First, if that's actually your view, that it's okay to just beat people up to shut them up because you think they're annoying, that says nothing good about you.
Second, it's not a bar. It's a university campus. Presumably the whole point of a university is to disprove bad ideas by explaining why they're bad ideas and offering better ones. In other words, #2.
God this is stupid.
Listen, I will defend anyone on campus who wants to have an honest rhetorical debate. If they want to truly discuss issues on their merit and do so in an honest way, I welcome that in my classroom. But when some obnoxious little prick comes in and does nothing but make inflammatory comments under the guise of rhetorical battle, that's where I draw the line. This Yiannopoulos character is the latter. He pushes the limits until people want to take him outside and beat the #### out of him. At that point, what learning opportunity is left? None. This piece of human refuse is the antithesis of liberal education and has no reason to be on a campus except to sell tickets by being inflammatory. He gets to leave when the night is over, mean while the school has to deal with animus he leaves behind. This guy doesn't care about free speech, he abuses the right.
On Harris, Aslan is not alone in thinking Harris is an agent provocateur when it comes to rhetoric and his views on Islam.
I am still a very large fan of Harris. I just think he needs to tone down his rhetoric because what he says has consequences for many people in that religion, as outlined in the last article. Still, he is a great speaker and a great thinker, just with a few bad habits (we all have some bad habits).
We are going to have to disagree on Harris and Aslan. As you can see from Chomsky's interactions with Harris there is a level of distrust for him. I can tell you from experience it is his hubris that makes other academics take this position. PM me if you want more details.
No, he's not alone. There are a bunch. Greenwald is one, as I've noted before. Salon has repeatedly posted articles smearing him, and has a history of treating him unfairly deliberately as if it were an editorial policy - check this out: https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/...alon-interview
That is just a brazen lack of honesty. "We cut the piece for length" - by omitting the part that was directly critical of them. Jesus Christ. This is the part they edited "solely for length":
Spoiler!
Quote:
As long as we’re talking about the regressive Left, it would be remiss of me not to point out how culpable Salon is for giving it a voice. The problem is not limited to the political correctness and masochism I’ve been speaking about—it’s also the practice of outright deception to defame Islam’s critics. To give you one example, I once wrote an article about Islamist violence in which I spoke in glowing terms about Malala Yousafzai. I literally said nothing but good things about her. I claimed that she is the best thing to come out of the Muslim world in a thousand years. I said she is extraordinarily brave and eloquent and doing what millions of Muslim men and women are too terrified to do, which is to stand up to forces of theocracy in her own society. I also said that though she hadn’t won the Nobel Prize that year, she absolutely deserved it—and deserved it far more than some of its recent recipients had. And in response to this encomium, Salon published a piece by the lunatic Murtaza Hussain entitled, “Sam Harris Slurs Malala,” which subjected my views to the same defamatory and dishonest treatment that I’ve come to expect from him. And this sort of thing has been done to me a dozen times on your website. And yet Salon purports to be a forum for the civil discussion of important ideas.
Most readers simply don’t understand how this game is played. If they read an article which states that Sam Harris is a racist, genocidal, xenophobic, pro-torture goon who supported the Iraq war—all of which has been alleged about me in Salon—well, then, it’s assumed that some journalists who work for the website under proper editorial control have actually looked into the matter and feel that they are on firm enough ground to legally say such things. There’s a real confusion about what journalism has become, and I can assure you that very few people realize that much of what appears on your website is produced by malicious freaks who are just blogging in their underpants.
I’m not saying that everything that Salon publishes is on the same level, and I have nothing bad to say about what you’ve written, Sean. But there is an enormous difference between honest criticism and defamatory lies. If I say that Malala is a total hero who deserves a Nobel Prize, and Salon titles its article “Sam Harris Slurs Malala,” that’s tabloid-level dishonesty. It’s worse, in fact, because when one reads about what a nanny said about Brad and Angelina in a tabloid, one knows that such gossip stands a good chance of not being true. Salon purports to be representing consequential ideas fairly, and yet it does this sort of thing more often than any website I can think of. The latest piece on me was titled “Sam Harris’ dangerous new idiocy: Incoherent, Islamophobic and simply immoral.” I don’t think I’m being thin-skinned in detecting an uncharitable editorial position being taken there. Salon is telling the world that I’m a dangerous, immoral, Islamophobic idiot. And worse, the contents of these articles invariably misrepresent my actual views. This problem isn’t remedied by merely publishing this conversation.
Murtaza Hussein, Nathan Lean, Cenk, Abby Martin, CJ Werleman... the Regressive Left is not just one guy, or it wouldn't be worth worrying about. There is a cottage industry of serial liars and merchants of intellectual dishonesty on the left, just as the Right has their own brand of idiocy in its partisan media.
By the way, that Alternet article you linked to is equally brazen. This is the video they've identified as an "explicitly anti-muslim hate video". Where's the hate? You tell me. Perfect example of utter and obvious dishonesty by a supposed news outlet.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Last edited by CorsiHockeyLeague; 08-05-2016 at 04:54 PM.
The Following User Says Thank You to CorsiHockeyLeague For This Useful Post:
So Harris couldn't possibly be at fault in some of this? Really?
I challenge you to find where I've said that he couldn't be at fault for any of it. I think he's occasionally failed to explain the context for his remarks properly, and he's had guests on his podcast lately including Neil Degrasse Tyson and Eric Weinstein specifically to perform an intervention on him and explain to him his role in provoking these reactions.
But it's also quite obvious to me that even if he did modulate or "tone down" his presentation - and I don't care if he does, because if you're not a moron and are capable of understanding nuance you don't need him to - that the issue would stop. The people referenced above deliberately take him out of context, so no context he could provide would really help much.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Really off-topic but I often wonder how much crossover there is between the crotchety old men like Clint Eastwood who rail against everyone being too sensitive and the world getting too PC, and those who would completely flip their #### if you made jokes about veterans or took a dump on the flag.
Really off-topic but I often wonder how much crossover there is between the crotchety old men like Clint Eastwood who rail against everyone being too sensitive and the world getting too PC, and those who would completely flip their #### if you made jokes about veterans or took a dump on the flag.
An absolute ton, I'd bet. It has to do with the moral gauge of conservative people (the way we'd talk about the meaning of "conservative" in the US context ten years ago, not the current fractured mess) being highly tuned towards the moral importance of loyalty and respect for authority, and lower on the care ethic metre that's dominated by liberals.
This is worth a watch on that point - if you just ignore the focus on libertarianism (it was a talk given at Cato) you can see the differences between what self-identified liberals and conservatives value.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
So free speech is only suitable if it agrees with you?
ok, then....
Oh no, on the contrary. I will defend anyone's right to free speech as long as they use that right responsibly. Free-speech is only suitable when you exercise it with proper responsibility. That is the big problem with some of the examples that you guys are pointing to you exercising free speech. What they are is rhetoric suicide bombers. I don't see where they are engaging in rhetorical battle, they're just going in throwing feces in every direction and claiming to be Exercising their First Amendment rights.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buster
Of course he could.
I just haven't seen an example of it yet.
That is sad to read. Even the people I consider to be the smartest people on the planet have said things that I disagree with and know to be wrong. Harris is also one of those people.
I will defend anyone's right to free speech as long as they use that right responsibly. Free-speech is only suitable when you exercise it with proper responsibility.
When Harris speaks about the "smart people he knows" that are Trump supporters, it's because they see the worst trend in modern western culture is not the blowhards like trump.
It's the people that think that free and open discourse should be limited to "responsibly". What a disastrous idea.
Their view...and I frankly find it make a good argument against this point - is that people who attach free speech to "responsibility" must be defeated, and you cannot find yourself on their team.
Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
That is sad to read. Even the people I consider to be the smartest people on the planet have said things that I disagree with and know to be wrong. Harris is also one of those people.
I'm not saying you're wrong on Harris. I'm not saying he can't be wrong. I just haven't heard him being unreasonable or unfair on Islam, as you indicated. I always enjoy seeing evidence contrary to my current model, though...so I encourage you to provide me with your best examples.
The Following User Says Thank You to Buster For This Useful Post:
Oh no, on the contrary. I will defend anyone's right to free speech as long as they use that right responsibly. Free-speech is only suitable when you exercise it with proper responsibility.
Neither you nor anyone else is qualified, competent or entitled to decide what constitutes "proper responsibility". Inevitably, this just ends up with censorship of views that the person doing the censoring finds objectionable, offensive, hard to listen to or otherwise doesn't like. We've got a criminal law that basically prevents people from whipping up lynch mobs. That's about the end of the discussion on what constitutes a reasonable limit on public discourse in the political sphere.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I don't consider myself a Trump supporter, and my intent is regularly mi-understood in that regard.
This sums up my view very well:
If we convince everyone that Trump is a racist, white-power, KKK-bred lunatic, then what happens when one of those actually shows up?
For someone who keeps insisting they are not a Trump supporter, you spent a whole lot of time trying to justify the multitude of awful things he's said.
While simultaneously throwing awful rhetoric at his opponent without deigning to give any kind of explanation for that rhetoric. You'll twist words and phrases and timelines just to explain Trump's hate-speech against literally millions of people (Mexicans, Muslims, refugees, women, etc) as not being all that bad, but you refuse to even respond to questions about your vitriol against Clinton?
Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
Aslan is a liar. Full stop. He lies about other peoples' positions. His message, as it pertains to Sam Harris, is lying. You really need to understand that there is a difference between "lashing out" and defaming someone.
Fox News and the entire Tea Party flag-waving "patriot" group has been defaming Obama and his family for over 8 years. And they have a much, much larger audience than does Aslan, so that slander goes farther and has much more of an effect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buster
When Harris speaks about the "smart people he knows" that are Trump supporters, it's because they see the worst trend in modern western culture is not the blowhards like trump.
It's the people that think that free and open discourse should be limited to "responsibly". What a disastrous idea.
I have friends who are Puerto Rican and Mexican (legal citizens, mind you), who have been verbally harassed and threatened in the last year, when they had rarely--if ever--been attacked in the past. I have friends who are genuinely considering changing their last names so that they appear less Mexican/Hispanic. A long-standing Mexican restaurant here in Pittsburgh closed after being repeatedly hit by vandals destroying their property and covering their storefront with Trump slogans about walls and telling them to go back to Mexico. And I can only imagine what it must be like if you're a person of Middle Eastern descent here in the US right now.
People who throw out awful, hateful rhetoric are obviously allowed to do that due to Free Speech, but it isn't just whiny college kids who are clutching their pearls.
There are actual human beings who are terrified for their safety and the safety of their children, because so called Free Speech zealots insist that any and everything is fair game, disregarding that there are a whole lot of stupid people who don't take that as just rhetoric and trolling, who take that kind of BS as truth and hurt other people because of it.
If your free speech facilitates violence against others, your free speech is crap.
The Following 7 Users Say Thank You to wittynickname For This Useful Post:
There are actual human beings who are terrified for their safety and the safety of their children, because so called Free Speech zealots insist that any and everything is fair game, disregarding that there are a whole lot of stupid people who don't take that as just rhetoric and trolling, who take that kind of BS as truth and hurt other people because of it.
Right... and that's a crime. And should be. If you actually go to the extent of harming people, you're guilty of assault. That's how it's supposed to work.
Quote:
If your free speech facilitates violence against others, your free speech is crap.
Only if it directly encourages violence. Which Trump has done a couple of times at his rallies. "Facilitates" is too broad a term.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to CorsiHockeyLeague For This Useful Post:
Oh no, on the contrary. I will defend anyone's right to free speech as long as they use that right responsibly. Free-speech is only suitable when you exercise it with proper responsibility. That is the big problem with some of the examples that you guys are pointing to you exercising free speech. What they are is rhetoric suicide bombers. I don't see where they are engaging in rhetorical battle, they're just going in throwing feces in every direction and claiming to be Exercising their First Amendment rights.
Ignoring for a moment the other issues with this, by what standard do you propose to objectively measure if free speech is being used responsibly? What does it even mean to use the word responsibly in the context of free speech?
Is BLM chanting about killing the cops using it responsibly? How about Donald Trump using it to save money by saying outrageous things? How about Deepak Chopra spreading post-modern word salad?
Trump's endorsement of Ryan (and McCain and Kelly Ayotte) was strikingly similar to many hostage videos. Now we'll see how his core reacts, in theory they should be pretty alarmed by laying down to the establishment.
__________________
"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
Right... and that's a crime. And should be. If you actually go to the extent of harming people, you're guilty of assault. That's how it's supposed to work.
Only if it directly encourages violence. Which Trump has done a couple of times at his rallies. "Facilitates" is too broad a term.
And yet this thread shows so much hand-wringing about Resa Aslan "defaming" Sam Harris--if he lied, he lied, sure. But there are millions of other examples of people defaming and lying about others. Trump literally tried to paint the population of an entire country as rapists and criminals.
I'm pretty sure any defamation of Harris by Aslan isn't going to result in any danger of bodily harm.
The repeated awful things said by those such as Trump, Limbaugh, Coulter, Alex Jones, etc very well could--and have--lead to various groups being harmed.
And yet this thread shows so much hand-wringing about Resa Aslan "defaming" Sam Harris--if he lied, he lied, sure. But there are millions of other examples of people defaming and lying about others. Trump literally tried to paint the population of an entire country as rapists and criminals.
I'm pretty sure any defamation of Harris by Aslan isn't going to result in any danger of bodily harm.
The repeated awful things said by those such as Trump, Limbaugh, Coulter, Alex Jones, etc very well could--and have--lead to various groups being harmed.
Suppose I make a science based case that we should stop all fracking. It's not bulletproof by any means, but I think it's true and I'm confident I'm right. I go on a tour and repeatedly spread my message, using rhetoric for effect. As a result, there is an outcry and the industry is shut down. All the people in the fracking business lose their jobs. Should I be held responsible for the harms I incited to those people with my speech? If not, why should people you disagree with be held responsible, while people who you agree with no be held responsible.
Just to play devil's advocate, why shouldn't there be limits on free speech?
Ever since humans started banding together into communities, whether it be tribes, towns, nations and countries; there is an intrinsic social contract where you don't do things that are detrimental to the good of the community. These contracts have over time, manifested into laws (you don't kill and steal because it goes against the common goals of survival and prosperity, not because Satan will torture you if you do). I think there is a pretty strong argument that some types of speech can have a huge negative impact on societies. At the same time, full censorship is detrimental as well. Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.
__________________
"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to FlamesAddiction For This Useful Post:
