deplatforming

07 Nov 2021 11:08 - 17 Jun 2023 08:29
Open in Logseq
    • Deplatforming is the social analog of Freudian repression. And while both of these processes are necessary for civilization, they are imperfect, and the repressed will always try to find ways to reassert itself.
    • The specifics of deplatforming controversies don't interest me that much – should view x be allowed to be presented at venue y? The arguments are always the same, and because absolute freedom of speech is almost never relevant (sure Nazis have freedom of speech, but they don't have a right to give a seminar at Yale, and its the question of who gets those priveleged speaking spots that is at issue).
    • Instead I try to take a sort of abstract view – what is the nature of this process? It is an ongoing social political process of determining what kind of viewpoints are acceptable and which are not. This changes over time and place – anti-semitism, for example, used to be common and respectible, has changed to be unacceptable since WWII, but is now becoming accepted on the margins thanks to the rise of Trump and the alt-right.
    • There's nothing wrong with this, although I think some of the more nerdy types can't handle this kind of social construction of morality and rebel against it. Everybody else just has to roll with it.