Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

i definitely acknowledge what she says. sometimes it seems like her words are not entirely in accordance with the way she behaves. i'm not unsympathetic to that. one of the big problems i have, that i struggle with, as a trans woman is that i was _not_ raised the way cis women were, that i was raised with lots of male privilege, all that crap that comes from being a Clever Boy, the idea that i am Important and that i can speak for anyone, anytime, with authority. which is only half-right - i am Important but i can only really speak for myself. i struggle, in practice, with getting that balance right.

so many posts upthread, too many things to argue about. I will only add that I wasn't trying to be clever when I was fishing for counter examples (topics that provoke a range of acceptable thought w/in woke circles), I was actually fishing for more! afropessimism is a good one

so many posts upthread, too many things to argue about. I will only add that I wasn't trying to be clever when I was fishing for counter examples (topics that provoke a range of acceptable thought w/in woke circles), I was actually fishing for more! afropessimism is a good one

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.)

i think afropessimism is a good example because, i mean, if you ask me what my opinion is an afropessimism, my response is probably going to be, and i don't want to be hostile with this question, i genuinely mean is, why are you even asking me? why on earth do you think my opinion on afropessimism is germane and relevant? it's borne out of experiences that aren't mine, which, if i'm understanding afropessimism correctly, can't even be _analogized_ to my experiences. and you're asking me, a middle aged white lady living in a suburb of the whitest city in america, what _my_ opinion is? my opinion is that my opinion shouldn't matter, that whatever you're asking for, i can goddamn guarantee you that my opinion has no relevance whatsoever to it.

i mean, i think this mode of thought can be applied to all kinds of different ideas. ta-nehisi coates wrote that article, "the case for reparations", and white people talked about it and talked about it and privately, you know, when we talk privately, there's a temptation for white people to look down on other white people who agree with coates. to think of them as "suckers", to make fun of them for their naivete, and all of this, of course, is hidden from people of color, as Civilized people we would never say that to _them_, in front of _them_. that his argument is cogent, is persuasive, that he's feted and lionized and a macarthur grant recipient, i don't know how much all of that matters. six years ago the atlantic published that article of his, and if you ask people today, after six years of intense liberal _debate_, whether or not they think reparations should be implemented, i suspect you will find a pretty strong dividing line if you break the answers down by the race of the people giving the answers, with people of color largely being in favor, and white people largely being opposed. that's too bad for people of color, because whether or not reparations happen is contingent on their getting the approval of white people.

a question that is completely _irrelevant_ in the Western philosophical tradition, which is not that of _what_, but _who_

Are you sure about that?

See, for instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj1BuNmhjAY

Not to mention Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Plato/Socrates aka the Greek daddies who continuously force us to ask 'who is speaking?' as we read 'their' dialogues.

yeah that's clearly an overstatement and isn't strictly speaking accurate. i'd differentiate between the derrida/nietzsche/kierkegaard approach and whatever the hell is going on with the ancient greek philosophers, though.

the brazilian government tried to send glenn greenwald to jail six months ago for revealing political tampering in the car wash investigation that brought bolsonaro to power and the free speech people kicked him off the letter for some op-ed writers https://t.co/zgAenOEpfm

— frank furtschool (zoomer) (@osamabishounen) July 18, 2020

lmao

I thought gg was conspicuously absent from this important contribution to one of his pet causes. he was defending fellow white supremacist sully earlier, this makes them all look worse. why was chomsky allowed to stay?

UK libs:

"This book could save lives" says 'national treasure' Stephen Fry about a book written by a literal war criminal. What a perfect encapsulation of the absolute moral bankruptcy of this country's ruling elite. pic.twitter.com/018nj7ymxa

— Louis (@Louis_Allday) July 20, 2020

tbf to Campbell

lol no

just an observation that alongside the crimes he committed in the name of politics, and without questioning his own experience of depression, it's pretty clear that he routinely indulged in the kind of workplace behaviour that potentially impacts other people's mental health, so the hypocrisy of his presenting himself as a spokesman is

well, it's Alastair Campbell level

some of the worst things I've seen this year: Campbell playing bagpipes over Charles Kennedy's grave (talk about bullying/gaslighting the dead). Campbell stalking a nurse while playing his bagpipes like some fucking psychopathic serial killer. Campbell's White Lives Matter banner flying over the Etihad - yes it was him!

Free Speech champ Bret Weinstein folks:

Attn: @SamSeder, @TheYoungTurks @majorityfm producer @MattLech is broadcasting knowing falsehoods about me in a violence prone environment. The danger is obvious, as are your legal and journalistic obligations--Immediate retraction, apology and termination of Matt's employment.

— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) July 18, 2020

I'm sure they'll get right on that.

apparently noted free speech advocate jk rowling is now suing and extorting money from websites that dare to criticize her

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/23/childrens-news-website-apologises-jk-rowling-trans-tweet-day

money is speech too doncha know

this isn't the first time she's made legal threats to shut up people calling her transphobic either lol

Pulitzer winner and friend Anne Boyer wrote this on her blog recently:

For all toilers, from the hourly wage worker to the precariously employed freelancer to the salaried employee to the desperate job seeker, freedom of expression is always curtailed by the more noxious "freedom" of the "free" market. That is, we are "free" to sell our labor and we are "free" to be fired, replaced, spit out, thrown away, set "free" into a society in which profit defines all relations. We are, of course, also free to not sell our labor, which means for most people the freedom to give up the competition for survival (that is, the freedom to die). Even this horrible freedom of free labor can become more horrible in the racist and gendered machinations of our world, where unpaid labor and so-called surplus labor forces deepen the cruelty of capitalism’s life-extraction. This awful, deadly, false freedom is the only freedom of which much of the human earth can be certain right now.

This very simple state of things -- that as long as collective human needs are subordinated to inhuman profit no one can be free -- is the open secret of any conversation about free speech. The hypocrisy of omitting any mention of the inequalities that make speech truly unfree is glaring -- no letter demanding "tolerance" ever seems to be accompanied by a demand for a decent life for all. These calls for free speech don't even make a call for a moderate sort of proposal to make it illegal for bosses to fire workers at will or they forget even to ask for the small concession of universal health care not connected to work or income or spousal/familial status. Which is weird, of course, because making sure everyone has what they need to live would be the very best way to make certain that speech, opinion, expression, assembly, and thought could be free. Once that was taken care of, once no one had to bite their tongue for fear of losing housing, food, or health insurance, we could begin a robust and generative conversation about the boundaries of civil liberties.

Hanging out in the background of all this talk of freedom, too, is the constricting world economy, the massive loss of income and security by millions while the select few use the covid crisis as an opportunity to raid government coffers and stretch the stock market to fantastical heights, the ongoing forever wars, the egregious new border policies. Freedom now floods into the bank accounts of the billionaires and centa-millionaires, and the rest watch everything -- health, life, labor, dreams, opportunity, movement, the life of the very earth that is our home -- flood out. Remember this: all that you have lost and all that you will lose is going somewhere, to someone, and if you would like to know where, read the financial pages.

Further, the good, honest, admirable desire for "free expression" in this over-wrought stage of nearly-feudal capital has itself become a source of profit for these few. Having engineered platforms which invite the rest of us to share our feelings, opinions, and connections so that these might be turned into data and sold, then having, through these platforms, programmed the algorithms for addictive impact, a small group of would-be monopolists gild the toilets of their doomsday bunkers with the hard work of our brave or insipid or clever or shocking takes. What we so often think we are doing online when we are being free is instead working for free. The lowest thing of all low things is that these algorithms are perfected to make us miserable, triggered, paranoid, set against each other, alienated from our senses, our bodies, our proportion, deprived of the full potential and complexity of our thought, even deprived of the full capacity to remember or forget. Even for those who try to be careful not to fully trust their subjectivities to the tech-lords, thought can begin to take the form of the on-screen box that has been provided for us to fill, surveillance perched on every “like” button.

Daaaaaaamn, Anne Boyer severely otm

yup

Most of the time I have no idea what people are talking about when they talk about 'capitalism' tbh.

Usually I just assume it's about America and move on.

new board description

capitalism is when spotify gives joe rogan $100 million

there are books about capitalism and everything

It’s the system where you have to sell your labor to capital, or die

iiuc

*and die

i will say in capitalism's defence that i haven't come across a system of economic distribution that's conquered mortality

no other monster has been this successful at eating up life through work/dispossession/incarceration/enslavement/war/genocide/ecocide on such global industrial scales before

had anyone asked the congolese child miners this conversation depends on for their take on this whole cancel culture business? seems you have to have capital in the first place to be at risk of cancellation, extracted from others who are always cancelled already

no letter demanding "tolerance" ever seems to be accompanied by a demand for a decent life for all. These calls for free speech don't even make a call for a moderate sort of proposal to make it illegal for bosses to fire workers at will

This, by one of the signatories of the Harper's letter, was published a day before the letter was, and was one of the first articles published on a site affiliated with a number of the other signatories:
https://www.persuasion.community/p/a-better-remedy-for-cancel-culture

Look, I just reposted it because I thought she brought up some good points. Did the letter mention ending at-will employment? No. Lol the woman teaches full time and just won the Pulitzer

Like it was published on her blog.

So sure, some of these people might bring up points she would have them bring up.

That doesn't mean she's full of shit, and it certainly doesn't mean the letter signatories aren't full of shit. Because they definitely are.

the anne boyer piece was good and i'm glad you shared it here

seconded

Good stuff on the thread (and the thread within) on how liberals have lost it big in the UK.

associating around this point and thread a bit.... I think one of the ways in which 'liberalism' is kind of debased at the moment is the idea (which you see everywhere) that key liberal values include the assumption of good faith and consensus-oriented debate https://t.co/c7Hf5XUZQm

— Lafargue (@Lafargue) August 8, 2020

good thread, yes

*yawn*

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/12/nick-cave-political-correctness-bad-religion-run-amuck-cancel-culture

I'm sure his concern for redemption and mercy has nothing to do with Warren Ellis.

Different Warren Ellis. His concerns with "political correctness" have to do with him being a 62-year-old Australian man.

oops, I always thought they were the same guy and he wrote comics as a sideline

er, I guess music would be the sideline actually

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/us/adolph-reed-controversy.html#click=https://t.co/QFoFx1Yly6

And then they came for Adolph Reed

jfc

this guy has been moving right for a while

academics, pundits, celebs who live in fear of their increasing irrelevance know at least there’s a receptive market for this kind of shit atm so they’re pretty much engineering their own cancellations for it

Lol at “moving right”

You are a straw man come to life

I haven't followed his entire career but his form of class politics seems pretty conservative & he seems relatively unbothered by his popularity on the white supremacist social democratic left

Who exactly is the white supremacist left? I can’t tell what is your Personal hyperbole and what is existing tankie dogma

no hyperbole & tankies have called me a liberal/trot/fascist/CIA plant too many times for me to be accused of being one

I mean the leftists who use the (v selective) criticism of identity to reduce class struggle to an ironically particular nationalist reformist agenda & dismiss action against the colonial state, capital, patriarchy etc as a betrayal of this. If this isn't an accurate interpretation Reed he certainly leaves it open enough for every fan of his I've encountered to run with it