I see that presumably your instance is German; perhaps there is a misunderstanding of culture then? In America there was a widespread belief in “classical liberal” or “libertarian” values, which would allow access to pretty much any text. This view was represented on a lot of the culture of the internet for a while including much of Reddit at its founding until sometime within the last decade. The decision to not tolerate access to such texts was thought to be fundamentally anti-American and alien to the free culture that prevailed, and so really there wasn’t much of a discussion on the topic; this move of barring access to the texts would have simply been widely ridiculed and rejected…
Because usually these texts are actually laughably bad. If people can come to them critically, on their own terms, Mein Kampf, the Turner Diaries, and so on end up being laugh track material when racist fuckheads trot them out. Keeping them in the dark means that the only people controlling the narrative and access to these texts are the bad guys; they gain a lot more control over how these texts are talked about, and that’s not a good thing.
I think that’s a different analogy; this is more like allowing adults to read a piece praising a philosophy of stealing (which most people reject), which would be different from actually stealing something (or handing out physical firearms)
I think it really comes down to how much faith you have in other people. I know it’s popular to hate and mistrust other people, and I think that’s how the dominant market, social, and political forces like it. I think other people have an unfair rap, and most folks are generally decent, intelligent people who genuinely want to do the right thing. We never would have survived as a species if that wasn’t true, imo, much less built cities of any kind. If you don’t have that faith, I can’t give it to you. As for me, I’ve been around, lived a lot of places, did thirteen years in EMS and seen a lot of folks on their worst day, and I’ve been left with the impression that while the worst actors are the loudest, most people deserve more credit than we give them.
As free speech has become more limited, it seems that relations between different groups has gotten markedly worse. In spite of legal protection against so-called “hate speech”, it seems that hate has increased. I think it’s in part because hate is ugly and so bringing it out into the open is how you show how ugly it is, while hiding it hides how ugly it really is.
One of the death knells of the KKK was a reporter going in and explaining it in detail, which immediately showed that it looked like the scribblings in a notebook of some 14 year old boy with no sense of irony. The group ended up not needing to be banned because it was self-refuting once people understood what they were looking at in its entirety.
Not tolerating anti-semitic texts is bad how, OP? Please, take your time to elaborate.
I see that presumably your instance is German; perhaps there is a misunderstanding of culture then? In America there was a widespread belief in “classical liberal” or “libertarian” values, which would allow access to pretty much any text. This view was represented on a lot of the culture of the internet for a while including much of Reddit at its founding until sometime within the last decade. The decision to not tolerate access to such texts was thought to be fundamentally anti-American and alien to the free culture that prevailed, and so really there wasn’t much of a discussion on the topic; this move of barring access to the texts would have simply been widely ridiculed and rejected…
Especially on a subreddit whose raison d’etre is ostensibly to criticize the banning of books.
Because usually these texts are actually laughably bad. If people can come to them critically, on their own terms, Mein Kampf, the Turner Diaries, and so on end up being laugh track material when racist fuckheads trot them out. Keeping them in the dark means that the only people controlling the narrative and access to these texts are the bad guys; they gain a lot more control over how these texts are talked about, and that’s not a good thing.
Nope. That still propagates bad philosophy to people incapable of combating it.
It would be like handing out firearms in a preschool.
If you feel the need to engage the ideology, there are more appropriate settings than social media to interact with them.
I think that’s a different analogy; this is more like allowing adults to read a piece praising a philosophy of stealing (which most people reject), which would be different from actually stealing something (or handing out physical firearms)
I think it really comes down to how much faith you have in other people. I know it’s popular to hate and mistrust other people, and I think that’s how the dominant market, social, and political forces like it. I think other people have an unfair rap, and most folks are generally decent, intelligent people who genuinely want to do the right thing. We never would have survived as a species if that wasn’t true, imo, much less built cities of any kind. If you don’t have that faith, I can’t give it to you. As for me, I’ve been around, lived a lot of places, did thirteen years in EMS and seen a lot of folks on their worst day, and I’ve been left with the impression that while the worst actors are the loudest, most people deserve more credit than we give them.
I tend to agree with you on this point.
As free speech has become more limited, it seems that relations between different groups has gotten markedly worse. In spite of legal protection against so-called “hate speech”, it seems that hate has increased. I think it’s in part because hate is ugly and so bringing it out into the open is how you show how ugly it is, while hiding it hides how ugly it really is.
One of the death knells of the KKK was a reporter going in and explaining it in detail, which immediately showed that it looked like the scribblings in a notebook of some 14 year old boy with no sense of irony. The group ended up not needing to be banned because it was self-refuting once people understood what they were looking at in its entirety.
refusing to tolerate it is combating it.
nazis just don’t like when others do that and perform lots of mental gymnastics to rationalize why everyone should put up with their ideas anyway.
lol