Without any hard evidence ... it makes perfect sense. If there was video evidence of the rape and/or other mitigating circumstances do you think Paglia would be opposed?

Give me a reason to take what you’re saying seriously because I’ve heard enough of Paglia to deem her a no nonsense kinda person, but certainly not a monster by any stretch of the imagination.

Without any hard evidence ... it makes perfect sense. — I like sushi

Nothing was said about a lack of hard evidence. That said, I don't think you and I agree on basic principles. Therefore, there's no point in discussing the details of an actual event.

Person X states that if a man or woman brings allegations of rape six months or a year after the alleged event, that person should be ignored. — frank

Come on! This is exactly the kind of polemic that encourages this personality politics.

Unless we're watching different videos, what Paglia actually said was

To me, it is ridiculous that any university ever tolerated a complaint of a girl coming in six months or a year after an event. If a real rape was committed go frigging report it...

That sounds to me like a call to take rape more seriously, not less. She's saying that rape is not a matter to be kept to oneself, undecided about reporting it, and then brought up with a private business. It's a criminal offence and a very serious one. It needs reporting right away to the correct authorities for everyone's good.

Your paraphrasing is utterly disingenuous.

Your paraphrasing is utterly disingenuous. — Isaac

I wasn't paraphrasing anything. I was discussing a principle. If a man or woman is raped and delays in coming forward, whether it's to a university, a church, a psychologist, a doctor, or what have you, those accusations should not be ignored simply because there was a delay.

That's it.

I was discussing a principle. If a man or woman is raped and delays in coming forward, whether it's to a university, a church, a psychologist, a doctor, or what have you, those accusations should not be ignored simply because there was a delay. — frank

So the issue you're discussing has nothing to do with Paglia then? OK, but why bring it up then? I'm not sure I get the relevance to the topic here.

@frank's interpretation is consistent with what Paglia said as in the university not tolerating a late complaint is consistent with them ignoring it, and the video makes clear Paglia's lack of sympathy for, not to mention mockery of, assault victims who don't immediately report. Should she be fired for that? No, in my view. And she hasn't been. She's suffered nothing more than some angry blowback from liberal activists.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/17/university-arts-rejects-calls-fire-camille-paglia

I'm not sure I get the relevance to the topic here. — Isaac

Let's start with determining whether we agree on basic principles.

Something astonishing happened to me this weekend. A woman came to my door and asked me my name. She asked if I was once friends with a guy named X. She was crying.

A few years back a detective asked me to come downtown and answer questions about X. She didn't tell me the background of it. She just said it was a cold case. I told her I knew that X had molested a 13 year old girl because he told me about it. She wrote down what I said, but didn't tell me anything about what they were investigating. I left wondering what it had been all about, but forgot about it.

The girl had brought charges against X after going into therapy to try to come to terms with it. She had told her mother and father when she was 13, but they didn't believe her. She didn't think anything would come of it, she just needed to try. As it turns out, my statement to the deputy was the only validation they could find. They never asked me to testify because they settled with a plea bargain, but the woman told me they spelled out my last name in sentencing hearing. My statement provided enough gravity to get him sent to jail. She just came to my house to thank me for being honest. She told me it had started when she was 11, which I didn't know.

All of this happened much more than 1 year after the event. In this case, the private parties she confided to ignored her. One detective did not ignore it.

As I said to the woman, just a little bit of justice makes a big difference.

Should she be fired for that? No, in my view. And she hasn't been. — Baden

The article said that a minority of the students wanted her de-platformed. The article was just whining about that minority.

the university not tolerating a late complaint is consistent with them ignoring it, and the video makes clear Paglia's lack of sympathy for, not to mention mockery of, assault victims who don't immediately report. — Baden

No. Frank said that Paglia's claim was akin to saying that a rape victim should be ignored. Her actual comment was that the university should not tolerate such a complaint. There is a substantial difference between suggesting a rape victim should be ignored sensu lato, and suggesting they should be ignored by a specific institution.

the video makes clear Paglia's lack of sympathy for, not to mention mockery of, assault victims who don't immediately report. — Baden

I don't really get that from the video, but let's say that's her view, given her other writings on rape, is it likely that she's suggesting people should just be allowed to get away with rape, or is it more likely that she considers focusing on getting victims to report more quickly, and to the correct authority, is most important. As with most of this polemicism, its not about whether you agree or not with her strategy, its about not impugning her motives in order to lend illegitimate weight to your preferred approach.

Reporting rape late and to the wrong authority makes it far less likely that the perpetrator will be caught, which is a neglect of one's duty to others. Being a victim oneself does not absolve one of one's moral duty to others. You may not agree with that position, and therefore disagree with the strategy of displaying a lack of sympathy for those who neglect this perceived duty, but it is disingenuous to add weight to your argument by trying to demonise those who think differently.

Let's start with determining whether we agree on basic principles. — frank

Well then you need to ask about some basic principles, not provide an extremely emotional story about one specific case.

Just ask frank to watch the full interview rather than the 1:39 clip he deems as the whole of what Paglia said. I did actually watch the full interview myself about a year ago.

This is how people are judged today. No need to check the context or find out what the speakers views are. Simply pick out a few lines and clips and base everything about said person on nothing but those selected segments.

It is deeply disingenuous. The reason I commented was because I’m well aware of her views on the matter and agree almost completely with her and what she said in that section of the interview (note: someone clearly edited out the build it to make it look bad).

Well then you need to ask about some basic principles, not provide an extremely emotional story about one specific case. — Isaac

That story wasn't an attempt to confer with you on basic principles. I think you and I actually do agree there. The story is just a bizarre event I'm still trying to digest. I took the opportunity to talk about it. Ignore it if you like.

I haven't read or heard what Paglia has to say about rape so I'm just going by what people have written here. It appears as if Paglia has chosen bad wording to communicate that she thinks rapes should be reported to the police rather than universities. I think if we intend the perpetrator to be punished for the crime, it's the only way to go.

It's unclear what exactly she means with "a university tolerating a complaint" though. It sounds harsh. A good faith interpretation could be exasperation at what victims expect from the complaint. A university isn't as well equipped to research a possible rape that happened 6 months ago as a police department. At the same time there's a lot of behaviour that's strictly not criminal but should still get a person expelled. So there's situations where a complaint is actually better but that concerns situations that don't qualify as rape.

So basically to me the sentence becomes meaningless without more context.

She does come off better in a fuller context.

Reporting rape late and to the wrong authority makes it far less likely that the perpetrator will be caught, which is a neglect of one's duty to others. Being a victim oneself does not absolve one of one's moral duty to others. You may not agree with that position, and therefore disagree with the strategy of displaying a lack of sympathy for those who neglect this perceived duty, but it is disingenuous to add weight to your argument by trying to demonise those who think differently. — Isaac

You're both suggesting I misinterpreted Paglia and that I disagree with the interpretation I didn't make, which is a rather confused argumentative strategy. And the charge that I demonised her is trumped up. I demand that you be fired. Or I be fired. Or, well, someone better suffer anyway...

I've got to say, having researched this a bit more, the following is abusive and counterproductive and reminds me of students shouting 'Nazi' and suchlike at Jordan Peterson. These kids are being foolish at best and ought to keep things in perspective.



(Kicks off at 48:00)

As far as politics is concerned, neither qualification nor fame are more likely to make what I have to say more interesting or right, but qualification or fame just happen to be the university's criteria for offering a platform. If they extend that criteria to include, for want of a better word, 'political correctness', how is that any different? — Isaac

This makes perfect sense in theory, but things tend to play out a bit differently on campus. It's not so much qualifications that are being debated, it's disqualifications. Deplatforming isn't the mere denial of a platform to anyone without credentials, it's actually revoking the use of a platform by someone who ostensibly already has access to it (a subtle but important distinction)

In this sense, you aren't "de-platformed" at American universities because you were never platformed to begin with...

Taking Ben Shapiro as an example, he was "platformed" at various universities by conservative student unions who were interested in his ideas, but he was subsequently "de-platformed" by progressive student groups (and non-student protestors) who used force to shut down the conservative event.

The conservative union rented out an auditorium from the University to have a private event, and it was interrupted and shut down by people who were upset by its existence on campus. The real problem with this isn't that Shapiro suffers (in fact it was the best publicity he ever received), it's that some people are claiming the right to forcefully shut down the political organizing of others, and it's nothing but emotion and popular demand that allows them to pull it off. The damage there is that a bunch of students really wanted to hear Shapiros ideas, and so by shutting down the event, they interfered with the free speech of their fellow students who have every right to decide who they want to invite as a speaker at their private events.

The same goes for YouTube, Facebook etc. We don't all have an equal platform in these places either. Those with more money, fame, charm or even just dumb luck have a platform that others don't. Again, how is adding 'political correctness' to that list any more arbitrary? — Isaac

Because so many people hold ideas that others find to be politically incorrect, in practice we would just be appealing to 51% of the population to silence the other 49% (or worse, appealing to the vocal 1% to silence the bottom 50%.). "Political correctness" can more or less amount to a certain emotional frame of mind (the will to be sensitive to certain identity groups), and unfortunately different people have different levels of such emotion (one white man's dreadlocks are another mans microaggressions are another man's cultural appropriations are another man's systems of racist oppression). If you think about it, trying to institute a political correctness rule would just send us down the road of always kowtowing to the loudest source of outrage. What is and is not politically correct is contested, and constantly changes. Do you really want to put corporations and professional victims in that driver seat?

And suppose that Youtube and Twitter have become somewhat crucial tools for staying politically informed and engaged. Ought we think about some kind of fairness regulation to negate their ability to influence democratic outcomes (the influence of the corporations themselves, by virtue of deciding what is and is not politically correct). Before the era of Fox news, major news outlets were required by law to show both sides of a story. I don't think we need to erect such laws against major social media networks, but if we allow them to straight up delete opposing perspectives, then we might be royally fucking our ability to achieve political progress through dialogue and debate.

In a university setting, almost by definition, competing and critical views are absolutely required for students to actually improve their juvenile and often naive political frameworks. We don't mind exposing students to ideas that make them uncomfortable because they need to get used to the idea that they don't know everything, and that the best way to improve their knowledge is to actually challenge them. Universities cannot be helicopter parents to our mollycoddled guilt-spawn, and any attempt to do so will only lead to their intellectual ruination.

A safe space...

That's what the kids wanted...

A space free from ideas that challenge their own, and free of the people that hold them.

This is the very antithesis of learning and higher education.

-----

All that said, I want to clarify and restate that I'm not suggesting that universities should be inviting people just because they're controversial, or that we need to inflict emotional suffering in order to stimulate intellectual growth; what I'm suggesting is that we should not trod on the rights of one group in order to protect the emotional security of another group. Given that Shapiro was willingly invited by a group of students looking to exercise their civil rights of democratic engagement, the context is that of dis-invitation and sanction. By de-platforming Shapiro they're not just sanctioning Shapiro, they're sanctioning every student who paid for or wanted to attend the event for the crime of political wrong-think.

Boycotting is one thing, and forceful intervention is another. If you boycott something, people who still support it are free to do so. If you forcefully intervene, it's no longer political speech (it's merely an authoritarian shut-down of speech). It's easy to be unspecific about these things and to end up going wildly overboard (especially thanks to the emotion involved), which is why I think discussing things case by case is the only sensical way to proceed.

If we did decide to implement political correctness as globally enforced standard, who would we let decide what is and is not politically correct?

But is there suddenly a dearth of whacky, objectionable, and generally fucked-up ideas out there? Has the volume on reactionary voices been turned so far down that we can no longer hear the anti-immigrant, homophobic, Islamophobic, sexist trumpets blowing? Or is the fear for a dystopic future where public figures are not allowed to be assholes and therefore we all forget how to think?

I don't see it. From the evidence of the thread I see:

1) The curmudgeonly unfortunately-not-yet-mummified Scruton losing one of his sidelines as a government advisor for some ill-judged use of language with the accusations against him appearing to be at least partly trumped up.
2) Camille Paglia being unsuccessfully assailed by some students exercising their free speech rights to try to punish her use of her ivory tower to fire thoughtless missives against sexual assault victims.
3) Major talking turd Alex Jones falling foul of social media company guidelines that, like our guidelines, result in the banning of minor talking turds on a regular basis.

The ideological warfare seems to be getting along fine and fears of peace seem greatly exaggerated. — Baden

Of course, in the red and brown misty heat of cultural warfare, the tits and the tats all seem above board, but in the long run our unwritten rules of engagement are changing from something like fight fair so the truth may out to we're right, therefore: go for the throat.

The latitude that we (used to?) give to our political opposition to freely showcase their ideas helps greatly (I think) to expedite our ability to come to mutual compromise across our various political aisles. Public figures don't dictate the beliefs of their followers by virtue of speaking them (hopefully), they ostensibly represent swaths of the general public whom they appeal to, so if our moods and methods force them all back into their own segregated nooks, the people they influence and represent are therefore unable to benefit from serious political dialogue and debate between them. In other words, Scruton goes back to writing obscure literature which may go unchallenged, Paglia schisms off with her own crowd, and Alex Jones, like a cockroach, not only survives, but thrives, and it becomes even more difficult for reasonable elements within mainstream to interact with or rebuke any of them.

The taboo zones we create are like no-mans lands that result from trench warfare. Our weapons are too deadly, and only the slipperiest kinds of a-holes remain free to tread there (example: Shapiro can deflect outrage with his gotchya gish gallop alone, Jones Overwhelms with volume and distraction, Paglia wields postmodern technicality like the shining shield of Hercules, and Scruton, with decreasing effectiveness, seems to build his nest as far away as possible from his opposition (deep within conservative thickets), but thanks to the increased range and accuracy of our weapons, that's no longer a viable strategy of political survival.).

Looking at these few anecdotes isn't all that convincing, and I'll admit I've been paying attention to this phenomenon for so long that I might be afflicted by confirmation bias, but there's definitely been a rise in political animosity and unproductive division. 28 Out of 30 canaries might still be chirping happily, but I can't stop worrying about the two that croaked.

Dammit, I'll need a bit of time to come up with something as poetically engaging as this. I've given up on winning the argument. But I may at least be able to blind you with colourful rhetoric.

Likewise, I'd never heard of Scruton before seeing this thread. The British government didn't eliminate his audience, it only removed itself from his company, making its sentiments clear. How is that a bad thing? — frank

It's not really a bad thing so far as I can tell, but we're approaching the line. Who gets to be in government ought to be democratically influenced. (The line we might mistakenly cross is holding someone's views against them when we ought not do so (if the views are irrelevant to the job, for example, then it might not make sense to defenestrate them, and if the views themselves are representative of their constituents, then the few might be going overboard by harassing them into resignation)).

I don't have any problems with the Sacking of Scruton, but I don't like the air of righteousness that seemed to surround it (although perhaps it is poetic, given that Scruton himself uses his own version of puritanical righteousness to substantiate his beliefs).

I'm not on facebook or twitter. I'm really only interested in the principles involved. I think we tried the completely uncensored internet. That resulted in the landscape being flooded with misinformation. If the goal is to protect democracy, we should at least make an effort to reduce misinformation, even if there is always more on the horizon. — frank

I agree totally with this (I also don't use twitter or facebook myself), but in taking up the objective to reduce misinformation, we should be careful not to liberally decide that certain political views amount to misinformation (disentangling the two is often difficult).

I don't propose being ruthless about it. We don't have to turn into China over it. BTW, have you heard about China's Muslim concentration camps? — frank

I have indeed. China isn't a democracy though (though it may claim to moonlight as such). China is a great example of why we can't have our emotionally progressive cake and eat it too. We need to deal with the unrest driving bits of political conflicts (and their ensuing resolutions) that China opts to black-out entirely for reasons of pragmatic efficiency.

I'm trying my best to not become the thing that I am criticizing, so please don't interpret anything I've written as a criticism of yourself. I too fancy myself a man of ideas, and really that's the inherent value I'm trying to promote.

I'm most vulnerable to allegorical limericks!

I do apologize for the excesses of my rhetoric, but without color this subject is a real downer.

If I'm gonna be a broken record, I might as well make sweet sounds :grin:

Well, at least we can laugh about it. Out there in the real world there is somewhat of a loss of a sense of the absurd, and of humour, and an embrace of a feeling of threat on both sides. So we wear the ritual masks lest we be turned to stone by the sight of our own shadows posing as ophidian foes. Whereas what's underneath is likely a wormery of confused righteousness rather than a snarling serpent aimed at our souls.

I do apologize for the excesses of my rhetoric... — VagabondSpectre

In future try being completely clear and straightforward like me. :halo:

It's not really a bad thing so far as I can tell, but we're approaching the line. — VagabondSpectre

e should be careful not to liberally decide that certain political views amount to misinformation (disentangling the two is often difficult). — VagabondSpectre

I know. I come to the issue having once been fiercely anti-censorship, and now I feel depressed about the information age, about the long-term functionality of democracy, and about the possibility that there is some underlying fault in the social design that centers around money. Time and again I come back to the conclusion that the only way out is dictatorship or oligarchy. I think Obama's success in diverting global economic crunch just burned up an opportunity to actually correct some things. If a liberal is frustrated, I don't think we can really say it's for nothing.

Then I forget about the whole thing and go have a mint chocolate chip milk shake.

I'm trying my best to not become the thing that I am criticizing, so please don't interpret anything I've written as a criticism of yourself. I too fancy myself a man of ideas, and really that's the inherent value I'm trying to promote. — VagabondSpectre

I value your perspective, and I appreciate the need for caution.

I'm trying my best to not become the thing that I am criticizing, so please don't interpret anything I've written as a criticism of yourself. I too fancy myself a man of ideas, and really that's the inherent value I'm trying to promote. — VagabondSpectre

Can I take credit for this? Pretty please.

In future, try being completely clear and straightforward like me. :halo: — Baden

I've found that a direct approach is often not feasible when it comes to very controversial subjects, although I do put in a lot of effort into doing so and with ample clarity (because yes, that's where it is most sorely needed).

Aside from the relative experimental freedom I enjoy in this place, in this case I could also blame my own desire to be shielded from personal exposure. My self-amputating tail, my thickened mane, and my bedazzling tail feathers help to protect my vital organs. I'm a peacock like any other, but I do repent.

Can I take credit for this? Pretty please. — fdrake

Half credit for tardiness! :naughty:

I value your perspective, and I appreciate the need for caution. — frank

:up:

I value your desire to see meaningful change (and I share it).

And by George, we've got our work cut out for us.

Well, at least we can laugh about it. Out there in the real world there is somewhat of a loss of a sense of the absurd, and of humour, and an embrace of a feeling of threat on both sides. So we wear the ritual masks lest we be turned to stone by the sight of our own shadows posing as ophidian foes. Whereas what's underneath is likely a wormery of confused righteousness rather than a snarling serpent aimed at our souls. — Baden

That worm deep inside of us is in desperate need of catharsis, as its enduring frustration turns it into the self-consuming Ouroboros that I fear.

This is a part of what drives me to such colorful descriptions. I want to satirize and make light of our own foolishness, though I'm running at high risk in terms of how my musings are actually received.

I want to reframe this discussion somewhat because you a missing a key element: its the values and ideas which are the problem. They are the threat and opposition.

Scruton trying to teach us woman are just objects for their husband, Pagila suggesting someone could only have been raped if it was reported within a certain time period, Jones, well, being Jones. In any of these cases, the problem is how they understand the world and others, such that it is devaluing them and producing a culture which will harm them.

We cannot approach or rebuke them without going for the throat. In any case, Nothing of these positions can be taken. There is nothing to agree or comprise on. These values and ideas constitute an immoral understanding of others. They tell falsehoods about people, they form to abusive cultures about people. To be sexist, etc. occurs within our ideas themselves, not just in our other actions or intentions towards others.

When we talk about oppression, devaluing, dismissal, etc. we are speaking about an objective social relation. A whole set of relations of how people understand each other and are affected within a social context. In exactly the same way that, for example, believing the Earth is flat is both a factual and ethical problem for those trying to describe the Earth, these ideas are a problem for the formation of diverse (i.e. a society in which people of different racial, ethnic, gender, sexuality, etc. groups are respected as equal) and ethical society.

Everyone is in the same position as any scientist when it comes to talking about this need. We can’t avoid telling of the particular truth in question and how positions which reject it are gravely mistaken. No-one cannot get up and say: “Well, Pagilia didn’t really do anything wrong. What she did is not really a problem because X,Y, Z…” It’s an objective fact her comments, regardless of anything else she might have said or intended, devalue rape victims and suggest the falsehood that elapsed time/not reporting to the police is a good reasons to dismiss an account of rape.

Many people trying to take a “centre” position don’t seem to understand this about the political discourses in question. They keep supposing agreement between political sides is the goal. But it was never the goal.

Indeed, the exact opposite is true: the whole problem is ideas integral to these politics violate ethics and objective description of society. We need to abandon them.


Now don’t get me wrong, none of the above means there are no issues with responses. Someone having unethical ideas or even being some kind of political threat doesn’t mean we get kill them, lock them up or even get to deny them a platform in certain ways. If we were, for example, deplatforming anyone with those ideas, there is no way the Republicatian Party in the US could put on a proper campaign. There are many ways we might take issue with our response to unethical ideas.

In a capitalist society, for example, having a job is critical to people’s lives. Should we fire someone just for having an unethical idea or falsehood? Maybe in certain contexts, such as leader, teachers of ethics, representatives of ethical organisations, when people continue to be disrespectful or abusive towards staff, customers, etc., but it’s extremely dubious just in terms of an idea.

Trouble is that opponents hardly talk ever in these terms. They don’t go, “Yes, they were sexist then, but our response shouldn’t be this because XYZ.” In almost every case, the opposition move is to deny the objective social and ethical observation made about the position— just as you did in our discussion about Scruton— rather than take issue with how people respond to it.

While I'm complaining about the way people are engaging with these issues, another thing which really annoys me: the supposed splintering of communities upon the steadfast political positions people hold.

The form of media is almost largely responsible for that. The pool of people we can commute with is far larger because we can just shoot messages over the net, rather than talking to people who live near us and having to make do. Echo chambers are an inevitable result of a diverse media landscape, combined with our ability to self select our community. Most of us aren't going to want to spend time talking with the we find politically unpleasant, when we could just select a group of people who share our interests (including politics).

Modern broadcast media also enables this because it splits up into ideological entertainment. Not only can well select our own groups, but the media does for us too. It specifically puts us in the mode of thinking in terms of a constant beat down of political teams (see all the guff of "balanced" punditry) often a far cry from genuine engagement with political or social issues. People will move to media which argues for their views, if it is available, especially if the supposedly serious media is treating everything like a game of "debate" and "balanced" opinions.

In terms of political opposition, our ideas are no less opposed than sixties or seventies, for example. The feminists, civil rights activists, LGBT+ activists, etc., were no less definite in calling out the ideas and politics of that time as something that needed to be abandoned.The all-compassing opposition ( "going for the throat" in terms of ideas and values) of politics isn't new. People just mistake it for a new phenomena because they haven't been paying attention what the politics concerned about.

Wtf? No, I was pointing out evasion and misrepresentation. Frank has done this and you backed him up a little by saying his words were “consistent” with what Paglia said. They were NOT consistent with what she said and nowhere did I say that you’d misinterpreted Paglia.

it's actually revoking the use of a platform by someone who ostensibly already has access to it (a subtle but important distinction) — VagabondSpectre

I'm not sure if what followed was the explication, but I don't feel like you've made the case for it being 'important'. I agree it's a difference, but I'm not so sure how important a one it is.

The damage there is that a bunch of students really wanted to hear Shapiros ideas, and so by shutting down the event, they interfered with the free speech of their fellow students who have every right to decide who they want to invite as a speaker at their private events. — VagabondSpectre

But free-speech (in terms of having a platform like the one Ben Shapiro had) is interfered with in this way all the time. I don't have enough money to do what Shapiro does, is the economy interfering with my free speech? The trouble is we're not starting from a blank slate, so to give people an equal right to speak from where they are now, is not equality of opportunity, it's re-inforcement of the status quo. How is the effect on freedom to speak of the protesting students materially any different to the effect on the freedom to speak of the revenue-based format of the global media? How is it materially any different to the qualifications/fame barrier of columnists for major newspapers?

I think with cases like these, people seem to mix two ideas. The first is the principle that human society works best with a free exchange of ideas. This is something I'm entirely supportive of. But this has nothing to do with the Shapiro affair. The reason why people wanted to hear him speak is because they'd already heard his ideas and wanted to rally behind him. They didn't randomly invite the guy in the spirit of widening their concepts. The reason why the protesters wanted to prevent his speech is because they too had already heard his ideas and didn't want their university to be associated with them (among a host of other incentives no doubt). None of the conflict was to do with hearing his ideas for the first time, that has already happened,and was fully facilitated (in fact encouraged) by the way our idea-discussing platforms are already arranged to favour people like Shapiro (wealthy, charismatic, controversial) and disfavour many whose ideas might be just as useful.

The media makes it difficult for those who are not wealthy, charismatic and controversial to have their ideas heard. Academic institutions make it difficult for those who are not wealthy (again!) and well-read to have their ideas heard. The liberal protest movement might make it difficult for those who are not 'politically correct' to have their ideas heard. I'm still not seeing the 'important' difference.

you think about it, trying to institute a political correctness rule would just send us down the road of always kowtowing to the loudest source of outrage. What is and is not politically correct is contested, and constantly changes. Do you really want to put corporations and professional victims in that driver seat? — VagabondSpectre

But some group already is in the 'driver seat'. There already is a rule for having a platform. You have to be wealthy enough to finance it, charismatic enough to carry it off, well-read enough to be accepted (even when there is no body of fact to be knowledgeable on), and controversial enough to get enough 'hits' (even the academic publishers are just as guiltily here). Are those factors ones you want in the driver's seat?

To me, it's a bit like the adversarial system in law. No one really likes it as it feels wrong to be trying as hard as one can to let a potential criminal go free, rather than just find out the 'truth'. But the other side are trying as hard as they can to put them away. So the adversarial system is the best we have. Similarly each pressure group is going to be trying as hard as they can to allow/promote only the ideas they see as 'worthy' of discussion. If we single out one group and ask them not to try as hard as they can, to refrain from some action they think might work, we're tipping the balance in favour of the other pressures whom we have not similarly bound.

Well, if its all just a series of undeniable objective facts then we all might as well just go home, job done. I can't think what we've all been wasting our time on.