Cancel culture

[vikingTON]

13 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

See, if you refrain from being p***k about it I have no issue in reading your posts as someone who has studied and understand history. 

The twin towers was an inside job, the moon landings were fake, there was a second shooter in the JFK assassination are all popular and oft repeated lines of bullshit that dont have any basis in fact. But they are ok to repeat presumably?

So where is the line? I'm not trying to troll or trick anyone here, nor am I trying to white knight anyone. This isnt a zero sum game, it's a discussion. Happy to continue it on that basis, as I dont claim to know and understand everything and am happy to admit I often use this forum to learn about stuff. 

Here is where it does get a little more interesting but you are comparing apples to, I dunno, a fucking nuclear submarine with at least two of those examples. The Holocaust was an unprecedented act of mass, calculated genocide: the US landing on the Moon in 1969 is not in the same ballpark of serious historical event. A functioning society does not need to regulate cranks who believe that the US didn't (and presumably the Soviets didn't either) land on the Moon, whereas it is absolutely right for it to regulate those who claim that the meditated murder of six million people didn't happen or was a hoax. JFK is a little more serious but also more obscure in terms of evidence. The presence or absence of a second gunman is not even remotely equivalent to six million deaths *not happening* in terms of a substantial fact change though.

9/11 falls somewhat closer to a debate but this is in most part caused by its recency: the vast majority of important state documents on the event will not even start to be declassified for some time to come, and many will likely be kept for longer. The Nazis couldn't really do that in 1945. We do have a significant amount of independent evidence to make a preliminary judgement now though and it's no surprise that one of the chief 'alternative narratives' to it surround Mossad/Israeli's role because this conspiracy and the Holocaust deniers are drinking from the same anti-Semitic well.

Edited July 19, 2020 by vikingTON

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Perhaps we need to set up a Venn diagram on the thread to help try too hard centrist liberals work out which views actually fall under the old free speech trope of 'I disagree with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it' and which do not.

Je ne suis pas d'accord avec ce que vous dites, mais je me battrai pour que vous ayez le droit de citer Voltaire erronément

[vikingTON]

5 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Following this logic we should ban all religious preaching because it's made up and bad people use it to justify bad things. 

I can see that 'logic' proved to be the word where your post completely fell down champ. Thanks for playing anyway.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Following this logic we should ban all religious preaching because it's made up and bad people use it to justify bad things. 

The “Slippery slope” argument tends to get used from both ends on this one

[pandarilla]

Well what consequence do you believe someone who denies the Holocaust should face? Legal consequences? Loss of platform? Told they’re a c**t? 
 
You’ve completely made that last point up btw. 

By defending the right of a Holocaust denier to 'free speech' you enable such obnoxious lies to be spread in the community as some sort of competing rendition of the facts to actual history. Thereby doing the bulk of the Holocaust denier's task for them by providing their claims with a legitimate platform and making them seem even the slightest bit respectable on the surface.
 

Holy f**k that's a lot of posts in a short space of time. You help bath the kids and come back to realise you're david fucking Irving.

I think continually teaching and highlighting the holocaust is absolutely crucial - and so we should never get complacent about the facts of the holocaust. It must continually be taught (one of the problems i have with the trans debate is when folk say 'this argument has been won', as a way of closing the debate down.)

Essentially i don't think a holocaust denial law is particularly effective. It creates martyrs, and allows others to use it as a basis to ban denial of other unpleasant things (I've seen shit like this being discussed recently in relation to the former yugoslavia). I think it leads to a reductive debate that's not necessary. Holocaust denial is so beyond the pale - almost like the flat earth fuckers.

As vton said, history is never 'over', and so continually needs to be discussed, debated, and challenged.

Ultimately i want to laugh at holocaust deniers, and ridicule their views. I know that somewhat goes against my views on 'cancel culture' - but i guess the holocaust is a topic does that.

[pandarilla]

TL;dr version: when 21st Century centralist liberals white knight for Holocaust deniers on the grounds of free speech, they're in reality sanctioning a total abandonment of established facts which yeah, really wasn't what that witty one-liner they read in the newspaper one day was on about at all. 

I asked someone else this earlier but do you consider chomsky to be a centrist Liberal?

[NotThePars]

Feel that there's a direct linkage from holocaust deniers to the recent attempts in places like Poland to criminalise those that correctly point out that Poles gleefully collaborated in the Holocaust which is why it's not really acceptable to let these people share their views in any setting and build a narrative that attempts to absolve criminals of their culpability. 

 

Marie le Pen is doing this as well with Vichy France and mind her da was big on the denial as well.

Edited July 19, 2020 by NotThePars

[NotThePars]

2 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

25 minutes ago, virginton said:

TL;dr version: when 21st Century centralist liberals white knight for Holocaust deniers on the grounds of free speech, they're in reality sanctioning a total abandonment of established facts which yeah, really wasn't what that witty one-liner they read in the newspaper one day was on about at all. 

I asked someone else this earlier but do you consider chomsky to be a centrist Liberal?

He's an anarchist which is a fundamentally liberal ideology so, yes, to the latter.

[Marshmallo]

What is the "debate" about trans issues? I'm possibly grossly oversimplifying but isn't it basically whether a section of society should have basic human rights?

[Bairnardo]

Here is where it does get a little more interesting but you are comparing apples to, I dunno, a fucking nuclear submarine with at least two of those examples. The Holocaust was an unprecedented act of mass, calculated genocide: the US landing on the Moon in 1969 is not in the same ballpark of serious historical event. A functioning society does not need to regulate cranks who believe that the US didn't (and presumably the Soviets didn't either) land on the Moon, whereas it is absolutely right for it to regulate those who claim that the meditated murder of six million people didn't happen or was a hoax. JFK is a little more serious but also more obscure in terms of evidence. The presence or absence of a second gunman is not even remotely equivalent to six million deaths *not happening* in terms of a substantial fact change though.
9/11 falls somewhat closer to a debate but this is in most part caused by its recency: the vast majority of important state documents on the event will not even start to be declassified for some time to come, and many will likely be kept for longer. The Nazis couldn't really do that in 1945. We do have a significant amount of independent evidence to make a preliminary judgement now though and it's no surprise that one of the chief 'alternative narratives' to it surround Mossad/Israeli's role because this conspiracy and the Holocaust deniers are drinking from the same anti-Semitic well.

I know it's an extreme set of examples, mostly because nothing as monumentally horrifying as the holocaust has happened, well... ever. But it's still a worthwhile part of the conversation that if some subject matters are to be treated differently to others, who decides which ones? Which ones should they be?

Would probably accept that the holocaust is pretty unique not only in magnitude but also in the connotations, usually thinly veiled, that come with the denial.

[vikingTON]

There will always a marginal case where a society has to decide what is and isn't a violation of its norms* according to speech (though we've already had that for hundreds of years in the private sphere, see libel) but any try too hard liberal who wants to erase the thick black boundary keeping Holocaust denial in the 'yep, bin them straight away' category is for the watching.

 

 

 

 

 

* And that debate should be led by experts rather than some randoms with their 'alternative' hot takes

[vikingTON]

18 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

42 minutes ago, virginton said:

TL;dr version: when 21st Century centralist liberals white knight for Holocaust deniers on the grounds of free speech, they're in reality sanctioning a total abandonment of established facts which yeah, really wasn't what that witty one-liner they read in the newspaper one day was on about at all. 

I asked someone else this earlier but do you consider chomsky to be a centrist Liberal?

White knighting for Holocaust deniers is not unique to centralist liberals but the modern lot sure love linking up with the most tiresome anarchist/postmodernists to turn established facts into an opinion-based 'free speech' free for all. At least Chomsky etc. had that coherent goal in mind all along whereas modern liberals are just gormlessly led there by a complete misunderstanding of what their redundant ideology would want them to think.

All the while, the far right across Europe applaud the efforts of these useful idiots at turning their proven historical crimes into mere matters of opinion.

[coprolite]

36 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

 

The “Slippery slope” argument tends to get used from both ends on this one

 

Reported for racism 

[invergowrie arab]

40 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

Ultimately i want to laugh at holocaust deniers, and ridicule their views. I know that somewhat goes against my views on 'cancel culture' - but i guess the holocaust is a topic does that.

 

I'm sure it's some comfort to gay people in Poland,  Roma in Hungary and BME people across eastern Europe that you are bravely carrying on the good fight in the marketplace of ideas.

[The_Kincardine]

24 minutes ago, virginton said:

There will always a marginal case where a society has to decide what is and isn't a violation of its norms*

* And that debate should be led by experts rather than some randoms with their 'alternative' hot takes

I am pretty sure that being led by 'experts' over centuries has done us no good whatsoever and has led to the top-level justification of 'norms' that has led us to this particular situation.

It may well be imperfect but I think that a grass-roots expression of acceptability has an equal if not great degree of clout than that of experts.

[Miguel Sanchez]

I've been watching this thread through my fingers today. Imagine, imagine actively attempting to find ways to try and defend people who say the holocaust didn't happen. Just think about it. If you're deliberately placing yourself in a position where you're trying to be sympathetic to or accommodating of people who do that and think it's normal, remove yourself from the internet for a minute and just ask yourself what you're doing.

[Marshmallo]

16 minutes ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

I've been watching this thread through my fingers today. Imagine, imagine actively attempting to find ways to try and defend people who say the holocaust didn't happen. Just think about it. If you're deliberately placing yourself in a position where you're trying to be sympathetic to or accommodating of people who do that and think it's normal, remove yourself from the internet for a minute and just ask yourself what you're doing.

They just want to laugh at them

[Miguel Sanchez]

1 minute ago, Marshmallo said:

They just want to laugh at them

I'd suggest enhancing your forum experience further by following pandarilla's advice - let him talk as much pish as he wants, while roundly ignoring all of it. 

[invergowrie arab]

23 minutes ago, The_Kincardine said:

It may well be imperfect but I think that a grass-roots expression of acceptability has an equal if not great degree of clout than that of experts.

I bet you actually do as well.

Does this homespun wisdom only apply to arts and humanities or would you prefer the NHS or aeroplane manufacture to be operated in this way?

[The_Kincardine]

23 minutes ago, invergowrie arab said:

I bet you actually do as well.

Does this homespun wisdom only apply to arts and humanities or would you prefer the NHS or aeroplane manufacture to be operated in this way?

Given your love of The Chief Mammy and all things statist in the DPRS your view comes as no surprise.  Leave it to the experts...