My how horrible they are! Poor, brave XYZ for standing up to them. I will vote for him' — andrewk
It's de-platformed -> the people opposing it talk less about it -> the people opposing it argue less against it -> less rational and logical arguments are presented against it -> it's easier to rationally come to the conclusion that the idea is correct. — BlueBanana
Mill would have strongly disagreed with you. — Marchesk
An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard. — J S Mill
Do you think that comes first, or do you think we actually need to decide what method we're going to use before applying it. By that I mean, if we were to exclude racists from the debate, why would we be doing so? Once we've answered that question it would become a matter of arguable (but ultimately resolvable?) fact as to whether a particular point of view fits this criteria or not. I don't know if I've just missed it, but I don't feel like we've actually decided, as a society, what it is about racist views that makes us feel able to flatly deny them. Is it the fact that they're unfair (no-one chooses who they're born to), or the fact that they're wrong (you race does not determine your character in any way), or that fact that they're harmful (potentially)? The problem is I can think of lots of commonly held ideas that could fall into any of these categories (though perhaps not all three). — Pseudonym
I don't see this as being a problem personally. Racism is quite clearly defined as being treating someone differently because of their birth parents. If people wish to have a net migration target, for example, there's clearly no racism involved there, but if people want to have an immigration target (regardless of emigration) from particular countries, I don't see how that's anything but racist, it's clearly saying that the potential immigrants are somehow of a lower value than the native population, or some other population, purely on the basis of where they were born. — Pseudonym
My fear is that others wouldn't be nearly so charitable and would try to forge necessary connections between racism and the holding of certain positions that are not overtly racist. By doing so they'd endeavor to eliminate more than just obvious forms of racist speech.
But perhaps I'm overly paranoid. — Erik
Amazingly, the university I go to some times for classes refuses to go near this subject not will they touch the financing of racism pretending instead that it is sort of genetic aberration in some people. — Rich
But then I take it you're American, and they consider Stephen Pinker an academic over there so maybe I'm not that surprised afterall. — Pseudonym
Who exactly is this rational 'we' that get to de-platform the less enlightened 'them'? — Roke
Oh, good, you mean politicians. That's reassuring because I can't imagine them silencing oppositional political views by disingenuously painting them as racist. — Roke
Let me ask you an honest, non-rhetorical, question. Is affirmative action racist? — Roke
If the latter, then rationally debating with the racist is pointless and the only issue is how best to limit the effect their views have on the irrational. Here I think legitimising them by including them in the discourse is as likely an outcome as bolstering them with the kudos of being banned. — Pseudonym
What I did say is that deplatforming makes it shameful and isolating to hold certain points of view, and that this can be desirable. — StreetlightX
In other words, people will think / not think things and say / not say things based on emotions such as shame, not as the result of rational consideration/reflection. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
without implicit racism or other nefarious character flaws being involved. — Erik
Obviously. But then, it would be rational to be ashamed in some circumstances. — StreetlightX
I'm okay with opressing racists. — StreetlightX
We've never trusted politicians with the censorship of speech and I think for good reason. — Roke
Affirmative action always entails treating people differently based on their birth parents, which is the definition of racism you proposed. — Roke
Then my definition of racism is wrong. This isn't a game where we try to catch each other out with grammar, we're talking about ethics which affect people's lives. — Pseudonym
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