I agree, he shouldn't have been shouted down and I agree wholeheartedly that shouting down speakers, especially those brought in specifically to create "illiberal woke leftist" headlines is counterproductive (I specifically said I wasn't going to address the students' heckling in my comment - to be clear, I think it was dumb and counterp…
I agree, he shouldn't have been shouted down and I agree wholeheartedly that shouting down speakers, especially those brought in specifically to create "illiberal woke leftist" headlines is counterproductive (I specifically said I wasn't going to address the students' heckling in my comment - to be clear, I think it was dumb and counterproductive).
I may have gotten myself a bit wrapped around the axle with my specific animus towards the 5th circuit, but the core point is more of a meta one. Does every single person invited onto campus by any organization (or in this specific case, a right-wing organization) deserve our automatic respect? Specifically, how should we approach and frame reporting on these incidents?
I take issue with straightforwardly framing this as an "illiberal woke student" situation. When things like this happen, do we unilaterally condemn the students while noting the fact that the invited speaker is a troll/demagogue barely an afterthought?
To be a bit more clear, I feel like when we report this and approach this in a fashion that centers the troll speaker as inherently legitimate and prop up the perspective that the left-wing students are uniquely wrong in this situation, we ignore a ton of the context. Context which frames the situation as a whole - what's a better framing, "Right-wing troll unfairly heckled (though he didn't act great himself!)" or "Everyone acted badly here. Students shouldn't have heckled, but right-wing troll was there to troll and didn't establish his/her demanded deference?"
Does the definition of a troll include those who take their substack blogging practice out on us? 25/44 of the instances of the word troll on this page are from wrapping your meta around your animus axle.
He was invited to speak by a presumably approved student group of the University. They gave him a space, as they would presumably have done for any other approved student group. I don't think it requires respect for the speaker to not trample all over another group's University provided rights (to invite people and hear them speak in University facilities).
If you don't like the speaker, protest outside. If you don't like the group for their decisions, protest them. If you don't like the University for its decisions, protest them.
Ultimately I don't think the power to shut down speech should rest with any handful of people who can shout loud and be disruptive. That power will quickly be abused (at least it would if the yellers weren't busy scoring own goals in the court of public opinion).
People want results right now, and the yellers tell themselves they got what they wanted, by stopping the speech, but hearts and minds take longer. I am reminded of the Edmund Pettus bridge which I visited a few years ago. Now it isn't the same in all kinds of ways, but those who wanted to stop the other side succeeded that day. They did not succeed in the long run.
I agree, he shouldn't have been shouted down and I agree wholeheartedly that shouting down speakers, especially those brought in specifically to create "illiberal woke leftist" headlines is counterproductive (I specifically said I wasn't going to address the students' heckling in my comment - to be clear, I think it was dumb and counterproductive).
I may have gotten myself a bit wrapped around the axle with my specific animus towards the 5th circuit, but the core point is more of a meta one. Does every single person invited onto campus by any organization (or in this specific case, a right-wing organization) deserve our automatic respect? Specifically, how should we approach and frame reporting on these incidents?
I take issue with straightforwardly framing this as an "illiberal woke student" situation. When things like this happen, do we unilaterally condemn the students while noting the fact that the invited speaker is a troll/demagogue barely an afterthought?
To be a bit more clear, I feel like when we report this and approach this in a fashion that centers the troll speaker as inherently legitimate and prop up the perspective that the left-wing students are uniquely wrong in this situation, we ignore a ton of the context. Context which frames the situation as a whole - what's a better framing, "Right-wing troll unfairly heckled (though he didn't act great himself!)" or "Everyone acted badly here. Students shouldn't have heckled, but right-wing troll was there to troll and didn't establish his/her demanded deference?"
Does the definition of a troll include those who take their substack blogging practice out on us? 25/44 of the instances of the word troll on this page are from wrapping your meta around your animus axle.
He was invited to speak by a presumably approved student group of the University. They gave him a space, as they would presumably have done for any other approved student group. I don't think it requires respect for the speaker to not trample all over another group's University provided rights (to invite people and hear them speak in University facilities).
If you don't like the speaker, protest outside. If you don't like the group for their decisions, protest them. If you don't like the University for its decisions, protest them.
Ultimately I don't think the power to shut down speech should rest with any handful of people who can shout loud and be disruptive. That power will quickly be abused (at least it would if the yellers weren't busy scoring own goals in the court of public opinion).
People want results right now, and the yellers tell themselves they got what they wanted, by stopping the speech, but hearts and minds take longer. I am reminded of the Edmund Pettus bridge which I visited a few years ago. Now it isn't the same in all kinds of ways, but those who wanted to stop the other side succeeded that day. They did not succeed in the long run.