The Regressive Left (revisited)

[laughing dog]

....

That might be where I'd draw a line, I think (off the top of my head). Otherwise, let him speak, anywhere that anyone wants to listen?

And if letting him speak means incurring large expenses for security, who should bear those expenses? For example, should a campus reduce its faculty and offer fewer classes that students take in order to provide security for a couple of speakers?

That is a real consideration on many campuses.

BTW, this site - https://www.thefire.org/resources/disinvitation-database/ (run by conservatives) - has a disinvitation database on campus speakers that runs back to 2000. It includes disinvitations to such people as Fred Rogers and Stanley Tucci.

 

[Jarhyn]

Jus a reminder for the topic's new page that it wasn't the left in the first place that invented these identities. Rather, they have been forced upon us as a method of "othering", usually by conservatives, who are seeking an enemy to throw to their base. I didn't CHOOSE to be singled out as "gay". I'd rather just be seen as a normal human. I didn't CHOOSE to be singled out as gender non-conforming. I would just as soon be seen as a normal human. I didn't choose to be masculine or feminine, I was told that I was expected to be masculine, and society forced me to play to that expectation. Laws were passed by someone at some point that cleaved me away from 'the rest of the humans', politics were ginned up to make me just doing normal human things illegal. I didn't choose it.


So now when I decide to unite with the rest of the people who have been othered in objecting to the othering, I am now at fault for "identity politics"?!? No. That's complete and utter bullshit. If the right accepted people for who they were, and didn't insist on othering us by drawing arbitrary laws around otherwise meaningless differences, there would be no conflict, no identity politics, and no divisiveness surrounding it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Jus a reminder for the topic's new page that it wasn't the left in the first place that invented these identities. Rather, they have been forced upon us as a method of "othering", usually by conservatives, who are seeking an enemy to throw to their base. I didn't CHOOSE to be singled out as "gay". I'd rather just be seen as a normal human. I didn't CHOOSE to be singled out as gender non-conforming. I would just as soon be seen as a normal human. I didn't choose to be masculine or feminine, I was told that I was expected to be masculine, and society forced me to play to that expectation. Laws were passed by someone at some point that cleaved me away from 'the rest of the humans', politics were ginned up to make me just doing normal human things illegal. I didn't choose it.


So now when I decide to unite with the rest of the people who have been othered in objecting to the othering, I am now at fault for "identity politics"?!? No. That's complete and utter bullshit. If the right accepted people for who they were, and didn't insist on othering us by drawing arbitrary laws around otherwise meaningless differences, there would be no conflict, no identity politics, and no divisiveness surrounding it.

Wait... are you suggesting that insisting on equal rights for gays that the conservatives were the cause of blocking in the first place, is not either creating the problem, nor inciting action against it?

 

[Jarhyn]

Jus a reminder for the topic's new page that it wasn't the left in the first place that invented these identities. Rather, they have been forced upon us as a method of "othering", usually by conservatives, who are seeking an enemy to throw to their base. I didn't CHOOSE to be singled out as "gay". I'd rather just be seen as a normal human. I didn't CHOOSE to be singled out as gender non-conforming. I would just as soon be seen as a normal human. I didn't choose to be masculine or feminine, I was told that I was expected to be masculine, and society forced me to play to that expectation. Laws were passed by someone at some point that cleaved me away from 'the rest of the humans', politics were ginned up to make me just doing normal human things illegal. I didn't choose it.


So now when I decide to unite with the rest of the people who have been othered in objecting to the othering, I am now at fault for "identity politics"?!? No. That's complete and utter bullshit. If the right accepted people for who they were, and didn't insist on othering us by drawing arbitrary laws around otherwise meaningless differences, there would be no conflict, no identity politics, and no divisiveness surrounding it.

Wait... are you suggesting that insisting on equal rights for gays that the conservatives were the cause of blocking in the first place, is not either creating the problem, nor inciting action against it?

Not only that, but that it was always the conservative faction in the first place who named the gays and decided that what they did was to be hated and identified as different.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Jus a reminder for the topic's new page that it wasn't the left in the first place that invented these identities. Rather, they have been forced upon us as a method of "othering", usually by conservatives, who are seeking an enemy to throw to their base. I didn't CHOOSE to be singled out as "gay". I'd rather just be seen as a normal human. I didn't CHOOSE to be singled out as gender non-conforming. I would just as soon be seen as a normal human. I didn't choose to be masculine or feminine, I was told that I was expected to be masculine, and society forced me to play to that expectation. Laws were passed by someone at some point that cleaved me away from 'the rest of the humans', politics were ginned up to make me just doing normal human things illegal. I didn't choose it.


So now when I decide to unite with the rest of the people who have been othered in objecting to the othering, I am now at fault for "identity politics"?!? No. That's complete and utter bullshit. If the right accepted people for who they were, and didn't insist on othering us by drawing arbitrary laws around otherwise meaningless differences, there would be no conflict, no identity politics, and no divisiveness surrounding it.

Wait... are you suggesting that insisting on equal rights for gays that the conservatives were the cause of blocking in the first place, is not either creating the problem, nor inciting action against it?

Not only that, but that it was always the conservative faction in the first place who named the gays and decided that what they did was to be hated and identified as different.

This is so illiberal, I just can't​ wrap my head around it.

 

[ruby sparks]

....

That might be where I'd draw a line, I think (off the top of my head). Otherwise, let him speak, anywhere that anyone wants to listen?

And if letting him speak means incurring large expenses for security, who should bear those expenses? For example, should a campus reduce its faculty and offer fewer classes that students take in order to provide security for a couple of speakers?

That is a real consideration on many campuses.

BTW, this site - https://www.thefire.org/resources/disinvitation-database/ (run by conservatives) - has a disinvitation database on campus speakers that runs back to 2000. It includes disinvitations to such people as Fred Rogers and Stanley Tucci.

Thanks.

I think this table summarizes:



So according to FIRE, apparently about two thirds of campus disinvitations since 2000 have come from the left (or the left of the intended speaker at least, which leaves a heck of a lot of scope in somewhere like the USA, since 'the middle' would often be left). And apparently the trend is towards a higher percentage from the 'left' (from 2017 to this year 34 out of 38 from the left, or 90%) after being approximately equal in 2009.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2018/03/12/campus-disinvitations-where-do-they-come-from/

So. Recent Illiberal Left issue no. 1: restrictive views on free speech (at least on campuses). Check.

What's next?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Ok. What is the Illiberal (or Regressive) Left, and the difference between it and the Radical or Hard Left? Sorry. I'm guessing there's overlap at least and/or that these aren't fixed or self-applied labels?

I admit to being unsure.

Liberal: Free speech, free assembly, anti-prejudice, open to new ideas, embracing change

Left: Social support system, wide array of social programs, higher taxes to fund it, in a word socialism (maybe even communism)

You can be left and liberal, or left and illiberal. You can be to the right and liberal too; libertarian. A lot of the right is illiberal (think "Family Values" religious people trying to censor everything).

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

There is having an "open mind" and then there is just allowing any Tom, Dick, or Harry Provocateur use a campus to promote themselves. People whined about Milo Yannolopoulus (sp, don't care) being protested at a campus... and I'm wondering why in the fuck is anyone having him speak at a campus. He is no one. Tony Randall, James Patterson talked at my campus, not self-promoting assholes who make a living trolling other people.

They were having him speak because a student group invited him. That's not complicated. The silly protestors (who have every right to speak and protest against his ideas - that's not what the OP is about either) called more attention to him than he deserved and made him a bigger deal than he should be.

By what standard did you make this determination?

Which determination? That student groups invited him? By the standard that student groups invited him to speak. That the protesters had every right to speak and protest against his ideas? The ideals of liberalism. That they called more attention to him? The news. And no, it isn't the protests that undid him. It was the child sex things he had to say. And he lost the battle of ideas there. That could only happen because he was allowed to say what undid him.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

JP whines about people protesting Richard Spencer, Ann Coulter, and Milo Yannopoulus (sp, don't care) (far-right provocateurs), but I don't hear about protests of Bill Kristol or George Will, actual conservatives. Conservatism isn't being protested.

Full of straw you are. I explicitly said I SUPPORT the right to protest these people. What I don't support is shutting them down or violence against them. I encourage people to defeat them in the marketplace of ideas. Ideas. Not fists. And not censorship.

Last time I checked, being a college student didn't give them free reign over the campus.

It does give them a right to free assembly on the campus and to invite speakers and listen to their speakers. Groups on the left are more than welcome to do the same.

- - - Updated - - -

It is far from extreme.

Moving away from it is the unnatural extreme situation.

What do you consider to be extreme to the left?

Any call for violence is extreme.

Xenophobia is extreme. Racism is extreme.

There should be only non-violent resistance. And there is a lot of it going on.

The left is not scattered kids on campuses.

It is people in the streets working for social justice.

There is an intellectual left. Great works of the left. Principles of the left.

Being far to the left doesn't make people violent or xenophobic, does it?

I asked you what do you consider far far (extreme) on the left, if not Communism?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

....

That might be where I'd draw a line, I think (off the top of my head). Otherwise, let him speak, anywhere that anyone wants to listen?

And if letting him speak means incurring large expenses for security, who should bear those expenses? For example, should a campus reduce its faculty and offer fewer classes that students take in order to provide security for a couple of speakers?

That is a real consideration on many campuses.

Ideally that expense should be paid by those who are threatening the violence. That isn't the speaker.

If a threat of violence is all it should take to shut anything down on a college campus, then that encourages people to make violent threats against whatever they oppose.

It reminds me of people telling everyone not to draw Mohammed or say anything critical of Islam, because some Muslims may get violent. Heckler's veto.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

So now when I decide to unite with the rest of the people who have been othered in objecting to the othering, I am now at fault for "identity politics"?!?

No. You've got that wrong. That's not what we object to in illiberal identity politics. It isn't when people on the left fight othering that people on the left join others on the right as being the problem. It is when people on the left ENGAGE in and propagate the othering and prejudice. Othering and prejudice are not synonymous with left or right. And pointing across the aisle screaming "they did it first!" or "they do it more!" doesn't mean your side isn't doing it too and that that isn't a problem and convenient excuse for the other side to scream the same back while pointing at it.

 

[untermensche]

Ok. What is the Illiberal (or Regressive) Left, and the difference between it and the Radical or Hard Left? Sorry. I'm guessing there's overlap at least and/or that these aren't fixed or self-applied labels?

I admit to being unsure.

Liberal: Free speech, free assembly, anti-prejudice, open to new ideas, embracing change

Left: Social support system, wide array of social programs, higher taxes to fund it, in a word socialism (maybe even communism)

You can be left and liberal, or left and illiberal. You can be to the right and liberal too; libertarian. A lot of the right is illiberal (think "Family Values" religious people trying to censor everything).

It is conservative to pay for things.

Taxing people to pay for things is conservative.

Lowering taxes and raising spending is radical.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

View attachment 18864

So according to FIRE, apparently about two thirds of campus disinvitations since 2000 have come from the left (or the left of the intended speaker at least, which leaves a heck of a lot of scope in somewhere like the USA, since 'the middle' would often be left). And apparently the trend is towards a higher percentage from the 'left' (from 2017 to this year 34 out of 38 from the left, or 90%) after being approximately equal in 2009.

I think if we had the data for the 17 years before this 17 years, you would see as much or maybe considerably more disinvitation attempts on the right than on the left. It has been a while, but I still remember the "family values" people crying for censorship and shutting down of everything from Harry Potter to the Teletubbies (one of them was thought to be gay) to the fact that Donald Duck wears no pants. I also can remember when the anti-porn and anti-violent video games and anti-heavy metal music censorship brigade was exclusively on the right and not the left like more and more is becoming the case today.

 

[laughing dog]

....

That might be where I'd draw a line, I think (off the top of my head). Otherwise, let him speak, anywhere that anyone wants to listen?

And if letting him speak means incurring large expenses for security, who should bear those expenses? For example, should a campus reduce its faculty and offer fewer classes that students take in order to provide security for a couple of speakers?

That is a real consideration on many campuses.

Ideally that expense should be paid by those who are threatening the violence. That isn't the speaker.

If a threat of violence is all it should take to shut anything down on a college campus, then that encourages people to make violent threats against whatever they oppose.

It reminds me of people telling everyone not to draw Mohammed or say anything critical of Islam, because some Muslims may get violent. Heckler's veto.

We do not live in an ideal world. Real campus administrators have to make decisions in the real world. They have to balance competing needs with their available resources. Waving one's hand with "Ideally..." evades the real issue. Employing a straw man "If the threat of violence shuts anything down" is pointless.

It may be perfectly reasonable to have an invitation to an troll like Milo Y withdrawn due to a lack of resources while deciding to maintain an invitation to Bill Kristol or someone else. It is called evaluating the benefits and the costs within a constrained budget.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I don't believe in upholding the heckler's veto. It is cowardly and sets a dangerous precedent and encourages future threats of violence.

One day that may mean disinviting Milo for fear of violence from Antifa violence. The next it may mean disinviting a prominent pro-choice advocate for fear of violence from pro-lifers. And the next it may mean banning lgbt student groups for fear of gaybashing violence from others on campus. Then it may mean closing down atheist groups and instilling anti-blasphemy laws, for fear of fundentalist Muslim and Christian violence.

 

[ruby sparks]

Ok. What is the Illiberal (or Regressive) Left, and the difference between it and the Radical or Hard Left? Sorry. I'm guessing there's overlap at least and/or that these aren't fixed or self-applied labels?

I admit to being unsure.

Liberal: Free speech, free assembly, anti-prejudice, open to new ideas, embracing change

Left: Social support system, wide array of social programs, higher taxes to fund it, in a word socialism (maybe even communism)

You can be left and liberal, or left and illiberal. You can be to the right and liberal too; libertarian. A lot of the right is illiberal (think "Family Values" religious people trying to censor everything).

Ok so. Arguably regressive views on free speech. That's happening (on campuses at least): check.

Next up: Regressive views on prejudice.

I assume you will be referring to this:

 

[laughing dog]

I don't believe in upholding the heckler's veto. It is cowardly and sets a dangerous precedent and encourages future threats of violence.

One day that may mean disinviting Milo for fear of violence from Antifa violence. The next it may mean disinviting a prominent pro-choice advocate for fear of violence from pro-lifers. And the next it may mean banning lgbt student groups for fear of gaybashing violence from others on campus. Then it may mean closing down atheist groups and instilling anti-blasphemy laws, for fear of fundentalist Muslim and Christian violence.

Your slippery slope argument ignores reality - there are not infinite resources. When you become an university administrator, you can deal with the issue by protecting whatever troll is invited and then explain to students why there are fewer other services or classes available. In the meantime, real people in the real world with real constraints have to make real decisions using realistic criterion. In the real world, there is no such thing as an absolute principle that brooks no exceptions.

 

[Rhea]

View attachment 18864

So according to FIRE, apparently about two thirds of campus disinvitations since 2000 have come from the left (or the left of the intended speaker at least, which leaves a heck of a lot of scope in somewhere like the USA, since 'the middle' would often be left). And apparently the trend is towards a higher percentage from the 'left' (from 2017 to this year 34 out of 38 from the left, or 90%) after being approximately equal in 2009.

I think if we had the data for the 17 years before this 17 years, you would see as much or maybe considerably more disinvitation attempts on the right than on the left. It has been a while, but I still remember the "family values" people crying for censorship and shutting down of everything from Harry Potter to the Teletubbies (one of them was thought to be gay) to the fact that Donald Duck wears no pants. I also can remember when the anti-porn and anti-violent video games and anti-heavy metal music censorship brigade was exclusively on the right and not the left like more and more is becoming the case today.

What would your graph look like if the disinvitations were simply a response to the radicalness of the speaker? If "the right" is putting up extremists and instigators, not centrists, while "the left" puts up centrists, then wouldn't one expect to have people discover how radical the speaker is and decline to have them?

What would it look like if the disinvited speakers happened because we discovered they were all Nazis representing no one on campus? Just because they want to speak and they misrepresent themselves while applying, that means no one should disinvite them when they find out they are just racist trouble makers?

Just wondering, does your graphic delve into why they were disinvited? It seems that "lying on your application about what you were going to talk about and who you represent" would be a valid reason to disinvite - and would be common for nazis and racists...

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

[YouTube]https://youtu.be/3ToEvz-7trY[/YouTube]

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I think if we had the data for the 17 years before this 17 years, you would see as much or maybe considerably more disinvitation attempts on the right than on the left. It has been a while, but I still remember the "family values" people crying for censorship and shutting down of everything from Harry Potter to the Teletubbies (one of them was thought to be gay) to the fact that Donald Duck wears no pants. I also can remember when the anti-porn and anti-violent video games and anti-heavy metal music censorship brigade was exclusively on the right and not the left like more and more is becoming the case today.

What would your graph look like if the disinvitations were simply a response to the radicalness of the speaker?

Are you saying that the left has become significantly less radical over the years?

What would it look like if the disinvited speakers happened because we discovered they were all Nazis representing no one on campus?

Study the video above.

Just because they want to speak and they misrepresent themselves while applying, that means no one should disinvite them when they find out they are just racist trouble makers?

If they were invited by student groups, why should other groups of students be allowed to disinvite them? See what I wrote to laughing dog above. Should they be allowed to disinvite LGBT or Feminist speakers? Maybe close down "Women's Studies" classes because conservative christian students are offended and feel these speakers are misrepresenting themselves (often they are) and are just sexist trouble makers?