Re:Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in...
by stcredzero on Monday June 05, 2017 @04:07PM
(#14491241)
> Authorities, especially institutions of higher learning, shouldn't be in the business of policing their student's speech. That's not "culture." That's oppression.
I considered that to be an absolutist argument
That item just on happens to be on the other side of my "line." By your logic, anyone who has a position on the wrong side of your "line" is "absolutist." I don't think that word means what you think it means.
I think there are contexts in which authorities (EDIT: non-governmental authorities) can police speech in a way that is not oppressive.
Sure. There's definitely a line. The point at which authority, even non-violence based non-governmental authority, can be used to suppress dissent through societal and/or economic coercion, there is a moral line which has been crossed. It's even built into human psychology. The psychological threat of exclusion from a group is very strong, because in the prehistoric past, exclusion from the group was tantamount to a sentence of slow, lingering death. An organization using such a fear to enforce a political view is crossing a moral line parallel and nearby the moral line crossed by an organization (or an informal association of "activists") using the fear of violence to do the same.
So if Harvard had put these students on academic probation or something instead, you wouldn't necessarily have a problem? That's something I can get behind. I thought you were opposed to any action being taken against these students of any kind.
Sure. I wouldn't be "getting behind" that, but I wouldn't be "up in arms" against something like that, since it is temporary and non-exclusionary.
I considered that to be an absolutist argument
That item just on happens to be on the other side of my "line." By your logic, anyone who has a position on the wrong side of your "line" is "absolutist." I don't think that word means what you think it means.
I think there are contexts in which authorities (EDIT: non-governmental authorities) can police speech in a way that is not oppressive.
Sure. There's definitely a line. The point at which authority, even non-violence based non-governmental authority, can be used to suppress dissent through societal and/or economic coercion, there is a moral line which has been crossed. It's even built into human psychology. The psychological threat of exclusion from a group is very strong, because in the prehistoric past, exclusion from the group was tantamount to a sentence of slow, lingering death. An organization using such a fear to enforce a political view is crossing a moral line parallel and nearby the moral line crossed by an organization (or an informal association of "activists") using the fear of violence to do the same.
So if Harvard had put these students on academic probation or something instead, you wouldn't necessarily have a problem? That's something I can get behind. I thought you were opposed to any action being taken against these students of any kind.
Sure. I wouldn't be "getting behind" that, but I wouldn't be "up in arms" against something like that, since it is temporary and non-exclusionary.