Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

To be perfectly honest, I don't care about the movie or whether or not it should be shown. I'm here because I got annoyed at the idea of 'marketplace of free ideas' as some 'classic' ideal that has actually ever existed. Minorites used to have their voice surpressed quite effectively. Now they have so much voice that they can say things that might at times be stupid, at which time they will be punished a billion times harsher than non-minorities in same situation.

lol dropping out of the fight for now

nb haven't see film, little interest in doing so but i guess i'll get around to it at some point

a billion

the good news punchline in all the cases in this thread is that this is still the provence of a very tiny ineffective minority in american cultural life. bananaman is right that american sniper is all over the culture already and there's no threat to it going away anytime soon. no matter how much some ppl on the far left may wish otherwise. if anything, this thread is really a chance for their pov to gain some possible traction in broader intellectual circles, bc it certainly can't be marginalizing anti-free speech reactionaries any more than they've already marginalized themselves.

Xps to Mordy - if the university had banned American Sniper from an independent campus film club I'd see that as more of a curb on freedom of speech than rethinking the wisdom of showing it at a major administration-backed event.

Xps to drash - idk how much cultural capital you're going to generate on campus by getting American Sniper pulled in favour of Paddington but I guess it might depend on the university. Certainly anything relating to race that goes viral via Fox / Drudge is as likely to get you death threats / doxxed (as happened here and in the recent Pitchfork farrago) as it is to enhance your political standing. Perhaps that has to be considered the normal consequences of free speech now, idk. Unless these kids actively want to attract that kind of attention and plan a lifetime of dealing with it it would be much easier to say nothing.

I've seen the movie: it's close to a piece of shit. What are you trying to say?

I'm trying to say hold that thought that its a piece of shit, and think on the implications of its production and huge success, rather than getting bogged down in the pretty irrelevant equivocations of some college film night.

To be perfectly honest, I don't care about the movie or whether or not it should be shown. I'm here because I got annoyed at the idea of 'marketplace of free ideas' as some 'classic' ideal that has actually ever existed. Minorites used to have their voice surpressed quite effectively. Now they have so much voice that they can say things that might at times be stupid, at which time they will be punished a billion times harsher than non-minorities in same situation.

This is quite true and I hadn't started thinking about these ideas until a few year ago, but it's different in the United States, in which the Bill of Rights is supposed to act as protection against government and majoritarianism.

isn't a certain level of martyrdom necessarily to gaining political capital? like you have to demonstrate how loathed you are by yr ideological enemies to really demonstrate how loyal you are to your ideological friends.

bananaman is right that american sniper is all over the culture already and there's no threat to it going away anytime soon. no matter how much some ppl on the far left may wish otherwise.

yeh well done everyone

I'm trying to say hold that thought that its a piece of shit, and think on the implications of its production and huge success, rather than getting bogged down in the pretty irrelevant equivocations of some college film night.

I think the distinction in the Michigan case is that students elected to remove the film, not the university. I have less problems with that. Whether you or I think the film is a piece of shit is irrelevant.

wait who cancelled it? i thought it was cancelled by the university? it looks like it was cancelled by the center for campus involvement: http://campusinvolvement.umich.edu is yr distinction that the org is run by students + not adults so it's not a university decision?

just glancing at their webpage it looks like there's a lot of adults working at the cci

If faculty advisers or vice presidents for student affairs or something had made the call to pull the film, then there's a problem.

Or might be. Nothing may come of this.

Is it the same 'adults' who recommended Paddington the Bear to be a suitable alternative?

nb I would censor thus thread to Ryan drash and mordy rn fwiw
--post you had fecund thoughts about (darraghmac)

they're all arguing the same pt

paddington bear as a suitable alternative is such a good troll btw

They should have made the switch, but kept it a secret to the audience.

If you want trolls it looks like they are showing The Hobbit soon too.

also even if american sniper is a clear-cut case of dangerous reactionary anti-minority violence ideology (ok i'm a bit skeptical of this, but even if), u know how the left is. they can pretty much demonstrate that anything implicitly reifies the violent hegemony that represses the workers/women/racial group. maybe have one of those guys on every board but force them to sit next to an intense deconstructionist who can just as easily demonstrate how even american sniper is resisting the hegemony and in various lacuna waging a revolutionary critique of capitalism/racism/imperialism/etc

― Mordy, Saturday, April 11, 2015 7:41 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is some sub-custos level attempt at humor here.

custos (ˈkʌstɒs)
n, pl custodes (kʌˈstəʊdiːz)
1. (Roman Catholic Church) a superior in the Franciscan religious order. Also called (in England): guardian

?

instead of saying "what if the administration had shown birth of a nation" lets go the other way -- "what if the administration had shown Julian Schnabel's Miral?" What if it had shown You Don't Mess with the Zohan? What if it had shown Valley of the Wolves: Iraq?

Lots of posts since I split a few hours ago. I like what drash & Mordy added in particular.

I by no means was advising either minorities or those with minority political opinions to keep their heads down and take whatever the media dishes out. Nor should they craft their talking points around not triggering Fox News talking points (but more on that later). I also am not a free speech absolutist.

But look, in this bad time, why put themselves in the position of making it look like the university did them this special favor? And a merely symbolic favor at that. How does that actually help their position, how will that in practical terms make the atmosphere at the university more welcoming, something their petition very reasonably asked for?

With a Democratic president in office (well, one who continues the same old foreign policy aims anyway), mainstream liberals have gotten nearly as comfy demonizing Muslims as mainstream conservatives have been, and in the same terms: as fundamentalists who are against free expression.

Why give that bogus narrative any help? This incident turned out even worse, because the decision was reversed, their cause became associated with Paddington, and the football coach rallied the football mentality & even had some kind words for that horrible man. And was able to present "patriotic Americans" as "victims" one more time. Another big boost of energy for the right wing. Try something else.

the worst part of being a college student protesting stuff must be all the terrible advice about how to "really" serve your cause that you get from people who don't give a shit

apparently that's what the montreal student boycotters have been getting from their teachers

I haven't met any protesting students, otherwise I would try to bore them in person. Anyway, I hope YOU aren't too oppressed by, gasp,

There's a whole generation with a new explanation. The kids are where it's at.

y dont u all just f-f-f-ade away

They hoped they'd die before they got old.

feel like the real solomonic play in a situation like this is to screen the movie, but also let the kids who object to it to yell throughout the entire thing

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/04/10/reaction-mixed-showing-american-sniper-university-michigan/25614139/

it looks like the screening was reinstated. i'm having a difficult time determining whether the film was being shown by the university or if it was some student club that wanted to showcase it; reading this thread hasn't cleared that up much. i agree with alfred (as always with these types of issues): the university has no business prohibiting the showing of the film by one of its student groups. if it was just some university-sponsored "movie nights" or something then i see no harm in changing course if enough people complain

Vic Perry otm on mainstream liberals. Personally I don't think there is a political or media left in the USA. There certainly aren't many anti-war movies or tv hosts or politicians.

As for being used as a tool for the right wing this is just business as usual. It is a very common tactic of the right. This could be about someone removing a plastic nativity set and receive the same amount of fury from them. They are actors paid to cry for the camera.

Regardless of what dignity or messaging the protesters won or lost through their actions, what matters is that their message was sent. We know all know that there is a vocal segment of the public that takes offense with warmongering.

i think everyone needs to be much more careful around this 'when you do it it's called X, when i do it it's called Y' bullshit

― Mordy, Saturday, April 11, 2015 12:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for example, power doesn't flow exclusively from one direction, and punching up doesn't mean there's no power in yr punch

― Mordy, Saturday, April 11, 2015 12:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/4/satire-doesnt-need-a-political-litmus-test.html

hey everyone we can all get together and laugh at this right

http://fredrikdeboer.com/2015/03/10/critique-drift/

Well: we have been talking about privilege for 30 years. We’ve been talking about intersectionality for 25. We’re still here in this unjust world.

30 years? that long? no shit.

2000 words on the heroism of eyerolling.

(I have gotten her permission to tell this story, with the caveat that I admit that I am a rogue and a ne’er-do-well. So admitted.)

ne'er-do-well

noun
a person who never does anything worthwhile; one who cannot make a living, get things done, etc.
adjective
lazy, inadequate, etc.

s clover i think its a little dishonest to extract that from the surrounding paragraph, which i would call otm

I attract a lot of communications from people who feel strongly about the need to pursue social justice but who feel that the social justice movement has lost its way. (A lot of people.) These people are not enemies of the fight for equality and justice; in fact, they reach out precisely because they think current tactics are impediment to the achievement of actual equality and justice. Many of them are afraid to be public with those feelings, because they fear reprisals from those who enforce a very narrow, cliquey vision of progressive politics. Well: we have been talking about privilege for 30 years. We’ve been talking about intersectionality for 25. We’re still here in this unjust world. It’s time to recognize that the injunction against criticizing those who self-identify as activists for social justice is a dead-end for our movement. While the work of counseling others to be more specific, fair, and self-critical in their engagement is uncomfortable, fraught work, it is also profoundly necessary, and I see no possible alternative if the left is to wage a campaign against injustice that can actually win.

that article is really good. i agree with most of it and appreciate learning the term "critique drift" which concisely describes something i see all the time

narrow clique first against wall under benevolent dictatorship

http://www.spin.com/2012/08/lupe-fiasco-mansplains-some-more-in-the-video-for-bitch-bad/

Forgot how much I hated Soderberg's relentlessly smug, finger-wagging Spin posts. [fervently hopes he's not on this board]

lol @ "mansplains" in 2015

that was from 2012

try and keep up will u

think u mean "creep up"

Its hook goes, “Bitch bad, woman good, lady better,” which sounds sweet and all

but does any female want to be called “a lady”?

soderberg seems to mansplain a lot when he talks about mansplaining

that's why the lady is a bitch

In the same vein as the Freddie piece, written by a dude I know who's sharp as fuck

http://thesouthlawn.org/2014/07/13/on-rhetoric-and-strategy-in-social-justice-and-leftist-spaces/

It goes without saying that I, a Black man who grew up in the South, experience this world differently from my wife, a white woman from the Northeast, even if we both grew up working class. To not give these experiential differences some thought within leftist activism is to unnecessarily take tools out of our toolbox when it comes to strategy, regardless of whether we are discussing policies or movement-building. As D’Arcy points out, the way that New Left-era activists tended to flatten identity wholesale manifested itself in problematic ways both internally and externally.

But spend 15 minutes on any social networking site and you will find that leftism is now faced with the opposite problem: an increasingly Balkanized landscape where identity and representation becomes an end in and of itself, rather than a means to ensure that the spoils of an ultimate working class victory are not distributed along the same (insert -ist and -ism here) lines as before. I mean, how else can you explain an entire blog post in Ebony dedicated to a random white woman appearing on a natural hair website on the same day that thousands of women care workers of color potentially lose access to union representation in America’s fifth-most populous state, which, of course, goes without any mention? Perspective is important, but that becomes clouded when the focus is always on claiming space rather than building communities. Erecting the perfect clubhouse rather than building broad-based movements rooted in solidarity and respect. The former might be easy and satisfying, but the latter will actually ensure that my children grow up in a different world than I have.

...

As Dr. Adolph Reed, Jr. put it, “The left careens from this oppressed group or crisis moment to that one, from one magical or morally pristine constituency or source of political agency….to another. It lacks focus and stability; its métier is bearing witness, demonstrating solidarity, and the event or the gesture. Its reflex is to ‘send messages’ to those in power, to make statements, and to stand with or for the oppressed.”

At what point do we decide that we have sent enough messages and start building power? Actual power, not the power that comes from perfecting a clubhouse or meeting structure, but rather from the articulation of a vision and a plan to execute said vision? When do we start looking at the moving parts, looking out 5-10-20 years, and start piecing together a strategy to fight the forces of reaction, revanchism, and repression? It is no longer enough to simply act as a town crier, monotonously signposting every problem and grievance facing our world; we must actually engage in praxis.