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In a rather well-timed yet coincidental counterpoint to Why we're Losing the Internet to the Culture of Hate, Milo Yiannopoulos over at Breitbart brings us this:
A warped currency today governs popular culture. Instead of creativity, talent and boldness, those who succeed are often those who can best demonstrate outrage, grievance and victimhood.
Even conservatives are buying into it. Witness, in the days since Breitbart executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon was announced as Donald Trump's campaign manager, how establishment stooges have bought into the worst smear-tactics of the left. As with the left, nothing is evaluated on its quality, or whether it's factually accurate, thought-provoking or even amusing: only whether it can be deemed sexist, racist or homophobic.
Campuses are where the illness takes its most severe form. Students running for safe spaces at the slightest hint of a challenge to their coddled worldview. Faculties and administrations desperately trying to sabotage visits from conservative speakers (often me!) to avoid the inevitable complaints from tearful lefty students.
In this maelstrom of grievance, there is one group boldly swimming against the tide: trolls.
Trolling has become a byword for everything the left disagrees with, particularly if it's boisterous, mischievous and provocative. Even straightforward political disagreement, not intended to provoke, is sometimes described as "trolling" by leftists who can't tell the difference between someone who doesn't believe as they do and an "abuser" or "harasser."
Yeah, you knew I wouldn't let that kinda SJW nonsense slide without comment.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:18PM
They have typically made enough noise that nobody could hear him. See any of the numerous situations where their "rebuttal" was air horns.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:39PM
They have typically made enough noise that nobody could hear him. See any of the numerous situations where their "rebuttal" was air horns.
So?? Now you're trying to make a distinction based on degree, not on morality of action.
The facts are thus: (1) Most people like to claim we live in a civilized society. (2) Civilized society has various rules and conventions for "polite" behavior in various contexts. (3) Reasoned discourse involves various conventions, which as you rightly point out, varies by the capabilities of the medium. (4) Trolls, pretty much by definition, are people who refuse to adhere to such conventions for reasoned discourse. They create disruptions and distractions that undermine the social conventions which allow reasoned discourse to proceed smoothly.
Mr. Yiannopoulos here argues in favor of the trolls. His opinion piece makes no distinctions of "degree" for acceptable disruption, as you attempt to do here. If he did, I'd happily side with your distinction. But instead, Mr. Yiannopoulos explicitly encourages those on campus with "their thick skins and their contempt for social norms" to act.
And they are. Just some of them are acting against him. Perhaps Mr. Yiannopoulos should take his own advice: "Trolls lose interest when their targets stop taking themselves so seriously." He clearly thinks of himself as deserving of a place of honor, a "safe space" for him to talk aloud for an extended period without interruption. He wants to be "special." Well, perhaps if he wants to avoid the trolls, he needs to give up this idea that he is so deserving of special treatment. He needs to stop taking himself "so seriously." That might involve giving up speaking gigs, though.
OR, maybe he could adopt a more rational worldview in favor of reasoned discourse rather than anarchy and the sowing of discord. In which case, I'd gladly agree with you that the protesters are acting wrongly. For now, he's clearly getting precisely what he's asking for.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:58PM
Degree? I make the distinction on silencing of speech vs disagreeing. Period.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:52PM
Let's translate: I don't like the politics you do and can't come up with a good reason why, so let's split hairs on the finest details of your position until you give up from frustration!