely.

What are we to do? It's the mess of emergent language, and it's going to take time and changing perceptions to decide how it should or shouldn't be used.

Come to think of it, most of the slurs that I am aware of are actually somewhat recent language acquisitions (perhaps because the pain associated with them must be in memory?). Would it be politically or culturally insensitive to call someone a Damn Philistine!? The modern meaning actually means "a person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts, or who has no understanding of them", but etymologically (or Biblically) it refers to a region in the Middle East or its people, which is a less than complimentary comparison...

Where's Vagabond Spectre? He would know what I'm saying — frank

Would that our arbitrary visual differences could be marginalized so easily... (Would indeed be grand).

I'll hazard the field and say that on the one hand, we should not train ourselves to feel emotional pain when he hear a particular sound (intent should matter and all that, but beyond that we should do our best to respond to genuine hatred with genuine love). On the other hand, because of the obvious effect it has, it's not a word that should ever be uttered in certain public contexts (a politician merely uttering the word, in whatever context, is bound to stir a negative emotional reaction). I wish that we were less sensitive about the mere utterance of a word, but it is what it is.

I actually grew up in a black community listening to hip-hop, so it's not a word I could ever escape. Once I was told what it was (I didn't even realize it had racist origins at first) as the result of using it against my best friend (who happened to be black) I went for a very long time without ever uttering it (when I wanted to reference it in discussion, I said "the n-word", but even then I was unsure if that was appropriate).

As me and my friends grew older, the word became more ubiquitous, and I couldn't help but to use it among my close circle of friends (in all manner of expressive ways except the hate filled hard-"e.r.", which is what we would call a fighting word regardless of who uses it). At the same time, when I heard it come out of the mouths of the upper-middle class white kids who didn't know any better, I resented them and hated them for it.

As an adult, I continue to use the word only in private with my friends who will not misinterpret my meaning, or I'll put it in quotations if I'm forced to reference the word itself (I feel too silly saying "the n word".

I've managed to write this entire post without actually using the titular word, and now allow me to cock that all up by attempting to demonstrate why me and my black friends could not help but use it. It's too expressive:



And here's the "clean" version.

"Touch them other hitters cause I'm down for my hitters" just isn't the same...

Honestly? You don't. Social media has great potential to allow international organisation.

You also have to recognise that people who are actually on the far right don't give much of a shit whether their ideas are right or wrong, they care a lot more about whether people are broadcasting their message for recruitment purposes, and care a lot about marketing. This is part of why you find so many liberals defending the far right, or assholes like Shapiro and Milleanopolusapalalalais or whatever the fuck that guy's name is, not because they're defending the content of the ideas - but because they care that they are possible to express. — fdrake

I think this holds true for hardened figures within the alt right who care more about growing their following than they do about being right (Richard Spencer is a primary example of this; I don't think he believes a word of what he says, it's just his meal/fame ticket), but the people that they recruit are persuaded by the specific rhetoric. If we can't sway alt-right leaders, at least we can sway their followers (and we really ought to try).

All you need to do is pay lip service to individual freedoms, and it is only lip service - remember these people actually want most of us not to exist -, being curtailed by 'hordes of irrational leftists'... then you get liberals defending the right from a left wing conspiracy.

A liberal won't even realise they're doing this, most of the time. This focus on optics and the understanding of viral marketing, as well as playing on structural weaknesses in liberal discourse (even liberal politics), is why the right is disproportionately influential on the internet.

Even if it's not a far right ideologue, the liberal sympathy for freedom of speech is being leveraged by these goons to get lots of money and idea exposure. — fdrake

I view the alt-right-at-large as less of a marketing mastermind, and more as a lucky opportunist. Elements within the broad Left do have some significant ideological issues, and they make for more fodder and fuel than Shapiro and his ilk could ever exhaust. Figures in the left are generally too vulnerable to controversy, so when it comes to the alt-right in particular there's almost never any direct exchange. People like Shapiro who are considered alt-right-adjacent are indeed getting exorbitant exposure, but I don't think they could sustain it unless they were somehow appealing to a large number of people (especially the digitized youth). Given the current strength of appealing to identity (and given the current demographics of America), it's not at all surprising to me that the left is losing its broad appeal compared to Shapiro the rebel.

Remember, protests, deplatforming, critique are just as much a part of free speech as anti-protests, platforming and political program advancement. What matters is who, why and how much power they can mobilise. — fdrake

I should probably say though, the suspicions I raised in the previous post aren't always appropriate. The forum here, for example, is exactly the kind of space where nuance thrives. What I really wanted to emphasise is that instead of lamenting the lack of nuance in reactionary media, we instead treat it as a medium that nuance suffers in and go from there. — fdrake

I'm very reluctant to embrace the death of nuance in any political arena. I just can't accept that we've come back to Jacksonian rabble-rousing, and that it's either rabble or get rabbled. In mediums like Twitter it inherently can't be otherwise, but I think embracing that approach will blur and bleed into settings where nuance should be the focus. For example, our forum has probably seen a rise in ideological grand-standing in place of dialogue, and on university campuses (where nuance is what they're there to learn) I think it's equally important that ideas be met with ideas rather than a mobilization of force. We're better off abandoning media like Facebook and Twitter entirely as meaningful political arenas.

I wholeheartedly support protests, but not when they use force to interfere with the rights of others.

Really? So, the publishers published his books purely out of recognition of his hard work and ideas, and not becausethey thought the books would earn them a pack of money? Breibart made him editor purely because of his hard work, and would have done so even if their corporate advertisers were opposed to it? — Isaac

I think Shapiro was the youngest ever syndicated columnist, and he's been a political pundit for over a decade (he's written 10 books since age 17). Strictly speaking, publishers will only publish if they think they stand to make money, and Brietbart hired him because of his notoriety (where political alignment is a pre-requisite)

I'm not really talking about the sort of progressive event that Trump supporters might turn up to shut down. I'm talking about the dull, but factual communication of things like economic policy, climate science.... Trump supporters don't have to turn up to shut these messages down. They they're already shut down. Who wants to publish a news story about the fact that the poor are still just as poor as they always were? Who wants to tweet about a rally to encourage the same economic policy we've all know is probably best in the long term but still haven't done yet? Who's going to advertise and provide commercial support for the message that we should all just buy less, including from our kind sponsor?

These messages already have their means of being shut down - lack of funding, lack of interest, lack of media support.

Shapiro can't be combated by these means, he has the funding, has the media support, has the interest. So do we just allow the unlevelled field? — Isaac

Climate science and economic policy are hot topics of late, even in some right wing circles. "The New Green Deal" might interest you. Bernie is running on a campaign of corporate accountability and economic reform, which I don't take as insignificant.

You're making it seem like Breitbart, Monsanto, et al.represent the average political agenda, when in reality they're political pariahs (In different ways). They certainly do represent the agenda of profit, but that agenda is somewhat a-political in that they don't care which politician gets elected (or which editors they hire), so long as they support beneficial policies for corporations (or in the case of Breitbart and its editors, so long as they bring notoriety and clicks, which is the product they sell to advertisers). Broadly speaking, there's a new corporate sustainability movement that is driving just about every major corporation to develop sustainability/green initiatives, but this is largely just a PR measure in response to rising public concern. Corporations don't actually want to spend money on minimizing pollution or giving back to the community because it affects their bottom line, but they're learning that we'll damage their bottom line even more through social sanctions if they do not. In reality, if they are able to do so, corporations will claim to spearhead and represent sustainability initiatives while actually subverting them (they derail our reform movements with superficial bull-shit). I just find it strange that you view Shapiro as a hero of corporate interest when most of what he says has very little to do with policies affecting corporate profits (he deals in petty moralizing mostly). I'm much more worried about the Zuckerbergs, the Musks, the Besos, the Dorseys, the Cooks, and the rest, who have the gall to pretend that we can trust them or that they're looking out for our interests; that if given the choice between profits and the right thing, they'll do the right thing. That's not how they got where they are, and it's not where they're going, even if they're self-deluded enough to believe it.

The real difference between our views regarding Shapiro is that I don't see Shapiro as having wide-spread "media support" beyond the fact that algorithms favor his polemics. In the realm of mainstream news, Shapiro and his ideas are somewhat ignored and avoided, where his best exposure (that I know of) comes from videos uploaded to Youtube ("take-down" or "destroy-the-libs" videos) which are vastly persuasive to the philosophically and politically uninitiated. Whether I like to admit it or not, Shapiro is an amazingly persuasive and attention-getting speaker (that's his value), and while he may be yet another in a long line of talking-shit-heads, somehow we've got to confront the persuasive elements of his rhetoric directly. Force and censorship simply won't work against him (it energizes his existing base), so really the only option is to beat him at his own game. It's a lame and difficult task, but it is an absolutely necessary one.

To an extent, yes. Though I wouldn't advocate extreme violence, but that's not because I think the other side will follow suit, it's because avoidance of extreme violence is one of the things I'd be standing for in the first place. It'd be like using racism to combat a racist. — Isaac

I think civil protest and disobedience is almost always more effective (even when you're fighting an enemy that has all the power (perhaps especially then)). But the other issue with the force approach (I'm starting to sound like a broken record) is that it will just engender the use of force by the other side. In other words, it escalates our conflict beyond what words, ideas, and reason can overcome, and more and more force becomes strategically necessary. As with the adversarial system we use in courts, if one litigant crosses the isle to assault the other side, there's a significantly reduced chance of the proceedings leading to a useful outcome. Maybe it's fair to say that the other side as already crossed the isle and uses unjust force against us, but even if that is the case, I still think it would be more effective not to reciprocate that force. Taking the higher moral ground against force and violence through a civil disobedience approach requires real sacrifice, but it actually works.

Yes, basically. I'm of the view that rational argument proceeds from shared premises, and that the conclusions can only be rationally countered on the basis of the inferences drawn between premises. One cannot rationally discuss the premises themselves unless they are rational conclusions drawn fro higher order shared premises, and were merely being assumed for the sake of argument.

Shapiro has been demonstrated on dozens of occasions to work from premises which are factually incorrect. He makes frequent assertions about moral rights and wrongs (which cannot be rationally countered) and the vast majority of what I've heard has been statements about states of affairs, not rational inferences. I may be exposed to an unfortunate selection of his work, but thus far I've encountered very little to argue against other than to say "no". — Isaac

Where he selects faulty premises, challenge them (in the most persuasive manner you can). Shapiro is highly practiced, and countering his gish gallop ain't easy, but it's doable. Many people here think that if you're engaging Shapiro in the first place then you've already lost, but if countering his actual rhetoric is of value, then someone has inevitably got to do it. The corporate status quo that I'm more concerned with is somewhat removed from Shapiro's sphere of influence (I'm open to corrections on this point) which is why I don't view him to be quite as pernicious as some suggest, but if I'm wrong, then directly addressing and overcoming his rhetoric is of even higher importance.

Not a million miles off. I don't vote and I don't obey the law, so I suppose you're right in those respects, but I think your and my deninitions of what constitutes the 'status quo' may differ radically. Ben Shapiro is just as much a part of the 'status quo' I'm referring to as Facebook, Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders are. — Isaac

I think is shows the most contrast between our positions. I'm still willing to gamble on politicians that I have more trust in (Bernie being infinitely more trustworthy than Hillary). In a sense, Shapiro is like Facebook's useful idiot in the way he polarizes us all (nudging us into disparate political boxes that represent powerfully accurate market segments) in a way that makes it easier to exploit our political angst with learning algorithms. I still hold out hope that governments will be able to control these wildly powerful corporations (and mitigate their recklessness), or else we're in for a very dystopian future indeed.

I would describe myself as yet reformist rather than revolutionary.

The Vampire Castle is more than the reduction of productive thought to reactionary clickbait, it's a festering wound in the prospect of political organisation along shared interest. It substitutes a representation for what it represents; the representation of the political is equated with the politics of representation.

That is to say, politics tout court — fdrake

So how do we leave the vampire castle and move away from this virtual-real-politik?

How can we mature while trapped in the fun-house?

It seems like a catch-22: We need self-control to be able to coherently organize and institute reform and accountability measures, but reform and accountability measures are about the only thing that could help us regain our self-control and democratic composure in the first place.

Sorry for the late response. I had some kind of food poisoning yesterday (but the threat has since been evacuated!)

I'm of the opinion that people like Shapiro are enabled by institutions and his widespread acceptance is nothing more than an entirely predicable consequence of that enabling. The idea that he has somehow 'emerged' as the representative of a group of people who have long harboured his views but until now had no voice is just not swinging it for me. — Isaac

Which specific institutions enabled Shapiro?

Shapiro basically clawed his way to notoriety over the last decade through mostly his own effort. I'm not aware of any major reason for his success other than his hard work and his ideas. (Before he became famous, he was making rounds on obscure media sites like "Blog-Talk-Radio", and slowly building his audience and body of rhetoric).

The thing about Shapiro is that he is actually persuasive to a huge number of people. You might feel like he is just singing the same old conservative song, but the way he sings it allows him to go viral; he seems to be mostly self-made...

Sometimes, yes. I'm not really sure why you are drawing such a line at physical force, perhaps you could expand on that? Why is it OK, for example, for media companies to use their wealth to distribute platforms to those controversial enough to make revenue (denying platforms to the mundane), but its not OK for students to use their physical mass to deny platforms to the likes of the Shapiro? What is it about physical mass as a tool that singles it out as reprehensible? — Isaac

Let's assume for a moment that physical force is a normal tool of political speech: so we go and shut down Shapiro's event by force, and any other event that espouses ideas we don't like.

But what will we say when a large group of Trump supporters shows up to shut down one of our progressive events? Throughout American history, liberal and progressive movements have often had to deal with violent push back from supporters of the status quo who also believed that might makes political right, and this is one of things we've been rebuking since the French and American revolutions (which though themselves used force, were also direct responses to force).

What you're suggesting will inexorably lead to increasingly violent conflicts as both sides convince themselves that they're ethically justified to use force. Your justification seems to be that wealthy individuals and corporations are able to purchase political influence, and therefore wealth inequality warrants the use of force as an equalizer. The problem with this is that there is wealth being spent on both ends of the political spectrum (often by the same groups), so the use of violence on one side also justifies the use of violence by the other side.

This is exactly the point I'm trying to make. It has virtually nothing to do with free-speech in the sense most people seem to use the term (we must listen to and rationally argue against ideas for the sake of our collective intellect). There's no debating going on here. No one is listening to the arguments with a rational mind, neither for nor against. It's language being used entirely as rhetoric just to stir up a movement in a particular political direction. To say we should use language to oppose it is to give the 'discussion' a legitimacy it does not deserve.

These events are no more than rallies, a show of force. — Isaac

Is it really fair to assume that Shapiro has nothing rational or original to say, and that since he is only rabble-rousing to gather physical force, we ought to use physical force against him/them?

I find most of Shairo's rhetoric to be polemic, misleading, and insidious (though there are some basic things we agree on), but he does actually make arguments and engage in political suasion. If we ignore what he has to say and insist he is just a bogeyman to be de-platformed, we're actually living up to his caricature of the left. Shapiro uses ideas to appeal to emotions, and if we respond to his followers with threats, we're just going to entrench and validate their emotions.

Where is this idea coming from that they're waiting to see what we do to decide what tactics are acceptable? They (by whom I mean whomever one considers opposed to them) are going to use whatever tactics they can to shut down ideas that don't meet their requirements. Not necessarily even ideologically, I don't think the media, for example, are motivated by anything but the fact that controversy sells. But the point is, they won't hold back. — Isaac

I disagree.

The alt-right exists as a mostly reactionary movement (and to be fair, Shapiro tries to distance himself from it) that started as a rejection of identity politics, but eventually began reciprocating the tactics of the left, which now happily appeals to race and gender as a means to credibility (instead of claiming to champion non-white and marginalized identity groups, the alt-right claims to be the champion of straight white men). Once "Antifa" caught a whiff of their rhetoric, they decided that violent opposition was the way to go, which ironically caused the alt right to galvanize into the "culture war fighting" white supremacist cluster of fear driven lunatics and opportunistic con-men that it now is.

If we start attacking Shapiro events as a matter of course, don't you think that's going to cause some kind of response?

This is how we get violent clashes between opposing mobs, which is decidedly unproductive. The radical left created the alt-right.

I guess to some extent the issues are different for different sides in a debate. If you're arguing against someone who has money, they're not going to use physical force against you (why would they) but you might need to against them. Your resources are obviously not going to be the same as theirs. — Isaac

This is such a strange perspective. Leftists have money too, so does that mean the poor Trump supporters of Appalachia should take up the use of force to prevent their region from being associated with political enemies?

We fund leftist representatives, and given they have more money and platforms than the whining right wing masses, the same argument can easily apply from their perspective.

It sounds like your position derives from a deeply seated dissatisfaction with the "status quo", which makes you willing to forego democracy and the rule of law in order to bring about change, but if Shapiro is high on your list of enemies regarding "the status quo", then I think you're sorely mistaken (and as I have been saying since the beginning, responding to the likes of Shapiro with force almost always backfires by giving them attention and by apparently fulfilling his self-trolling prophecies of "cultural marxism" and the like).

So yes, an even playing field and fair rules of engagement are very important to any adversarial system, but I think what we too often take for granted the playing field and rules we currently have which are neither even nor fair. They are stacked massively in favour of the institutions of the status quo. — Isaac

Which status quo?

In my view, Shapiro does not represent the status quo (evidenced by the fact that corporate PR departments wont touch him with a 39 & 1/2 foot pole). The status quo is more money for more money, and unless we have some kind of massive economic reform there's going to be no change to the economic plights of the middle and lower classes of all colors and creeds. The Besos and the Zucherbergs of the world claim to be progressive, but they act like psychopaths in the way they manage their ultra-powerful corporations. The Koch brothers are one thing, with their spider-web like funding of propaganda, but a corporation that can fundamentally control the landscape of our collective psychology, or extort entire nations for exorbitant profits by threatening to withhold their crucial business, are problems of an entirely different magnitude.

Shapiro, to me, is like one of those annoying midges whose high-pitched buzz is too close to our ears, but Facebook et al. is the swamp in our front yard that generates them in the first place (and worse). We need reform of such magnitude that fighting these polemic and niche battles with the likes of Shapiro or Paglia would be a waste of time even if the left knew how fight them successfully. But by constantly defining other political groups as the enemy, and giving up all hope of cooperation or compromise, we're simply dividing and conquering ourselves.

But free-speech (in terms of having a platform like the one Ben Shapiro had) is interfered with in this way all the time. I don't have enough money to do what Shapiro does, is the economy interfering with my free speech? The trouble is we're not starting from a blank slate, so to give people an equal right to speak from where they are now, is not equality of opportunity, it's re-inforcement of the status quo. How is the effect on freedom to speak of the protesting students materially any different to the effect on the freedom to speak of the revenue-based format of the global media? How is it materially any different to the qualifications/fame barrier of columnists for major newspapers? — Isaac

While it's true that we don't all have the means to platform ourselves, and it's also true in a capitalist system those with more wealth will always be able to purchase more influence or exposure (a tangential issue), democracy was never intended to give every individual equal speaking time at a podium (though whomsoever wants to step on a soap-box is free to do so, for all the good it might do). Representative democracy requires that we choose representatives, both formally and informally. Ben Shapiro happens to have made a career out of being an informal representative (a well followed pundit), and though at this point he has more privilege and opportunity than most anyone else, it is a privilege freely given to him by his supporters.

Regarding the question of protesting a Shapiro speaking event, I'm all for it, but where's the sense in shutting it down with force and disruption? It's true that the wealthy and privileged have a pre-existing advantage, but does that mean we should resort to force?

I just want to clarify that "platforms" and "de-platforming" are so poorly defined that we can easily over-generalize. We're all platformed or not platformed in dozens of relevant ways, and my objections to "de-platforming" run along very particular lines (e.g: de-platforming through harassment or force and de-platforming based on misleading emotional appeals (it's not so much the emotional appeal as it is the misleading part, and the fact that these are what tend to lead to unjust harassment and force)).

I think with cases like these, people seem to mix two ideas. The first is the principle that human society works best with a free exchange of ideas. This is something I'm entirely supportive of. But this has nothing to do with the Shapiro affair. The reason why people wanted to hear him speak is because they'd already heard his ideas and wanted to rally behind him. They didn't randomly invite the guy in the spirit of widening their concepts. The reason why the protesters wanted to prevent his speech is because they too had already heard his ideas and didn't want their university to be associated with them (among a host of other incentives no doubt). None of the conflict was to do with hearing his ideas for the first time, that has already happened,and was fully facilitated (in fact encouraged) by the way our idea-discussing platforms are already arranged to favour people like Shapiro (wealthy, charismatic, controversial) and disfavour many whose ideas might be just as useful. — Isaac

Ultimately it's not for me (or any individual, save our elected officials, for better or for worse) to decide whose ideas (policies) are useful for the lot of us. I take as much issue with Shapiro as you do, and as much of a sycophantic echo-chamber as I'm sure the event would have been, there's no good reason they should not be allowed to hold it (and where opposing it by force just backfires spectacularly). Isn't any partisan political event by definition a re-hashing of ideas that most everyone there has already heard? Is there a useful point to them beyond promoting intra-party cohesion? If not, why shouldn't the economically disadvantaged among Trumps constituents disrupt left wing events? If they're just ideas everyone has already heard then why not? I'm being facetious, but from the other side (Shapiro fans), condoning forceful disruption against him would be taken as firm evidence of Shapiro's already privileged narrative. Why take the bait?

The media makes it difficult for those who are not wealthy, charismatic and controversial to have their ideas heard. Academic institutions make it difficult for those who are not wealthy (again!) and well-read to have their ideas heard. The liberal protest movement might make it difficult for those who are not 'politically correct' to have their ideas heard. I'm still not seeing the 'important' difference. — Isaac

It's the long-term chilling effect of how we motivate and sanction individuals and our institutions. Positive reinforcement is like inviting/paying Shapiro to speak at an event, and withholding positive reinforcement would be akin to a boycott or a dis-invitation (a de-platforming). Negative reinforcement then amounts to the use of force (force as in taking disruptive action beyond traditional protest and boycott, which can include dis-invitation by extortion (e.g: a group of unruly protestors issue threats to have an event canceled)).

So what do we get when we normalize that kind of negative reinforcement as a standard sanction against political opponents? We drive pundits like Shapiro onto fringe media platforms (much like Alex Jones, where they may all yet live), or worse we give them the attention the thrive on; but we might also create a similar predicament for our own beloved radicals. Regular individuals with no substantial platform gain nothing, and if they've got radical ideas of their own, they would have a large incentive to remain politically silent (because applying negative sanctions en masse against an average individual (someone who doesn't have Shapiro's resources) can be life ruining). The crucial difference is when our opposition goes from civil to less than civil.

To me, it's a bit like the adversarial system in law. No one really likes it as it feels wrong to be trying as hard as one can to let a potential criminal go free, rather than just find out the 'truth'. But the other side are trying as hard as they can to put them away. So the adversarial system is the best we have. Similarly each pressure group is going to be trying as hard as they can to allow/promote only the ideas they see as 'worthy' of discussion. If we single out one group and ask them not to try as hard as they can, to refrain from some action they think might work, we're tipping the balance in favour of the other pressures whom we have not similarly bound. — Isaac

I'm actually a fan of the adversarial system, not for its short term precision, but for its long term accuracy (its ability to derive and establish superior precedent in case law over time. Some might say legislative superiority just waxes and wanes according to the values of the time, but I personally believe in legal ethical progress). For that system to work, both sides need a somewhat even playing field, but both sides must also agree to abide by a certain code of conduct and procedural standards that are designed to protect fairness. And compared to those standards, the landscape of political discourse is an unregulated free-for-all, where the conflicts spill violently out of court-room and into the streets. Letting Shapiro confer with his clients, so to speak, is an essential part of a functional version of an adversarial political system.

the whole problem is ideas integral to these politics violate ethics and objective description of society. We need to abandon them. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But how do we convince our political opposition to abandon their unethical beliefs? Half the time they too feel that the other side holds unethical and inaccurate beliefs. Assuming the conflict will tend to be symmetrical, if I endorse the use of force against the other side then I'm also endorsing the use of it against my own side.

Well, at least we can laugh about it. Out there in the real world there is somewhat of a loss of a sense of the absurd, and of humour, and an embrace of a feeling of threat on both sides. So we wear the ritual masks lest we be turned to stone by the sight of our own shadows posing as ophidian foes. Whereas what's underneath is likely a wormery of confused righteousness rather than a snarling serpent aimed at our souls. — Baden

That worm deep inside of us is in desperate need of catharsis, as its enduring frustration turns it into the self-consuming Ouroboros that I fear.

This is a part of what drives me to such colorful descriptions. I want to satirize and make light of our own foolishness, though I'm running at high risk in terms of how my musings are actually received.