Virtue-signalling Into Tyranny

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: melatonin

After reading through this, about all im taking away is that you paint with a broad brush based on the vernacular.

That seems beyond absurd.

Well, I did note it appears to have become a stereotypical heuristic I can use - sucks I know, but works as a starting point D:

Don't want to go all Foulcauldian, but discourse is pretty informative and many of the terms have clearly emanated from the alt-right. Indeed, it's an academic discipline in and of itself. Probably cultural marxist in nature, though D:

I spend time way beyond this website - often in places where people are much more open about about expressing their hateful attitudes and prejudice (:

And, as I noted, the terms tend to cluster together quite closely in my experience. I did post an interesting study in respect to the use of calls for 'free speech' as a method for weak defence of hate and prejudicial speech, and their associated attitudes (i.e., it is often used as a form of symbolic racism).

The fact that people like Richard Spencer and openly neo-nazi and white supremacist groups are parading through your streets hiding behind a weak facade of the defence of 'freedom' should perhaps be a little more concerning than someone on twitter soapboxing about the welfare of some random NIgerian child (or whatvever Ketsuko was concerned about).

As the great Sarah Palin once said - you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. And pretty sure a close examination of the Boston 'free speech' event demonstrates that the Charlottesville and Boston events were not as distinct as Misanthope would like to have people believe.

And another interesting recent study...

Aggress Behav. 2017 Nov 2. doi: 10.1002/ab.21737. [Epub ahead of print]
Exposure to hate speech increases prejudice through desensitization.
Soral W1, Bilewicz M2, Winiewski M2.
Author information
Abstract
In three studies (two representative nationwide surveys, N = 1,007, N = 682; and one experimental, N = 76) we explored the effects of exposure to hate speech on outgroup prejudice. Following the General Aggression Model, we suggest that frequent and repetitive exposure to hate speech leads to desensitization to this form of verbal violence and subsequently to lower evaluations of the victims and greater distancing, thus increasing outgroup prejudice. In the first survey study, we found that lower sensitivity to hate speech was a positive mediator of the relationship between frequent exposure to hate speech and outgroup prejudice. In the second study, we obtained a crucial confirmation of these effects. After desensitization training individuals were less sensitive to hate speech and more prejudiced toward hate speech victims than their counterparts in the control condition. In the final study, we replicated several previous effects and additionally found that the effects of exposure to hate speech on prejudice were mediated by a lower sensitivity to hate speech, and not by lower sensitivity to social norms. Altogether, our studies are the first to elucidate the effects of exposure to hate speech on outgroup prejudice.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Hate speech has consequences.

And one more edit to try to put this to bed...

Augustus Sol Invictus - an invited speaker to the Boston Free Speech rally. Did not attend and was uninvited for 'PR concerns' two days after the Charlottesville rally. A rally which saw the murder of a counterprotester by a far right protester.

Lets check Mr Invictus values D:

In the world of theory, I do not find the underlying values of this paper to be objectionable. If two parents know that their child will be born with Huntington’s Disease, and that the child will die a horribly painful death by six years of age, it is the most reprehensible act imaginable to bear that child anyway, simply to satisfy some selfish desire of the parents. Neither should it be controversial that we might prefer intelligent people to stupid people; healthy people to ill people; able-bodied people to crippled people; four-limbed people to dismembered people; beautiful people to ugly people; strong people to weak people. This obsession with egalitarianism – this notion that we must all be treated as equal no matter how irresponsible or reckless that notion is, no matter how divorced from reality or counter to all common sense – this obsession has wrecked every last shred of dignity our once great country did possess.

www.linkedin.com...

Eugenics!

He’s found a home with the greater alt-right movement, and in keeping with his fondness for playing at war, he’s become second in command of the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, the “military division” of Gavin McInnes’ Proud Boys. His rhetoric has also become bolder and more explicit. Though he’s tried to downplay some of his most radical ideas in the past, in an interview on August 5, 2017, he admitted to Hatewatch that he is a Holocaust denier.

“Do I believe that 6 million Jews were killed by evil Hitler? Is that what you’re asking me?” he said. “Okay, then I am still waiting to see those facts.”

www.splcenter.org...

Holocaust denial!

Although his original paper disavowed any selection on the basis of race or ethnicity, when viewed in light of his repeat moaning about higher non-white immigrant birth rates, people he characterized as “parasites” in the above letter, some reading between the lines is not unreasonable.

Racism!

Who openly talks about murdering leftists one minute and then tries to play it off as an exaggeration the next. Who stated in 2013 [archive] that “I have prophesied for years that I was born for a Great War; that if I did not witness the coming of the Second American Civil War I would begin it myself”.

independentpoliticalreport.com... d-a-call-to-action-against-them/

Second Civil War!

Seems a legit defender of free speech and an all round lovely guy D:

a reply to: melatonin

Hate speech has consequences.

Censorship has far worse consequences. Weimar Germany, for instance, had very modern hate speech laws. It didn’t turn out so well.

And yes, anyone who is persecuted for expression, including racists, will rally for free speech. This has been true of abolitionists, scientists, socialists, etc.

Your mealy-mouthed attempts to discredit free speech are apparent.

a reply to: melatonin

Guilt by association is an old and dirty trick.

Im sure Mr. Spencer also likes chocolate.

Point is: even hateful speech is free speech. The moment you dismiss that truth is the moment you embrace your own form of tyranny.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
Your mealy-mouthed attempts to discredit free speech are apparent.

Really?

I'm more interesting in pulling apart the flaky arguments of alt-right types who hide their hate behind the symbolism of free speech than free speech itself (:

Job's a goodun (;

I generally and tentatively take the same position as Noam Chomsky on such issues - but keep using your own heuristics D:

You see, your OP rails on about virtue signalling and violence of people counterprotesting the Boston 'free speech' rally (although police reported a overwhelmingly peaceful event). A rally which did have a main speaker of known extreme right-wing, amazingly nazi-like, perspectives. As much as he had the right to speak, the counterprotesters had the right to voice their own protests. So the 'free speech' rally was a failure - tough luck. Not a surprise after the nazi tainted hate-filled fiasco of Charlottesville.

Just like at Charlottesville. Isn't that how it works over there? Free speech for everyone? (:

The last time I came across you, Misanthrope, you were effectively arguing it was fine for some psychopathic woman to intentionally and repeatedly coerce and encourage a depressed and suicidal man to take his own life, even when he expressed clear doubts. Forgive me if I question your underpinning moral excellence/virtues (:

Words are not 'free'. They have real-world consequences and costs. They readily impinge on the well-being of other people. As Karl Popper noted - there is the paradox of tolerance to consider. Seems a fair point in many ways. My opinion... meh. I hold a non-ideological tentative position of... whatever :/

Although, if we can ban that joke of a president of yours from coming over here, I'm all for it as a temporary measure, lol.

a reply to: melatonin

Morality.

It makes for a terrible sweetener when discussing legality.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: amazing

I picked the term up from Hefficide. Who is anything but conservative

Just take a look at ATS though as a quick study. I would say 90% of anyone bringing that term up on ATS is conservative and it will be used in an attack on a liberal. Use this thread as an example and the OP is definitely more conservative than liberal. Just making an observation here.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: melatonin

Morality.

It makes for a terrible sweetener when discussing legality.

Which is exactly what we're talking about when focusing on virtues, haha. Little objective about them. Laws change over time and across cultures. D:

As I said, I'm fine with free speech in the main - but a non-ideological position for me, so would be open to change if I felt otherwise. Not a bad position to hold, I feel. I guess we have a rather different history over here in Europe. For instance, the IRA were completely banned from speaking via the media back in the day and we currently restrict anything close to extremist muslims at the moment. My opinion - rather we let people express their hate. We can see it for what it is, I suppose.

Nothing objectively written into the fabric of the universe which determines that free speech outweighs all, though. (:

a reply to: melatonin

If you truly did take the same position as Chomsky on such issues, you’d defend speech you do not like, as he has done consistently throughout his career. Excuse me while I don’t believe you on that point.

The rally was a failure because a menacing mob of of piss-throwing counter protesters surrounded them, drowned them out, and police denied the press access. All for a group of 50 people, whom you attempt to make guilty by association. In free countries that’s an abridgement of the right to free speech. In totalitarian countries, i.e. Nazi Germany, Theocratic Iran, Stalinist Soviet Union, Communist China, that’s the going rate.

As for the texting/suicide case, I shared the sentiment of the civil liberties groups who also derided the conviction, so I’m quite fine with your questioning of my morals, especially when it was you who advocated for the curbing of civil liberties.

Karl Popper expressed his paradox of intolerance as a footnote in his Open Society and Its Enemies, a book about free liberal democracies. In that very same footnote he also expressed it is unwise to suppress those views so long as there are still avenues of rational discussion. I suppose, in light of that, you might consider how unwise your own views are. Besides, the intolerant people were not the 50 people having a free speech rally, but the tens of thousands who sought to shut them down, and deny them their rights.

a reply to: amazing

Just take a look at ATS though as a quick study. I would say 90% of anyone bringing that term up on ATS is conservative and it will be used in an attack on a liberal. Use this thread as an example and the OP is definitely more conservative than liberal. Just making an observation here.

I am a liberal by definition, but because I am just right of Marxism, I am considered right-wing. But yes virtue-signalling applies mostly to those on the left.

a reply to: melatonin

The basis of "Freedom of speech" is natural law.

While that isn't the "fabric of the universe", it is its less hyperbolic cousin.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Yes, so you defended the civil liberties of a coercive psychopath intentionally and repeatedly pushing a vulnerable mentally ill man to take his own life. That would be almost certainly be manslaughter in the UK.

Speech has costs and consequences in many instances. A modern society is required to weigh those costs in some way.

You seem to be confusing my ability to pose challenges to the concept of 'unfettered' free speech, the motivations of those using it as a shield, and my own position.

Sometimes a position can be rather nuanced. Not sure I've argued for silencing modern day nazis. I might in the future, haha. As I said my position is tentative and, at this point, I'd rather shine a spotlight on their toxic hate-fueled ideology.

What I have done is shown that you are effectively trying to denigrate counterprotesters who expressed their own freedom of speech(and virtue signalling...) in the face of right wing nazis and white supremacists as supposedly marching us down some sort of road to tyranny :/

And, yeah, restricting hate speech would also be comparable to a road to tyranny... lol

So, you seem to be expressing the idea that virtue signalling and counterprotesting right-wing, in many obvious ways extremist, rallies is a road to tyranny. While giving the extremists an easy pass... I'll post this again. An interesting study showing how flexible and unprincipled attitudes to free expression can be D:

J Pers Soc Psychol. 2017 Sep;113(3):413-429. doi: 10.1037/pspi0000095. Epub 2017 Apr 17.
Freedom of racist speech: Ego and expressive threats.
White MH1, Crandall CS1.
Author information
Abstract
Do claims of "free speech" provide cover for prejudice? We investigate whether this defense of racist or hate speech serves as a justification for prejudice. In a series of 8 studies (N = 1,624), we found that explicit racial prejudice is a reliable predictor of the "free speech defense" of racist expression. Participants endorsed free speech values for singing racists songs or posting racist comments on social media; people high in prejudice endorsed free speech more than people low in prejudice (meta-analytic r = .43). This endorsement was not principled-high levels of prejudice did not predict endorsement of free speech values when identical speech was directed at coworkers or the police. Participants low in explicit racial prejudice actively avoided endorsing free speech values in racialized conditions compared to nonracial conditions, but participants high in racial prejudice increased their endorsement of free speech values in racialized conditions. Three experiments failed to find evidence that defense of racist speech by the highly prejudiced was based in self-relevant or self-protective motives. Two experiments found evidence that the free speech argument protected participants' own freedom to express their attitudes; the defense of other's racist speech seems motivated more by threats to autonomy than threats to self-regard. These studies serve as an elaboration of the Justification-Suppression Model (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003) of prejudice expression. The justification of racist speech by endorsing fundamental political values can serve to buffer racial and hate speech from normative disapproval.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: melatonin

The basis of "Freedom of speech" is natural law.

While that isn't the "fabric of the universe", it is its less hyperbolic cousin.

Which is still a subjective human concept.

originally posted by: melatonin

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: melatonin

The basis of "Freedom of speech" is natural law.

While that isn't the "fabric of the universe", it is its less hyperbolic cousin.

Which is still a subjective human concept.

Perhaps. But based in observation, and backed with some evidence.

Just about any concept is going to be subjective and human. We are the only beings we are aware of that develops concepts.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: amazing

Just take a look at ATS though as a quick study. I would say 90% of anyone bringing that term up on ATS is conservative and it will be used in an attack on a liberal. Use this thread as an example and the OP is definitely more conservative than liberal. Just making an observation here.

I am a liberal by definition, but because I am just right of Marxism, I am considered right-wing. But yes virtue-signalling applies mostly to those on the left.

But you know as well as I do, that the old definitions don't mean squat. Who did you vote for the last 2 presidential elections? My guess is Romney and Trump. Am I right? That would make you the modern definition of a conservative. And as I've said before only conservatives use the term "Virtue Signalling" when trying to argue against liberals. You don't use it when talking about other conservatives that you have a disagreement with. Not most of the time and probably not ever.

Last two presidential elections, I voted for Obama against Romney and this last one I voted for the Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
Perhaps. But based in observation, and backed with some evidence.

Just about any concept is going to be subjective and human. We are the only beings we are aware of that develops concepts.

Perhaps, but never will be like measuring temperature.

Of course, people are free to say whatever they like - unless we cut their tongues out/cut off hands we can only restrict with laws. LIkewise, a person is pretty much free to punch a nazi or communist in the face - but in most modern societies that also is restricted with laws.

We only have to go back to the McCarthy era to see how flexible free speech and associated liberties are under the US state - laws restricting civil liberties for vague concepts of sedition etc etc. In UK, the government likewise has limited civil liberties for certain activities under particular circumstances.

These concepts are not written into the fabric of the universe and readily change with political whims.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: melatonin

Guilt by association is an old and dirty trick.

Im sure Mr. Spencer also likes chocolate.

Point is: even hateful speech is free speech. The moment you dismiss that truth is the moment you embrace your own form of tyranny.

Words can be weapons and cause much harm. If it's not ok for someone to throw a knife at another, how is it acceptable to use words if those words eventually lead to similar results? We all know a gun doesn't kill anybody, it's the person who pulls the trigger, right? Almost everything we do starts with a thought, knives and words included, agree? If thoughts are the basis for all violence then it makes sense to not just address knives and words, but the thoughts behind them.

I do think thoughtsome of us are more inclined to live within a system of rules or to demand others live their lives in certain ways. This can be tyrannical. At its heart, I think fear causes this. What do we do to safeguard ourselves? We enact rules and we enforce them.

I do think there's a tyranny of the majority. The more people feel others agree with them, the more empowered they feel. Empowerment can be good, but it can also be extreme and cause people to act imprudently.

I also think there're baser instincts to use the situation for selfish ends. If one feels there's a opportunity, they might employ it--to hell with everything else. If it's felt another falls below oneself sufficiently then it's justification for exploiting the other party for the benefit of yourself or your kin.

a reply to: melatonin

Well manslaughter is the crime of killing someone. No one has ever been killed by a text. So it is no strange wonder that someone such as yourself would torture the English language in order to justify denying someone justice.

The cost and consequence of speech is the displacement of air around the mouth and the movement of sound waves throughout the environment. Societies are often superstitious.

Your innocent little counterprotesters, all of them misinformed by the media, beat and spat upon innocent people trying to have a free speech rally, while they menacingly awaited for them to be done. They were evacuated under armed guard for their own protection. Sorry but denying others their rights is not free speech.

Yes, restricting hate speech is to convict someone of a thought and speech crime.

No I said denying people their rights for social gain is tyranny. Were the 50 rally goers doing anything like that? No? Then tough luck.

Again, abolitionists, socialists, civil rights activists, and yes racists, advocate for free speech when their free speech is threatened. I don't see anything particularly enlightening about that study.

originally posted by: amazing

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: amazing

Just take a look at ATS though as a quick study. I would say 90% of anyone bringing that term up on ATS is conservative and it will be used in an attack on a liberal. Use this thread as an example and the OP is definitely more conservative than liberal. Just making an observation here.

I am a liberal by definition, but because I am just right of Marxism, I am considered right-wing. But yes virtue-signalling applies mostly to those on the left.

But you know as well as I do, that the old definitions don't mean squat. Who did you vote for the last 2 presidential elections? My guess is Romney and Trump. Am I right? That would make you the modern definition of a conservative. And as I've said before only conservatives use the term "Virtue Signalling" when trying to argue against liberals. You don't use it when talking about other conservatives that you have a disagreement with. Not most of the time and probably not ever.

Last two presidential elections, I voted for Obama against Romney and this last one I voted for the Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson.

I'm not American.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

originally posted by: amazing

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: amazing

Just take a look at ATS though as a quick study. I would say 90% of anyone bringing that term up on ATS is conservative and it will be used in an attack on a liberal. Use this thread as an example and the OP is definitely more conservative than liberal. Just making an observation here.

I am a liberal by definition, but because I am just right of Marxism, I am considered right-wing. But yes virtue-signalling applies mostly to those on the left.

But you know as well as I do, that the old definitions don't mean squat. Who did you vote for the last 2 presidential elections? My guess is Romney and Trump. Am I right? That would make you the modern definition of a conservative. And as I've said before only conservatives use the term "Virtue Signalling" when trying to argue against liberals. You don't use it when talking about other conservatives that you have a disagreement with. Not most of the time and probably not ever.

Last two presidential elections, I voted for Obama against Romney and this last one I voted for the Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson.

I'm not American.

May I ask who you voted for in your country? I need to test my theory! LOL

a reply to: melatonin

Yes, governments impose tyrrany. No doubt.