tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post8027885535440935894..comments2024-03-28T09:56:06.298-04:00Comments on Grim's Hall: An Alternative View on BlasphemyGrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-51456222585797970172015-01-16T14:36:05.828-05:002015-01-16T14:36:05.828-05:00The knife is metaphorical, as well as a reference ...The knife is metaphorical, as well as a reference to the late Edward Abbey. I suppose you don't know the quote.<br /><br /><i>"When I hear the words "phenomenology" or "structuralism", I reach for my buck knife."</i><br /><br />He was making a point about the dangers of academic philosophy to practical philosophy. His point was that you need to bring things back to the reality in front of you, and not to the worlds invented by academic jargon.<br /><br />So too where you find people changing the very meaning of language, so that it twists and reverses under you.<br /><br />Logic, though, is of limited use in political philosophy -- academic or practical. It's good for identifying fallacious arguments. However, logical objects don't exist in practical reality. Ethics and political thought are analogical, not logical. Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-84992209799586432182015-01-16T09:49:50.362-05:002015-01-16T09:49:50.362-05:00It is vitally important to force you to speak the ...<b>It is vitally important to force you to speak the language their way, and to destroy any resistance to the new definitions. </b><br /><br />Who are you to talk about their way of use, you think they are free men and women operating on their will in their own self interest. If it is in their self interest to make you think as they do, what right do you have to resist with a knife.<br /><br />You should consider reaching for your Logic, not your knife. Unless logic is unnecessary for such.Ymar Sakarnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-8944050886363275492015-01-15T11:54:02.361-05:002015-01-15T11:54:02.361-05:00I am always suspicious of anybody whose core argum...<i>I am always suspicious of anybody whose core argument relies on re-defining a thing into something it isn't.... Here you have someone whose purpose is to negate the right of free speech, and the first step is to re-define human rights.</i><br /><br />It is vitally important to force you to speak the language their way, and to destroy any resistance to the new definitions. The whole affair hangs on that: if we can make everyone use "democracy" in the new way, then of course opposition parties are enemies of democracy. If "freedom of speech" is defined to exclude what you want to control, then of course you're defending free speech by controlling speech.<br /><br />You're exactly right: when someone comes to you and says that a long-used concept actually means something totally different from what it has always meant, you should reach for your Buck knife. Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-70629404026250582022015-01-15T11:11:58.532-05:002015-01-15T11:11:58.532-05:00". . . the human right to freedom of speech a...". . . the human right to freedom of speech always has to be balanced against other human rights, such as the human rights to dignity, respect, honor, and non-discrimination."<br /><br />Yeah, that doesn't work for me at all. It's totally workable as a personal code for social interaction, but lousy as a basis for state power, because there's no possible way we should be letting the state decide whom or what we should respect or honor.<br /><br />We already do balance freedom of speech against some important competing rights, such as the right not to be defrauded, or the right to impose secrecy by contract or by security obligations. We have laws against conspiracies to commit crimes, where the only overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy is to communicate by speech. But I can't even imagine how it would work to have free speech limited by "the human rights to dignity, respect, honor, and non-discrimination." Might as well say we have free speech as long as the speech never communicates anything the state disapproves of, which will include "disrespect" shown to whatever groups is approved this week. (We can be sure it will be A-OK to show disrespect to rich white Christian Republican heterosexual men.)<br /><br />This whole business of not permitting people to speak if they're going to insist on showing disrespect to sacred cows is kind of the whole point. "Say what you like, as long as you don't diss the King and, er, his buddies and their priests and whoever else is in favor at Court this year." Not a long step to "we'll behead you if you bring disrepute on Islam."<br /><br />These people are SO sure no reasonable person could disagree with them about certain basics, so squelching speech on those subjects must be harmless. Alternatively, they're SO terrified that anyone hearing an opposing view will cast aside their self-evident truths and be instantly converted to the dark side. Not much faith in their self-evident truths, apparently.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-15873158020535090682015-01-15T10:15:18.345-05:002015-01-15T10:15:18.345-05:00I am always suspicious of anybody whose core argum...I am always suspicious of anybody whose core argument relies on re-defining a thing into something it isn't. <br /><br />The purpose of that kind of re-definition is often to divert the discussion into some kind of triviality instead of ever reaching the actual subject.<br /><br />Here you have someone whose purpose is to negate the right of free speech, and the first step is to re-define human rights.<br /><br />ValerieAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-57104311264579206452015-01-15T02:45:05.711-05:002015-01-15T02:45:05.711-05:00Part of the reason our founders recognized preciou...Part of the reason our founders recognized precious few rights was because they realized that the more rights you have, the more conflict you'll have- by definition of what she uses to support her position- your rights stop where my nose begins (except she's including her feelings and mores). Pushing the 'human rights agenda' is really an effort to create more conflict, not to lessen it.douglashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03241790925053112959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-64291566309214990122015-01-14T23:52:03.672-05:002015-01-14T23:52:03.672-05:00the human right to freedom of speech always has to...<i>the human right to freedom of speech always has to be balanced against other human rights, such as the human rights to dignity, respect, honor, and non-discrimination.</i><br /><br />The linked-to argument proceeds from a false premise. <i>[D]ignity, respect, honor, and non-discrimination</i> aren't human rights, they're civil rights created legislatively in an attempt to concretize and enforce human rights--like free speech--and as such they are entirely lesser than our human rights. Or Grim's view of honor and dignity--still not, as he notes, human rights. The rest of her argument becomes irrelevant from this failure.<br /><br /><i>reported to be the "whole world's view," with America as a kind of weird outlier. Of course, 'the whole world' doesn't end up including very much of the world</i><br /><br />Well, that would be part of what makes us exceptional--and in a good way, not the way the Greeks are exceptional, or the Brits, or....<br /><br />Eric HinesE Hineshttp://aplebessite.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-9699949603732125442015-01-14T21:29:39.782-05:002015-01-14T21:29:39.782-05:00Ah, Tanya Cohen. An Oberlin graduate. A shining ex...Ah, Tanya Cohen. An Oberlin graduate. A shining example of what has gone wrong with universities in general. Eric Blairnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-9504320969930237042015-01-14T20:45:12.462-05:002015-01-14T20:45:12.462-05:00Trying reason with that sort of idiocy is akin to ...Trying reason with that sort of idiocy is akin to trying to teach a toad to sing. Throw their argument in the try pot, boil it down, and what do you get? Violence Works! <br /> Of course, this is confusing to poor uneducated hicks like me, because they always said before, violence never solves anything- so which is it? <br />The only reason to have free speech recognized in law at all is to protect the right to say something others do not like. <br /> <br /> And the other edge of that sword is this- maybe someone will act against the one who tries to shut them up, rather than the one who speaks. ravennoreply@blogger.com