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Students demand Yale fire administrators for defending free speech
https://reason.com/blog/2015/11/06/watch-students-tell-yale-to-fire-a-staff
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Honestly, this is nothing new to me since anything SJW-related has been spreading all over the news for the last couple of years. I'm just waiting for SJWs to admit defeat at this point.
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It's okay. Reality will hit them hard when they realize no one will want their uncritical attitude. And then they will complain about the slew of mental disorders that plague their daily existence and expect society once again to accommodate for them. There's an "intellectual" (and I want to emphasize those quotes) thread on campus that involves the relinquishing of personal responsibility and agency and expecting authorities to protect and provide to an unhealthy extreme. This kind of attitude is only going to damage the perception of these students' ability to cope and help themselves.
Jesus Christ I sound like a conservative. And hell, I'm going to be criticizing their lifestyle too - but I honestly think it's an unhealthy outlook on life and only serves to undercut the ability to believe in yourself. I think that kind of self-belief or self-faith is very important for us to find value in life, no matter our political leanings or our backgrounds. |
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also I feel like it's an unwritten rule that it's kind of silly to pull the argument "But Free Speech!!" if you're doing something racist or whatever. but maybe that's just my platform as a left-leaning 17 year old and doesn't really mean anything. I have problems with the ways these students went about tackling these issues but I don't have a problem with tackling the issues in the first place. if that makes sense. |
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You need to understand that allowing things like segregation, even at parties, and silly racist costumes being swept under the carpet is kind of like opening a can of worms: "Well if that instance of racism was okay, what else can they get away with?" And that is the issue; students do not feel safe because instead of reassuring students that more severe acts of racism would not tolerated on campus, they said these instances were okay and would not be dealt with. If the leadership responded with something like "we recognize the issue, and at this time we have no policies on choices of costumes, but we assure students that racism is not tolerated on campus" you probably wouldn't be seeing such an emotional response. |
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regardless, and I've touched on this elsewhere (not sure if I ever have on this forum, specifically) but regardless of what the costumes were the fact of the matter is somebody was offended by them and that's really all that matters. your (or my) personal boundaries as to what does or doesn't offend mean nothing when placed in the context of someone else. you can say that people need to grow thicker skin all you want -- this does not discredit their feelings. even if you really have no idea as to how something can offend someone, it doesn't matter if someone's offended by it in the first place. |
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Honestly, these students went even further than that, though. They aren't trying to silence racists, though, they're shouting down free speech advocates who are trying to defend people who are questionably racist. It's like instead of shouting down Westboro Baptist Church, they're trying to get Popehat taken off the internet. That's a huge difference. It's one thing to want to silence racists, that's a normal (but misguided) reaction; it's another to try and shut down the speech of free speech advocates themselves. That's ridiculously authoritarian to the point where I would call it fascist. Quote:
If you allow censorship to rule the day here, do you really believe it won't be abused by your political opposites? Do you really believe that, for instance, evangelical Christians won't take advantage of the terrible precedent set by allowing censorship to get groups and opinions they find offensive censored? How many times in the past hundred years alone have those on the far right used "distasteful" or "offensive" as a reason to shut down ideas, discussions that could have moved things forward? Homosexual marriage was "offensive" to many Christians; "degenerate," "obscene," these are some of the terms they used to describe it. But at the end of the day, it was discussion and argumentation that brought down the walls. "The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged." We must make a stand here and now. If we allow others' freedom to be trodden upon just because we personally might find what they have to say distasteful, we set a precedent that will be used against every unpopular opinion from now on. "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." The way to deal with something you disagree with is to take a stand against it, to speak out against it using reason, to prove to others and to your opponents themselves that their beliefs are flawed. But this, this goes much further than merely trying to silence racists and bigots. This is trying to silence free speech advocates for defending one of our most important ideals. This is a witch hunt wherein what I can only accurately call authoritarians are trying to silence all dissent. That is unconscionable. These students ought to be ashamed of themselves. I've posted this story half a dozen places, shared it with everyone who would listen, because I believe it is my moral obligation to take a stand and speak out against this. I don't like having to defend the rights of people who I believe are jerks, who I think are going out of their way to piss people off and upset people rather than have a constructive dialogue. But it is my duty to speak out in support of them, and it is certainly my duty to speak out in support of the administrators defending their freedoms. "Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty," and of course "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." Quote:
But even if it was on university property, I question whether they should disallow it. For instance, should the university be able to shut down a gathering of black rights advocates who disallow whites from participating? I don't think it's right to exclude people from a discussion or event in either case but I also don't know if it's right to stop them from doing so if that's what they choose to do. That's something I can certainly see both ways. Quote:
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"More severe acts of racism" is vague, but again, inciting criminal activity, credible threats, and outright violence are already illegal and forbidden. Quote:
But again, it's important to point out that students here have gone further than trying to silence racists. They're trying to silence free speech advocates. I have to wonder, if we allow them to triumph here, who will be next? |
"Distasteful and stupid"? Yeah.
This kind of behaviour erodes the credibility of those who are upset at the university administrators. "Hurt feelings" do not justify this behaviour. |
This kind of behavior only solidifies my position that "Social Justice" Warriors and anyone who sympathizes with them are indeed the biggest problem in the world right now and I'm glad to be leaving college at a time when this is becoming more widespread so I don't have to put up with this ******** any longer.
The only good thing I can say about these people is that they're the reason why the new South Park season is sooo good. The entire season is a gigantic potshot at political correctness and it's evils that the show has done before, but people have forgotten. REALITY is seriously the best character Trey and Matt have introduced on the show for a long time: EDIT: Also, I don't know if someone mentioned it or not, but on the topic of "Hate Speech." Hate Speech has a very specific legal definition in many countries, but not all of them are the same. In the United States, Hate Speech is classified as such when speech is deemed to intentionally incite active violence against a group people and it is illegal in the country. Bottom line, if you think someone is committing a crime, take them to court if it bothers you so much. |
I... Seriously, what? I know college students and SJWs get offended by literally EVERYTHING these days (and I do mean everything. There's a story making rounds on the internet about a bunch of SJWs making an artist attept suicide because they claimed her Steven Universe fanart was offensive... one claim in particular was that a character was too thin and the artist was "fat-shaming." What?!) But trying to get people in their own college fired because they don't agree on what Halloween costumes are offensive and what aren't? That's not tolerant at all, and that's genuinely hilarious considering this entire thing is over tolerance and acceptance.
Why are they going after costumes anyway? People have been dressing up and have been dressing their kids up as Indians, Mexicans, knights, maids, pirates, nurses and other things for over a hundred years now and I haven't seen a single person burst into flame and melt into a little puddle because they were offended by a costume. Everyone knows it's in good fun and for only one night and nobody until now has ever taken issue with it. I personally think these guys are just trying to find everything and anything offensive to satisfy some guilt complex or narcissism attack. I pity them, because they must be eternally miserable as they constantly view life through an orange lense of ironic intolerance and only see things as offensive or not yet offensive. Who taught them to be like this? Why'd they do it? |
Popehat's Ken White has written an interesting post discussing this and some related issues. Link here. My comment is here. In short, I agree that people should be able to make "private clubs," as he calls them, but I don't agree that it's a good idea for anyone to limit their perspective by associating exclusively with people in those "clubs." Limiting our perspective limits our understanding. Part of the way in which we grow is by encountering new ideas that we might not have considered before. That's something that's important for everyone; no one is so perfect that they won't benefit from the perspective of others.
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They certainly aren't helping the cause against Racism and the other harmful 'isms' by screaming like this. Come on, Halloween is about being able to be someone else for a day... Also I read the original e-mail on a reddit post, and the wife of the man in the video advised that they try to be respectful of others while at the same time arguing that the students are adults and that their wisdom should be trusted, as well as mentioning that costumes help encourage creativity. |
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And you're right. By calling something that isn't racist racist, they obscure the definition of the word and real actual racism gets ignored. It's quite ironic, because they actually are the most racist people in the room when they say things like that and call for tiny things like costumes to be banned. Why can't a Mexican person like a mariachi costume and not be offended? Why can't an Indian (the American kind) like an Indian or colonial period costume? Aren't they implying that these people are such pansies that they can't even tolerate a costume, or shouldn't be allowed to like them or tolerate them because they're too stupid to decide what should and shouldn't offend them and have to have someone of a different race decide for them? And in the meantime the people getting slaughtered or forcibly moved from their homes or even treated like slaves or second class citizens because of their race or religion are totally ignored. Way to be culturally sensitive, y'all. |
Guys, if you can't contribute to the thread without derailing the topic or instigating others, just don't post. This is your only warning.
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I'd start a new thread, but this one already addresses the main issue which is censorship and intolerance on college campuses.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/how-campus-activists-are-weaponizing-the-safe-space/415080/ Quote:
Where did all this come from? Where are we all going? The persistence of racism in society is a problem, but this is not the solution. |
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These kinds of actions will hurt the cause against racism, and makes those who call for an end to it come off as self centered and frauds, carrying only about their rights over those of others. We need a counter to these kinds of actions, actions that will truly promote tolerance in a respectful and thoughtful manner for all parties involved. |
SJWs are not the right answer to the problems, I will say this much. I often find that when any minority acts in this way in order to further their cause; they only end up hurting their cause that much more as they breed animosity and hatred by doing so.
This isn't to say that some of these causes aren't legitimate or shouldn't be discussed. However acting in extremes in response to some small, often times imagined, slight insensitivity is never a good or mature way to behave like an adult, or address greater societal issues. Societal issues are fixed by dialog, when you approach a person and express your feelings respectfully, while listening to their own feedback and respectfully hashing out your differences. Plenty of cases where such extreme reactions are caused and not warranted are because of a person who would normally not really actually mean much, if any harm. It would further the cause of social justice much better if the reaction were much milder. Besides it does nobody any good to bicker, when you can simply inform people and give them time and space enough to come around. Most decent people will do so if given the chance. It also helps to take a lot of things in their proper context too. A Halloween Costume should never be the sparking point of socio-political discourse, because as a general rule, Halloween Costumes are typically designed and worn for fun, or in this case a satirical way. Perhaps it would have been better to engage the professor in a dialog to ask what the intent of the costume was. I'm sure he would have broken out with a fairly academic mini-lecture on something satirical, or something about history or something such of that nature, and it would have been all in good fun. Colleges, especially Ivy League ones, are full of very geeky people with very interesting passions and quirks! You're supposed to have a healthy dash of open-mindedness. |
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This is pretty astounding, honestly. Though I'd be lying though if I said that I didn't expect something like this to happen in the near future. There's been this cult of coddling people throughout the recent years in the United States and it's blinding people to why free speech exists. People don't try to learn and argue their beliefs and instead do something like, as Twocows said "Sticking your head in the sand and refusing to listen to any position but your own is not how progress is made, and more than that it stifles personal growth.". I've been preaching this for awhile, those around me would start sighing at this point because I talk about this a lot, but people should be learning more about themselves and finding their values and beliefs by arguing with others and finding the logic in them. If you limit free speech like these kids do you'll just end up in a box of ignorance, blind to any sort of reality and full of your own delusions. This incident reminds me somewhat of the time when a college(?) played American Sniper and some people actually made a "safe-room" so they wouldn't get offended.
My heart goes out to those administrators though. It's tough defending liberties in cases like this, especially against teenagers and young adults, seeing how stubborn they can be. (I'd know - I am one) |
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I hope the administrators prevail as I am sick of these individuals getting closer and closer to the government. |
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