Log in or register to access all areas!
Some of the options on this page are currently hidden as they are only available to registered users. Please log in or register in order to access these and other community features of the site. Registration is quick, easy and free of charge — you don't even have to be a society member! So don't forget to log into the site every time you visit to make sure you don't miss out...
Click here for a complete list of philosophy modules and forum topics.
I will say, I am a professional ranter, and I do like to exercise my ranting muscles, rather like Bruce and Jeet Kune Do to stay fight fit; so take it with a pinch of salt... "I'm just sparring wijja". It was a bit cuddly and tame this thread, so I thought i'd introduce a hot poker to it's soft rosy-cheekedness.
I'm glad to hear that you are good Voltairists.
London is not the only multi-cultural place, for sure! London is very far from representative of most of the country. Frankly, the few times I've been there it felt like going to another country. The media; the public services; the "shyt-stem" in general seems to behave as though the whole country is like London. London may be a multicultural society; but Britain isn't: it still retains it's indigenous cultural identity, but has some urban enclaves of alien culture, and an establishment that represents a reality that doesn't exist, though they are working hard to try and create it.
The issue you raise goes beyond the public world, and touches on the lack of engagement between a huge block of the ethnic British and the regime. The fact that we have a government that has the support of 25% of the electorate; and some 40% refuse to vote.
I personally believe that a similar percentage of the country feels unable to express resentment of the regime, and in a sort of subliminal protest opts for active disengagement and "white flight". All the laws, propaganda, and the rest of it, can't change how people feel at a visceral instinctive level; and this subtler, insidious kind of cult-like censorship simply pushes the problem into other manifestations, because it can't be verbalised.
You can't have neutral education, because neutrality is relative to your own views.
I can argue that an end to immigration is a neutral, centrist policy, and yet to some it will be regarded as anything but (and it's critics may be from either extreme of my "righteous" position). The same people who call themselves centrists and the BNP far-right; can on the same logical ground be called far-left by a BNP that regards itself as centrist.
I don't know what YOU mean by social norms; (in fact, i'm not even sure what you mean by "social") some examples would be helpful.
Kesteven: they do seem to represent the common pulse of culture Yes, "seem", that's very much the design. ...and "all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream" etc...
How can tell which is the follower and which is the leader? The assumption that the media is a passive mirror is the great disingenous lie of the media; and it's blatant bias to state that position unanalysed. This statement is a way of justifying putting anything in the media - you just insert the great celestial disclaimer "we just reflect the world we see"; it disabuses them of any responsibility for any "educational" effect the contents of media & celeb culture have. Telly and film, radio, the newspapers were all started as means of educating and informing people - at it's core is the idea that you can change people... in fact this is what the purpose of stories, and fables are right back into the mists of time. The very idea that suddenly the media has no active effect on changing the way people think and behave, is laughable; but not funny, because the effects are so corrosive and destructive.
"Modern" was the adjective I was challenging - it's a distinctly upbeat word to suggest moral goodness in change.
How on earth is globalisation morally good? I'll assume that you just mean "new".
before, people could be intolerant of difference and it wouldn't be a problem, because there wasn't any.
Before what? The influx of 120,000 Russian Jews a hundred years ago? The influx of about a million Irish since the Act of Union with Ireland 200 years ago? The Jews expelled in the 13th century? Intolerance is as you say relative to the magnitude and rate of change. There has never been such a magnitude and rate of change like the last decade or so, ever in the history of this country. You never said it; but i smelt it.
I'm not going to invoke the prophet Enoch, but, when I studied about North Korea a few years back, a good economics book I absorbed about revolutions and how/why they happen (and not, as in the case of the DPRK), the crucial catalyst is a sudden mismatch between expectation and delivery - on top of all the other endurable onerous stuff that goes on in troubled states. It's under these kinds of economic conditions that intolerance becomes a social norm - it's probably a defence mechanism. Globalisation is an appalling form of capitalism that exploits both the developed and the developing world, and pushes all the right buttons for inflaming intolerance and ethnocentrism.
[I am digressing I know]
Alternative Thinkers? There's an awful lot of them around... so what are these elusive social norms that keep coming up?
Maybe I should start a band called "The Social Norms"!? I am a figment of my own imagination
Log in to post messages and access additional forums.
Rumplestiltskin
Re:Censorship 2007/11/08 19:57
Karma: 0
Experienced Philosopher
self-censorship is not in my view 'true' censorship, though it can still damage freedom of speech for the same reasons, because it's the same except the feared punishments are social rather than legal. If I truly wished to assert something, I would do so at the risk of losing status, perhaps many of my friends, maybe even some of my freedom... but not my life.
Really? Is that why there are so many comedians telling Muslim gags? So many cartoons pillorying that religion?
Would you go up to someone you knew to be a gangster and say out loud - "gangsters are gay!"
Would you go up to your boss and explain that it's unacceptable to employ (insert minority here) and expect not to get the sack?
Of course self-censorship is true censorship... it's simply indirect and insidious, yet it still is instigated from a source wishing to control your self-expression in a specific way.
Censorship is part of the framework of a group; you consent to be censored in order to yeild the benefits of being part of a group.
You seem to recognise that censorship is an instruction with a conditional penalty attached for non-compliance, but seem to think that only when that penalty is death does your censorship become "true censorship"; i think that is erroneous.
I suppose these elusive social norms mentioned, are also components of culture, and you adhere to them in order to be accepted as part of a group (or for status as a member of a group within a group). I am a figment of my own imagination
Log in to post messages and access additional forums.
Kesteven
Re:Censorship 2008/10/17 08:56
Karma: 12
Admin
All I'm saying is that there's a fundamental difference between political censorship and social censorship, notably that political censorship is something that can be changed through the political process and ideally represents the position of the society as a whole, or at least the majority.
Obviously, sometimes minority elements of society will take matters into their own hands and there's not much we can do about that except rely on our government to protect us. Frankly though, I think it does a pretty good job. And yes, that IS why there are so many comedians telling Muslim gags and cartoons pillorying that religion.
Log in to post messages and access additional forums.
Tenure
Re:Censorship 2008/11/14 04:31
Karma: 0
Junior Philosopher
Freedom of Speech must be understood in the wider context of freedom. Freedom the freedom from the initiation of force. Force is not just the end of a gun, but it is that which could normally only be obtained at the end of a gun - for example, fraud, is the point when one gets another person to agree to a contract, whilst undermining their free will. Free will is the choice between one alternative and another. By disguising or flat out lying about the alternative, you bypass a person's free will, in the same way only achievable by pointing a gun, and make actual choice impossible. You initiate force and violate another man's freedom. Let's look at freedom of speech - this then, means the freedom to say whatever you like, so long as you do not initiate force against another man. But how does one initiate force via the use of speech? Well, if one incites a group of people to kill another, or just threatens to do so - one may never actually be involved in anything beyond the words, but by knowingly encouraging a group of people to act in a certain way, one is accepting the responsibility of those actions. Thus, the initiation of force in speech can be broadly placed under the heading, 'Whenever one seeks to eliminate the freedom of another via speech'. Speech is an action, like any other, with consequences. If one is responsible for creating a situation of force initiation, whether by speech or by muscle, one is contravening the freedom of another.
Now, flipped around, now that we've dealt with what the freedom is not, what does it mean to be free to speak? Roughly, it means that the government protects your right to speak as you wish. This does not mean the government grants you that materials to spread your message - e.g. a grant to print newsletters in favour of your position - nor does it give you the right to commandeer another's materials to do so - e.g. forcing media channels to represent a 'fair, balanced' perspective, by spending money on giving air time or print space to people they otherwise would not give. This is the same as the freedom of action. One is free to act, as the Americans put it, 'the freedom the the pursuit of happiness', but not to the means of attaining happiness. The only legitimate 'means', is the legal protection the government provides your life and property from other men, and also from other nations.
Censorship then, can only meaningfully equal the suppression of one's right to speak (in this legitimately defined context), either directly by one's government, or indirectly, by the government's refusal to recognise and protect your right to speech.
An example of the first would be either the repression of anti-government ideas by a Dictator; the printing of propaganda by a government (almost always done by forcing private printers to give up their materials, or by using public money to pay for a printer); and, the 'Fairness Doctrine' which used to exist in America, and which Obama would like to bring back, which forces radio stations to put people on the air they would not normally and would not choose to, except that they now have a gun pointed at them.
An example of the second, would be the pussy-footing by the Dutch government and by successive governments around the world, in not protecting the rights of those who wish to criticise Islam. There are Islamists who wish to violently silence anyone they wish, for whatever they might say or do. You may be aware of the case of book publisher Martin Rynja, whose house was recently bombed by Islamic terrorists. The police acted swiftly in arresting those responsible. What you may not be aware of was the situation before that - the book over which all the controversy was started was going to be published in America, but the publisher turned it down, amidst fears that they would receive death threats. So, the book was taken to England, and, well...
That is censorship. When an American, a country which one would think the most proud and willing to say what it likes, actually does not do what it would normally freely do, because a citizen is afraid its government will not defend its citizens right to say what it wishes, without facing repercussions.
Log in to post messages and access additional forums.
Philosophy Forums 
