Liberals vs. the PC left

[Kuya]

So after the Charlie Hebdo kerfuffle, i've been a bit worried about how some in the left were quick to brand the newspaper racist and how quick they were to regard criticism of the muslim faith as automatic islamophobia. I've been starting to question whether there is a fundamental difference between two sides of the left wing. In this article, the author argues that there is in fact two sides to the left wing. One side is the liberals who share a lot in common with the pc liberals, but he makes this distinction for the latter:

The Marxist left has always dismissed liberalism’s commitment to protecting the rights of its political opponents — you know, the old line often misattributed to Voltaire, “I disapprove of what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” — as hopelessly naïve.

. Why respect the rights of the class whose power you’re trying to smash? And so, according to Marxist thinking, your political rights depend entirely on what class you belong to.

The modern far left has borrowed the Marxist critique of liberalism and substituted race and gender identities for economic ones.

The author argues that the pc left is more concerned with enforcing uniformity across the left by taking any perceived slight as betrayal. It likens the pc left to thought police that seek to silence debate and speech in the name of social justice. He says the pc left's form of politics is antithesis to democratic values and free speech.

Political correctness is a style of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate.

. But this pointlessness is exactly the point: Political correctness makes debate irrelevant and frequently impossible.

I might have to start reconsidering where my position lies in the left wing spectrum. While i have always associated political correctness with right-wingers complaining that they can't disparage people at will without consequence for no reason other than animus, after the french magazine issue i am starting to wonder whether political correctness is now not just about silencing overt aggression, but also silencing arguments that might be construed as aggression without regard for intentions or context.

I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the shrilness of some on the left.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...ng-to-say.html

edit: some of you who have been complaining about some extreme feminists on social media, might find this article familiar, as the examples are quite relevant to what you're complaining about

[JigglyJam]

See: Recent developments in trans thread over "disrespectful" language in regards to continued contributions to the topic.

[Gredival]

This is a subject near and dear to my heart as a staunch freedom of speech advocate. I believe there are plenty of remarkably ignorant, hateful and meritless opinions. But it doesn't matter how offensive or outrageous someone is, they have a right to express those opinions. You have a right to prove them wrong, not to the comfort of never hearing them.

It's why I went to war in this forum against Isladar and her ridiculous "no one should ever be offended human decency clause."

People who voice disagreement regarding the speech issue often get painted as opponents of rights, as I was. Rather than argue things on the merits, people want to dismiss dissent to things that "are so clearly right" to save certain groups from discomfort, and anyone who disagrees is an insensitive monster. I think this i largely because of the degradation of intellectual rigor. There's no more obligation to defend the truth, to defend your views

Here's a on-point article addressing how free speech has becoming a target for proponents of victim-politics on college campuses. The author was representing the pro-choice side in an abortion debate on campus, which was shut down partially because student groups protested about how the panel was two men on a women's issue: http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/...e-comfortable/

It’s hard to think of any other section of society that has undergone as epic a transformation as students have. From freewheelin’ to ban-happy, from askers of awkward questions to suppressors of offensive speech, in the space of a generation ... In each case, it wasn’t the fact the students disagreed with me that I found alarming — disagreement is great! — it was that they were so plainly shocked that I could have uttered such things, that I had failed to conform to what they assume to be right, that I had sought to contaminate their campuses and their fragile grey matter with offensive ideas.

Where once students might have allowed their eyes and ears to be bombarded by everything from risqué political propaganda to raunchy rock, now they insulate themselves from anything that might dent their self-esteem and, crime of crimes, make them feel ‘uncomfortable’. Student groups insist that online articles should have ‘trigger warnings’ in case their subject matter might cause offence.

The censoriousness has reached its nadir in the rise of the ‘safe space’ policy. Loads of student unions have colonised vast swaths of their campuses and declared them ‘safe spaces’ — that is, places where no student should ever be made to feel threatened, unwelcome or belittled, whether by banter, bad thinking or ‘Blurred Lines’. Safety from physical assault is one thing — but safety from words, ideas, Zionists, lads, pop music, Nietzsche? We seem to have nurtured a new generation that believes its self-esteem is more important than everyone else’s liberty.

The student that canceled the debate wrote a response here: https://timsquirrell.wordpress.com/2...be-vulnerable/

We’re beginning to realise that we don’t need to be ashamed of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. We’re beginning to realise that sometimes we have to prioritise the emotional, mental and physical wellbeing of our friends and colleagues over the ability of privileged people to come in to our homes and say whatever they like.

He's right to express concern that a proper Millsian ideological arena does not exist and that, even if it did, many factors can prevent the "right" side from winning.

But the point of free speech is far more than just mere protection from government imprisonment. It's cultural. It implicates our notions of freedom, liberty, and the proper role of discourse in not just government but everyday life. The point at which we stop permitting discussions out of fear for offending someone, we are effecting barriers to discourse that are just as chilling as any governmental sanction. Each time hash tag activists ruin someone's life by publicizing an out of context tweet, they send the message that dissent is not tolerated.

The purpose of making it so that the government couldn't throw us in jail for expressing a contrary opinion wasn't to define that as the hard limit to free speech. It was to remove the most chilling deterrent for someone to express dissent. Associated rights like the right to assemble peacefully have been essential to the proper use of our free speech rights. Now they are being used to constrain and limit uncomfortable discourse to a nice distant ignorable distance.

With all due respect to the vulnerable, no they should not be subject to repeated trauma. But living in a free society means dealing with those with whom we don't agree.

We did not permit the dominant white neighborhoods to isolate themselves from ethnic families for the sake of their own safety bubble, and by the same token I can't permit the vulnerable people of our society to wield silence, whether through censorship or otherwise, just because it potentially threatens them.

[thetruepandagod]

tl;dr for this page and the next 10

Your rights end where my feelings begin has become the rallying cry for a very vocal section of the left. If you disagree you are labeled an uncaring monster.

[Gredival]

tl;dr for this page and the next 10

Your rights end where my feelings begin has become the rallying cry for a very vocal section of the left. If you disagree you are labeled an uncaring monster.

I drove most of them out.

[Charismatic]

I drove most of them out.

You've still got plenty of work to do.

[Gredival]

You've still got plenty of work to do.

As bad as you think it is now, Isladar would not hear of anyone being offended due to the speech of anyone with more normative characteristics/backgrounds.

Whether you agree with them or not, most of the posters here who are on the left spectrum at least facilitate debate.

[thetruepandagod]

Ya did the Lords work.

[Aksannyi]

While I understand both sides of this issue, I dislike that people actively go out of their way to make fun of and/or mock someone who is genuinely offended by something, particularly with the "OMG I'M SO TRIGGERED" thing that I see ... well, everywhere. If someone is offended, there is absolutely no reason to go out of your way to offend them just for kicks.

1. Triggers:

Now I don't have to deal with things that trigger on places like an internet forum. I do have things that I can recognize as likely to lead me back into a depressive episode, but nothing that is automatically going to send me into a panic attack or something similar, so I don't know that that's like. I happen to believe that the actual frequency of people being legitimately triggered is probably not that high, but I also am not the person to judge what can cause someone severe emotional trauma, and making fun of someone for having words and/or images that are triggering is pretty rude.

There absolutely is the chance that some people use it wrongly, and that being "triggered" to them is just having to see a word they don't like. To be honest, sometimes some of the things people say on here really piss me off. I refrain from responding (most of the time) and try to ignore the threads, personally. But where some might consider that a trigger for anger/rage, I do not. That being said, if someone does have something legitimately triggering come up and they ask someone to stop saying and/or posting it, or if they ask for it to be put in a spoiler tag, and the person doesn't comply, then I'm going to say that's pretty rude. Honestly, I don't know what a panic attack is like, but I do have light anxiety and that's not fun. I can't imagine what a full-scale anxiety attack must be like, I really can't. I can't imagine that it would be a fun thing to endure. So if the mention of something like anal rape might trigger someone, I'll try to refrain from mentioning that when I'm in the presence of that person (not that it often comes up, but you get the idea).

2. Safe Places/Zones

As far as schools go, I disagree wholeheartedly that we should not have "safe spaces." Maybe you are not defining them the same way as I am - to me, a safe space is where all students in my classroom (or a classroom, but I'm going to project on myself as a future educator) feel comfortable being who they are without judgement. Where they can express opinions and give answers without fear of being treated like they're dumb, even if they are wrong. I expect my students to act with respect toward one another and allow their peers to give opinions freely without ridicule. Where use of poor language such as, "That's so gay," will not be tolerated, because using "gay" as a synonym for "stupid" implies that homosexuality is stupid. It is not a place where we will avoid serious or controversial discussion. But that said, if I have a student who will be legitimately triggered by something in the lesson that day, or who has expressed an extreme amount of discomfort with a particular topic, I'm not going to force that down their throats. There is a difference between slight discomfort and extreme discomfort. Some topics are going to be uncomfortable, like sex, sexuality, abortion, rape, etc. But if you're going to have a legitimate panic or other mental episode based on something happening in my class, then there will be some sort of alternative, and I need to consider the mental wellbeing of my students as well as their physical wellbeing.

3. Offensive Words/Actions

I don't believe that everyone needs to fall under some "special snowflake" syndrome, but if I have people who are legitimately and deeply offended by something I do or say, I will do my best to stop doing or saying that thing. It isn't hard and while they might look past it, they'd probably just consider me to be a jerk. We don't call black people n****rs (I do not have permission to use that word as a white person) because we know that's an offensive word. We don't call lesbians dykes because we know that's an offensive word. We don't joke about rape to anyone who is a victim of the crime because that could be very offensive and/or triggering (plus joking about rape is fucking terrible in general and not in the least bit funny and should not be done anyway, but that's another story).

Really, you can't always know what will/won't offend someone, and I'm not saying everyone should tiptoe around their words all the time, with the obvious exception of not using obvious slurs. But if you have to work with, live with, go to school with, interact with someone regularly, then you should probably just try to avoid doing something if they tell you, "Hey, that offends me."

[GoggleHead]

More than any one activist movement that's been springing up over the last few years, it's this notion that dissent is unacceptable that's been bothering me. I've been struggling to really pin down what it was that has been making me so restless and uneasy for the past several years. For a while I attributed it to specific social media platforms and later to certain activist movements. Now that it's been laid out like this though, it becomes clear that what's been bothering me is a cultural shift towards the notion that dissenting opinions are an evil to be combated.
What I don't understand though, is how it sprang up from people who until recently were those I had assumed to be staunch defenders of the exchange of ideas. Stalwart protectors of debate and argument who sought ought as many opinions and as much information as possible. These were people I knew to be good and intelligent, capable of critical thinking and meticulous dissection and analysis that bordered on the obsessive. How does a militant lockdown of open discourse come from such a place?
What is it that changed in our culture and in these people who I knew to be good and selfless individuals?

[GoggleHead]

While I understand both sides of this issue, I dislike that people actively go out of their way to make fun of and/or mock someone who is genuinely offended by something, particularly with the "OMG I'M SO TRIGGERED" thing that I see ... well, everywhere. If someone is offended, there is absolutely no reason to go out of your way to offend them just for kicks.

Yes there is. They're on the goddamn internet and need to grow a thicker skin and learn to adapt to the environment they find themselves in. It's a life skill.
There are things that send me into a furious rage or borderline suicidal depression, but demanding that everyone put that shit in spoiler tags is not a healthy response.

[thetruepandagod]

Is it a place where we will avoid serious or controversial discussion? No. But that said, if I have a student who will be legitimately triggered by something in the lesson that day, or who has expressed an extreme amount of discomfort with a particular topic, I'm not going to force that down their throats. There is a difference between slight discomfort and extreme discomfort. Some topics are going to be uncomfortable, like sex, sexuality, abortion, rape, etc.

When you are a teacher and one of these topics comes up in your class but you know that one of your students is legitimately triggered by it what would you do? Let's say you have a class of 30-35 students and only one of them is triggered. Legitimately curious what you would do as an educator.

edit: for the sake of the question let's assume you aren't teaching something like math, but a class that may relate to these topics.

[Aksannyi]

Yes there is. They're on the goddamn internet and need to grow a thicker skin and learn to adapt to the environment they find themselves in. It's a life skill.
There are things that send me into a furious rage or borderline suicidal depression, but demanding that everyone put that shit in spoiler tags is not a healthy response.

I can concede that it's impractical to ask that of a population like BG, especially since we're very diverse and the moderation staff doesn't have the time or the energy to enforce that, though I dislike the "grow thicker skin" part of it because sometimes, it's not simply a matter of that. Just like I can't just "stop being depressed," people who have legitimate triggers can't just "stop being triggered." That may mean that they have to adapt where they go on the internet to find places more suitable for their needs.

That being said, I still don't think it's cool to make fun of people for that. You don't make fun of people who have cancer, why would you make fun of someone with a mental illness? If someone is legitimately being triggered by something, then they probably have a certifiable mental illness. Making fun of them is probably the worst thing you could do. It's called compassion.

[GoggleHead]

Growing a thicker skin isn't always the solution, but it should absolutely be the default response. There's a lot of trivial shit flowing around the internet that's got "trigger warnings" slapped all over it. That should be actively mocked and discouraged.

[Aksannyi]

When you are a teacher and one of these topics comes up in your class but you know that one of your students is legitimately triggered by it what would you do? Let's say you have a class of 30-35 students and only one of them is triggered. Legitimately curious what you would do as an educator.

edit: for the sake of the question let's assume you aren't teaching something like math, but a class that may relate to these topics.

I am going to be an English teacher, so this is relevant. It will probably depend on the school and whether or not they have any sort of policies for this type of thing, honestly. But if I don't have a way to pull that student from the class (which is likely), I would probably allow them to take a "day." (For those who don't know, this is a technique teachers use - they offer their students one "day" per quarter, where if they are just unable to focus for whatever reason based on life events or what's coming in the curriculum, they can sit in the back of the classroom and do their own thing, quietly and non-disruptively. From most of the teachers I've spoken to who have this policy, they are rarely used, but having the ability to take them is appreciated by the students.) If they would be triggered by hearing something that is being discussed, I would probably allow them to wear headphones, as long as the other students cannot hear the music and, again, they're not being disruptive. But I think that's going to be a unique situation that hopefully won't come up often, and I'll have to handle it mostly on a case-by-case basis. But that's generally what I would do for that particular student.

That said, it requires a certain level of trust that the student isn't just bullshitting me, but I plan to operate with a certain level of trust in general, and let the students come to me without being preachy or anything. I want them to know I'll be approachable but not judgmental. So my goal is that if I give them a reason to trust me, that they will not give me a reason to distrust them. If that makes sense, and all without trying not to be too much like a buddy - just a caring adult. Fine line, and I'm sure it'll be hard.

I want to add - I'm not going to refrain from engaging in or discussing controversial or otherwise difficult topics just on the behalf of one student. If there's something that particular student can't handle for whatever reason, then I can work on alternative assignments, but it will have to be really on a case-by-case basis, like I said.

Growing a thicker skin isn't always the solution, but it should absolutely be the default response. There's a lot of trivial shit flowing around the internet that's got "trigger warnings" slapped all over it. That should be actively mocked and discouraged.

Can you provide some examples? I'm not sure what you define as trivial, and I'd like the chance to see what you mean and draw my own conclusions, if you don't mind.

[Gredival]

What I don't understand though, is how it sprang up from people who until recently were those I had assumed to be staunch defenders of the exchange of ideas. Stalwart protectors of debate and argument who sought ought as many opinions and as much information as possible. These were people I knew to be good and intelligent, capable of critical thinking and meticulous dissection and analysis that bordered on the obsessive. How does a militant lockdown of open discourse come from such a place?
What is it that changed in our culture and in these people who I knew to be good and selfless individuals?

Free speech only works if people have the right to express a viewpoint the majority disagrees with. For much of history, this has facilitated progress. Right now it's facilitating obstinate prejudice. So we have people we wouldn't expect to see forsake free speech turning on it.

It's no coincidence that in America at least this coincides with the shift in political power over the last ten years. In the early 2000's, the dissent that had to be quelled was anti-war talk and such. It was "unpatriotic" to talk about how the war was a mistake because it meant we were not supporting the troops. Now with Obama in the White House and with gay marriage on a slow but seemingly inevitable march to nationwide legality, you have a bunch of people who want to cement this new progress in tolerance by making sure that the remaining opponents can't even express their dissent

Internet activists treat civil rights like privileges to be granted to those whom we want to associate with. Real civil rights organizations like the ACLU know that rights have to be protected irrespective of who wants to assert them. That's why the ACLU has done things like represent the KKK. Because how we treat our enemies when we have power sets the precedent for how we are treated when we are the powerless. And we will struggle with this until this new generation of the political left comes to understand how civil rights work in the real world.

[Acevalefor]

That said, it requires a certain level of trust that the student isn't just bullshitting me, but I plan to operate with a certain level of trust in general, and let the students come to me without being preachy or anything. I want them to know I'll be approachable but not judgmental. So my goal is that if I give them a reason to trust me, that they will not give me a reason to distrust them. If that makes sense, and all without trying not to be too much like a buddy - just a caring adult. Fine line, and I'm sure it'll be hard.

You have entirely too much faith in kids/teenagers. Remember this post when you have been teaching for 5 years. You will laugh at how naive you were. You will have an entirely different idea of what kids are capable of and how shitty they can be. Trust them no further than the end of your arm...unless you are teaching kids under age 10, then beware their brutal honesty before they learn to lie to manipulate you.

[Aksannyi]

You have entirely too much faith in kids/teenagers. Remember this post when you have been teaching for 5 years. You will laugh at how naive you were. You will have an entirely different idea of what kids are capable of and how shitty they can be. Trust them no further than the end of your arm...unless you are teaching kids under age 10, then beware their brutal honesty before they learn to lie to manipulate you.

Considering most of my professors actively work in classrooms right now where they use these exact policies, I'm going to take their word for it. It may not work perfectly all of the time, but I'm more than willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. But if I'm still posting here after I've been in the profession for five years (which is possible, the logical time to have stopped posting here would have been when I quit FFXI and yet ...) and you turn out to be right, then I'll gladly come back here and eat my own words.

[Acevalefor]

Considering most of my professors actively work in classrooms right now where they use these exact policies, I'm going to take their word for it. It may not work perfectly all of the time, but I'm more than willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. But if I'm still posting here after I've been in the profession for five years (which is possible, the logical time to have stopped posting here would have been when I quit FFXI and yet ...) and you turn out to be right, then I'll gladly come back here and eat my own words.

Really, I'm just here to see you say I was right. ^^

[Gredival]

While I understand both sides of this issue, I dislike that people actively go out of their way to make fun of and/or mock someone who is genuinely offended by something, particularly with the "OMG I'M SO TRIGGERED" thing that I see ... well, everywhere. If someone is offended, there is absolutely no reason to go out of your way to offend them just for kicks.

1. Triggers:

Now I don't have to deal with things that trigger on places like an internet forum. I do have things that I can recognize as likely to lead me back into a depressive episode, but nothing that is automatically going to send me into a panic attack or something similar, so I don't know that that's like. I happen to believe that the actual frequency of people being legitimately triggered is probably not that high, but I also am not the person to judge what can cause someone severe emotional trauma, and making fun of someone for having words and/or images that are triggering is pretty rude.

There absolutely is the chance that some people use it wrongly, and that being "triggered" to them is just having to see a word they don't like. To be honest, sometimes some of the things people say on here really piss me off. I refrain from responding (most of the time) and try to ignore the threads, personally. But where some might consider that a trigger for anger/rage, I do not. That being said, if someone does have something legitimately triggering come up and they ask someone to stop saying and/or posting it, or if they ask for it to be put in a spoiler tag, and the person doesn't comply, then I'm going to say that's pretty rude. Honestly, I don't know what a panic attack is like, but I do have light anxiety and that's not fun. I can't imagine what a full-scale anxiety attack must be like, I really can't. I can't imagine that it would be a fun thing to endure. So if the mention of something like anal rape might trigger someone, I'll try to refrain from mentioning that when I'm in the presence of that person (not that it often comes up, but you get the idea).

With all due respect to the vulnerable, no they should not be needlessly subject to repeated trauma, but living in a free society means dealing with those with whom we don't agree and confronting topics and subjects we don't want to. It is a victim's unfortunate burden to learn how to navigate and function in the world post-trauma. It is not the responsibility of the world to step on eggshells for them.

Trigger warnings have come to represent how bend-over-backwards we've become about making sure that no one is offended, everyone is safe, etc.

It's a laudable goal, but the fact is that it's not attainable insofar as there is no option where no one gets offended. Conflict of ideas is a natural and normal part of human social interaction. People have to get used to dealing with opinions they disagree with, confronting ideas that offend their sensibilities, etc.

Insofar as protecting people's vulnerabilities will conflict with the right to freedom of speech, I will choose freedom of speech every single time.

In the context of the internet I think that someone who experienced sexual assault has the onus on themselves not to go into forums/topics/sites and read about sexual assault. It's not the responsibility of journalists, other posters, etc. what not to make sure there's three levels of masking to protect their sensibilities.

2. Safe Places/Zones

As far as schools go, I disagree wholeheartedly that we should not have "safe spaces." Maybe you are not defining them the same way as I am - to me, a safe space is where all students in my classroom (or a classroom, but I'm going to project on myself as a future educator) feel comfortable being who they are without judgement.

It's not about schools not having safe spaces, it's about when the safe space comes into conflict with the ability of a campus to have legitimate debates and discourse on sensitive subjects.

Where they can express opinions and give answers without fear of being treated like they're dumb, even if they are wrong. I expect my students to act with respect toward one another and allow their peers to give opinions freely without ridicule.

And what would you do, theoretically, if you had a particular student whose legitimately held beliefs, which is is able and willing to defend in class articulately, are innately offensive and oppressive?

Say you have a super conservative Muslim student who cites can cite to passages of the Koran to support his religious beliefs that women in the classroom are an affront to God because their heads are uncovered? Or a crazy Christian student who, politely but firmly, states that that you have no authority over him because the Letters of Timothy state that women cannot exercise authority over men?

Should they be allowed to express these opinions? Arguably silencing them is denying them a safe space where they are being shamed for their religious beliefs.

Where use of poor language such as, "That's so gay," will not be tolerated, because using "gay" as a synonym for "stupid" implies that homosexuality is stupid.

What if a student presented a reasoned argument, with academically cited sources, arguing that his use of gay colloquially was about disarming the lingering negative connotations of the word in order to "reclaim" and "disarm" the word in the same that black youth use "nigga" or Asian youth use "ricer"?

It is not a place where we will avoid serious or controversial discussion. But that said, if I have a student who will be legitimately triggered by something in the lesson that day, or who has expressed an extreme amount of discomfort with a particular topic, I'm not going to force that down their throats. There is a difference between slight discomfort and extreme discomfort. Some topics are going to be uncomfortable, like sex, sexuality, abortion, rape, etc. But if you're going to have a legitimate panic or other mental episode based on something happening in my class, then there will be some sort of alternative, and I need to consider the mental wellbeing of my students as well as their physical wellbeing.

Of course, but the big question mark with this is where the limits are drawn. My position is that you should always adopt a solution that permits discourse to continue. You can excuse the students who will have problems or issues participating, but you err if you every take away from the class in favor of a minority of the students.

Really, you can't always know what will/won't offend someone, and I'm not saying everyone should tiptoe around their words all the time, with the obvious exception of not using obvious slurs. But if you have to work with, live with, go to school with, interact with someone regularly, then you should probably just try to avoid doing something if they tell you, "Hey, that offends me."

I don't think anyone has a problem with stopping something when directly asked by another person for legitimate reasons.

I think the problem is when we start modifying normal course of behavior because we are afraid of some unindentified unknown person potentially being offended.