tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post1994589501397983833..comments2024-03-28T01:17:42.336-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: YOU REALLY HAVE TO WATCH THISRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-86616009460122849452017-08-19T00:41:41.034-04:002017-08-19T00:41:41.034-04:00Anon, people trying to act the victim do not pull ...Anon, people trying to act the victim do not pull three different hand guns off their person and mention the two other assault rifles they brought with them on camera. Unless they are really, really stupid. Hmmn, I guess that doesn't prove anything when we are talking about this guy, does it?<br /><br />I just don't know. I was flabbergasted last night at my poker game when one of my friends said he thought Trump was right in that the counter-protesters were attacking the Nazis and inciting the violence. Very intelligent man, by the way. I just don't know what other people think I guess.<br /><br />I do know what I think though and that is that playing the victim and blubbering about it when you face (potentially) some of the consequences of your actions is not a characteristic of any leader I would follow. Jerry Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-59618613080326513522017-08-19T00:08:49.374-04:002017-08-19T00:08:49.374-04:00Jerry Brown: Your reference to Martin King suggest...Jerry Brown: Your reference to Martin King suggests that you may be misreading the aesthetic norms of many of today's young avowed white supremacists, who tend to congregate in internet chatrooms. As the blogger Caitlin Johnstone astutely notes, "Unlike conventional white supremacist groups, the alt-right are extremely comfortable with the victim role. 4Chan, where many alt-righters make their home, has a rich tradition of glorifying loserdom and being a “beta”. Getting one’s ass kicked on camera, even by a lefty vegan, is often perfectly fine with them. They win by losing. This is important to understand if you want to beat them." (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/some-thoughts-on-charlottesville-b3695e3ec3ce)<br /><br />Many of them are not seeking a person of character as their leader. I don't just mean this in the obvious ('de re') sense that Nazis are not persons of character, and so Nazis don't seek such people. Rather, they often explicitly ridicule the very concept of ethical commitment. They are nihilistic trolls who would delight in having a leader who trolls mainstream America with his crocodile tears--just as they delight in Trump's trolling America with his blatant lies.<br /><br />How would acting distraught on TV help his cause? I suspect that these tears help the Nazis to gain the sympathy of the huge number of Whites who see themselves as victims of the left's anti-White racism. White racial consciousness involves seeing Whites as the primary victims of racial bias (http://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/whites-believe-they-are-victims-racism-more-o). We know that politically mainstream whites are responding well to the Nazis. An astonishing 2/3 of Republicans and 1/3 of independents, according to one poll (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-divided-over-trumps-response-to-charlottesville-cbs-news-poll/)--agree with Trump that both sides of conflict in Charlottesville are to blame. Given that his supporters (possibly including Trump himself) are trolls who embrace these machinations, I return your question to you: How could acting distraught possibly hurt his cause?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-88887920898832574172017-08-18T19:25:30.469-04:002017-08-18T19:25:30.469-04:00Can you imagine Martin Luther King blubbering beca...Can you imagine Martin Luther King blubbering because he was afraid the police might arrest him? I can't.Jerry Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-14795105307821278052017-08-18T17:36:32.741-04:002017-08-18T17:36:32.741-04:00Anonymous @4:35 - perhaps I am just seeing what I...Anonymous @4:35 - perhaps I am just seeing what I want to see in that video, but it did not strike me as being scripted. And I don't see how its airing would help his cause at all. I personally think it makes him look like a weak man who can't stand the criticism and who is not willing to stand up for whatever ridiculous principles he and his cause hold. In my mind, the white nationalists always try to portray themselves as very masculine strong figures, not pathetic crybabies. Why he agreed to the filming is a good question though. Jerry Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-39178173523737005972017-08-18T16:35:13.404-04:002017-08-18T16:35:13.404-04:00Returning to the topic of the original post, as I ...Returning to the topic of the original post, as I watched the video of Christopher Cantwell, it struck me as perfectly obvious that he is playing to the camera. Cantwell did not seem to me at all genuinely afraid or distressed. Rather, he pretended to cry as a way of casting himself as the honest victim of left-wing persecution. The video--the origins and intended audience of which are obscure to me--seems ready-made to air on Fox News or local news stations. In that setting, it might well convince the distracted, ignorant, and gullible viewer that the left is the side of the criminals.<br /><br /><br />Does no one else distrust this video? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-21400767671231092562017-08-18T16:04:10.546-04:002017-08-18T16:04:10.546-04:00Ed, what had just happened before Germany (west) b...Ed, what had just happened before Germany (west) became a model democracy almost 70 years ago? Don't you think that maybe we in the US had something to do with banning any more talk about Nazis over there in Germany? I think it was rather nice of us to just ban that speech instead of rounding up all the Nazi sympathizers and disposing of them the way the Nazis would have done had they won. <br /><br />At this point the Germans have their own country and their own laws which are based on their own history. It may work for them but the United States does not have exactly the same history that Germany does. Our history shows that when the government does get involved in banning speech and political association- that these instances are not our finest moments.Jerry Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-33798129331679651482017-08-18T15:42:48.887-04:002017-08-18T15:42:48.887-04:00Look at Barcelona and so many similar terrorists a...Look at Barcelona and so many similar terrorists attacks in Europe.<br /><br />The days when a group of fascists got together in a room and conspired to prepare the Munich beer hall putsch are long over. Today's terrorists, whether they be white nationalists or jihadists, conspire online. They also spread their horrid doctrines online. <br /><br />By the way, jihadi terrorists attacks such as the one in Barcelona are most probably going to produce an increase in rightwing neo-Nazi groups in Europe and maybe even in the U.S. too.<br />There's no way that this spiral of hatred can be stopped in the short term. <br />s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-72173136929591975982017-08-18T15:33:28.619-04:002017-08-18T15:33:28.619-04:00S. Wallerstein,
Your point about the internet is ...S. Wallerstein,<br /><br />Your point about the internet is a very good one. I'm almost convinced. However, there remains a distinction between the virtual world of the internet and the actual world of public streets. Even the white nationalists acknowledged as much. Their stated goal was to show that they're mroe than just an anonymous internet phenomenon. <br /><br />I guess what it boils down to is that I just can't bring myself to feel despondent over the fact that this great upsurge in white nationalist visilbity is being thwarted, on the grounds that public safety can't be guaranteed. Who would've thought that large-scale demonstrations of hate and intimidation would lead to violence?<br /><br />Might just be my reptilian brain taking over, however. Ed Barrerashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00245166137503830356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-60628997851600916052017-08-18T15:08:51.059-04:002017-08-18T15:08:51.059-04:00Markets of ideas don't guarantee that the best...Markets of ideas don't guarantee that the best ideas are successful. I think that has been clear since Plato points that out in the Republic. <br /><br />Still, especially in a situation where, if public hate speech is banned, hate speech will continue in internet, there isn't much point in banning it. I think that we have to accept that there are a lot of people full of hatred and resentment, probably exacerbated by the present capitalist economic system, which doesn't look likely to change radically in the near future, and that we are just also going to have to accept that the world is a lot more fucked up than we were taught as children it was supposed to be. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-75808254306701296102017-08-18T14:42:32.680-04:002017-08-18T14:42:32.680-04:00David Palmeter,
I don't see why we even need...David Palmeter, <br /><br />I don't see why we even need a metaphor. My point derives from a general wariness of market worship -- seeing market principles as inherently virtuous ones that can be unproblematically applied to other areas of life. Based on conversations I've had, this seems to be a habit of the liberatertarian/neoliberal right, who are constantly going on about how markets are the most efficient, natural, and thus morally perfect institutions we have. They usually see life as a gigantic arena of Darwinian competitive struggle, wherein the strong are obligated to crush the weak -- and they think this is a good thing. (This has nothing to do with Holmes, btw, whom I know very little about. However, I'd be interested to know if there's a genealogy to his metaphor.) <br /><br />Don Ellis states that "there is no way to live in a democracy without being able to subject your ideas to competition and criticism so that, theoretically anyway, the best of the ideas remain." Once again, this seems to be belied by the facts of history. As far as I know, Germany has remained a democracy these past 70 years (in the West, anyway), and is obviously, in many respects, a healthier one than ours. It has remained so despite the fact that certain ideas have been forcibly removed from the marketplace of ideas. (Also, Leiter has a section in his paper explaining why even his position is not anti-democratic.)<br /><br />And doesn't everything hinge on that "theoretically, anyway." In reality, we of course know that the best ideas are in no way guaranteed to remain, just as as the best (safest, most reliable) consumer products are never guaranteed to be the most commercially succesful -- and in fact, there are market forces which actively prevent consumers from having access to the best products in that sense. <br /><br />I sense that people here are worried that the opponents of free hate speech -- those who would legally proscribe it -- are somehow guilty of violating their own principles. Such hypocrisy allegedly undermines the very foundations of liberal democracy, which leads to a slippery slope. However, it seems to me that the principled argument against hate speech articulated by Waldron (via Fish), which I quoted in my second comment in this thread, is a prima facie sound one. If we're worried about our ability to cite principles for our position to forefend against the slippery slope, it's as good a one as we'll get. It's interesting that no one here even acknowledged Waldron's argument.Ed Barrerashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00245166137503830356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-72758242008126505062017-08-18T14:39:23.113-04:002017-08-18T14:39:23.113-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Ed Barrerashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00245166137503830356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-61336272287360099472017-08-18T14:31:03.350-04:002017-08-18T14:31:03.350-04:00He doesn't pass the sniff test.He doesn't pass the sniff test.David Gordonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03491884384604322669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-81999591621386976052017-08-18T14:19:09.378-04:002017-08-18T14:19:09.378-04:00I'm with s. wallerstein, if he means to sugges...I'm with s. wallerstein, if he means to suggest that the metaphor of the free marketplace of ideas is a cathexis virtually impervious to the facts and to anything behavioral science has to offer. (I can see why individuals like Marx or St Thomas would be moved to write page upon page of argument.) Taking market metaphors seriously means discarding the aspirational claims of <i>laissez faire</i> dialectic that assert but do not demonstrate the optimistic <i>max min</i> (best of the worst) outcomes that purportedly flow from the "intrinsic value" of free speech, and introducing externalities. Herbert Gintis <a href="https://www.amazon.com/review/R36MJNG4DWT1J2" rel="nofollow">observes</a>, "...there never has been a prosperous market economy without a strongly interventionist state." <br /><br />Why would the marketplace of ideas be any different? Leiter suggests as much when he expresses doubts that "capitalist democracies have the requisite competence" to regulate private sector propaganda. The examples of net neutrality and "fake news" could be elaborated further--which I would do if I could arrange to sit in the NYPL for ten hours a day... Among the externalities that free speech (in the US) generates include "...inability of millions of people in the United States to assess epistemic authority sensibly" and "...a complete breakdown in the ability to assess epistemic authority: so, for example, that the National Academy of Sciences endorses a view is not thought to be relevant by some substantial portion of the population." The quotes are from "The Case Against Free Speech" by Brian Leiter, who states that the second "externality" (meaning, a negative consequence of free speech as this is realized in our capitalist economy), is "[o]ne of the main problems in the US right now." <br /><br />There is some cash value in the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas--namely, the price of media access. The lack of a substitute for anything like a cash value assigned to the ideas circulating in the marketplace of ideas ought to suggest where to look. I'm tempted to erect a strawman with ankylosing spondylitis--enough of the condition to withstand contemptuous dismissal. If you take Lloyd Shapley's market games in cooperative game theory as your model for the marketplace of ideas you would quickly run aground...F Lengyelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16870219925438756983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-89113314923304316752017-08-18T12:25:07.669-04:002017-08-18T12:25:07.669-04:00As I understand it, the Marxist critique of mark...As I understand it, the Marxist critique of markets is not that I exchange the apples I grow for the oranges that you grow, but that human labor power is bought and sold as a market commodity.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-8464002616819464242017-08-18T11:37:11.424-04:002017-08-18T11:37:11.424-04:00I think Don Ellis explains why we need to tolerate...I think Don Ellis explains why we need to tolerate free speech very well. Also explains what is meant by 'the marketplace of ideas'. I am surprised to find out I agree with the current state of the law on an issue- that rarely happens.<br /><br />Jerry Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-8411407095484996712017-08-18T11:20:38.861-04:002017-08-18T11:20:38.861-04:00Ed Barreras,
Is there a better metaphor?Ed Barreras,<br /><br />Is there a better metaphor?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01601151117159492920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-8339970848117961552017-08-18T11:00:14.811-04:002017-08-18T11:00:14.811-04:00The quote from Holmes by Palmeter is the key point...The quote from Holmes by Palmeter is the key point when protecting freedom of speech. Free speech is an intrinsic good because it keeps the marketplace of ideas enriched and circulating. There is no way to live in a democracy without being required to subject your ideas to competition and criticism so that, theoretically anyway, the best of the ideas remain. Democracies are contestatory political systems. Argument and disagreement is the basic stuff of the political system.<br /><br />The current state of the law with respect to freedom of expression protects political speech as long as that speech does not produce imminent danger. So the Nazis have a right to express themselves and march but the courts might deny them the right to march in a Jewish neighborhood because it's overly provocative and capable of producing imminent danger. These were the issues in the Skokie case.<br /><br />Don EllisDon Ellisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-83243750661234524652017-08-18T10:57:32.225-04:002017-08-18T10:57:32.225-04:00The quote from Holmes by Palmeter is the key point...The quote from Holmes by Palmeter is the key point when protecting freedom of speech. Free speech is an intrinsic good because it keeps the marketplace of ideas enriched and circulating. There is no way to live in a democracy without being required to subject your ideas to competition and criticism so that, theoretically anyway, the best of the ideas remain. Democracies are contestatory political systems. Argument and disagreement is the basic stuff of the political system.<br /><br />The current state of the law with respect to freedom of expression protects political speech as long as that speech does not produce imminent danger. So the Nazis have a right to express themselves and march but the courts might deny them the right to march in a Jewish neighborhood because it's overly provocative and capable of producing imminent danger. These were the issues in the Skokie case.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-91794876662863196252017-08-17T19:06:09.939-04:002017-08-17T19:06:09.939-04:00Interesting reflections, David Palmeter. However, ...Interesting reflections, David Palmeter. However, this being the blog of a noted Marxist, I feel it's appropriate to point out the lurking perniciousness is the metaphor of a <i>marketplace</i> of ideas. Do markets always produce the most desirable outcomes? And should ideologies and worldviews be compared to morally neutral commodities? Ed Barrerashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00245166137503830356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-44109352987958029572017-08-17T17:42:39.717-04:002017-08-17T17:42:39.717-04:00David Palmeter,
Thank you so much for your commen...David Palmeter, <br />Thank you so much for your comment and for sharing your personal experience. I was not around then but what I have learned about that period also influences my opinion about free speech. And why it is better to tolerate it than ban it. <br /><br />I really love this blog- it is one of the few places I feel like I'm a young man even though I'm 50 :) Thanks for learning me!Jerry Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-50049753117514991512017-08-17T17:09:45.044-04:002017-08-17T17:09:45.044-04:00The 1950s certainly were a period repression and i...The 1950s certainly were a period repression and intimidation for purely political speech and ideas. I’m not as old as Prof. Wolff, but I’m old enough to have lived through it--I won’t be 80 for a few more months. My high school years were 1952-56 and college 56-60.<br /><br />Joe McCarthy is well known, but the real damage to many people was done by HUAC--the House Unamerican Activities Committee. Its Senate counterpart, the Internal Security Subcommittee (I think of the Judiciary Committee) was no slouch either.<br /><br />They would call people before the committee and ask them under oath not only about their own past activities (mainly leftist, including Communist, affiliations in the 1930s) but to name the names of those who they met while engaging in those activities. Knowledge that someone had been a Communist in the ‘30s, or even a democratic (Norman Thomas) socialist was enough to get someone fired. “Taking the 5th” as a way to avoid perjury was tantamount to professional self-destruction--whether you were a teacher, a screen writer, a movie star or anything else.<br /> <br />In an American history course in high school the subject of elections came up. Someone suggested that Communists should not be allowed to run for office. (I think proposals of that kind were floating about, at least among the commentariat.) I asked, why not? They were citizens too, and if a majority of the voters preferred a Communist, that should be enough. The teacher, Miss Maginnis, looked at me, then looked away, and asked another student a totally unrelated question. The question of Communists running for office never came up again.<br /><br />Now Miss Maginnis was nobody’s push-over. She had written the textbook used by many school systems in NY state at the time. She did not suffer fools gladly. Word had it that she intimidated even the principal.<br /><br />That incident always stuck in my mind--I can see her standing there today. But it wasn’t until several years later that it dawned on me that she herself was intimidated. If word had gotten out that such a subject was even being discussed in her classroom, she could have been crucified by the community and probably would have lost her job. She wasn’t going to risk that.<br /><br />I didn’t appreciate at the time how bad it really was, but if it was enough to intimidate Miss Maginnis, it had to be very bad.<br /><br />In college, I got into the question more deeply and became what I remain today--pretty much a free speech absolutist, convince by Holmes’s dissent in the Abrams case:<br /><br />“Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition...But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas. . . . The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.”<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01601151117159492920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-4189308309494670402017-08-17T15:48:20.739-04:002017-08-17T15:48:20.739-04:00Professor Wolff is old enough to remember the 1950...Professor Wolff is old enough to remember the 1950's and the suppression of speech of communists and such, I wasn't born until the late 60's so I have no personal recollection of that period. It seems to me that what was punished through government pressure did not fall under any sort of 'hate speech' at all. What I have learned about that period is that it was a suppression of political speech, and that they were not very concerned about making sure their targets were 'reasonably guilty' of even that. <br /><br />If Professor Wolff would be willing to share his experience and take on that, I know I sure would be interested. Does that experience color his views on free speech, even hate speech, and government suppression of it? Where is it reasonable to draw the line on what is said in a public or even personal forum? What manner of punishment is reasonable for people who don't toe that line? And who is to deliver that punishment- is it just the state through the criminal justice system? Or are private firms and institutions to be pressured to sanction offenders as well?Jerry Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-21380856163213820772017-08-17T15:15:27.484-04:002017-08-17T15:15:27.484-04:00Ed Barreras,
While there's aren't 25,000 ...Ed Barreras,<br /><br />While there's aren't 25,000 Nazis marching through Berlin, there may be lots who aren't marching. You can control public hate speech, but it's almost impossible to control the internet, and it may be wiser to let the Nazis and their like come out of the closet rather than have them lurking underground, forming clandestine networks, etc. When they're out of the closet, you (and the police, who hopefully are anti-Nazi) know who the Nazis are and we can watch out for them. I've noticed in Chile (where I live) that Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are among the most common books sold by street book vendors, although they are not sold, as far I know, in mainstream bookstores: it seems that Nazism is going to attract a certain portion of the population in most societies and we are going to have to deal with that.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-40858171637327668092017-08-17T14:28:25.451-04:002017-08-17T14:28:25.451-04:00It seems like there are two issues being discussed...It seems like there are two issues being discussed here. One is the limiting of what Leiter calls "private sector propoganda" -- basically, Breitbart and Fox News. As Leiter acknowledges, that is an colossal undertaking that capitalist democracies lack the competence to implement. The most we can strive for is changes around the edges, as it were, such as a return to the Fairness Doctrine or (as F Lengyel mentions in the above comment) preserving net neutrality. <br /><br />The other issue is limiting hate speech. This is a more feasible undertaking, as the example of Germany shows. To be sure, the German laws create all kinds of awkward situations, such as the recent case where a woman was charged under the statute for producing images of swastikas that were X-ed out. This was an anti-Nazi gesture, of course. However she was still charged on the grounds that any swastikas (not associated with pre-Nazi religious imagery) are outlawed. Sensibly, the courts eventually dropped the charges and affirmed that swastikas are OK for use in explicit anti-Nazi imagery. <br /><br />I can't see that there's any matter of principle by which one should prefer American libertarianism over German restrictivism when it comes to hate speech. It seems to me like it just boils down to tradition. However, I'll again note that within 60 years of the end of the Civil War, an army of KKK were marching through Washington DC. I don't recall seeing 25,000 Nazis marching through Berlin in 2005. Yes, alright, historical circumstances are different. But still. Ed Barrerashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00245166137503830356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-84788839470874434922017-08-17T10:31:22.887-04:002017-08-17T10:31:22.887-04:00Before I'm rightly accused of missing the poin...Before I'm rightly accused of missing the point, Prof Leiter states that private sector propaganda is largely responsible for the "...inability of millions of people in the United States to assess epistemic authority sensibly." Private sector propaganda would be the primary target for speech regulation, but Leiter doubts that "capitalist democracies have the requisite competence" to regulate it. <br /><br />Here's an example. The FCC under the Trump administration proposed to repeal the 2015 network neutrality rules and their legal grounding under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. FCC under Trump is not proposing that Internet Service Providers will become reliable epistemic arbiters of the Internet content they select and prioritize for consumer access. With the abolition of net neutrality, Internet Service Providers will likely amplify the effect of private sector propaganda. [I'm typing on the run and making assertions rather than arguments, but I'm confident these are defensible positions.]<br /><br />As for deciding between (1) and (2) and overt threats against individuals, this is already being done. I disagree there is value is permitting unambiguous cases, even if the rhetorical flourishes of the free speech absolutists cause their chests to swell to astronomical proportions. F Lengyelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16870219925438756983noreply@blogger.com