Images of aggressive students shouting somebody down or blocking people from peacefully attending a lecture are high-octane fuel to the populist narrative of the Trumps and Milo Yiannopoulos's of this world, and do enormous damage to progressive causes. — andrewk
But I'm interested to hear from people who defend the rights of racists to speak, to try and understand how they reconcile the apparent paradox, are we presuming people decide mostly on rationality or social influence, and if the latter, how are we deciding what kind of influence de-platforming will have? — Pseudonym
I think advocates of this position should lay out some specific guidelines for determining what types of speech would be banned. — Erik
the idea that holding certain political and economic policy preferences can be seen as implicit forms of racism, on par with (or even more sinister than) explicit racist statements, is extremely disconcerting. Sensing a possible slippery slope here may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. — Erik
My reason is that it has no effect. People hold beliefs and give answers that are socially acceptable within the group they wish to belong to and speech acts reinforce their bonds with each other. — Benkei
private owners of venues can do whatever they want. — Benkei
In order that de-platforming makes ideas more attractive we must presume that people are motivated to agree with ideas, not on the grounds of the rationality of the argument, but on the grounds of how well it fits into some preferred narrative. — Pseudonym
Racism is quite clearly defined as being treating someone differently because of their birth parents. — Pseudonym
Could you please elaborate on what that means? Does it just mean that the amendment protects a person from prosecution, or administrative sanction, for views expressed in a lecture, tutorial or more widely within public university grounds?I think it's well settled that the First Amendment applies to public colleges and universities. — Ciceronianus the White
No we don't. If the ideas are only de-platformed and not rationally argued against, they become more attractive from the rational point of view. — BlueBanana
All they need have is a dislike of bullying, which is a very common dislike. Regardless of whether such protests actually are bullying, they look like bullying when shown on the TV news, and that's enough to turn many uncommitted voters against whatever it is that the protesters represent.Consider firstly the effect such images would have on a theoretically equivocal voter. What views would they already have to hold in order that such images would actually persuade them one way or the other? — Pseudonym
That is only relevant if there is no debate about whether the person giving the lecture is a racist, and the person accepts the label themselves. In the real world, that is almost never the case. A more likely interpretation would beWhat I don't get then, is what kind of weird reverse psychology do we imagine would cause them, on seeing how violently a group of students do not want a racist to speak, to think "well I wasn't so sure about racism before, but I am now". — Pseudonym
I don't understand. How could an idea become rationally more attractive simply because it has been de-platformed. What rational step means that an idea is more likely to be right because lots of people don't want it talked about? — Pseudonym
the problem has always been one of legitimacy. In allowing arguments from racists, say, to be aired, what is conferred upon them is legitimacy: one admits it as an option to be considered at all in the first place — StreetlightX
Really? It makes conservatives go away? That's not what I would predict — Saphsin
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.