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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35888 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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I believe that you are mis-specifying your research questions. You cherry-pick two issues and conclude that "the current dominant iteration of left-liberal politics" is more authoritarian-leaning than the current dominant iteration of right politics, but that is almost certainly untrue. On many other currently dominant issues, such as crime and immigration, it is those on the right who take the more authoritarian position. And, re one of the two issues you mention, free speech, the authoritarian position is hardly the sole province of those on the left; it all depends on the speech in question.

So, if you are really interested in exploring this issue, and your post is not just an elaborate "boo outgroup," you need to compare the true outliers re support for authoritarian policies (ie, libertarians) to everyone else.

And, btw, here is a paper that weighs against your hypothesis. It finds that exposure to androstenone increases preferences for social order, which of course is a conservative position (see, eg, the recent discussion here of the German Green Party poster) and hypothesizes that detecting androstenone in others is interpreted as a sign of potential danger, which certainly implies a concomitant reduction in perceived ability to protect oneself from harm.

My comment was not intended as a "boo outgroup" comment. While I have misgivings about the authoritarian leanings of many Western left-liberal parties/movements, I also think many libertarians are completely nuts, and I'm glad not to live in a country in which gun ownership is common. If someone I know hung this poster on their house, I'd think they were a lunatic.

the authoritarian position is hardly the sole province of those on the left

I never claimed it was and I don't know why you're implying that I did. I made the much narrower claim that, in the West, hostility to free speech is more commonly found among left-liberal parties than right-leaning parties. This does not remotely imply that left-liberal parties are the only parties which are hostile to freedom of speech, in the West or elsewhere.

And, btw, here is a paper that weighs against your hypothesis.

Thank you, I look forward to reading it.

YW.

Re the free speech issue, I meant that it is by no means obvious that hostility to free speech is greater on the left than on the right. Rather, those on the left are hostile to certain types of speech, while those on the right are hostile to other types of speech. In my experience, very few people on either side support free speech in principle to any degree.

Rather, those on the left are hostile to certain types of speech, while those on the left are hostile to other types of speech

Freudian slip? :P

I take your point though.

Given my work, definitely not. But fixed, thx

The idea that speech is innately valuable is intuitively wrong to many, myself included -- free speech as a principle has always been an underdog struggling against human nature.

I don't think free speech advocates generally believe that (all) speech is innately valuable. Indeed, most defenders of free speech will address the obvious fact that they are frequently defending shitty speech from terrible/crazy/stupid people. The argument is that "the right to speak your mind without being punished" - i.e., that the Powers That Be should not be able to define what you are or are not allowed to say - is innately valuable.

Obviously, there are failure modes (hence the typical leftist pedantry about how censorship by every media and financial platform in the world isn't really censorship, it's just "social consequences for your behavior"), and there are also arguments people have made here that actually, censorship is good and the government should restrict what you can say ("to what aligns with my values," of course), but "speech is innately valuable" is a straw man.

The argument is that "the right to speak your mind without being punished" - i.e., that the Powers That Be should not be able to define what you are or are not allowed to say - is innately valuable.

How can speaking your mind be valuable if the speech itself is not? What about you, random person, is so incredible that the mere act of saying your shitty thoughts out loud transforms them into something worthwhile?

You say it's a strawman, I say it's a necessary component to free speech. The human soul is not an alchemic chalice transforming lead into gold, here.

How can speaking your mind be valuable if the speech itself is not?

Because I would like to be able to speak my mind, even if I'm an idiot or a loon, without being put in jail or cast out of society. That is the principle being defended, not "Everything that comes out of everyone's mouth is worth hearing."

Okay, but why do I want you to speak your mind? That's why I said free speech is the underdog. Of course we all want to speak; but why should anyone else give a damn and let us?

Free speech is a hard sale, which is why so many people don't really support it.

Okay, but why do I want you to speak your mind?

Slippery slope, game theory, etc. Many of our civil rights are established not based on the principle that everyone agrees that they are universally good for everyone to exercise all the time, but on the basis that we would not like our enemies to be able to deprive us of them even if it would be pleasant to deprive our enemies of them.

Obviously, if you think you can gain power and hold power forever, then it is only by your own charity that anyone else is allowed to have rights.

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Also it seems opposite of the thrive survive model that Scott posits. (Which I think better explains more of those unmentioned issues you bring up)

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