Senate College: Free Exchange of Ideas or Liberals Cancelling Chicken Sandwiches?

No, it's helpful. I don't have a problem with people having right-leaning opinions. However I do have a problem with people have far right/Trumpesque opinions that deny facts.

 

Nobody would be forcing students, but are people so weak that the ideas of a Milo can't be heard?

He's a cretinous POS, but that doesn't give rise to a need to censor.

It's the same as reading Mein Kampf or any of UBL's speeches. It's a lot of intense hate, and sometimes the logic begins to make sense as you go, but you need to expose yourself to the ideas in order to form a rebuttal to them. Otherwise you're as bad as they are.

 

Yes but he does speak for people who aren't professional trolls and whose feeling of being misunderstood is a massive driver in antisocial behaviour. A university is supposed to be a temple to free thought, rational analysis, and fearless critique - therefore, nothing cannot be too controversial for a university campus.

 

Just playing devil's advocate for a moment. Does encouraging the molestation of children belong in the temple to free thought or might there actually be a thing or two too controversial for a university campus?

Speaking of the priest who raped him, "I'm grateful for Father Michael." Speaking of the rape of young boys, "They can be hugely positive experiences very often for these young boys." I'm all for the temple of free thought, rational analysis & fearless critique. But this is none of those things; this is just a foul human being spouting as foul words as you can ever spout and, by thanking the priest who abused him and calling such abuses positive experiences, actively encouraging pedophiles to continue raping and molesting children with their consciences now clear because they know they're making their victims better people in the long run. There's a limit to the virtue of free speech and a limit to what is morally tolerable; it's somewhere this side of the moment when someone is encouraging child rapists to continue raping children. I get it; I defend your right to say something even though I disagree with it. That's cool. Unless you're telling pedophiles that they're heroes and they should absolutely continue their activities. Then you can shut your foul mouth & get out of my sight unless you want a chair shoved down your throat. "Safe spaces" are overused, but the entire human race needs a "safe space" from this pathetic piece of worthless garbage. I'm not going to defend his right to speak on college campuses or anywhere else. He's a stupid, mewling, idiotic, bottom-feeding, garbage spewing, utterly rank piece of sewage and keeping him off a college campus or anywhere else he wants to go isn't a matter of censorship, it's a matter of public hygiene. His mouth isn't a conduit for ideas, it's an overflowing toilet. And if people feel like he's speaking for them and that he makes them feel less misunderstood or whatever . . . if they still feel that way after what he said about child molestation, then I don't give two ***** about their feelings, they deserve to be marginalized because they're just as much garbage as he is and I am most definitely not playing the violin for them while they weep and sob about how misunderstood and lonely they are. And I'm not really worried about forming a rebuttal to Milo's "ideas" either. If Milo & his followers need to be convinced that children shouldn't be raped, what are we even talking about? Go eat a bullet, *******. That's my rebuttal.

You know, devil's advocate.

 

No, Rogue.

What I am saying is that a university should be a campus of courageous, curious minds who can refute an idea or ideology on merit and not weak hysteria. Milo's singular talent seemed to be producing precisely enough rope to hang himself and then watching centrists in America unable to rig up gallows because their hands were so thoroughly wrung.

Instead of therefore being a place where contests of ideas exist around us and people are convinced of a position based on the merit of the position and not witless tribalist allegiances that people neither understand nor think through - and here, the left is often more guilty than the right.

You have already flagged where Milo is wrong, objectively. Have you lost a piece of yourself in doing this?

 

No, not really, my opinions are just often genuinely so nuanced as to not allow for ranting, so I just went full-bore. I initially only intended to post that first little paragraph and then I was looking at what he said again and so I just decided to really have a go.

 

We don't disagree he's a piece of ****; like the entire alt-right movement, it's people projecting for their own inherent mediocrity, usually onto "elites" which mostly are women.

Censoring him from speaking at a bastion of curious intellectualism does not tell me this; and it's just weak to do it.

 

The best way to squash this subhuman is to starve him of oxygen, his oxygen being attention. It won't happen, and he won't go away.

 

Milo never cared for the alt-right; it was a vehicle for him to seek two things he has always craved for - fame and attention.

As someone, who was aware of Milo before gamergate and the alt-right, I am pretty certain he doesn't believe 90% of the **** he writes. It is a designed to get the maximum reaction he can. He is still an enigma to me; much different now to the person I remember hearing about pre-2014 for friends.

 

I read some of his poetry and it is quite sad, really. Comes across a real fragile person who, for whatever reason, experienced a lot of emotional pain in his life; even though he is very open about his sexuality, his writings suggest he is still in turmoil over it. Of course, I am in no way using it as an excuse to justify his recent behaviour and remarks btw.

A complex creature, like himself, probably should been kept well away from the spotlight.

 

You and I will both be pleased with where Durham-Chapel Hill ended up.

And not a bad showing for Columbia. Slightly surprised that it wound up being the most educated metro area in the state (even more so than Charleston)--but given that it's SC, that's not exactly saying a whole lot.

 

Well, Belle is so well-read and...wait, you said Gastonia and not Gaston. Sorry.

 

Yes but for a lot of those irredeemable bully types there is an unresolved something motivating the need for negatively affirming attention. Look at your orange tyrant; he's never going to get his father's approval but that won't stop him trying, desperately, for it.

I mean, I actually don't care what pain has affected Milo, he's not worth my empathy; but what Danna is saying is hardly surprising IMO. I just equally don't think the fact he has terrible opinions means universities should hide behind skirts at the prospect of him being allowed to speak, either.

 

Best way to challenge offensive opinions is to debate them. Forcing them underground, away from the mainstream, just allows it to grow and grow.

 

so did they draw any conclusions from the results ? ( I did look at the link but couldn't see any if they did) , were there any surprise results ?

 

I just don't see it as a university hiding behind skirts or being afraid of his opinions. I mean, to me, the argument is not that his opinions are scary, it's that his opinions are garbage. And have no place in a university setting. I mean, I suppose a university could invite that homeless guy down the street who's always ranting about lizard people and how the government has replaced his brain with a blender to speak, but why would they? It's the same principle. Milo's ideas don't belong in a university setting (or anywhere really) because they're the equivalent of a toddler repeatedly screaming profanities. The question is whether or not it's censorship to keep a completely insane person screaming gibberish from bursting into a classroom where serious study is going on. I don't think it is. It's just that someone screaming "pee pee ca ca wee-wee dippy-do ding-dong" at full volume doesn't belong at a discussion group about the writings of Aristotle. Let him go back to YouTube or reddit or some other online cesspool. That's where he came from, that's where he belongs; at the table for children. Once he demonstrates he has at least the moral compass of an iguana, he can come join the rest of us at the grown-up table. Until then, it's not censorship to keep him out of universities; it's the pure pragmatism of not wanting serious discussions disrupted by a chimpanzee throwing feces.

 

That is still censorship.

 

I'll be right over with my feces-throwing chimpanzee.

 

Not sure if you were aware, but Kevin Smith and Elijah Wood did that Movie Fights thing and were asked about a film that if they had the power to erase, they would erase. Smith, he later admitted, gamed it by listing "Triumph of the Will."

But the thing is, without that piece of Nazi propaganda we have not got the insights into propaganda as a tool that the film gives us. Similarly, we need to look at Milo as emblematic of a phenomenon to understand and combat it.

I just can't get on board with you on this one sorry.

 

Rogue1-and-a-half:

https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/08/voltaire-subway

I'm not really forming a view on this, I just thought it an interesting extension of our discussion you may appreciate.