for thoughtful. .

They're a pretty highly respected institution when it comes to pursuing intellectual excellence.

Holocaust Denial and Vaccine Hysteria are historical and scientific "arguments", so to speak, easily refuted by facts and evidence. Showing the hollowness of the perspective and defeating them with clear logic is the best way to nullify them, sort of like moon landing denial conspiracies.

Transphobia, of course, is bigotry much like homophobia, and fortunately becoming less prevalent and acceptable. Of course, it is reasonable to expect inclusion and respect from college students. Sort of ironically, perhaps, it is the very argument of "safe spaces" which is used by the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival to justify their own notoriously transphobic policies. And so it goes..

I could have sworn they were the place that founded and propagated the "Chicago school" of economics.

As such, I thought they should have the reputation as a purveyor of malicious dreck.

Or is that now ancient history?

Yes, Milton Friedman came out of the U of C. So did Barack Obama.


http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/spring09/greenloungetowhitehouse



http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

(Tied for #4, but I suspect in many rankings it is even higher)

Some stains never go away.

... research universities. That isn't hyperbole, that is fact. The University is NOT an purveyor of any sort of dogmatic or doctrinaire ideology. It is dedicated to the expansion of fundamental human knowledge and its application to the betterment of humankind now, and into the future.

Crescat scientia; vita excolatur - Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched

Sometimes a question or two

I also do not remember very many professors who were openly pushing an agenda. There no doubt are such classes, but I do not remember taking more than one. (the one exception was that I took a class on "Heredity and human society" from a Prof who was a member of InCar.

A couple of examples that I can remember.

1. The girl who did not understand - in an intro class for microeconomics the TA explained a concept. This took perhaps 5-10 minutes. Then a girl asked a question (sorry about the gender, but that's what happened). Actually she made a statement. The statement was "I don't get it." So the TA explained everything again. This took another 5-10 minutes. Then the girl said, "I still don't get it" at which point he began to try to explain things again, and I quickly got up and walked out of class.

2. The guy who was faking it - In an intro sociology class (that oddly enough I took when I was teaching economics at the same college) there was a certain amount of the grade that depended on class participation. There was this one guy that I could see basically pretending to ask questions while he had the textbook sitting in front of him and would read blurbs from it as part of the question. It was easy for me to see that he did not care about the topic and was just b.s ing with his whole questioning, trying to get points for participation. Basically disrupting, derailing the class while he trolled for brownie points.

Neither of those have anything to do with safe spaces or trigger warnings, but they are examples, in my view, of "drowning in noise" by other means than equating "noise" with "ideas I strongly disagree with".

For my last example, perhaps I need a trigger warning

3. The guy who was shocked and horrified - On the first or second day of a "social problems" class, we broke into small groups, to talk about various problems. Well one of the things my small group came up with (and not because it was my idea) as an answer to the "drug problem" was to "legalize marijuana". One young man was clearly aghast at that suggestion and provided an elegant rebuttal to the idea "seriously?" he exclaimed.

Later in the class, the teacher was pushing some of what I considered to be anti-drug nonsense about "thousands of chemicals in marijuana" and I challenged that by asking "well, how many chemicals are in spaghetti by comparison?" Which got a laugh from another student (as if? he seemed to say) and a deflection from the teacher "probably not that many". Well, it seemed disruptive to me if I kept the floor and explained that a protein was also a "chemical" and that if you take a protein made up of a chain of 3 amino acids, you have a potential of 1,771 chemicals right there.

So what are the boundaries of these "safe spaces"? Could they be used to shelter people from the horror of a "legalize marijuana" opinion or against "misinformation" from people who favor legalization?

Would there, for another dangerous example, be classes where a student was not allowed to challenge the statement that "women are paid 77 cents on the dollar for the exact same work?"

We should never allow people to be arrested and jailed for expressing an opinion. No matter what that opinion is.

But the question is: Why is misinformation - look up Snopes on any given day - so popular? Is it a failure of the educational system to promote critical thinking, or are people just insufferable morons?

(See how quickly that goes bad?)

"...if we open the door to anything goes, then education becomes a matter of opening a firehose of noise on the classroom, and drowning the kids in chaos." That's all well and good, assuming that you trust and agree with the gatekeepers.

1st Amendment threads in particular can get pretty depressing. I liked the ones where people were arguing that drawing "blasphemous" cartoons isn't constitutionally protected speech. Derp.

Liberalism has always stressed individual liberty and civil rights, such as free speech. What I have noticed is a sickening trend for some on the left to embrace an authoritarian "daddy make it better" approach. It even more mind blowing when the last 2 decades were spent fighting right-wing authoritarianism driven by religious views.

defend the idea of blasphemy laws in the US, I would've said you were nuts.

Yes it is. A lot has changed here since I first found this site in 2006.

For instance, should biology classes accommodate creationism? Chemistry classes accommodate alchemy or voodoo? US history classes accommodate 9/11 trutherism? Political science accommodate birtherism?

You accommodate all points of view, and expose them all to evaluation and critique.

Some survive that process. Some don't.

Anything short of that isn't 'free speech'.

aka PRATT's, like birtherism and 9/11 conspiracy theories? I'm sorry, I just feel that in modern society it's hard to "counter bad ideas with better ones" in the era of widespread misinformation from AM talk radio, blogs, etc.

Theres a difference between "this idea has passed through the process and holds water" and "the process has shown this idea holds no water, but a few fools still cling to it".

That's what make it better than YouTube comments.

Free speech is fine but that doesn't mean we're obligated to provide a forum for bullshit.

Bring a gun to my house and I'll kick your pathetic fearful ass out onto the street. Fuck the Second Amendment, it doesn't apply in my personal space.

Bring your Creationist bullshit into my public schools and I will have you removed.

You can take your climate change denial and shove it up your ass.

Accommodate all points of view? Isn't that what Fox News claims to do?

Sadly, the opinions of too many people are utterly worthless, mean, racist, misogynist, or otherwise destructive.

If you want to yell at passing cars while standing on the corner like some schizophrenic homeless person, fine. That's freedom of speech.

But any educational institution has an obligation to reject the endless babbling of mean ignorant fools.

The ignorant fools will do everything they can to fill our heads with their noise.

Unmoderated forums are useless on the internet and in the "public square."

Sometimes that moderation takes the form of public protest.

It's not a bad thing when speakers are dis-invited from college campuses because of student protests. That too is democracy in action.

All speakers are NOT worthy of the same respect.

The noise is always the same, only the names change. A lot of it is the same noise you hear from Fox News and hate radio.

"Robust debates" with that crowd are impossible.

Thoughtful, intelligent conservatives these days are Democrats.

There may be a few intelligent Republicans left but their leaders are grifters.

But the discussion in this thread, in general, isn't about 'here'.

"Drowning in noise: How accommodating nonsense poisons our discourse."

The endless parade of fools, fuckwits, and their leaders are there to shut down ALL intelligent debate.

Without that, its completely subjective, determined by the loudest voices rather than the most pertinent facts and persuasive arguments.

That's how it is.

That's how it is, and that's why a place like DU needs bouncers.

I'm talking in general, in terms of free speech, as I've told you twice now.

One begins to think you don't want to get that.

Free speech by definition, doesn't apply on a private website.

Listening respectfully to the gibberish of fools or the propaganda of fascists is not a noble endeavor.

It does, in fact, drag you down to their level.

Every place of intelligent discourse will require the services of a bouncer at some point, from small comedy clubs to the U.S. Senate.

The quality of the discourse in a place is proportional to the willingness of the institution to kick out the fuckwits and people with hidden agendas. Push them out onto the streets alongside the homeless people yelling verses from Ezekiel at passing cars.

Your freedom of speech doesn't supersede my freedom not to listen.

I'm sure there is some spittle spewing idiot on the television "news" right now this very minute, a venal primping groping authoritarian fuckwit like Bill O'Reilly, a man who would like to turn the U.S.A. into a right wing Catholic Singapore where free speech is limited and boys he doesn't like can be stripped naked and flogged. That's why I don't watch television news. Hell, I don't watch television at all, no cable, no satellite, no broadcast. We have a television in our house but all it does is play movies, we see no commercials but the occasional trailers on Redbox DVDs.

Occasionally a college will invite someone to speak who many students and staff find loathsome. If the level of protest is great enough, if flying rotten tomatoes and vegetables seem likely, then it's perfectly reasonable for a college to dis-invite that speaker, allowing that speaker to find a more protected private venue.

The vast majority of people invited to speak at colleges do not fit into this category.

Like I said, life is messy. Free speech is an ideal, not something that can be achieved in the real world.

We do our best and usually it's good enough.

You should see what prescriptions are in my medicine cabinet. If I want to trip out, I quit my meds, I don't have to buy anything on the streets.



Like I said, life is messy. Occasionally I've experienced the messiest parts of it... Well, maybe as much as any clueless white guy can.

Clueless white guys and their minions still have privileges in this nation. They expect a respectful audience even when they are spewing shit, and they get offended when they don't get it.

After giving it some thought, I noticed something that I find rather curious.

Within this thread, there are many pro-gun posters. Every last one of them stands on the side of free speech rather than with you and your bouncers.

Within this thread, there are also many anti-gun posters. A whole lot of them stand with you and your bouncers.


Just an observation, and something I think noteworthy to point out next time someone brings up so called second amendment absolutists not giving a crap about free speech.

... I really don't need that shit.

I can defend myself, thanks, and I don't need a safe full of guns and ammunition to do it.

I'm not going to smile and wave goodbye either.

Gun fetishes are nasty.

The only fantasy here, is that your response has anything to do with what I said.

I find people who can't bear the thought of differing opinions quite odd.

You did a great job in this subthread of trying to lead a horse to water.

I'm glad to see that many others understand.

who decides what is and is not propaganda? are you suggesting we have a government agency decide what can be printed/read?

all ideas that go against the accepted mainstream is considered the gibberish of fools.

At least for intelligent, reasoned and informed points of view.

Not all points of view contain any of that and therefore do not merit evaluation or critique of any kind.

This idea that everyone's point of view is worthy of discussion or debate (which inherently gives the point of view a legitimacy) is part of the reason we are at this insane place in our discourse in society.

Example: A person can debate themselves all they want that the Earth is flat. But that is a fact less point of view that should never be allowed into a discussion to begin with.

...many centuries ago?

But another example would be people who's point of view is the the Holocaust did not happen. Clearly that is not up for debate or is it to you?

Why would I? We talk about old ideas all the time, some times bad, as with slavery, and sometimes good, as with free speech. Both are old ideas, but that does not preclude discussing them.

It took some rather extraordinary perceptive evolution, and some courageous defiance of speech restrictions, to parse out and propagate a contrary explanation. My point being that the dogmatically obvious is not infrequently the dogmatically incorrect.

Copernicus was labeled a heretic for expressing ideas unworthy of discussion like the earth revolves around the sun. Likewise once it would have been out of bounds to claim that slavery wasn't a good thing.

Well, when you insert your own definitions to the words of others, you can make anything true or false:

I'd spend forever refuting that bullshit, but It doesn't advance anything and it never dies.

consequence, in part, of having no hate speech laws in America and now said Trump is opening the door to right wing extremists to pour into the mainstream.

This much I suspect: Whoever it is they will have exclusively selected themselves with no input from the groups that will be censored and any dissent will be deemed inappropriate.

get ready for an influx of heavy sighs, eye rolling, and scare quotes!

It goes beyond the skills of debate. Certainly, if one hears a mass media-couched argument, there is already cognitive dissonance when attempts to communicate opposition over the innertubes. But many of these crap beliefs utilize the repition of old mass media even as they are fosted in the 'tubes; repitition is legitimacy. In short, the conspiracists and deniers are, frankly, far better at effectively communicating their B.S. than many of the others which disagree.

The b.s. artists depend on creating their OWN legitimacy, even as they or others tear down the old MSM/Institutional system of legitimacy. Their "new" legitimacy has one means of measurement:. How often we, others, other institutions talk about them in the most splattering, incensed way. The old ways of retesting crack pots -- legitimate older MSM, government investigations, study by higher education -- are severely undermined. Those who want to counter the crackpots better come up with far better and effective means to do so. Denying fora and the soapbox basd on some idiocy quotient assumes a forced legitimate enough to do it.

Know of any?

Who decides what that is?

btw, 'unfiltered free speech' is redundant. If it's filtered it ain't free.

I don't want colleges to be places where ignorance is as valid as knowledge as Asimov put it.

An approach guaranteed to fail.

doesn't make them go away. You're just leaving them alone and unchallenged, and giving their proponents a free pass to promote those ideas without ever having to actually prove they're valid. Same goes for your own positions, too. They could very well be fundamentally flawed, but you won't know.

And, as you mentioned, much of what passes for free speech is corporate speech disguised as free inquiry.

1) The Koch brothers have spent millions funding so-called scientific organizations that attempt to frame global climate change as unproven.

2) For many years the tobacco industry funded groups that denied the carcinogenic properties of cigarettes.

3) The same for the asbestos industry.

4) The NRA constantly promotes gun ownership to the detriment of the 30,000 dead victims of gun violence each year and the many thousands of injured.

But that said, how exactly does a University teach critical thinking skills? Those should be taught in the primary and secondary grades.

Yes. Not least because today's "misinformation" is often enough tomorrow's insight.

If you think somebody's argument or idea is incorrect or downright repulsive, then explain to people why you believe that. If your argument is based on solid reasoning and logic, people will tend to believe you and reject the other person.

Censorship is only for ideas that don't have the intellectual rigor to withstand criticism and dissent. It's absolutely cancerous to the free marketplace of ideas that Western society and the scientific method rely on to function.

Damned if they don't want to control what people can watch, listen to, eat, say, carry, own, and buy.

I've never understood it.

There are Fox News and hate radio inspired armies of fuckwits determined to drown out all intelligent discourse wherever they go.

Even outside of DU there are many forms of fuckwittery I've zero tolerance for. I've many ways of telling people they've got their heads up their asses; some rude ways, some polite ways.

DU works because of the moderation, not in spite of it. Life outside of DU works that way too. If I ruffle the feathers of a few creationists, racists, misogynists, or homophobes along the way, that's my intent.

It doesn't mean I think government should be limiting speech outside of K-12 education. (Religious fuckwits are a real problem in schools; they hate science, they hate other religions, and then they'll whine about free speech and religious freedom and everything else when someone calls them on it.)

But every individual and community has the right to set limits on the fuckwittery they will tolerate.

That was my real what the everloving fuck moment.

Kill all niggers. Kill all faggots. Kill all spics. Kill all camel fuckers. Should I go on?

These arguments keep being repeated by hateful people all over and over again. Of course we can criticize them on a logical level very easily, but because they keep making the same hateful arguments over and over and don't seem to be discouraged by that logical criticism, there does come a point where I'd argue some speech isn't ever worth expressing in the first place.

your hypocrisy, you would have been arrested and charged as being a commie sympathizer during mccarthyism.

i hate racists, homophobes and other such assholes as much as you do, but they still have the right to say and believe whatever they want. while i can choose to ignore them, just as you can.

If you're really against those ideas, you should be delighted to hear them make their points so bluntly. They marginalize themselves, and they make *your* point.

Prevent them from even being heard, and you do yourself damage while boosting them. You look like a coward, and they look like they have an argument you just can't deal with.

I live in the heart of red Texas, Houston in an upper middle class area that is mostly white.

I was at the bar with nothing but republicans on every other stool and had a person sitting next to me watching a sporting event say, " stupid f'n n-word". Looked that person straight in the face and explained to them that I do not use that word and they will not use it in my presence. Of coarse the response is you're a n-lover ... blah blah blah, and I got up and moved to the other end of the bar.

Game went on, evening was over ... a few days later me and some buds were drinking a pitcher or two and sitting at a large table watching an afternoon game. It was early and pretty much the entire bar was at the table, he came in and pulled up a chair to sit down and I told him plainly, but politely, that he was not welcome at the table ... move on.

His mind was so f'd up he had no idea how badly I was setting him up to fall.

The group at the table asked me why, I just said we disagree on something I feel strongly about and that was that. Of coarse, a couple of guys went over to the bar and asked him what was up.

"fuck him, he's a stupid n-lover" rant rant rant ...

He was done. Now I am not saying that there are not others who may feel the same way, it could be true as you can never see into someone's heart, but there are very few when presented with a choice in public who will stand up and say they agree. His speech did him in, he rarely comes in, and even when he does he is still an outcast.

Speech reveals who you are, and those who are strong enough to counter hate speech reveal who they are. I will never attempt to silence someone; I may, however, reveal them for the fool that they are.

Some may want to eliminate groups who support the RKBA.

...We are still here.

I note the Activist group is as frozen as the Sphinx (though even it has moved. Once). That might per chance be why there is a constant effort to fire off that 2-cycle scooter in GD; I mean, who you gonna call?



But we are here/there too!

.... to it's entering 1st year students. And a link to a thoughtful consideration of academic freedom in the context of the the University.

https://college.uchicago.edu/sites/college.uchicago.edu/files/attachments/Boyer_OccasionalPapers_V10.pdf