Isn’t this ultimately the point? A small group pf people care deeply about things the majority of the population is relatively unmoved by. The debate on all these threads seems to break down as some look at it as passion v apathy and argue that those with passion shold prevail. On the other side, some of us look at it as a question of how far does the majority go to placate a minority viewpoint.
For me the debate seems to be:
Who has the right to offend whom?
In a disagreement, who has the obligation to listen respectfully, and respond with reasoned discourse, to someone not of their own group?
Is it appropriate for someone from group A to tell us what someone from group B thinks?
Everyone. It’s called living in a civilized society and is what ultimately keeps us from shooting each other in the street. I would have thought that obvious.
No. I am not a huge fan of “code words”, “dog whistles”, arguing that opposing the ACA means you are racist, that saying Hillary shouldn’t have tried to destroy evidence subject to subpoena means you are sexist or that “Make America Great Again” hats really mean that Trump wants to kill all the minorities.
Somehow though I think you were fishing for a response along the lines of “If you do not have my exact set of experiences and prejudices, then you have no right to invalidate my feelings by voicing a different opinion on this topic”. I disagree with that kind of mumbo jumbo laziness. YMMV.
This question is based on a false premise. It assumes offenses 1) are known universals, and 2) should be avoided at all costs - both conditions which are not true.
Everyone has the right to speak. Now, if someone else gets offended that is another story. There is no right to be able to call whatever one does not like offensive, which is where we are currently. There is this nonsensical approach that because someone says something that is deemed by someone else as offensive then it must be so and thus must not be said.
In simple speak - someone deeming something as offensive is not a universal truth and need not be accepted as such. Offense is only an interpretation, and one interpretation at that.
And there is another problem. What if what was said was accurate and correct? Something can be deemed offensive by someone and yet be very correct, scientifically accurate and even useful. If accuracy is allowed to be disregarded based on the interpretation of being offensive by someone, the end result is the lowering of discourse and less parsing of acquired knowledge etc. In short, we become a dumber society.
Huh? This statement is another false premise, as obligation is not a one-way street.
BOTH parties have the obligation to listen etc. However, neither party has the obligation to agree or to apologize or to accept a premise one deems inaccurate or possibly just plain silly. No one is under any obligation to validate things, which do not add up or lack logic or to validate ideas they do not agree with.
This seems to be describing the main argument card of SWJs.
How often do we see videos of SWJs ranting about what “white people think” and “what those in power think.” We see plenty of such videos. How would the SWJs know what others think know given that many of them are not white and are supposedly not part of the power structure? Maybe the SWJs should practice what they preach.
There is no obligation to listen. I think people should listen to contrary views but there is no obligation to listen.
Sure there is.
People can say what are perceived to be offensive things but they can’t be called on it or object?
Some of you make things up.
Freakonomics for those who are interested, latest podcast is about libertarianism. Its good.
I want to take a second here to point out NOT ALL SJW are “extreme”. Some here are stereotyping SJW into one lump group and that I think is unfair and disingenuous.
There are many, many advocacy groups involved in SJW that are nothing like what some here posting are portraying. There are some groups who are like posters are portraying. But I don’t think you can lump ALL SJW into a stereotype.
There are many, many involved within the same group that have varying levels of “extremeness”.
For example, a large number of people who work and promote BLM do not advocate violence nor support some of the extreme members who did.
Lastly, IMO, lets keep this all in perspective… airing extremeness within the same group on both sides doesn’t necessarily mean that the group will end up on one side or the other. Sometimes you get the message out and then end up in the middle.
^Very good point. As I have mentioned before, the people I know well who are most heavily involved in some of the issues SJW’s gravitate towards are no where near as nuts as what we see portrayed in the various college videos. Quite honestly, I think the serious activists probably don;t have a huge issue with the Chicago letter because what gets captured at Yale, or Dartmouth or Mizzou or wherever does far more to hurt their cause than help it.
Sure. You can say something stupid and I can then say that it is stupid. What I can’t, or shouldn’t be able to do, is stop you from speaking in the first place.
Sometimes what is perceived to be offensive is offensive.
There is a lot of racism in this country. There is a lot of homophobia.
@Ohiodad51, where do protests fit in post 188?
I think protests are fine. I have never said people should not be allowed to protest. I object to efforts to shout down opposing view points, to bar people from speaking, etc. Big difference.
As an example, protesting that college students should not have agency to determine for themselves which haloween costumes are offensive, or decide for themselves whether to wear an offensive costume, is perfectly fine in my world. But it is equally fine for someone else to say such a protest is silly. Similarly, if someone is shown on video screaming at a professor repeatedly to “shut up”, I do not believe one is required to accept that the person is really interested in starting a dialogue about privilege but has somehow been jedi mind tricked by the professor into sounding like a whiny and foul mouthed toddler. I thnik it is ok to just say the kid is sounding like a whiny foul mouthed toddler.
You can say the person is sounding like a whiny foul mouthed toddler and others can object to that.
I don’t see how calling somebody a foul mouthed toddler is going to move the conversation forward but moving the conversation forward isn’t really the intent.
The intent is to shut the person called a foul mouthed toddler up. Or it is to belittle the person called a foul mouthed toddler.
Many of these arguments are really about tradition vs change…and the spectrum in between. If I benefit by the tradition, I may be less inclined to support change.
There is a racist component to many of these arguments. This doesn’t mean everybody is a racist.
You mentioned ACA. Many people are against ACA because it helps minorites. Many people are against ACA for other reasons that have nothing to do with racism.
Some people are against ACA because they want a smaller government. Many employees are collecting their tax free healthcare benefits (employee healthcare benefits may be the largest tax break there is) while complaining that ACA leads to government involvement. 
Human beings…what can I say?
OK, you misunderstood what I meant - I should have written my point better.
What I meant was no one has the right to call whatever they do not like offensive and think it should be the operating premise for a discussion. That is what too many people expect.
Pretty much @runswimyoga lives by this, as far as I recall - he/she stated that did not understand why people did not just accept the position of the offended as a valid interpretation and begin the discussion from there.
My position is that using such a starting point is no longer a discussion because in a real discussion either party can reject the premise of the other and present a different viewpoint, i.e., no one has the right to call what they do not like offensive and then think that position has to be the governing conditions to move a discussion forward.
However, in the videos we see, this is exactly the weird validation the students always want. Intellectually, it is possible to have an invalid point if one’s premise and logic are wrong - no need to accept such a condition to talk to anyone.
I agree not all SJWs are crazed. However, as a group, it is this smaller subset that is setting the agenda and determining how the movement looks.
@awcntdb You misunderstand me. I don’t live and die by anything BTW -I have been known to modify my opinion in many ways many times back and forth for what Its worth and I do see where both sides are coming from- But MY experiences (not yours) have led me to what I think today.
I didn’t mean “she stated that did not understand why people did not just accept the position of the offended as a valid interpretation and begin the discussion from there.”
I meant “I don’t understand why people did not just accept the position of the offended as THEIR valid interpretation and begin the discussion from there.” “THEIR opinion not THE opinion”
Whether you like THEIR logic or not, many students at many schools, and many people in swj are advocating for change … and the videos YOU see are NOT the entire picture BTW
I’ve started approaching sensationalist headlines and videos very skeptically, regardless of political slant. Because I’ve got a whole lot of free time on my hands, I’ve started doing my best to read and research beyond the click bait. And I’m reading both sides. I’ve read some pretty obscure websites. It’s been an interesting and challenging exercise. There are so many pages of google results before something substantive turns up. That, in itself, is pretty interesting to me.
maybe this is off topic, maybe not - I’m still reading the propaganda book
So the student screaming “shut up” and “who the f hired you” at the professor is ok, but saying that the student is acting like a foul mouthed toddler is wrong? That may be the most illogical premise I have ever come across on these boards.
Again, I object to people who think it is clever to define both sides of the argument. I have heard plenty pro and con about the ACA. As with any massively complex program, there are good points to be made on both sides of that issue. I have never heard anyone say the ACA is bad because it helps minorities. Bet you haven’t either.
And @runsswimyoga, I don’t want to preempt your discussion with @awcntdb but to your point
Because the argument pressed by the students is a moralistic fallacy. It assumes that a fact (that the two Yale professors support racist haloween costumes) must be true because of the beliefs of the person asserting the premise (no one should argue against warning people to not wear certain costumes). It is also an appeal to emotion (You are not listening! This is how I feel!"). Arguments that are grounded in such a way are inherently meaningless. It used to be that people went to college to learn things like the rules of rhetoric and logic. Apparently some here believe that such lessons are no longer valid. I disagree.
My kids both have grown up in a predominately white, upper-middle class neighborhood, and school system.
When Asian families started moving in to our neighborhood, my youngest son became fascinated by learning about their food and then their culture. He begged me at 8 to allow him to tag along with the kids to Chinese school on the weekend, and learned Mandarin.
My oldest son has swam on an predominately black inner city swim team his whole life.
They have both never (in 15yrs for my oldest and 13 years for my youngest) had a teacher who was black, or openly gay. In college, for the first time in their lives, they both have an Asian and a Middle Eastern professor.
Our family wants to interact in a more diverse world.
It bothers me (and them) that they haven’t been exposed to more diverse faculty and students in their school experiences. They have read black authors, taught by white teachers. Nothing wrong with that. But for our family - boy wouldn’t it be a tad more interesting if they could be in a class where they read black authors taught by black teachers. Sometimes you get nuggets of life experience from the teacher that lends a unique perspective to the reading. You get that from a white teacher too. But my boys have NEVER had a black teacher.
So, in an effort to (hopefully) get my sons to have more (but we will start with even having a single) black professor in school, I am willing to listen to THEIR (black teachers and students) opinion of what it will take to get more black teachers in all schools (not just predominately black schools) and a more diverse student body.
If it takes changing the name of the school from a known racist to a more neutral name, or adding safe spaces and trigger warnings, then, for Us, we are willing to move past what is fair in our minds, to what makes school a place that attracts a more diverse student body and faculty.
I am willing to look beyond what I need in order to be more inclusive of others. But first I have to listen to what it is they say they need, not what I say they need.
@Ohiodad51 Your point to me reminds me of a saying I just recently read…
It is easy to not be over-sensitive when the issue you are debating is not an active threat in your life. It is hard not to be sensitive when the issue is an active threat in your life and therefore not over.
And in above post, I don’t just mean to single out African Americans- I want my kids to have more LGBT, Asian, Middle Eastern, Muslim etc students and faculty too in their school experiences bc I think it will better prepare them to live in this diverse world.
Very true.
But the fact remains that we are all one big collection of different perspectives, pressures, fears and wants. The way a society works is that the mass adjusts as much as it perceives to be necessary to accomodate each of its disparate groups without losing the cohesion of the whole. It is simply an unworkable system where the greater mass of society cedes control over certain issues/ideas to those who perceive themselves to be most affected.
How much do you want to bet?
Yes. I had a friend who was against ACA because it helped minorities. He admits he is a racist. Usually people hide this. He doesn’t care. You should see his emails.
I worked with many racists. I live in California.
I said what the student who yelled did was a human response. You can call the student a foul mouthed toddler. How does that move the discussion forward?