The Coddling Of The American Mind (Trigger Warning Article In The Atlantic...)

Slander has a pretty high legal bar in the US
It rarely applies to public figures and the slandered party has to prove harm, usually financial
The slander laws in UK seem crazy to me

Or I guess libel is the correct word

Frederik, are you implying that it's a bridge too far to support free speech and libel laws?

I just always wonder why all the free speech activism only revolves around racism and hate speech, and never slander and libel. It's weird. You know, Flemming Rose, the guy from Jyllands-posten, with the Muhammed cartoons, that guy is traveling all over the world and talking about the importance of absolute free speech. And back in 2008 he was suing people for libel, in connection with their reactions to the drawings.

It's just weird to me?

And of course, there is a really logical reason for why a bunch of right-wingers are defending racist speech but doesn't care about libel-laws, but apparently it would be libelous for me to talk about that logic...

US libel laws are much easier to reconcile with a strong belief in free speech than UK libel laws. That's not chauvinism -- the question of who has to prove what is central and makes a big difference.

It's definitely possible, and I've seen people try and do it. Some of them don't manage to do it to my liking (a couple of Danish philosophers defined the difference as libel being directly harmful while hate speech isn't, which seems somewhat questionable to me, when you look at what people get away with saying about races, vs individuals, in a place like Denmark).

But it's just one of those weird contradictions that pop up. Which Mordy phrased quite funnily upthread.

Hate speech isn't legal, it's just decriminalized

That was flip but as best I can imagine, "hate speech" would first have to pass a judge or jury's Potter Stewart test ("I know it when I see it") and then the plaintiff would have to be able to prove harm somehow. Otherwise criminalizing hate speech would most likely have a profound chilling effect.

A lot of countries have much stricter laws on hate speech than the US, fwiw, so Mordy's comment didn't seem like a joke to me, even if that's how it was intended. (Inciting hatred against an identifiable group is a criminal offence in Canada.)

And I generally agree with him, btw.

Frederik is certainly 'allowed' to call people racists and other people are allowed to say he's being unfair.

Mordy's comment didn't seem like a joke to me

(except for the 'special allowance' part)

Re: that Stewart Lee clip from a month ago upthread.

I got told that Lee said there was an increasing amount of political correctness he wanted to criticize but was scared of being accused of becoming the sort of bigot he usually makes fun of.

Anyone know where he said this?

x-post, it was also that part that I found funny :) And if we just take the first part of his sentence, I def respect that attitude as well.

i think i missed this part in the whole yale thing:

"The lengthy email—replete with suggestions for inoffensive costumes and links to information on various stereotypes—angered some Silliman students, who felt straightjacketed and condescended to and protested to both Nicholas Christakis and his wife Erika. Erika Christakis, a child development researcher, sent out a response shortly after midnight on Friday, Oct. 30."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/11/07/yale_students_protest_over_racial_insensitivity_and_free_speech.html

that she was responding to students who didn't like the original e-mail.

like, she didn't read the original e-mail and then just send an e-mail to everyone. she was prompted by people who lived in the house.

what were the suggestions for inoffensive costumes?

have we mentioned that the Christakis email has its own genius page complete with passive aggressive annotations?

http://genius.com/8083073

what were the suggestions for inoffensive costumes?

the university email links to this pinterest page for good and bad costumes: https://www.pinterest.com/yalecces/

chilling

what exactly is offensive about the ball pit costume?

amy winehouse and steve jobs!

I don't think all of the costumes on the 'costumes to avoid' board are supposed to be 'offensive' exactly? just ill-advised for various reasons? the note for this one says 'try to avoid costumes that prevent you from breathing'

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4c/dd/4b/4cdd4b113cab9a4d50363bcd21279375.jpg

my sister-in-law visited one year and we went to a costume party at our friend's restaurant and she had done the pocahontas thing - like FANCY pocahontas her costume must have cost some money - and she totally got verbally knocked around by a grape at the party. someone dressed as a grape. she ran outside crying. my sister-in-law. and then i think she went back to our house. it gave me pause when i saw her dressed like that but what was i gonna tell her? western mass people will call you on that shit.

is there a distinction between dressing as "Pocahontas" vs as just a generic Native American? both perhaps racist but somehow going as an actual historical figure doesn't seem as racist.

Next year's costume idea: sexy racist.

Or, conversely, racy sexist.

xpost Nico?

number of punchlines you could have gone for there, good choice

that picture is making me hyperventilate

it also didn't help that my sister-in-law looks like the queen of sweden.

https://www.google.com/search?q=disney+pocahontas+costume&safe=off&biw=1242&bih=606&tbm=shop&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIqdGnlf6DyQIVCTg-Ch0_9Qls&dpr=1.1

hers looked better than these. it wasn't a "sexy" pocahontas costume. i dunno, that whole night was really weird.

that grape was practically spitting she was so pissed.

Was she a lone grape or a bunch?

she was just one big purple grape.

pinot ok

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new-intolerance-of-student-activism-at-yale/414810

The part in Christakis's letter where she basically asks "How come none of you are concerned about the conservative students offended by slutty cop costumes, HMMMMMMMM?" and this in the Atlantic piece really bug me:

Those who purport to speak for marginalized students at elite colleges sometimes expose serious shortcomings in the way that their black, brown, or Asian classmates are treated, and would expose flaws in the way that religious students and ideological conservatives are treated too if they cared to speak up for those groups.

I'm part of the problem. I dressed up as Bob Dole on a HAlloween when my arm was messed up

They’re behaving more like Reddit parodies of “social-justice warriors” than coherent activists

lol conor man up

mordy posted this article in the other thread that's the same as this thread and it responds well to that "but what about safe spaces for republicans" line (while otherwise kinda chasing itself to a yes-but-yes standstill)

yale newspaper:

Letter from the editor:

I'm posting this letter here, because the Herald's server is down. We're working hard to resolve this issue.

On Fri., Nov. 6, the Yale Herald published an opinion piece titled “Hurt at home,” which articulated an individual’s feelings of discomfort in the aftermath of an email from Silliman College’s associate master. On Sat., Nov. 7, we removed that article from our website at the author’s request.

I recognize that we published the article with only a Yale audience in mind and that many readers outside of Yale took issue with the article’s perspective. In the following paragraphs, I hope to provide context helpful in understanding the events of the past week and “Hurt at home.”

Many readers interpreted “Hurt at home” as a direct and unreasonable response to Associate Master Erika Christakis’ email to students in the college. In considering this issue, it’s also important to acknowledge that Associate Master Christakis’ email was itself a response. It rebutted an email from Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Committee, which is made up of many of Yale’s religious and cultural group leaders. That email urged students to be culturally sensitive in choosing Halloween costumes.

Associate Master Christakis’ email articulates her faith in the Yale students’ ability to dress themselves without administrative mandates. The IAC, however, threatened no disciplinary measures for cultural insensitivity. In rebutting an email urging simple mindfulness, Associate Master Christakis’ message, intentionally or not, was “don’t be mindful.” It is this aspect of her email that has proven most troubling, especially in light of a master’s unique role at Yale.

The role of master is distinct from that of professor. While each residential college has a dean, who functions as the college’s chief academic advisor, the master’s role is one of community leader. The Yale College website reads, “[ The master] is responsible for the physical well being and safety of students in the residential college, as well as for fostering and shaping the social, cultural, and educational life and character of the college.” The University touts the communal environment enabled by masters as a major draw for prospective students.

Students in Silliman expressed their discomfort and pain at Associate Master Christakis’ decision to write her email. Instead of first trying to understand students' concerns, both Associate Master Christakis and her husband, Silliman Master Nicholas Christakis, took to Twitter, posting articles that they felt justified Associate Master Christakis’ point of view. Master Christakis even went so far as to retweet an article he had posted on his personal account from Silliman College’s own Twitter account, falsely representing it as the position of the college.

Masters are individuals, and as such have a right to voice their opinions. But Associate Master Christakis’ message is tainted by her decision to email it directly to all Silliman students—an email list to which she has access through her administrative role in the college. She could have published these thoughts on a personal blog or in a publication. She chose not to.

This incident has become an issue of free speech. The term was introduced into this conversation when Master and Associate Master Christakis asserted that in opposing the recommendations of the IAC, they were defending a right to free speech. Readers unfamiliar with the nuances of this situation believe that students have censored Master and Associate Master Christakis; they haven’t made that argument themselves.

Nicholas and Erika Christakis have an undisputed right to free speech. No one has argued that they, as individuals, should not. But students have exercised their own free speech in speaking against the way Master and Associate Master Christakis have treated their office. This incident is not analogous to a professor offering an unpopular view, or a controversial speaker coming to campus. “Hurt at home” addresses a failure to perform the duties of a defined role: nurturing the Silliman community.

David Rossler
Editor-in-chief

In rebutting an email urging simple mindfulness, Associate Master Christakis’ message, intentionally or not, was “don’t be mindful.”

ha ha way to define an argument. It could just as easily be said that her email was about free thought and imagination and how institutions can, intentionally or not, stifle such things with their official calls for mindfulness

also this "hurt at home" thing. It's not like her email contained descriptions of rape or violence. Was anyone actually hurt by reading an opinion they didn't agree with?

u could also say her email was about chocolate cake or equatorial guinea but u would be rong tho

well she wrote about that stuff not cake so whatevs cuz

what was wrong w/ the original email that she was responding to exactly?

well she wrote about that stuff not cake so whatevs cuz

― Why because she True and Interesting (President Keyes), Monday, November 9, 2015 4:18 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's like an opinion

i cant imagine someone actually getting b-hurt about a letter asking students to be mindful on halloween of not wearing racist costumes. ...

You don't have to imagine.