This Whole Discussion Around Free Speech and Milo Yiannopoulos is Causing a Rift on the Left

[JCanete]

58. They have agreements on the issue, and when we look like we are trying to shut down speech, we do

cede some high ground. It does make us look like we are afraid of tackling the content, which is really really easy to dismantle.

That doesn't mean this isn't a really complicated subject. Why does somebody get a venue at Berkeley, who is speaking antiquated hate rhetoric that has no actual academic value. Sadly, what came out of it was an intellectual conversation about free speech, but I'm not sure what he offered any discourse before he became a case of protecting free speech for all of us by protecting it for the worst of us.

And I get the actual threat that is heaped on targeted groups by his kind of rhetoric, so I understand the will to shut him down, especially given the venue. I presume he was just going to get a platform to talk his bullshit unmolested. But in retrospect, he's a bigger deal now than he ever would have been. If anything, going on Maher undermined much of his message. It was sloppy and transparently provocative, and he showed himself to be really really confused about his own identity.

I grant you Maher isn't perfect. He's good on some things, and outright shitty on others. Another prime example where he should be taken to task with sunlight on those misconceptions rather than to be barred from certain campuses. In his case, it makes very little sense to me. Is he stupid on Islam? Fuck yeah. Call him out publicly for it. Force him to defend his perspective in the face of the facts he ignores. He has a huge platform already. Take an opportunity to challenge him where you can.

If I have a concern about shutting down certain perspectives, it is not about those poor people Maher and Milo. They are doing fine, and better when they get protested or barred. They have more free speech than most of us. My concern is that our future thinkers are going to be more inclined to exercise their power -when they have it- to not hear a perspective, rather than to hear it well, which is important not just so that they continue to challenge their own, but so that they can better challenge the fallacies in opposing perspectives.