Yes, I still have major concerns. Positive discrimination, on the basis of race, is racist. If we want to help people out of a hole, we should help the people in the hole. Not the population of people who look like the people in the hole. It's not like we don't know how to identify the people actually in the hole and, to the extent the populations overlap, doing so would also have the desired affect on whatever correlated racial group.

But don't rebut that, it's beside the point. The argument I'm trying to make is an argument about arguments. Seems to me, people have a lot of difficulty being charitable to their opponents. It's too easy to profoundly misunderstand each other. I don't trust your hubris on this, that you would do more good than harm as Grand Curator of ideas. I have the same hubris and I don't trust it in myself either. These utilitarian calculations you're doing are impossible. Freedom to express earnestly held ideas and beliefs just seems foundational to the human condition to me. You need a really really good reason to suppress that and hurt feelings don't even come close. I'm a meta-ethical utilitarian and, like you, I've done the calculation. But, I emphasize, it's not that I'm correct. It's that self-righteous meddling is an indulgence that should be held in check.

Then my definition of racism is wrong. This isn't a game where we try to catch each other out with grammar, we're talking about ethics which affect people's lives. — Pseudonym

OK, so have another try at defining it. It's not so easy. There's no consensus about this. You want to deplatform racists and my concern is that we're not capable of identifying them consistently and fairly. It's not about grammar.

We've never trusted politicians with the censorship of speech and I think for good reason.

Affirmative action always entails treating people differently based on their birth parents, which is the definition of racism you proposed.

Oh, good, you mean politicians. That's reassuring because I can't imagine them silencing oppositional political views by disingenuously painting them as racist.

Let me ask you an honest, non-rhetorical, question. Is affirmative action racist?

The reverse psychology line of argument is, to me, a minor part of the overall set of objections.

Who exactly is this rational 'we' that get to de-platform the less enlightened 'them'? How would we maintain the network of rational narrative filterers and ensure we don't end up in a big echo chamber of the dominant ideology?

Racism is quite clearly defined as being treating someone differently because of their birth parents. — Pseudonym

This is a good place to start. Is that the definition we're using?

Because society at large is obsessed with it right now and is pushing a narrative laced with misplaced guilt and overcompensation. Cognitive dissonance motivates posting.

I think if you genuinely appreciate women, you don't need them to be just like men. The outlier men are way better than the outlier women at (most) sports. It's trivially true. When someone is inclined to perform mental gymnastics to reframe that (a very common reaction today), I think it betrays a deepseeded and pernicious form of misogyny.

Jordan Peterson's competitive advantage is that he's primarily concerned with truth. He doesn't have to do mental gymnastics in service of ideology like his opponents. That's not to say he doesn't have an ideology or that he always succeeds in speaking the truth. The honesty is refreshing though, admirable guy.

The statistics get misused grossly. Their utility is in identifying areas where there might be a problem. Then, the next step should be to investigate that area carefully and address actual instances of discrimination. Attempting to arrive at preset statistical goals just doesn't do justice to the complexity of free choice. We should be agnostic about what the optimal statistical landscape looks like.

This applies to both the wage gap and the freedom gap.

Woosh.

What percentage of crimes (punishable by jail) are committed by men?

Whatever the percentage, surely it's due to systematized social constructions and not that men are inherently more criminal than women, right?

My point is only that engineering equality of outcome is a misguided, neverending pursuit. But IF we get to a point where we're taking it seriously, being imprisoned is a much bigger deal than making a bit less money.

Gender pay gap is both real and exaggerated for political use. It's a complex phenomenon that surely includes some degree of actual discrimination. Discrimination is the part that should be addressed - not the statistically correlated symptom.

Personally, I think the gender freedom gap should be a bigger concern. 93% of inmates are men. If we're going to target equality of outcome, we should address that first.

I don’t think that’s a charitable read of what folks have said. I haven’t come away with the same impression. I try to be careful not to misdiagnose genuine passion for virtue signaling, as common as the latter is these days.

You started this thread in a deliberately clandestine way, referring to a 'movement', but would not say which, that was raising the right not to be offended, but hat's not what's got us bogged down though, as I've had many ethical discussions that have started out trying to define a general trend, they've generally sought to first define that trend and then move on to discussing the ethics without too much trouble... — Pseudonym

No, you've got me wrong. Everyone seems to understand the phenomena I wanted to discuss pretty well. Sorry if you don't like the discussion. It's gone OK from my perspective. Thanks for the advice...

I've had the sneaking suspicion that, to some extent, you and Un both have the 2nd type in mind while it's really the 1st type (ability to express ideas) that's important to me. Suppressing speech is not quite the same thing as suppressing ideas and it's occurred to me that equivocation, on my part, might have us bogged down a bit (granted, it doesn't fully account for our disagreement).

So, it's one thing to allow the expression of unpopular ideas and it's another to allow someone to beat people over the head with them once clearly expressed. At its edges, this is not at all an easy distinction to make, but I think it's a significant one.

I think this exchange is a good example to use as a segue into a more nuanced point.

I see an important distinction to be drawn between 1) expressing or clarifying an idea vs 2) repeating a fully communicated idea ad nauseam. To me, free speech is much more important with respect to 1) than 2).

Thoughts on this?

Unless your Benevolent Administrator doesn't subscribe to your utilitarianism. Then it's an altogether different analysis they're making, isn't it? Maybe the analysis is 'does the speaker's views undermine my particular conception of social justice?'. I'd rather decide for myself and let others do the same.

Your question is why I think it's unfounded confidence to believe you understand, and can accurately assess the public value of, someone's beliefs before they speak but not after? Not sure what to tell you there, man. You're either asking some real softball type questions or we're really misunderstanding each other.

Care to define racism? I bet we couldn't reach a consensus within this thread, much less in society at large.

There simply is not universal agreement about who the racists are. You seem to have an unfounded confidence in understanding other people's positions before they speak. Are you ever wrong about someone? How do you find out? I don't trust the folks in position to do this filtering to be as infallible as you.

All discussions don't need to take place, but the potential for them to take place is foundational. The lack of a discussion is also more meaningful if it's permitted. I believe you're missing my point, which is entirely my own fault, so I'll take some time to reflect on my position.

I want to say I'm fine with this and that I'm content to draw the line at legislation. Corruption ensures there are still serious, related, problems but corruption is another matter.

Firstly, that we should 'reasonably evaluate' rights. How are we going to enforce a 'reasonable' evaluation without preventing people from making claims which are unreasonable? — Pseudonym

It's not possible to allow all reasonable claims while preventing all unreasonable claims. So, we have to be able to deal with unreasonable claims. What chance does a confused person have at being corrected if we prevent them from articulating their beliefs?

Second, that this is "the mechanism by which we achieve the other social goods". What cause do you have to believe that all discussions on rights are necessary to achieve social goods. — Pseudonym

I don't see how we'll determine which discussions are good and which are bad if they don't take place to begin with?

I'll give this some more thought, I'm not sure I've given you the most charitable read that I can come up with.

I'll just say it's very important to me that you're free to articulate that. You keep the racists out of teaching positions by exercising free speech, not by restricting it.

I'd like to explore this claim if others are willing:
Those making the case to restrict free speech rely on free speech to make the case.

Agree or disagree? Is there any significance to this? I'm sensing something like a fundamental hierarchy to the structure of rights that just happens to be obscured by our vernacular. I'm not sure. If someone can help me untangle this, that'd be great.

I'm having a tip-of-the-tongue reaction to your line of argument here. My sense is that the ability to perform the duties you're outlining, to balance benefits of free speech vs harms and hash it out, is actually contingent upon free speech in the first place. Free speech is a pre-requisite to reasonably evaluate and uphold other rights. It's the mechanism by which we achieve the other social goods.

I probably don't agree with you about the kinds of speech it's reasonable to restrict. e.g. I think the racists should be allowed to state their position. We have to live with them either way. Better to know what they're up to and have the chance to talk some of them out of it. I suspect the alternative is much worse.

Importantly, you don't just think that, it's an actual legal right.

You are being extremely oversimplistic, in my humble opinion. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I'm deliberately simplistic about rights because, outside of the legal domain, it's a very imprecise and flimsy concept that generates endless semantic quibbling. If you think you have a certain right, but the folks you're interacting with simply disagree, then you don't have the right. Everyone has veto power on that one. That's how I see it.

We're on the same page. When a movement insists that a right exists, but does not exist, my reading between the lines is that they'd like it to be legislated. So, I was wondering if anyone had a compelling case to make that this would be good for society.

Personally, I find it absurd and, as I noted, scary. Just trying to check myself before I wreck myself. Sometimes the smart folks here see angles that aren't apparent to me.

The honor culture parallel had never occurred to me and I find it very interesting.

Totally agree with your version of the right to not be offended. There's a very important difference between 'we have the right not to be offended' and 'we have the duty not to offend anyone'. Thanks for highlighting that.

Sure, that's just fine. As long as you're the one who gets to define your own position. Telling me to eff off would be a perfectly appropriate, non-Orwellian, recourse.

Just watched this, what a great example. Thanks.

For instance, I would not be entitled to be addressed as Dr unenlightened MD, because I am not an MD, but if you refuse to address me as Mr unenlightened BA, then I want to know the reason why. ;) — Un

Ah, now I think we're in the transgender context. Another particular movement with good examples of the phenomenon I mean to discuss. Wanting to know the reason would be a perfectly reasonable reaction. And maybe you'd find out I have one (e.g. your degree was clearly photoshopped) or maybe you'd find out I'm just an asshole. That's an important step that seems to be getting skipped lately, in my estimation.

I was actually thinking you might be one to articulate a charitable case for the idea, thanks for responding. I notice a startlingly heavy emphasis on this duty not to offend lately in public discourse. I'm surprised if you really can't see why I might find this trend scary (careful, I'm almost offended by the implications).

I think you touched on something important here - the distinction between rights and duties. I might have a duty not to (gratuitously) offend. Sounds fair, but the qualifier is important. Do you have a duty to ensure I don't take offense?

Sounds like the MeToo context, which is one such context where this crops up. Just to be clear that's not the particular movement I'm referring to, although it seems related.

I don't care to name it - it is exactly whatever it is. If you don't agree there is such a movement, then duly noted.

So, the case being made is that (some) trans people need me to validate their particular conception of gender identity. Depriving them of this validation is violence on my part.

But this is crazy. Identities don't exist in a private vacuum. They're functions of each other, socially negotiated and defined by contrast. If I treat my own identity as equally sacrosanct, an impasse immediately arises. I'm something different from a female to male transsexual. If the distinction is important to me and others refuse to acknowledge it, we'd have to consider that violence too.

I don't require others to validate my identity. It's a pathological endeavor and it would entail coercing others to privilege my identity over their own. Ironically, that's much closer to violence than the claim being examined in the OP.

Semantics are important here. It's clear to me that this movement deliberately engages in compound verbal rounding error to appropriate shock from other contexts. I see a lot wrong with that. Be very careful with this.

BTW, do you see anything suspect about a self proclaimed gender noncomformist demanding that everyone conform to their ideas about gender?

No, it's not violence. This revising of words is a dastardly tactic and you shouldn't put up with it. How many laws get revised along with it if we accept a radically broad definition of violence? Be very careful with this.

At a certain level of analysis, group identity, in and of itself, seems to be a deeply confused and inextricably racist/sexist or otherwise superficially discriminatory concept. So society is only spinning its wheels on the matter.

The way I see it, experience is a fundamentally individual thing. The individual is the ultimate minority. When you look to assign me guilt, pity, or whatever, look at my actual circumstances and not traits that are statistically correlated with my appearance. That's how to avoid making enemies out of allies in the quest for a better world.