I don't think any of this will ever meet a court of law; it all seems entirely legally untenable. Trouble is, just because it's all bullshit doesn't mean it doesn't do any damage. It helps in perpetuating existing bullshit prejudice which does.The Todd case was interesting because what actually happened is all the other speakers at the conference pulled out due to her appearance, which meant the organisers had to choose between cancelling the event or asking Todd not to speak. It's hard to know how any new rules could address that. If they cancel the event are they liable to get fined? Should they be compelled to go ahead with just one speaker? Or do they have to find a way to force those who've pulled out to attend and share a platform? I don't really know how they'd do that. A lot of these cases have been more complex than presented in the press, I suspect any attempts to legislate may stumble once that becomes apparant.
I don't think any of this will ever meet a court of law; it all seems entirely legally untenable. Trouble is, just because it's all bullshit doesn't mean it doesn't do any damage. It helps in perpetuating existing bullshit prejudice which does.
While I don't think many meaningful cases will reach court, I fear that a bunch of chancers will try to build careers in being dicks off the back of it. Get an insider to invite you to a university where you know you won't be welcome, which sparks protests against you, give the uni a choice of having loads of aggy protests against you, or cancelling and a court case. You win either way. Columns in the Daily Mail and regular spots on GB News and kerching.I don't think any of this will ever meet a court of law; it all seems entirely legally untenable. Trouble is, just because it's all bullshit doesn't mean it doesn't do any damage. It helps in perpetuating existing bullshit prejudice which does.
This was basically Milo Yannopoulos’ entire MO in the states until he just went too far even for his contrarian fan base.While I don't think many meaningful cases will reach court, I fear that a bunch of chancers will try to build careers in being dicks off the back of it. Get an insider to invite you to a university where you know you won't be welcome, which sparks protests against you, give the uni a choice of having loads of aggy protests against you, or cancelling and a court case. You win either way. Columns in the Daily Mail and regular spots on GB News and kerching.
What I'm hoping is the test case is a holocaust denier or supporter of man-boy love or something and the government ends up looking aligned with them...
Nobody's obliged to invite them to do so, though.Anyone who has been prevented from speaking.
In a democracy, everyone has the right (within the constraints of the law) to be heard. If you don't want to listen, don't go, but you have no right whatsoever to block speakers because you don't approve.
THE BANNED LIST
A growing list of speakers, academics, and others in the UK who have been banned, censored, disciplined or otherwise threatened for their views.www.afaf.org.uk
Large majority tory administrations always indulge in this sort of identity politics seeking to other alternative viewpoints; remember the "Loony Left"?
This bloke Evan Smith@evanishistory has written a lot about no platform and its history in universities. He's got a book, here's a shorter version pdf No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech and a recent article ( excuse the Guardian link) The university ‘free speech crisis’ has been a rightwing myth for 50 years | Evan Smith
Smokeandsteam posted this on a better thread the other day. It’s worth reposting: THE WOKE AND THE UNWOKEAnyone who has been prevented from speaking.
Letting them speak so everyone knows what cockwombles they are. Then destroying their arguments seems better than giving them publicity of victimhood. Aoart from Nazis obviously.free speech means you have to listen to any speaker wherever they are without heckling or shouting them down or standing outside slagging them and their ideas off. Those are the rules now, and they will I'm sure be applied equally to all viewpoints and not just the cunts desperate to mainstream race science again.
I believe in free speech and free expression. But there is a range of things that people seem to mean by that. To the right, it seems to mean: bigots get to say whatever they want where ever they want, whenever they want, and there must be no reply.Letting them speak so everyone knows what cockwombles they are. Then destroying their arguments seems better than giving them publicity of victimhood. Aoart from Nazis obviously.
TBF, Corbyn didn't do that. We did. The fact of the matter is that Corbyn, via popular support, represented something that a lot of people wanted - a Labour party that wasn't just Tory Lite, which is what we have had for too long now, and which looks to continue indefinitely.Corbyn delivered an eighty seat majority to one of the worst PMs we have ever seen. Quite a feat.
And yet, some posters here feel that Corbyn's policies weren't radical enough.
I gather though that people who left the Labour party under Corbyn, have re-joined under Starmer. Swings and roundabouts.
I believe in free speech and free expression. But there is a range of things that people seem to mean by that. To the right, it seems to mean: bigots get to say whatever they want where ever they want, whenever they want, and there must be no reply.
To me, free speech means not only the speaker has it. The listeners have it too. Telling a bigot they’re full of shit is not removing their freedom to speak; it’s exercising mine.
Furthermore, if the bigot were to walk into a synagog and expect to be able to explain why Jews are behind all that’s wrong with society, then they are sadly mistaken if they think they will not be, let’s say, forcibly ejected. Freedom to speak does not mean there will be no consequence to your words.
So that is within communities. Free speech should expect the free speech of others, and the free expression from others, including anger and other consequences. A community under attack from hatred, for example, can be expected to respond, not just sit there letting the speakers “make them self look ridiculous”.
However, as ever, we have an entity we call the state where the power of the ruling hegemony resides. If that gets to decide who can speak and who cannot (as opposed to individual clubs, organisations, places of worship), then we are in very different territory. That is when we need to take great care that our own speech is not the next to be curtailed by the powers that be.
I believe in free speech and free expression. But there is a range of things that people seem to mean by that. To the right, it seems to mean: bigots get to say whatever they want where ever they want, whenever they want, and there must be no reply.
To me, free speech means not only the speaker has it. The listeners have it too. Telling a bigot they’re full of shit is not removing their freedom to speak; it’s exercising mine.
Furthermore, if the bigot were to walk into a synagog and expect to be able to explain why Jews are behind all that’s wrong with society, then they are sadly mistaken if they think they will not be, let’s say, forcibly ejected. Freedom to speak does not mean there will be no consequence to your words.
So that is within communities. Free speech should expect the free speech of others, and the free expression from others, including anger and other consequences. A community under attack from hatred, for example, can be expected to respond, not just sit there letting the speakers “make them self look ridiculous”.
However, as ever, we have an entity we call the state where the power of the ruling hegemony resides. If that gets to decide who can speak and who cannot (as opposed to individual clubs, organisations, places of worship), then we are in very different territory. That is when we need to take great care that our own speech is not the next to be curtailed by the powers that be.
Precisely.This is spot on, as is Danny’s reminder that a much better thread already exists to discuss this.
All I’d add is that we need to recognise that ‘the culture war’, in terms of political economy, acts as a useful and increasingly powerful field within the neoliberal project. All sides involved are seeking recognition within the established terms of liberal democratic capitalism. Some are seeking to preserve historical entitlements under the system, others for disparity correction under it. Movements which challenge the project itself increasingly fall away.
What we can confidently therefore say is that this is precisely the type of debate neo-liberalism is comfortable with because all sides accept that the debate must be confined within its parameters, and are effectively an appeal to it, thus further embedding it as the natural order.
Yes. It amazes me the mental and emotional investment some sacrifice in regards the culture war - literally eating away at their own health in hatred as they endlessly trawl the spittle online...all the way they are still being paid just enough to survive and are one missing pay check from losing everything. It is as you say a very convenient "war".This is spot on, as is Danny’s reminder that a much better thread already exists to discuss this.
All I’d add is that we need to recognise that ‘the culture war’, in terms of political economy, acts as a useful and increasingly powerful field within the neoliberal project. All sides involved are seeking recognition within the established terms of liberal democratic capitalism. Some are seeking to preserve historical entitlements under the system, others for disparity correction under it. Movements which challenge the project itself increasingly fall away.
What we can confidently therefore say is that this is precisely the type of debate neo-liberalism is comfortable with because all sides accept that the debate must be confined within its parameters, and are effectively an appeal to it, thus further embedding it as the natural order.
No, Sass. It's an appalling reflection, yes - but I think it is a cheap shot to immediately assume it's the people doing the educating that are responsible.A reading age of nine is an appalling reflection on those paid to educate our children.
Aren't universities supposed to be places of debate?I believe in free speech and free expression. But there is a range of things that people seem to mean by that. To the right, it seems to mean: bigots get to say whatever they want where ever they want, whenever they want, and there must be no reply.
To me, free speech means not only the speaker has it. The listeners have it too. Telling a bigot they’re full of shit is not removing their freedom to speak; it’s exercising mine.
Furthermore, if the bigot were to walk into a synagog and expect to be able to explain why Jews are behind all that’s wrong with society, then they are sadly mistaken if they think they will not be, let’s say, forcibly ejected. Freedom to speak does not mean there will be no consequence to your words.
So that is within communities. Free speech should expect the free speech of others, and the free expression from others, including anger and other consequences. A community under attack from hatred, for example, can be expected to respond, not just sit there letting the speakers “make them look ridiculous
I’m totally against debate in universities, so you’ve got me there.Aren't universities supposed to be places of debate?