[note: slightly edited to remove some hyperbole and try to make the actual point I want to make, rather than getting sidetracked in unhelpful polemic] I think this is a pretty good example of how...
Exemplary
[note: slightly edited to remove some hyperbole and try to make the actual point I want to make, rather than getting sidetracked in unhelpful polemic]
I think this is a pretty good example of how Israel has become a "wedge" issue on the right used to attack people on the left.
I don't think that antisemitism is widespread on the left. Partially right-wing groups have managed to redefine anti-semitism to mean "do you support the Israeli government and its actions against the Palestinians". In this way I think right-wing groups have managed to undermine the whole concept of anti-semitism by reducing it to "do you support Israel" and thus hamstrung basically all conversations about fighting discrimination against Jews outside of Israel. I think also the "I support Israel" line is used among those on the right and the far right to distract and deflect attention away from their antisemitism.
When people ask me why people on the left (which I am decidedly on) supposedly don't try to fight antisemitism in the same way that they do e.g. anti-black racism, one issue is that there is a perspective that antisemitism has become just another tool in the arsenal of the right as they try to fight a Kulturkampf. Of course anti-semitism is terrible and we should seek to eradicate it, but commenting on it or attempting to fight it is often shut down by the question "do you support Israel?".
By the way, in case anyone thinks I support Hamas, I don't. This espouses my view pretty well:
As to Hamas and its actions in the Occupied Territories, I know that the organization is one of the only ones expressing resistance.... Yet for any secular intellectual to make a devil's pact with a religious movement is, I think, to substitute convenience for principle. It is simply the other side of the pact we made during the past several decades with dictatorship and nationalism, for example, supporting Saddam Hussein when he went to war with"the Persians."
Edward Saïd, Peace and its Discontents
I also don't personally believe that violent protest movements are effective, and I certainly don't support the militarisation of protest movements – once a protest movement switches from peaceful, nonviolent resistance to armed struggle the groups who lead the movement change; the leaders of protest movements cease to be people who are skilled in mustering consensus, or communicating a plight well, or organising civil society and instead become people who enjoy violence, who are good at military planning, who thrive running heirarchical military organisations (who inevitably make for terrible leaders both during wartime and especially after).
The students' statement is apparently on Instagram. It's very short. An obvious problem is that it means that no matter what Hamas does, Israel is responsible. It seems like a rather weird and...
The students' statement is apparently on Instagram. It's very short.
An obvious problem is that it means that no matter what Hamas does, Israel is responsible. It seems like a rather weird and unworkable form of morality? A license to kill and someone else takes the blame. That seems easy to criticize regardless of anyone's support or opposition to the Israeli government.
I don't think they should be doxed, but this isn't a smart statement from these Harvard kids.
to look at a different example, Nat Turner's 1831 rebellion: I think that enslaved people are always morally justified in revolting against their enslavers. I also think that killing children is...
Exemplary
An obvious problem is that it means that no matter what Hamas does, Israel is responsible. It seems like a rather weird and unworkable form of morality?
The rebellion did not discriminate by age or sex and the rebels killed White men, women, and children.
I think that enslaved people are always morally justified in revolting against their enslavers.
I also think that killing children is never morally justified.
so a slave revolt happens, and as collateral damage some children of the enslavers are killed. that's bad, and not morally justified...but who deserves the blame for it?
I don't think it's accurate to try to ascribe 100% of the blame to the revolting slaves. some of the blame falls on the adult enslavers, who created the situation that led to the slave revolt in the first place.
it's certainly not correct to say that anyone who thinks the slave revolt was justified also supports murdering children.
and there's a particular strain of bad-faith goalpost-shifting criticism that goes along the lines of "well, I don't support slavery...but why couldn't the slaves have just revolted peacefully and not killed anyone?"
if you replace slavery with apartheid, I don't think the moral calculus changes significantly.
I would argue that slavery is quite a bit worse than apartheid – at least in apartheid some basic liberties are preserved in that the oppressed is not declared to literally "belong" to another...
I would argue that slavery is quite a bit worse than apartheid – at least in apartheid some basic liberties are preserved in that the oppressed is not declared to literally "belong" to another person (any serious consideration of this state makes clear how abhorent it is), one is not liable to be raped regularly (as was extremely common under US slavery) or separated from one's family at the whim of an "owner".
I also think armed struggle tends to lead to worse outcomes for civilians and the eventual governmental structures established after anti-colonial movements succeed.
Another difference with at least the US slave revolts was that they had a pretty reasonable goal, "leave us alone". While I'm sure there were a few black militant groups that had larger goals of...
Another difference with at least the US slave revolts was that they had a pretty reasonable goal, "leave us alone". While I'm sure there were a few black militant groups that had larger goals of insatiable revenge, that majority just wanted to move on with life. After being granted freedom, they largely integrated into society as best they could. The US made that hard as hell but the black community did an amazing job with how little they had to start and how awful laws were in regards to limiting their potential.
I do believe a lot of Palestinians would like to just live their lives but there's an unfavorably large amount who just want endless vengeance. The problem is that there will never be enough blood to "pay back" the past. Grudges have to be let go without any sort of satisfying pay off. Until Palestine is ready to let go of the past and accept Isreals existence, peace is going to be hard to achieve.
For Gaza though? I just don't see how it's ever going to work. The area is so small and in such an awkward position that the region can't realistically be independent. This puts both Isreal and Palestine in a horrible position. Gaza needs to get assistance from Isreal so they are always going to feel they are being treated unfairly no matter what the power/water/trade situation is. And Isreal can't just close off borders and let them figure out their own lives because Gaza needs Isreal's coordination to exist. It would be best for Gaza to just be an Isreal territory and the people to be Isreal citizens but neither side wants that. No one wants them moved but it's not a very workable solution long term even if the people weren't actively hostile towards each other.
I don't want to get into what stupid things people have said on the Internet since there's an unlimited supply of that. More generally, goalpost-shifting means having different standards for...
I don't want to get into what stupid things people have said on the Internet since there's an unlimited supply of that.
More generally, goalpost-shifting means having different standards for different situations that's somehow inconsistent or unjust.
I think there are other ways of having different standards for different situations that are more defensible. Implicit in the idea of "war crimes" is that there are different, much lower, standards for war, where killing some people (enemy combatants) is allowed (not a war crime) but not "everything goes."
What sort of standards would make sense for judging a slave revolt? I think it's a difficult question, probably a lot of historical context would be useful, and it's probably not actually all that useful for figuring out what to think about the current crisis since it would be a fairly rough analogy.
What sort of standards make sense for judging the actions of Hamas or Israel? I haven't seen much discussion of this from an ethics point of view. There are a lot of people making implicit assumptions, though. It's not so much that the goalposts move but that they are imaginary and everyone insists on their whatever location they imagine them to be.
I think understanding what just happened is pretty difficult and a prerequisite for judging it. (What really happened at that hospital, for example.) Part of understanding what happened is understanding what people were trying to do and what they thought was going on, and that's even more difficult when there's a lot of lying going on.
Consider how much investigation was done about who attacked the Nordstream pipeline, which is a fairly clear-cut incident. Or how much investigation goes into understanding a plane crash. It's hard enough when there's not a war.
As distant observers we're in no position to do any kind of investigation. At best we can try to put together news reports and try to figure out what's fake. Even that's a lot to ask of people casually reading about it, and the results will probably be fairly inconclusive.
Overconfidence is everywhere. All sorts of people making confident statements backed by nothing but how they feel about what they read in the news.
Of course it's not a sensible statement to make and shows a real lack of political acumen. I don't really understand what the Harvard students are arguing (and I suspect it isn't this), but I do...
Of course it's not a sensible statement to make and shows a real lack of political acumen.
An obvious problem is that it means that no matter what Hamas does, Israel is responsible. It seems like a rather weird and unworkable form of morality? A license to kill and someone else takes the blame. That seems easy to criticize regardless of anyone's support or opposition to the Israeli government.
I don't really understand what the Harvard students are arguing (and I suspect it isn't this), but I do think there's different conclusions one can make after highlighting how Israeli treatment of the Palestinians has fostered resentment towards the Israelis. One is that the Israelis are soley responsible for the attack they have suffered because their actions in some ways contributed to this (which I don't believe and even if I did believe it still wouldn't be a sensible thing to advocate). The other is that this is a reason for as to why the Israelis should try to engage in a peace process in good faith, to end their policies which contribute to oppression of the Palestinians, and certainly to avoid stooping to Hamas' level by creating a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza by cutting off the water and food supplies.
Yeah, fair enough. The dynamic I see here is one common in social media. Some people making extreme arguments on either side get a lot of publicity. This attracts opponents. A student group making...
Yeah, fair enough.
The dynamic I see here is one common in social media. Some people making extreme arguments on either side get a lot of publicity. This attracts opponents. A student group making sensible statements would be mostly ignored.
It doesn't seem to have much to do with what's going on in Gaza or Israel? It's a separate political dispute among faraway observers about what position to take.
it's weird that you're decrying the lack of nuance...while also painting the people you disagree with as just taking their position "for the sake of it" or because it's "loud". if nuance is so...
people are just "taking sides" for the sake of a side
But it's all about taking the loudest, hardest side rather than seeing it as a challenging, nuanced issue.
it's weird that you're decrying the lack of nuance...while also painting the people you disagree with as just taking their position "for the sake of it" or because it's "loud".
if nuance is so important, doesn't that also extend to the nuanced reasons why people have arrived at the beliefs they hold?
if you follow the principle of charity, the safer assumption to make would be that the people you disagree with view the situation with just as much nuance as you do. they just reached a different conclusion.
Like, watching non-cis/non-binary people stand with Hamas just confuses me. Hamas would toss those folks off a cliff if they could.
I see this argument pretty frequently, and it baffles me every time.
we already have a standard-issue pro-Israel talking point that if you oppose the actions of the Israeli government, that makes you anti-semitic.
but that's not enough, because we apparently need to throw in that if you oppose the Israeli government, you're also a bad LGBT person or ally?
the obvious problem with this is oversimplification / monolithification (not a word but it should be - treating groups of people as if they're monoliths that all share the same views & opinions)
you've got several layers of it going on:
oversimplifying Hamas == Palestinians
oversimplifying Palestinians == Muslims
oversimplifying Muslims == opposed to LGBT rights
so again, in the same comment where you talk about the importance of nuance, you're making three huge logical leaps where you treat groups of people as monoliths in order to claim that everyone in Hamas is opposed to LGBT rights (and not just that, but violently so, wanting to throw them off cliffs)
and obviously that's an incorrect assumption. but for the sake of argument, let's suppose that it were true.
let's say that 95% (or whatever other high percentage you want) of Palestinians are in fact violently bigoted against LGBT people.
is establishing an apartheid society where those bigots are treated as second-class citizens and forced to live in an open-air prison the correct way to deal with the situation?
I think that's utter nonsense. go find me the absolute most bigoted, anti-LGBT Palestinian person you can, and I'm still going to say I don't think they should be treated the way they are by the Israeli government.
another way you can watch this argument fall apart is if you try to apply the same logic to a different circumstance besides Israel/Palestine.
let's make the same oversimplifying assumption of treating groups as monoliths, and assume that all Uyghur Muslims are opposed to LGBT rights as well.
by your argument, that would mean that LGBT people and allies should...side with the Chinese government, and support their oppression of the Uyghurs? that's absurd.
I don't think any of this responds to the comparison I made between Israel's government and China's goverment / Palestinians and Uyghurs? it would have been nice if you had saved screenshots. I...
OK, but not every situation is the CCP’s obviously evil acts. COVID demonstrated how easily people were drawn into maximalist positions on both sides, decrying everything as binary good or bad. Lots of people too bizarre maximalist takes on Twitter for 2 years, denouncing everyone who didn't agree with them as monsters. Social media fosters dumb, extreme positions.
I don't think any of this responds to the comparison I made between Israel's government and China's goverment / Palestinians and Uyghurs?
Before I deleted reddit, I even had some wannabe lefty socialist on reddit tell me that nuance was itself a form of "liberalism" and therefore bad.
it would have been nice if you had saved screenshots. I think there's probably more *ahem* nuance to that conversation than your description of it conveys.
The ability to have an intelligent and nuanced take on most platforms online is more or less impossible. Especially when so many like Twitter-X-Book are designed for outrage deliberately.
it looks like you're brand-new to Tildes. welcome.
one nice thing about Tildes is that it's designed for longer, more in-depth discussions.
and it's OK to just...have those discussions. you don't need to signpost it by talking about how bad other platforms are at having in-depth discussions. everyone on Tildes pretty much knows that already.
Here's another fun take: you don't need to "take sides" on every topic. Your opinion or take is not necessary for that issue to play out.
this is...a truism? I don't see how it's particularly relevant to this particular conversation.
archive link similarly in the WSJ, from a law professor at UC Berkeley: Don’t Hire My Anti-Semitic Law Students (archive link) for years, conservatives have been clamoring about the problem of...
for years, conservatives have been clamoring about the problem of "free speech on campus" - the idea that left-wing college students were intolerant of conservative viewpoints. they shout speakers down, or get them disinvited from talking in the first place, and supposedly the end result is a chilling effect where people are afraid to express controversial political views, even though college campus are supposed to be where those ideas can be discussed openly.
and the same with the problem of "cancel culture" - people lose their jobs because of their political views! (of course, stronger labor protections or limitations on at-will employment seem to never get discussed by the conservatives who are so worried about "cancel culture")
unsurprisingly, the current controversy about Israel & Palestine has exposed how hollow and unprincipled that support for "campus free speech" and opposition to "cancel culture" has been. we have deliberate attempts to chill the speech of left-wing college students, including possibly getting them "cancelled" from jobs at law firms.
it seems like everyone thinks there are "in-bounds" ideas that should be discussed openly and not get you fired for holding, and "out of bounds" ideas that can be censored or suppressed and possibly get you fired. the debate is not "free speech yes or no" or "censorship yes or no" as people like to portray it - it's a debate over where the line is drawn between in-bounds and out-of-bounds ideas.
Thank you for a great comment – I get really infuriated when people rabbit on about "cancel culture" (the phrase makes me nauseous at this point)! At a more philosophical level I think 'absolute'...
Thank you for a great comment – I get really infuriated when people rabbit on about "cancel culture" (the phrase makes me nauseous at this point)!
At a more philosophical level I think 'absolute' free speech does not work because one runs into the Paradox of Tolerance or a slightly stronger version of the hypothesis. Even weaker forms of free speech run into a slightly stronger version of the hypothesis, that of the Nazi bar.
I think "free speech" advocates also haven't understood that free speech is traditionally understood to be a negative liberty (i.e. the government will not lock you up for criticising the head of state) rather than a positive liberty (i.e. the government will provide you with a megaphone and a stage in a public space to criticise the president).
One of the things I liked about the linked article was that it had (a bit of) discussion around the idea that strong reactions and shaming can put a damper on speech, but it's not clear where the...
I think "free speech" advocates also haven't understood that free speech is traditionally understood to be a negative liberty (i.e. the government will not lock you up for criticising the head of state) rather than a positive liberty (i.e. the government will provide you with a megaphone and a stage in a public space to criticise the president).
One of the things I liked about the linked article was that it had (a bit of) discussion around the idea that strong reactions and shaming can put a damper on speech, but it's not clear where the line is.
This comes down to the people's definition of free speech, essentially, which doesn't have much or anything to do with the government and is more about consequences. It's a more philosophical question. We can more or less take for granted that I won't get in trouble with the government if I say "this is all Israel's fault." The question is, what consequences is it fair for society to impose on me, if any?
It's complicated. I think we would mostly agree that it seems reasonable for a private employer - say, a Jewish business owner - to want to not hire me, if I'd made my statement directly to them. Or perhaps in something social like a Facebook post. That seems fair. But in this case, conservative (political) groups are amplifying what I said and explicitly attaching my name to my political statement. There are two complicating factors there - the amplification and the fact that my original speech was in the realm of politics.
On the one hand, it seems reasonable that my name and photo would be attached to my own statement. On the other, uni is supposed to be exactly the formative time when I'm experimenting with a lot of ideas, and I think it unquestionably puts a damper on that if the bad ideas I have are broadcast widely. But back to the first hand, I did sign a political proclamation...
Point is - it's complicated, and I do think it's a free speech issue. Just not a first amendment one.
This is old so I'll post it in an old topic, but here's an argument against this sort of retaliation from a libertarian point of view: Canceling is wrong no matter how bad the speech (Megan McArdle)
This is old so I'll post it in an old topic, but here's an argument against this sort of retaliation from a libertarian point of view:
Like most of you, I’m appalled by the idea that maybe terrorism is okay, if you target the right civilians. I’m mad at these people for saying awful, stupid things. I’m also mad that I now have to defend the worst of them from cancellation. Because make no mistake: What is being done, or at least attempted, is cancel culture, though I got a lot of pushback from conservatives when I said so on X, formerly known as Twitter.
These people were talking about war crimes, I was reminded. And, given their politics, they were likely to be themselves avid supporters of cancellation. You can’t expect us, conservatives said indignantly, to unilaterally disarm in the culture wars.
I take both points. But free speech is the cornerstone of our democracy, and free speech by definition requires protecting unpopular ideas. Since bad ideas are often unpopular, this will include protecting some bad ones — fighting them with good ideas, rather than threats.
Of course I understand why companies might be reluctant to hire students who think it’s okay to murder babies. But we must resist falling into the false binaries that distort the thinking of both the terrorists and the cancelers. The world is not neatly divided into good people who deserve protection and irredeemably bad people who deserve anything they get; it is full of complicated, flawed human beings who can often be better, with a little bit of grace. Many, maybe most, Irish Americans of a certain age have known otherwise decent people who nonetheless supported terrorism, emotionally or financially. We also witnessed many of those same folks repent after 9/11 drove home what terrorism actually means to its victims.
Mixed up Israel and Hamas. Don't mind me; I'm an idiot.
Really bold move to poke this hornet's nest of all things. Do people really forget that extremist Muslims have set the precedent of harassing/assaulting/murdering those who they perceive to have slighted their religion? An unfortunately very well documented phenomenon. I hope these people stay safe, at least. Of all the people to have your address leaked to, religious extremists are probably among the worst.
Mixed up Israel and Hamas. Don't mind me; I'm an idiot.
Sorry I didn't totally understand your comment – would you mind clarifying (I think the error is entirely mine but it would help me a lot). I assume you mean it's bold of the Harvard students who...
Sorry I didn't totally understand your comment – would you mind clarifying (I think the error is entirely mine but it would help me a lot).
I assume you mean it's bold of the Harvard students who put out the statement?
About the extremist Muslims, do you mean they might target the Harvard students or someone else? I don't see why they would target the Harvard students (as they wrote an anti-Israel letter blaming Israel for Hamas' attack), but I'm not immediately sure who the someone else might be (I can think of lots of candidates, but not sure which one it would be in this specific context).
Ah, my bad; I am a moron. "Israel" and "Hamas" have been swirling around in my head so much lately that I've mixed the two up. Disregard my nonsense I agree with much of your initial comment. It's...
Ah, my bad; I am a moron. "Israel" and "Hamas" have been swirling around in my head so much lately that I've mixed the two up. Disregard my nonsense
I agree with much of your initial comment. It's a touch infuriating that you're not allowed to criticize Israel without being accused of antisemitism by both sides, somehow. There seems to be an unhealthy reverence of Israel and the Jewish people by the left, and the Right just uses it as a "gotcha" to shut down debate and opposition.
I could have worded that better. I don't mean to say that the Jewish people are undeserving of reverence or appreciation. I was more trying to say that many people on the left will absolutely tear...
I could have worded that better. I don't mean to say that the Jewish people are undeserving of reverence or appreciation. I was more trying to say that many people on the left will absolutely tear into people for criticizing certain ethnic groups for things that are arguably worth criticizing. Similar to many left-leaning people calling those who criticize Islam racist and xenophobic. I fear that by trying to place certain minorities on pedestals in order to make up for past wrongdoings, people may believe that said minorities should absolutely not be questioned and that any criticism levied at them is just thinly-veiled racism. The left has a habit of deflecting genuine criticism as hate speech.
As a matter of personal curiosity, how do you reconcile that knowing Jesus and his followers were extremely political? They were highly vocal about what they believed in and criticized the...
As a matter of personal curiosity, how do you reconcile that knowing Jesus and his followers were extremely political? They were highly vocal about what they believed in and criticized the corruption in the Roman government.
Additionally, how do you reconcile that with Jesus's plea to help everyone in need? Doing what you can to help the poor first and foremost is also political, championed by the left and rejected by the right.
I don't mean to presume to tell you how your faith should be expressed, I'm just curious how being apolitical and being Christian interact given Jesus's teachings.
Perhaps everything we do is political. In a Democracy or even a benevolent dictatorship that is true. And certainly in a capitalist society we have even more opportunities. I'm talking about...
Perhaps everything we do is political. In a Democracy or even a benevolent dictatorship that is true. And certainly in a capitalist society we have even more opportunities. I'm talking about voting with your hands and feet. Teaching. Helping. Living your belief.
Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others,...
Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
Gekko mentioned that Christianity is political, and I don't want to make it seem like I am jumping on a proverbial bandwagon against you here, so please excuse me. Do you find that it is easy to...
Gekko mentioned that Christianity is political, and I don't want to make it seem like I am jumping on a proverbial bandwagon against you here, so please excuse me.
Do you find that it is easy to be 'apolitical'? I have always thought that it is quite difficult to do so. Even beliefs on a micro/interpersonal level can be quite political – such as how to distribute resources in society, freedom of expression, etc.
[note: slightly edited to remove some hyperbole and try to make the actual point I want to make, rather than getting sidetracked in unhelpful polemic]
I think this is a pretty good example of how Israel has become a "wedge" issue on the right used to attack people on the left.
I don't think that antisemitism is widespread on the left. Partially right-wing groups have managed to redefine anti-semitism to mean "do you support the Israeli government and its actions against the Palestinians". In this way I think right-wing groups have managed to undermine the whole concept of anti-semitism by reducing it to "do you support Israel" and thus hamstrung basically all conversations about fighting discrimination against Jews outside of Israel. I think also the "I support Israel" line is used among those on the right and the far right to distract and deflect attention away from their antisemitism.
When people ask me why people on the left (which I am decidedly on) supposedly don't try to fight antisemitism in the same way that they do e.g. anti-black racism, one issue is that there is a perspective that antisemitism has become just another tool in the arsenal of the right as they try to fight a Kulturkampf. Of course anti-semitism is terrible and we should seek to eradicate it, but commenting on it or attempting to fight it is often shut down by the question "do you support Israel?".
By the way, in case anyone thinks I support Hamas, I don't. This espouses my view pretty well:
I also don't personally believe that violent protest movements are effective, and I certainly don't support the militarisation of protest movements – once a protest movement switches from peaceful, nonviolent resistance to armed struggle the groups who lead the movement change; the leaders of protest movements cease to be people who are skilled in mustering consensus, or communicating a plight well, or organising civil society and instead become people who enjoy violence, who are good at military planning, who thrive running heirarchical military organisations (who inevitably make for terrible leaders both during wartime and especially after).
The students' statement is apparently on Instagram. It's very short.
An obvious problem is that it means that no matter what Hamas does, Israel is responsible. It seems like a rather weird and unworkable form of morality? A license to kill and someone else takes the blame. That seems easy to criticize regardless of anyone's support or opposition to the Israeli government.
I don't think they should be doxed, but this isn't a smart statement from these Harvard kids.
to look at a different example, Nat Turner's 1831 rebellion:
I think that enslaved people are always morally justified in revolting against their enslavers.
I also think that killing children is never morally justified.
so a slave revolt happens, and as collateral damage some children of the enslavers are killed. that's bad, and not morally justified...but who deserves the blame for it?
I don't think it's accurate to try to ascribe 100% of the blame to the revolting slaves. some of the blame falls on the adult enslavers, who created the situation that led to the slave revolt in the first place.
it's certainly not correct to say that anyone who thinks the slave revolt was justified also supports murdering children.
and there's a particular strain of bad-faith goalpost-shifting criticism that goes along the lines of "well, I don't support slavery...but why couldn't the slaves have just revolted peacefully and not killed anyone?"
if you replace slavery with apartheid, I don't think the moral calculus changes significantly.
I would argue that slavery is quite a bit worse than apartheid – at least in apartheid some basic liberties are preserved in that the oppressed is not declared to literally "belong" to another person (any serious consideration of this state makes clear how abhorent it is), one is not liable to be raped regularly (as was extremely common under US slavery) or separated from one's family at the whim of an "owner".
I also think armed struggle tends to lead to worse outcomes for civilians and the eventual governmental structures established after anti-colonial movements succeed.
Another difference with at least the US slave revolts was that they had a pretty reasonable goal, "leave us alone". While I'm sure there were a few black militant groups that had larger goals of insatiable revenge, that majority just wanted to move on with life. After being granted freedom, they largely integrated into society as best they could. The US made that hard as hell but the black community did an amazing job with how little they had to start and how awful laws were in regards to limiting their potential.
I do believe a lot of Palestinians would like to just live their lives but there's an unfavorably large amount who just want endless vengeance. The problem is that there will never be enough blood to "pay back" the past. Grudges have to be let go without any sort of satisfying pay off. Until Palestine is ready to let go of the past and accept Isreals existence, peace is going to be hard to achieve.
For Gaza though? I just don't see how it's ever going to work. The area is so small and in such an awkward position that the region can't realistically be independent. This puts both Isreal and Palestine in a horrible position. Gaza needs to get assistance from Isreal so they are always going to feel they are being treated unfairly no matter what the power/water/trade situation is. And Isreal can't just close off borders and let them figure out their own lives because Gaza needs Isreal's coordination to exist. It would be best for Gaza to just be an Isreal territory and the people to be Isreal citizens but neither side wants that. No one wants them moved but it's not a very workable solution long term even if the people weren't actively hostile towards each other.
I don't want to get into what stupid things people have said on the Internet since there's an unlimited supply of that.
More generally, goalpost-shifting means having different standards for different situations that's somehow inconsistent or unjust.
I think there are other ways of having different standards for different situations that are more defensible. Implicit in the idea of "war crimes" is that there are different, much lower, standards for war, where killing some people (enemy combatants) is allowed (not a war crime) but not "everything goes."
What sort of standards would make sense for judging a slave revolt? I think it's a difficult question, probably a lot of historical context would be useful, and it's probably not actually all that useful for figuring out what to think about the current crisis since it would be a fairly rough analogy.
What sort of standards make sense for judging the actions of Hamas or Israel? I haven't seen much discussion of this from an ethics point of view. There are a lot of people making implicit assumptions, though. It's not so much that the goalposts move but that they are imaginary and everyone insists on their whatever location they imagine them to be.
I think understanding what just happened is pretty difficult and a prerequisite for judging it. (What really happened at that hospital, for example.) Part of understanding what happened is understanding what people were trying to do and what they thought was going on, and that's even more difficult when there's a lot of lying going on.
Consider how much investigation was done about who attacked the Nordstream pipeline, which is a fairly clear-cut incident. Or how much investigation goes into understanding a plane crash. It's hard enough when there's not a war.
As distant observers we're in no position to do any kind of investigation. At best we can try to put together news reports and try to figure out what's fake. Even that's a lot to ask of people casually reading about it, and the results will probably be fairly inconclusive.
Overconfidence is everywhere. All sorts of people making confident statements backed by nothing but how they feel about what they read in the news.
Of course it's not a sensible statement to make and shows a real lack of political acumen.
I don't really understand what the Harvard students are arguing (and I suspect it isn't this), but I do think there's different conclusions one can make after highlighting how Israeli treatment of the Palestinians has fostered resentment towards the Israelis. One is that the Israelis are soley responsible for the attack they have suffered because their actions in some ways contributed to this (which I don't believe and even if I did believe it still wouldn't be a sensible thing to advocate). The other is that this is a reason for as to why the Israelis should try to engage in a peace process in good faith, to end their policies which contribute to oppression of the Palestinians, and certainly to avoid stooping to Hamas' level by creating a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza by cutting off the water and food supplies.
Yeah, fair enough.
The dynamic I see here is one common in social media. Some people making extreme arguments on either side get a lot of publicity. This attracts opponents. A student group making sensible statements would be mostly ignored.
It doesn't seem to have much to do with what's going on in Gaza or Israel? It's a separate political dispute among faraway observers about what position to take.
it's weird that you're decrying the lack of nuance...while also painting the people you disagree with as just taking their position "for the sake of it" or because it's "loud".
if nuance is so important, doesn't that also extend to the nuanced reasons why people have arrived at the beliefs they hold?
if you follow the principle of charity, the safer assumption to make would be that the people you disagree with view the situation with just as much nuance as you do. they just reached a different conclusion.
I see this argument pretty frequently, and it baffles me every time.
we already have a standard-issue pro-Israel talking point that if you oppose the actions of the Israeli government, that makes you anti-semitic.
but that's not enough, because we apparently need to throw in that if you oppose the Israeli government, you're also a bad LGBT person or ally?
the obvious problem with this is oversimplification / monolithification (not a word but it should be - treating groups of people as if they're monoliths that all share the same views & opinions)
you've got several layers of it going on:
oversimplifying Hamas == Palestinians
oversimplifying Palestinians == Muslims
oversimplifying Muslims == opposed to LGBT rights
so again, in the same comment where you talk about the importance of nuance, you're making three huge logical leaps where you treat groups of people as monoliths in order to claim that everyone in Hamas is opposed to LGBT rights (and not just that, but violently so, wanting to throw them off cliffs)
and obviously that's an incorrect assumption. but for the sake of argument, let's suppose that it were true.
let's say that 95% (or whatever other high percentage you want) of Palestinians are in fact violently bigoted against LGBT people.
is establishing an apartheid society where those bigots are treated as second-class citizens and forced to live in an open-air prison the correct way to deal with the situation?
I think that's utter nonsense. go find me the absolute most bigoted, anti-LGBT Palestinian person you can, and I'm still going to say I don't think they should be treated the way they are by the Israeli government.
another way you can watch this argument fall apart is if you try to apply the same logic to a different circumstance besides Israel/Palestine.
for example, the Chinese government's policy towards Uyghur Muslims is (depending on what label you feel like applying to it) genocide, or ethnic cleansing, or just plain ol' really really shitty treatment.
let's make the same oversimplifying assumption of treating groups as monoliths, and assume that all Uyghur Muslims are opposed to LGBT rights as well.
by your argument, that would mean that LGBT people and allies should...side with the Chinese government, and support their oppression of the Uyghurs? that's absurd.
I don't think any of this responds to the comparison I made between Israel's government and China's goverment / Palestinians and Uyghurs?
it would have been nice if you had saved screenshots. I think there's probably more *ahem* nuance to that conversation than your description of it conveys.
it looks like you're brand-new to Tildes. welcome.
one nice thing about Tildes is that it's designed for longer, more in-depth discussions.
and it's OK to just...have those discussions. you don't need to signpost it by talking about how bad other platforms are at having in-depth discussions. everyone on Tildes pretty much knows that already.
this is...a truism? I don't see how it's particularly relevant to this particular conversation.
For someone who just linked the principle of charity, I don't feel that your response here was being particularly charitable.
Would you mind giving some examples? I'm curious if there's something I've missed.
archive link
similarly in the WSJ, from a law professor at UC Berkeley: Don’t Hire My Anti-Semitic Law Students (archive link)
for years, conservatives have been clamoring about the problem of "free speech on campus" - the idea that left-wing college students were intolerant of conservative viewpoints. they shout speakers down, or get them disinvited from talking in the first place, and supposedly the end result is a chilling effect where people are afraid to express controversial political views, even though college campus are supposed to be where those ideas can be discussed openly.
and the same with the problem of "cancel culture" - people lose their jobs because of their political views! (of course, stronger labor protections or limitations on at-will employment seem to never get discussed by the conservatives who are so worried about "cancel culture")
(for a left-wing response to this in general, I would recommend the If Books Could Kill podcast episode on The Coddling of the American Mind, which is in many ways one of the ur-texts of this panic over "free speech on campus")
unsurprisingly, the current controversy about Israel & Palestine has exposed how hollow and unprincipled that support for "campus free speech" and opposition to "cancel culture" has been. we have deliberate attempts to chill the speech of left-wing college students, including possibly getting them "cancelled" from jobs at law firms.
it seems like everyone thinks there are "in-bounds" ideas that should be discussed openly and not get you fired for holding, and "out of bounds" ideas that can be censored or suppressed and possibly get you fired. the debate is not "free speech yes or no" or "censorship yes or no" as people like to portray it - it's a debate over where the line is drawn between in-bounds and out-of-bounds ideas.
Thank you for a great comment – I get really infuriated when people rabbit on about "cancel culture" (the phrase makes me nauseous at this point)!
At a more philosophical level I think 'absolute' free speech does not work because one runs into the Paradox of Tolerance or a slightly stronger version of the hypothesis. Even weaker forms of free speech run into a slightly stronger version of the hypothesis, that of the Nazi bar.
I think "free speech" advocates also haven't understood that free speech is traditionally understood to be a negative liberty (i.e. the government will not lock you up for criticising the head of state) rather than a positive liberty (i.e. the government will provide you with a megaphone and a stage in a public space to criticise the president).
One of the things I liked about the linked article was that it had (a bit of) discussion around the idea that strong reactions and shaming can put a damper on speech, but it's not clear where the line is.
This comes down to the people's definition of free speech, essentially, which doesn't have much or anything to do with the government and is more about consequences. It's a more philosophical question. We can more or less take for granted that I won't get in trouble with the government if I say "this is all Israel's fault." The question is, what consequences is it fair for society to impose on me, if any?
It's complicated. I think we would mostly agree that it seems reasonable for a private employer - say, a Jewish business owner - to want to not hire me, if I'd made my statement directly to them. Or perhaps in something social like a Facebook post. That seems fair. But in this case, conservative (political) groups are amplifying what I said and explicitly attaching my name to my political statement. There are two complicating factors there - the amplification and the fact that my original speech was in the realm of politics.
On the one hand, it seems reasonable that my name and photo would be attached to my own statement. On the other, uni is supposed to be exactly the formative time when I'm experimenting with a lot of ideas, and I think it unquestionably puts a damper on that if the bad ideas I have are broadcast widely. But back to the first hand, I did sign a political proclamation...
Point is - it's complicated, and I do think it's a free speech issue. Just not a first amendment one.
FYI On mobile these archive links just seem to put me in a captcha loop.
This is old so I'll post it in an old topic, but here's an argument against this sort of retaliation from a libertarian point of view:
Canceling is wrong no matter how bad the speech (Megan McArdle)
Really bold move to poke this hornet's nest of all things. Do people really forget that extremist Muslims have set the precedent of harassing/assaulting/murdering those who they perceive to have slighted their religion? An unfortunately very well documented phenomenon. I hope these people stay safe, at least. Of all the people to have your address leaked to, religious extremists are probably among the worst.Mixed up Israel and Hamas. Don't mind me; I'm an idiot.
Sorry I didn't totally understand your comment – would you mind clarifying (I think the error is entirely mine but it would help me a lot).
I assume you mean it's bold of the Harvard students who put out the statement?
About the extremist Muslims, do you mean they might target the Harvard students or someone else? I don't see why they would target the Harvard students (as they wrote an anti-Israel letter blaming Israel for Hamas' attack), but I'm not immediately sure who the someone else might be (I can think of lots of candidates, but not sure which one it would be in this specific context).
Ah, my bad; I am a moron. "Israel" and "Hamas" have been swirling around in my head so much lately that I've mixed the two up. Disregard my nonsense
I agree with much of your initial comment. It's a touch infuriating that you're not allowed to criticize Israel without being accused of antisemitism by both sides, somehow. There seems to be an unhealthy reverence of Israel and the Jewish people by the left, and the Right just uses it as a "gotcha" to shut down debate and opposition.
I could have worded that better. I don't mean to say that the Jewish people are undeserving of reverence or appreciation. I was more trying to say that many people on the left will absolutely tear into people for criticizing certain ethnic groups for things that are arguably worth criticizing. Similar to many left-leaning people calling those who criticize Islam racist and xenophobic. I fear that by trying to place certain minorities on pedestals in order to make up for past wrongdoings, people may believe that said minorities should absolutely not be questioned and that any criticism levied at them is just thinly-veiled racism. The left has a habit of deflecting genuine criticism as hate speech.
As a Christian I make it a point to be non political. Period.
As a matter of personal curiosity, how do you reconcile that knowing Jesus and his followers were extremely political? They were highly vocal about what they believed in and criticized the corruption in the Roman government.
Additionally, how do you reconcile that with Jesus's plea to help everyone in need? Doing what you can to help the poor first and foremost is also political, championed by the left and rejected by the right.
I don't mean to presume to tell you how your faith should be expressed, I'm just curious how being apolitical and being Christian interact given Jesus's teachings.
Perhaps everything we do is political. In a Democracy or even a benevolent dictatorship that is true. And certainly in a capitalist society we have even more opportunities. I'm talking about voting with your hands and feet. Teaching. Helping. Living your belief.
Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
Gekko mentioned that Christianity is political, and I don't want to make it seem like I am jumping on a proverbial bandwagon against you here, so please excuse me.
Do you find that it is easy to be 'apolitical'? I have always thought that it is quite difficult to do so. Even beliefs on a micro/interpersonal level can be quite political – such as how to distribute resources in society, freedom of expression, etc.