Re:Stephen Fry hits out at ‘infantile’ culture of trigger wo...
by vidarh on Tuesday April 12, 2016 @08:52AM
(#11479051)
Personally I think it would be reasonable to censor what gets displayed in a public space that are hard to avoid when a large proportion is against it.
Preventing them from plastering large gore pictures is very different from preventing them from showing those pictures to people who voluntarily comes to a meeting, or after asking someone if they want to see.
To me, the latter is what is deeply problematic. Especially considering that a lot of issues that are now accepted by the mainstream would have been in the "deeply offensive" category when the movements started out.
E.g. imagine a student union today denying a platform to advocates of gay rights. It's not that long ago that such speakers would have been considered extremely offensive in the UK, and were routinely denied a platform.
The moment student unions and the like sets themselves up as arbiters of what views are acceptable, they are no better than the many people who over the years have fought to deny platforms to gay rights advocates or advocates of womens suffrage, or civil rights regardless of race, or in favour of interracial marriages, or to end slavery. Yes, someones views may be vile to you, but if there's one thing history has shown us, it is that the majority has been on the wrong end of a vast number of issues for a long time before things changed. And it's easy to assume we're on the right side.
The problem is that everyone believes they're on the right side, which means a substantial proportion of us are wrong no matter the issue. The moment it becomes acceptable to censor, that means a substantial proportion of us will want to censor views that will put us squarely on the wrong side in retrospect.
Preventing them from plastering large gore pictures is very different from preventing them from showing those pictures to people who voluntarily comes to a meeting, or after asking someone if they want to see.
To me, the latter is what is deeply problematic. Especially considering that a lot of issues that are now accepted by the mainstream would have been in the "deeply offensive" category when the movements started out.
E.g. imagine a student union today denying a platform to advocates of gay rights. It's not that long ago that such speakers would have been considered extremely offensive in the UK, and were routinely denied a platform.
The moment student unions and the like sets themselves up as arbiters of what views are acceptable, they are no better than the many people who over the years have fought to deny platforms to gay rights advocates or advocates of womens suffrage, or civil rights regardless of race, or in favour of interracial marriages, or to end slavery. Yes, someones views may be vile to you, but if there's one thing history has shown us, it is that the majority has been on the wrong end of a vast number of issues for a long time before things changed. And it's easy to assume we're on the right side.
The problem is that everyone believes they're on the right side, which means a substantial proportion of us are wrong no matter the issue. The moment it becomes acceptable to censor, that means a substantial proportion of us will want to censor views that will put us squarely on the wrong side in retrospect.