Posts by DCBCauchi
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As jokes go, this is pretty elaborate.
A wee while ago in the 'Limping onwards' thread, Danyl got into an argument that ended up with him criticising the local culture's 'enforced niceness', specifically citing the situation where, when an outsider insults a regular, the moderator sternly steps in (in marked contrast to a regular insulting an outsider). Within a short time, this criticism had been turned completely on its head and people are slapping each other on the back about what a virtue it was (the general criticism, I mean, not the specific one cited). Cognitive dissonance? Or set up for the joke?
Not so long ago in the 'Perverse entertainment' thread, someone calling themselves Kracklite embarked on a jaw-dropping series of posts systematically dehumanising and objectifying another human being. You'd think, especially given its proximity to Danyl's critique, that this would've been quickly stepped on. But no-one bats an eye – it's the straight-face delivery.
And then, here, along comes the punchline.
Hats off!
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Whether or not Danyl's argument is 'baiting' 'sophistry' isn't overly relevant. It's just a statement of a fairly common point of view, as the only decent response (the Megan who works at a university and is a union rep) recognised.
For at least the last 20 years, universities have not been funded and run as institutions of pure research whose academic freedom is paramount but as contributors to economic growth (by training productive knowledge workers). It's telling that the usual academic freedom arguments haven't been used here, just an unhelpful 'bollocks' and the argument that a general humanities education makes you a more productive worker.
The few advocates for the public good of free inquiry have not been very specific about that good, nor persuasive about the need for it.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Carol Stewart,
Yeah, that's pretty scary, eh?
From that Wikipedia article: 'Compulsory voting can be seen as infringing a basic freedom of the citizen.'
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Idiot Savant,
I find the idea that voters have a “responsibility” to elect your preferred government deeply troubling and undemocratic.
Bluntly, I’ll vote for whoever the fuck I like, on whatever basis I like.
And that includes not voting.
People do not have a responsibility to vote. There are many valid reasons for not doing so.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to giovanni tiso,
You’re confusing the violence inherent in the system with police brutality or prisoner rape. They are two different things. Police, courts and prisons are the violence. You probably should have stayed till the end of that anarchist meeting, eh?
No, I don't think I am. I am making a separate claim than the one that the institutions are inherently violent.
But you're right, I never did stay to the end of those anarchist meetings. Fuck that.
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It's incredible how for some people some things seem to be literally unthinkable.
I never said that without the threat of prison violence people would run riot(or some such nonsense) nor did I suggest it is an explicit part of the sentencing process. I am saying that you can't have police, courts, and prisons without the violence that necessarily goes along with that. It's meant to be frightening.
Crime is not 'outside' of our society. It's a functioning part of it just like everything else.
I just think it's wrong for anyone, whoever they are, to be beaten by the police, stigmatised by the media, and thrown in jail.
As for the Mary Whitehouse wanna-bes, I'm not in favour of limits on free speech, broadcast or otherwise. Shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre can be, and has been, a valid artistic strategy.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
That's a fascinating hypothesis. So if you were arrested by mistake you'd be comfortable being beaten by the arresting officers and raped in your cell, on the grounds that you were contributing to the wider social good?
Only if I thought the rule of law were a good thing.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Sacha,
Bullshit to notions that 'free speech' means freedom to a megaphone and from consequences. Broadcasting comes with conditions. Take the right-wing tosh elsewhere, David.
Well, there you go. I didn't realise that thinking that a diversity of voices within a culture are a good thing and that self-appointed guardians of community morals attempting to silence people they don't approve of is a bad thing is right wing tosh nowadays.
Doublethinkplusgood!
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A couple of people have mentioned that things like police beatings and prison rape are not meant to happen in civilised countries. They are dead wrong. Whether it is consciously acknowledged or not, civilised society (i.e. the rule of law) absolutely requires such threats as police beatings and prison rape to function.
Assuming most readers are law-abiding members of the middle classes, think about your own attitude to going to prison. Sure, the loss of freedom is by no means an insignificant factor, but can you honestly say other fears play no part?
This, I imagine, is what Nietzsche meant by 'Civilisation invented crime' (rather than the trite meaning that crime is defined by laws). A manageable criminal element is needed to keep the rest of society in line.
And 'concerted action to remove [Laws's] access to a pulpit that harms the community’s understanding and moral development' is an outrageous suggestion. Like it or not, Laws is just as entitled to express his point of view as anyone else. The idea of self-appointed committees deciding who and what 'harms moral development' gives me the shits almost as much as the national mood ever since two days after the quake has done.
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Muse: Shelf Life: The Dying Elephant in…, in reply to Islander,
'Which' was but one example of many. All languages have grammar. You could say that language = words + rules for combining and modifying those words.
The important point is that, regardless of what they are in any individual case, all words and all rules have been made up by people.
If no life had ever evolved anywhere in the universe, there would be no words and no sentences in any language, nor anything like them. But 2 + 2 would still = 4.