Some thoughts on Alt-right Trolling.

[JHan]

A key component of Trump's rise was his ability to Troll. His staffers, followers, and admirers follow his lead.

For such people - the Milo's and Mike Cernovich's of this world- they live not only to exploit Democratic freedoms to spread fascistic hate but to also trigger the libs and exploit Liberal reasonableness.

In the "freeze peach" wars, when trolls like Milo and Ann Coulter felt they should have access to rarified platforms like Universities, many reasonable liberals agreed, because we're about fairness and when they go low we go high. Many reasonable arguments were laid out citing the freedom of speech, and a slippery slope, and intolerance. Absent from this reasoning is the fact that we are not entitled to rarified spaces or platforms. Newspapers are discriminatory about who gets to write op-eds, TV show hosts exercise discretion over who they invite as guests to their shows. Of all platforms, Universities should exercise great discretion over whom they invite for campus talks.

There is no right to all platforms written anywhere in the constitution. Are there instances where Universities are heavy-handed? Yes, but resistance to controversial invitations to University platforms is nothing new.

I see shades of this same type of manipulation of liberal reasonableness when it comes to Zina Bash. There are now long pieces, both in left leaning and right leaning publications, shaming Liberals-who-are-not-reasonable for assuming that Zina was signaling "white power" at the Kavanaugh hearings. Never mind when she learned of the speculation, she turned it up a notch.

I've used that hand signal to mean something is perfect or good or "A Okay!" But Fascists have a habit of appropriating innocuous, even religious, symbolism for nefarious purposes. See Pepe the Frog or the Swastika.

The defense of Zina Bash is bizarre because she is an acolyte of Stephen Miller - The most Bigoted Edgelord of all bigoted Millennial edgelords. She worked with him on immigration policy. We know Stephen Miller is vile. We know the ethos of this administration is ethnonationalism so it's curious all the confusion. I've seen defenses of Ms Bash claiming her ancestry when she works for Trump. Power is a fact of life, and some human beings don't care who they align with to attain it.

By calling a hand symbol which has been appropriated by alt-righters to wink-nudge their followers "fake news", I believe we're gaslighting ourselves. She is free to use whatever signals she likes, but we don't help when we deny the signaling going on here.

Alt-righters use this hand signal as a way to tell the marginalized and those in the crosshairs of this administration "We're the ones with power now and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. And if you call me racist or fascist for using this hand signal, reasonable people will laugh at you"

They love this chaos because a lot of this type of trolling was born in the toxic mess that was 4chan.

The best description of how elements in 4 chan evolved into the Alt-right is from Morgan Chase, I've condensed her tweets on this in paragraphs:

Link to tweet

As a gamer myself, I couldn't put it better than this:

"So much of the alt-right grew out of online geek culture (GG [Gamergate] is a good example). Which I guess makes sense because it's a group of people who feel like outsiders but are in fact quite privileged (white, male, straight). And we all know what happens when you make white straight men feel even slightly disenfranchised. A layer the media has not picked up on is the gamification of the alt-right.

It is a game played for nihilistic pleasure. Every woman, POC, queer, trans person intimidated - every social justice space 'infiltrated' - scores points for the nerd nazis. Geek culture was perfect breeding ground for this. Like geeks intensely nostalgize the media culture of their youths, so too the alt-right. It became easy to like a nostalgia for media culture to a nostalgia for nationalist culture. Both are reactions to a rapidly changing world. Geek culture is also an intensely male-centric space (despite or perhaps bc of it's slightly effeminate stature in the wider culture).

Reddit and the chans, with their male-centric and game-ified trolling cultures, gave birth to the bastard child that is the alt-right. That nazi-who-gets-punched actually hit on something when he said that neo-Nazis don't like him. We're dealing with a very different demographic. The geek alt-right stuff is not coming from the uneducated rural working-class whites - it is coming from educated white nerds.

These are guys who work in STEM. At least, this was who originally started it (GG, etc.). Now it's snowballed up all kinds of other opportunistic white nationalists. We have a bunch of identifiable groups who previously wouldn't have spoken to each other forming a coalition of awful.

I think that maybe separating out each group we can find strategies best suited to countering their particular brand of terrible. It's fascinating in a way because so much of the geek culture is about resisting fascism. But these men's nostalgia for their uncritical childhood takes ("cool explosions! space travel!&quot blinds them to this.

Of course, it is not all individual geeks. But this subculture is what gave birth to the alt-right. The sneering way the left dismisses the alt-right as uneducated is simply not the case, which I guess is one of the points I'm making here. The Gaters are really the direct antecedents of the current alt-right. The Gate is how they learned to organize, gameify harassment, etc. Gamergate was where this generation of white right-wingers became radicalized. I'm not even sure they're accurately described as rightwing.

Many are essentially apolitical but find it fun to relax into racist tendencies. And I think that's why we have particular difficulty reaching them: we're trying to convince them of politics but they are apolitical. They don't actually care about politics: they're using it as a game and as a tool for lashing out about their feelings of disenfranchisement. A lot of this is classic trauma behaviour also: many of them were bullied as kids and now are getting "revenge of the nerds" via same tactic. But instead of lashing out at the power structures that created their trauma, they're lashing out at the people they think threaten their power. Sarah Schulman's Conflict is Not Abuse is basically a roadmap for how this type of thinking works, if you're interested in learning more.



When we nonchalantly dismiss this phenomenon as nothing we miss the undercurrents at work here.

This is applicable:

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Two eternal questions

What is tolerable?

Who gets to decide?

[JHan]

11. In this thread, Salviati reminded me of an essay that touches on that:

https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1af7007d6376
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211115406

"Tolerance is not a moral precept

The title of this essay should disturb you. We have been brought up to believe that tolerating other people is one of the things you do if you’re a nice person — whether we learned this in kindergarten or from Biblical maxims like “love your neighbor as yourself” and “do unto others.”

But if you have ever tried to live your life this way, you will have seen it fail: “Why won’t you tolerate my intolerance?” This comes in all sorts of forms: accepting a person’s actively antisocial behavior because it’s just part of being an accepting group of friends; being told that prejudice against Nazis is the same as prejudice against Black people; watching people try to give “equal time” to a religious (or irreligious) group whose guiding principle is that everyone must join them or else.

Every one of these examples should raise your suspicions that something isn’t right; that tolerance be damned, one of these things is not like the other. But if you were raised with an intense version of “tolerance is a moral requirement,” then you may feel that this is a thought you should fight off.

It isn’t. "

The author uses the analogy of peace agreements ...

Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.

The tension in liberal societies is while we want to be open to different ideas and freedom of expression, if anti-liberal ideas emerge and dominate, the stability of a democracy is put at risk. It's as though Liberalism doesn't have enough T-cells ( borrowing David brin's t-cell metaphor for a moment), to prevent attacks from within. "T-cells" can take the form of legislation which protects citizens from discrimination, theocratic rule or fascism: The Civil Rights Act, Laïcité in France and Volksverhetzung in Germany are examples of this. However the rise of neo-fascism in western democracies shows how justice delicately hangs in the balance: if bad ideas emerge and dominate, progress is easily lost.

[Cha]

2. I remember that "The Paradox of Tolerance"

during the GE campaign season.

Thank you for your OP, JH!

[JHan]

14. it's a great meme.

[treestar]

3. Right wingers will say they are not being tolerated

Right wingers will say they are not being tolerated and go on about “intolerant libs“ but they have it backwards. Why would we tolerate their intolerance?

[Salviati]

4. Whenever anyone brings that argument up, here's a good response

Tolerance is not a moral precept

The title of this essay should disturb you. We have been brought up to believe that tolerating other people is one of the things you do if you’re a nice person — whether we learned this in kindergarten or from Biblical maxims like “love your neighbor as yourself” and “do unto others.”

But if you have ever tried to live your life this way, you will have seen it fail: “Why won’t you tolerate my intolerance?” This comes in all sorts of forms: accepting a person’s actively antisocial behavior because it’s just part of being an accepting group of friends; being told that prejudice against Nazis is the same as prejudice against Black people; watching people try to give “equal time” to a religious (or irreligious) group whose guiding principle is that everyone must join them or else.

Every one of these examples should raise your suspicions that something isn’t right; that tolerance be damned, one of these things is not like the other. But if you were raised with an intense version of “tolerance is a moral requirement,” then you may feel that this is a thought you should fight off.

It isn’t.

...

(lots more at link)

https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1af7007d6376

[JHan]

6. ++ thanks for reminding me of that essay. His analogy with peace agreements is spot on.

[Salviati]

7. Always good to bring it up

I'm sure it will be new to some folks, and it is a solid response to that inevitable argument.

[haele]

33. I extend tolerance to ideas and actions that at least don't promote undue harm.

Does the idea or action affect only the person doing or thinking it, or does it also affect others?

Does the idea or action improve the situation for most people, especially those who do not have privilege, or does it in effect, pull a lifeline away from people who are struggling for the benefit of those who are simply "imposed on"?

Is it fair to most people, especially to those who do not have privilege; does it "level the playing field" to give equal opportunity or access based on personal merit rather than external circumstances, such as poverty or associations?

Does the idea or activity do no harm to those with no means to protect themselves? - i.e., children, elderly, the disenfranchised? Or does it ignore them to benefit only those who hold to that idea or activity?

Does the ideal or activity improve society without the requirement to get rid of a significant number of people who are part of that society? Or does it require the collation and actual removal of people who does not fit into arbitrary "politically acceptable" categories from society on a permanent basis to make that ideal or activity "work".
Note: this doesn't refer to social compacts for "politeness" and equal opportunities as intolerant bigotry; it refers to life imprisonment, disenfranchisement, or internment camps based on arbitrary non-compliance.

Does the idea or action impose or remove an undue burden on at least 98% of society - or is it burden-neutral?

No matter what I feel about an idea, activity, or situation - these are the considerations that I calibrate my "tolerance meter" to. But there's way too many people whose tolerance meter is set to "It's all about meeee - so how do I feel about it?"

Haele

[Grasswire2]

5. Give me some context.

What are Proud Boys vis a vis post-gamers?

[JHan]

8. Morgan describes it well, You can have these different sub groups united..

in some toxic common cause- They create their own tribes. I think the difference with Proud Boys is they're prepared to get directly confrontational while gamer dudes Morgan describes mostly troll online and spread dank memes, with racist/sexist undertones ( and of course harass people online)

[Grasswire2]

9. thanks nt

[Squinch]

10. Great post!

[JHan]

25. thks Squinch. I think it's important to delve into what 4chan was and its connection to the altright

I don't see a lot of articles about it in conventional publications.

The surreal moment of the election was when every mention of Trump's racism and sexism fueled these gamer types to cling to him even more strongly. The solution isn't to avoid talking about racism and sexism of course, but it's clear for these people racism and sexism are perfectly fine. They enjoy it.

[yardwork]

12. The question is - why are these people trolling?

I've seen defenses of these hand signals on DU, and I don't get it. Why would any decent person joke about white supremacy?

I mean, who gets up in the morning and thinks "I'll go troll some libs by flashing a white power sign while sitting directly behind the Supreme Court nominee while he's being questioned in Congress."

[JHan]

13. people who do that are a disgrace.

The trolling of libs, in this case, is a reaction to liberal outrage at Kavanaugh's appointment.

Liberals are justified to oppose his appointment. Rather than withdraw the nominee, or address the valid concerns raised by Democrats, arrogance and trolling is the response.

"If you didn't resist so much to our awfulness we wouldn't have to be so awful. Your resistance to our awfulness is the reason we are awful"

See also #WhyTrumpWon arguments, and some critiques of "political correctness".

Edit: As for DU'ers defending it, I haven't seen much of that. I didn't follow those threads closely, but it doesn't surprise me because it is reasonable to question whether she really meant it, and I understand the original skepticism ...

..but ........because it's a Trump staffer who has worked with Stephen Miller I was open to the idea it was something other than her weird way of folding her arms. When she used the signal again to "TrOlL teh LiBz" she confirmed she was always on shit.

[Wounded Bear]

17. If you want to individualize it, this is the "you made me hurt you" defense used by abusers...

[JHan]

21. Yep ++

[mythology]

18. How many times do people have to point out that it isn't a white power sign?

The ADL says it isn't, that it's a troll making fun of how liberals are so concerned with things like microaggressions and that people need to be protected that they would leap on the claim that it was a white power symbol. And sure enough people did.

https://www.adl.org/blog/how-the-ok-symbol-became-a-popular-trolling-gesture

[RhodeIslandOne]

19. The fact they are doing it is the troll

They are getting their kicks out of it, but to know that the sign IS a troll, one has to be familiar with the hate groups perpetuating it....specifically 4chan.

[yardwork]

20. Why would somebody joke about something like that?

What kind of person disrupts the review of a Supreme Court nominee to "troll libs" by pretending to promote white supremacy?

[yardwork]

22. Also, the ADL published this:

https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/hate-symbols?cat_id%5B153%5D=153

[Caliman73]

34. Context.

When a bunch of people who have all come out in support of White Supremacy use a symbol with an already agreed upon message for the purpose of trolling another group of people to "point out how sensitive the other group is to the propagation of White Supremacy" when does that symbol actually start being an internal/external marker for the White Supremacy supporting group?

You understand that the Swastika was not a Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) sign to begin with right? It was a Hindu symbol that Hitler took and made into his own and then propagated among the Nazis. Similarly, the Cross was not a KKK symbol either, until the KKK integrated it into their message.

I am not saying that the OK hand gesture is an iron clad symbol of White Supremacy. It is a troll. However, it is a troll from White Supremacists who want to upset Liberals by intimating that the sign is indicating White Power. The hand sign is almost irrelevant at this point. The problem is that we have a bunch of jerk off White Supremacist supporting people within a presidential administration and affiliated power structures who are walking around thinking of the great fun it is to piss people off by using the hand gesture knowing that it is now linked (even if not directly) to the White Supremacy problem.

[JHan]

37. ++ exactly this.

[lostnfound]

15. Interesting. I wonder about the inner psychology: what is culture suppressing?

Carl Jung has the insight that when particular urges or aspects of personality are suppressed, they will find a way to express themselves in unhealthy, distorted ways.

Seems to me there’s a distorted sense of “brotherhood” apparent. Healthy brotherhood is actively suppressed in our society. School is mostly about individual effort and individual reward, as we sit along side 30 other people working on the same tasks ALONE. Helping each other succeed is cheating. The word “solidarity” is a bad word, in America. We are supposed to put ourselves against others, and work hard to earn stuff for ourselves.

There are very many anxious “lone wolves” looking for a pack to which they can belong.

A sense of purpose? A space for their voices to feel heard?

Young men in some cultures have a path to adulthood that depends on proving their worth by passing some test that requires bravery and competence, and at the end they are rewarded with acceptance and being recognized as a “man”.

For many, the path forward seems like a track to nowhere, in disrepair. Many certainly seem aimless.

Does anyone else find that watching some (definitely not all) young men around them flounder toward adulthood as watching a trainwreck in slow motion? It is a precarious journey and many seem confused about what is expected of them socially.

[JHan]

23. Good points.

Feelings of isolation are normal for young people. I feel it, felt it when I was a teen. Found healthy outlets to express whatever frustration I had. Even in gaming I was careful about the guilds I joined. I started to game when I was 8, joined MMORPGs ( Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) when I was 12. The gaming guilds I always had a mix of people.

But I also saw the emerging affinity for right-wing ideology in chat rooms. Some players felt they were being "edgy" by saying sexist and racist things. Anti-political correctness fueled their desire to be rebels bucking the status quo.

We also can't ignore how successful Breitbart propaganda became. Bannon's organization hugely impacted a lot of white males ( even some conservative non-white people) I've known, in sinister ways. The tool is fear - whip people up with fear and this can pollute the minds of even the well-educated.

We can even trace it back to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, where they managed to equate truth with falsehoods and equate facts with conspiracy theories. The inevitable result was "alternative facts". This is a powerful concept for anti-establishment types who don't trust establishment publications or suspicious of authority in general ( David Brin has a great blog post about this ) If you can reconfigure reality with a set of alternative facts and lies, it's easy to exploit confirmation bias and create silos of disinformation, attracting discontented sorts who want to lash out against society. In the process, they become devoted to these alternative facts, and institutions which propagate them, such as Breitbart. They cut themselves off from any other information source, and absorb more information to confirm their perspectives. The further they isolate themselves from the real world, the more vulnerable they are to propaganda.

Breitbart whipped up fears of a Mexican and Muslim invasion, also fears of a black vs white "race war" which has been around for over 50 years. The publication also allied itself with Republican interests ( naturally) because of "conservative" delusions about the job market and immigration. Underpinning the modern expression of "conservatism" birthed as a backlash against civil rights is an aggrieved sense of entitlement which plays on ethnic resentment ( or white fragility). For average Republicans who feel the effects of bad "conservative" policies, they can't get past the manipulation of racial resentment to focus on ways Republicans game the system to their disadvantage.

To ensure that they can continue gaming the system, they wage a war on reality, try to legitimize historical revisionism, a whole new political reality driven by fear and false narratives. Disenchanted, angry, antisocial white males are ripe for the picking in this project.

[TwistOneUp]

16. When trolling the alt-right...

Most are misogynistic, so I find it best to speak to them as if they are women. Call 'em girl, tell 'em the reason they're unhappy is that they need to please their man night and day, and generaĺy talk down to them.

One should also note that only *some* gamers are alt-right. The majority of the ones I've met are pretty level-headed peeps.

[JHan]

24. I've been lucky to guild and group up with some fabulous people as well.

Last edited Mon Sep 10, 2018, 03:34 PM - Edit history (1)

As Morgan said it's not all of us "#NotAll" But the phenomenon she described emerging out of forums like 4chan is really accurate. For those of us in gaming who are sane, it's important to talk about it.

The misogynistic ones also tend to be really bad at gaming. The insulting talk is compensation for their lack of skill. I personally like to remind them* they got beaten by a girl

[Hortensis]

26. I'm with you all the way generally, Jhan, but I'm not ready

to assume a sophisticated DC insider was giving white supremacist hand signals while sitting behind Trump's nominee to SCOTUS at his hearing.

That'd make her as stupidly dysfunctional as Trump himself and risk blowing up the hearings if the media believed it and took it seriously. Is this person up to her eyebrows in her husband's and her "team's" white supremacist atrocities guilty? It really is possible. But unless they confirm it that's all.

Meanwhile, I'm earnestly telling myself to remember that the cheery old okay sign still means just that to only 250 million Americans or so and will be taken by others as a Nazi dog whistle. I scarcely ever use it, but still. I don't want some passing stranger spitting in my face if I use it to signal a store's open or something to my husband across a parking lot.

[JHan]

29. Actually I was first skeptical of the claim until she did it again - boldy.

I think it was done, the second time, to specifically troll liberals. What were her options?

- She could have denounced white supremacy through a statement and said that she would never engage in that type of signaling...( this would surely be the responsible thing to do if it were an administration other than the current one)

- or she could have doubled down. She chose to double down, specifically to troll the libs.

We're dealing with an administration which has a particular philosophical worldview. They respond to criticism with arrogance, outright lies, and ... trolling. They love it when Liberals are outraged, it gives them a high. Better yet, they weaponize it. It's why both milo and mike cernovich do it- it's a dominance tactic. No matter how I look at it, it's perverse and not at all innocent in its expression. Coincidentally it suited the sham of the hearings well.

Edit: I'm also past the point of expecting professionalism from any of the Trump staffers. Like, every Sarah Huckabee press briefing is a massive joke. My bias is that I expect awful at every turn.

[Hortensis]

30. I understand and agree no nastiness is beyond people

who'd kidnap children too young to understand and not only put them in holding camps but actively try to keep their frantic families from ever finding them again. People say they didn't believe anyone would care...!

Also that no stupidity is too unlikely to be ruled out in these people at any level.

If she were a decent woman, she'd have had to leave her husband. They are Nazis if ever were.

[JHan]

31. I think the problem with the liberal reaction is the shock, it should not be shocking. ..

It's just further confirmation we're dealing with a group of disgraceful people who love being awful.

[Hortensis]

32. Yes, and from the love comes the belief and the CYA ideology.

[guillaumeb]

27. If tolerance is not mutual, it is surrender by one side.

The GOP is a one party group with no interest in compromise or tolerance.

Very well said JHan.

Guillaume

[JHan]

35. I remember a few years ago people were saying Milo was just "trolling" and that was all to it..

That the trolling was done for trolling sake and that he wasn't really intolerant of other people, after all, he likes black men!

Then the Milo emails came out:

[When] the left — and worse, some on the right — had started to condemn the new conservative energy as reactionary and racist. Yiannopoulos had to take back “alt-right,” to redefine for Breitbart’s audience a poorly understood, leaderless movement, parts of which had already started to resist the term itself.

So he reached out to key constituents, who included a neo-Nazi and a white nationalist.

“Finally doing my big feature on the alt right,” Yiannopoulos wrote in a March 9, 2016, email to Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, a hacker who is the system administrator of the neo-Nazi hub the Daily Stormer, and who would later ask his followers to disrupt the funeral of Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer. “Fancy braindumping some thoughts for me.”

“It’s time for me to do my big definitive guide to the alt right,” Yiannopoulos wrote four hours later to Curtis Yarvin, a software engineer who under the nom de plume Mencius Moldbug helped create the “neoreactionary” movement, which holds that Enlightenment democracy has failed and that a return to feudalism and authoritarian rule is in order. “Which is my whorish way of asking if you have anything you’d like to make sure I include.”

“Alt r feature, figured you’d have some thoughts,” Yiannopoulos wrote the same day to Devin Saucier, who helps edit the online white nationalist magazine American Renaissance under the pseudonym Henry Wolff, and who wrote a story in June 2017 called “Why I Am (Among Other Things) a White Nationalist.”

The three responded at length: Weev about the Daily Stormer and a podcast called The Daily Shoah, Yarvin in characteristically sweeping world-historical assertions (“It’s no secret that North America contains many distinct cultural/ethnic communities. This is not optimal, but with a competent king it’s not a huge problem either”), and Saucier with a list of thinkers, politicians, journalists, films (Dune, Mad Max, The Dark Knight), and musical genres (folk metal, martial industrial, ’80s synthpop) important to the movement. Yiannopoulos forwarded it all, along with the Wikipedia entries for “Alternative Right” and the esoteric far-right Italian philosopher Julius Evola — a major influence on 20th-century Italian fascists and Richard Spencer alike — to Allum Bokhari, his deputy and frequent ghostwriter, whom he had met during GamerGate. “Include a bit of everything,” he instructed Bokhari.
.....
Five days later Bokhari returned a 3,000-word draft, a taxonomy of the movement titled “ALT-RIGHT BEHEMOTH.” It included a little bit of everything: the brains and their influences (Yarvin and Evola, etc.), the “natural conservatives” (people who think different ethnic groups should stay separate for scientific reasons), the “Meme team” (4chan and 8chan), and the actual hatemongers. Of the last group, Bokhari wrote: “There’s just not very many of them, no-one really likes them, and they’re unlikely to achieve anything significant in the alt-right.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism

[guillaumeb]

36. From your link:

“There’s just not very many of them, no-one really likes them, and they’re unlikely to achieve anything significant in the alt-right.”

It matters more where these very few are. Hitler started with very few, as did Lenin. And when the actual President is an intolerant racist, those few will weigh heavily in the national discourse.

[OldEurope]

28. nft, bookmark

[reACTIONary]

38. The universities in question . ...

RE: Absent from this reasoning is the fact that we are not entitled to rarified spaces or platforms. Newspapers are discriminatory about who gets to write op-eds, TV show hosts exercise discretion over who they invite as guests to their shows. Of all platforms, Universities should exercise great discretion over whom they invite for campus talks.

.. are public institutions. Private universities can and do excersize great discretion. Public universities have to be more "tolerant".

[JHan]

39. you can't yell fire in a crowded theatre..

Universities, including the public ones, exercise discretion.

Universities are not the government. They also don't have all the time in the world to grant everyone a platform, they pick and choose who gets to speak. It's why Genocide deniers, flat-earthers and #TheMoonLandingWasFake People would not be "tolerated". I'd think a Neo-Nazi or anyone encouraging hatred against segments of the population would also fall under things which are beyond acceptable discourse.

[reACTIONary]

40. Univerties in general...

.... are not the government but SOME universities are governmental institutions, just like public K-12 schools.

If they rent out facilities for public events, and they do, they must do so without viewpoint dicrimination.

If one of the student associations invites a speaker, they may have some greater discretion but would be inviting a law suit initiated by their own students .

They have complete discretion when it comes to inviting a comencement speaker

Private universities have much greater discretion, of course.

You will note that the recent incidents were at public institutions, ironically including Berkley the cradle Free Speach Movement. And IIRC the incidents involved rented facilities, not an invitation from the University.

[JHan]

41. .. ..we have limits to "free speech" already,

( the crowded theatre example)

Surely an individual should not be able to harass or say whatever they want without consequences ( this is not a first amendment right). I can understand objections to anyone who thinks it's appropriate to silence someone who doesn't support a set of opinions. But free speech is not an amorphous concept that applies in all situations (something right wingers want us to believe). And I haven't agreed with all University decisions w.r.t invitees. In some cases, they were too harsh and in some cases way too accommodating.

But the larger point of tolerance is this, which goes beyond Campuses. Is any rejection to speak on a platform an example of "Viewpoint Discrimination" or lack of "viewpoint diversity"? The targeting of people for immutable traits or inciting violence against them is a line which should not be crossed. A liberal democracy like Germany understood this well after the Nazis and implemented Volksverhetzung. When that line is crossed, it is imperative that we let it not become normalized or acceptable ( which is precisely what fascists would like). It is amazing to me to live in a time where there are intellectual justifications for neo-nazi rhetoric being acceptable discourse.

[reACTIONary]

42. If you think that, given the power to....

..... limit and regulate speach, the government is then going to be a buddy and go after all those horrible haters that you personally find offensive, you have a big surprise waiting for you !

Remember who it is who wants to "open up" the libel laws and calls the free press the "enemy of the prople".

The answer to bad speach is more speach.

[JHan]

44. "Free speech doesn't mean consequence-free speech"

I am under no obligation to tolerate neo-nazis.

I am not even strongly advocating that we implement what Germany has, I'm not saying we just throw people we don't like in Jail. I favor citizen antifascist activism, that's my method of "punching" nazis.

It's really interesting the current parallels of "we should tolerate everyone" arguments and the rise of fascism in Europe too and we know what happened then.

So no I will not tolerate nazis and I don't think hearing more nazi bullshit equates to a better and fairer society. There are consequences to being an intolerant asshole.

[reACTIONary]

45. No one, certainly not me, asked you to ...

.... to tolerate nazies. Opposition to government regulation of speach is not tolerance of Nazies. To advocate government control is a big mistake - both practically and ideologicaly. Government control over speach is fundamentally at odds with a just, humaine, open liberal society. Establishing regulation would be a big win for the Nazies because it would undermine liberal social values and establish a precident they could not establish themselves.

The Universities that the OP refered to are not private universities, they are government institutions, such as Berkley, that are renting unused space to the general public. (My understanding, correct me if I'm wrong.) As such they, in particular, have an elivated responsibility for granting access without engaging in viewpoint discrimination.

So, speak your mind, and make sure your voice is heard. And make that the voice of reason and enlightenment.

[JHan]

46. I'm not sure what you think I'm arguing..

I laid out that institutions exercise discretion all the time, you then told me that while Universities do exercise discretion, public ones should be more tolerant, I then told you actually public ones also exercise discretion.

The point I'm making in the op is that people are not guaranteed access to all platforms. And Colleges are selective by nature Universities are exclusionary. Not having access to a particular platform doesn't mean your freezed peaches are being denied. A college student doesn't have to see a person in the actual flesh to hear their speech. Nowadays there are multiple platforms available to people. But it is not enshrined the constitution that any and everyone should have access to all platforms.

[reACTIONary]

47. I guess my problem is that...

.... I am a die hard / hard core civil libertarian. I have been and I am a card carring member of the ACLU. I truly believe that free speach, unencumbered by government restraint or regulation is a fundimental, core, essential asspect of a free and open liberal society. So I get a little worked up about it.

I'm also a person who looks for and trys to make exact distinctions and differentiations in my thought process. So please be patient with me and I will try to explain.

First, I agree with you that people are not guaranteed access to all platforms. This is absolutely true. It is also pretty much taken for granted and not controversial as far as I know.

Second, I make a distinction, which is founded in first ammendment jurisprudence, between platforms that are private in nature, like the local newspaper, and those that are public and under government control, like the local park. In order to keep government unentangled with with free speach, if a governmental resouce, like a public park, is made available as a public forum, it must be made available without engaging in viewpoint discrimination. Otherwise government becomes unduly entangled with free expression and will, or will be seen as, exerting a controlling influence over public speach.

As a consequence of this distinction, when a governmental entity rents space to the general public, it must do so without discriminating based on viewpoint. When a public university rents space to the general public, and a Nazi shows up and plunks his money down, they can't refuse just because he's a Nazi.

The recent controversies concerning Nazis and right wingers at Berkley (if I understsnd the facts) fall into this category. Berkley did not invite the Nazis, the Nazis showed up, and made a reservation. Berkley (the government) cannot, and should not, say no simply based on dislike for Nazi ideas. If the do they are entangling the government in the free speach rights of citizens.

So, here is what I ask:

- Consider the difference between Universities that are private and have full control over their platforms and those that are governmental institutions and have an obligation to respect the right to free speach unencumbered by governmental discrimination.

- Consider the difference between inviting a speaker to a campus and merely renting a room to a speaker.

- Consider that there is a difference between respecting the right to free speach and toleration of hateful or subversive speach. There are many alternatives to forcefully shutting someone up and those alternatives are more effective.

- Keep speaking your mind!

[JHan]

48. thanks for that..

I'm familiar with libertarian views on this ( a lot of which I don't agree with now)

I think even in a university platform, speaking to hundreds is not a right. It's a privilege. If you are denied the opportunity, no one has taken your right to express your views. The Government isn't going to come get you.

EDIT: [I have disagreed with the hysteria towards certain invitees who have been denied invitations to campuses because of pressure. Students lose out when they don't engage with people with different perspectives. For example, I wouldn't equate Milo with a Charles Murray. With Charles Murray, debate can be had. If Charles Murray posits 2+2=5, it is possible to debate why he is wrong. But Milo Y. is not interested in debate. Milo represents the classic 2+2 = giraffe scenario. There is no point to debating him because his agenda is to incite.

Satre could well be describing trolls when he described facists/anti semites:...

"They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly since he believes in words.” ]

We do have to be careful rights aren't infringed on. I won't advocate for people being thrown in jail because of their thoughts or views. Free speech protects you from the Government oppressing you because you expressed dissenting views. This is absolutely sacrosanct.

But it doesn't guarantee that there be no blowback if you decide in your speech to single out a particular group for harassment and an institution refuses you the privilege to do so. This is the tension, as I said in another reply, in liberal societies: what do you do when illiberal ideas dominate and infringe upon other rights. What do you do when there is a conflict of rights? It's why we give some special consideration to Hate Speech and its effects. When does a person's right to free speech cross into intimidation, harassment, to the point of traumatizing?

It's not an either/or situation. Consider what happened in Skokie. This isn't merely being offended - In 1977, Frank Collin, the leader of National Socialist Party of America, announced the party's intention to march through Skokie, Illinois. In the predominantly Jewish community, one in six residents was a Holocaust survivor or was directly related to one. Originally, the NSPA had planned a political rally in Marquette Park in Chicago; however, the Chicago authorities blocked these plans by requiring the NSPA to post a public safety insurance bond and by banning political demonstrations in Marquette Park.

Hate speech which calls for action is not merely offense, it's a threat to peace in a public space, it can mutate into chaos and violence. This is where liberal democracy is tested and it must be adjudicated on. This matters in a democracy, especially in a diverse polity. The answer is not merely some broad concept of free speech for all, but tackling when rights come into conflict.

[reACTIONary]

52. If you have never done so before....

If you have never done so before, it might be an interesting experiment in praxis to publicly burn an American flag. It's best done as part of a face-off with a howling mob of angry counter demonstrators.

I had this experience in Chicago, in 1979 during the Iran hostage crisis. Coincidentally, just a few years after the Skokie / Marquette Park events.

The Chicago police were there, standing between us and the counter protesters. I'm pretty sure they, personally, would have liked to use their billy clubs on us, but they did their job and kept the situation below the threshold of chaos and violence. I think the fact that the TV news was there helped.

Of course, burning the American flag is widely considered an incitement to violence - and it has been argued on that basis that it should not be considered protected speech. I'm pretty sure that American flag burners, rather than Nazi flag wavers, would bear the brunt of any "loosening of the libel laws" (to quote Dotard).

I was living in Chicago in 1977 and was a "card carrying member" of the ACLU My significant other lived in Skokie at that time. Recently, when one of my friends at work told me he was from Skokie, we got into a discussion about the Skokie affair. His grandmother is a Holocaust survivor and he shared his perspective with me. So I am well aware of the Skokie affair and have some understanding of the differing views.

[Locrian]

43. wonderful insight

This perfectly describes MANY white males I grew up with - absolutely NAILS their behavior.

It's really a sport / game with them. They really are afraid to actually have any type of morality or core beliefs / consideration - it's considered "weak".

They're actually dead inside - and they need the simulation to feel "something" instead of the void.

[JHan]

51. Remember as well..

boys, no matter the demographic, live in a society which tends to punish men for engaging with their emotions:

"Great young men want to have rich emotional lives, but everywhere they turn, people are forcing them to live the stereotype of being a sexist, not-caring, emotionally disengaged, superficial guy. It's amazing because we turn around and get angry with them when they go over the line, without acknowledging what we do as adults that stifles and silences and shuts boys up from being emotionally engaged people."

[Hekate]

49. Well, okay. I am properly chilled & nauseated. I take it Zina is the woman behind Kavanaugh...

...making the now-appropriated gesture?

Thanks for the OP, JHan. Very educational.

[JHan]

50. yep. and yw :)

[brer cat]

53. Very informative thread, JHan.

I am not a gamer and I don't "see" that culture when I try to understand the trolls, so I wander off into far left field or I simply flounder.

[The Polack MSgt]

54. Tolerence is a scam

Foisted on us by people who wanted to divert our efforts away from pursuing justice and equality.

the process went like this "No don't confront these guys - first we should teach tolerance and after they come to accept the existence of others it will be easier to move further along to our goal of justice."

Except "Tolerance" itself became an end goal and soon enough even that was downplayed and denigrated or rejected out of hand

Now even the idea of accepting those different, of just accepting that difference exists is seen as a burden by our enemies on the right