Irshad Manji has been one of my heroes since I heard her talk at our local college. She runs the Moral Courage Project, an effort to get people of diverse views to talk to each other. Many of you would like her and might especially like her YouTube channel. Most of you will not like what she has to say below...which, if you ask Dr. Manji, is exactly why you should hear it.
Sometimes you leave me scratching my head, as you are preaching to the converted here. Anyone left on these forums here at RP is almost by definition open to hearing stuff they don't like to hear. Dr. Manji btw says nothing at all that is offensive, or hard to swallow, so I am not quite sure what your point is. I don't think the issue is about open discussion, which as far as I can tell, nobody here has a problem with, it is about the dissemination of misinformation. When I have the time, I might bother to watch the Jordan Peterson interview to get a better assessment. Crux to that issue will be did Rogan make Peterson squirm like Dr. Manji would have it (as he should have) or did Rogan fawn on him like a sycophantic lapdog? I'm genuinely curious.
Irshad Manji has been one of my heroes since I heard her talk at our local college. She runs the Moral Courage Project, an effort to get people of diverse views to talk to each other. Many of you would like her and might especially like her YouTube channel.
Most of you will not like what she has to say below...which, if you ask Dr. Manji, is exactly why you should hear it.
I think I made this point a couple years ago...more people get their "information" from comedians like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Bill Crosby (ha).
Cosby?
Kinda sad really because popular media content choices are driven by consumer preferences. It is not a conspiracy except for the narratives that powerful special interests feed the 'real people'.
The whole situation is messed up. Spotify has some responsibility as the platform. But the base problem is that Joe Rogan has gone from being entertainment to being information, and he has no qualifications to be the second (and he's demonstrably bad at it). Neil Young et all were trying to call attention to this, but their method didn't leave much room for Spotify to do anything to help. If this trend continues, will we just have left/right companies in addition to left/right information sources? Does this serve our already damaged society well?
I think I made this point a couple years ago...more people get their "information" from comedians like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Bill Crosby (ha).
Omg, is right...Chuck E's In love Joni Mitchell? Cancel him, stat!
Maybe we should shift this conversation to discussing the shape of Kim Kardashian's ass.
shermer has a pretty thoughtful take...when time allows i would suggest everyone take a couple of minutes read this or world history regarding free speech and the marginalized it seems that most of the fringe politics in free societies is about control it's the standard for hardliner authoritarians
Why censorious responses to controversial claims is not the road to a free society
Who decides which speech and thought is acceptable and which is unacceptable? You? Me? The majority? A thought committee? The language police? The control of speech is how dictatorships and autocracies rule. We must resist the urge to control what other people say and think.
oh, the irony. By hollowing out all reference to facts in their diatribes, these right-wing nuts are doing precisely what you accuse those objecting to it of. They are trying to control the narrative by emptying all dialogue of any reference to facts, leaving the only salient point that of tribal adherence. Then, once you have whipped up your fanbase, you march on government and take control by force, because, by God, we have a right to be angry.
Let's take the politics out of it and approach it like any good librarian and put a massive great FICTION banner on the title. That might solve it.
shermer has a pretty thoughtful take...when time allows i would suggest everyone take a couple of minutes read this or world history regarding free speech and the marginalized it seems that most of the fringe politics in free societies is about control it's the standard for hardliner authoritarians
Why censorious responses to controversial claims is not the road to a free society
Who decides which speech and thought is acceptable and which is unacceptable? You? Me? The majority? A thought committee? The language police? The control of speech is how dictatorships and autocracies rule. We must resist the urge to control what other people say and think.
Firstly, while a desirable goal in its own right, free speech at all costs is an absolutist position and absolutist positions rarely bear up to scrutiny when weighed up against other conflicting rights/duties, such as protecting children and the vulnerable and, yes, even the tribally nostalgic but socially dysfunctional, etc.
In the sense that no one is at risk of going to prison for speaking his/her mind, no this is not a free speech issue. Not legally. Culturally it absolutely is. The impulse to prevail in an argument by silencing those you disagree with it pernicious and worth criticizing. And an absolutist position on free speech is the only morally defensible one. Opinions that don't piss anybody off don't need protection. The views that need to be protected are the ones whose expressions are under attack.
Secondly, the Neil Young vs. Rogan thing is not predominantly a free speech issue. It is about Neil Young's freedom not to associate himself (even indirectly via a platform such as Spotify) with demonstrably false and dangerous misinformation that is, in fact, hurting people in the middle of a pandemic (see duty of care in point 1).
I want to make clear that I have no complaint with Neil Young* disassociating himself from Spotify; my complaint is with his ultimatum: silence him or I walk. If I were Spotify I wouldn't be held hostage to that kind of tantrum, and I'm glad they held firm.
Removing NY from the equation, it is obvious that Spotify's policies on the freedom of speech are dictated by market forces. If it feels it can earn more bucks / win more subscribers down the road by being a good corporate citizen then it will enforce its stated policy of suppressing misinformation. If, however, it feels the money lies in tribal incantations of falsehoods all aimed at whipping up a frenzied crowd (see Hannah Arendt), then it will no doubt go down that road. Choices, choices.
Spotify, to be sure, is a business. That doesn't mean it needs to be a short-sighted business. This isn't just about Joe Rogan having the freedom to have any guest he likes on his podcast, it's about our right to hear those guests and decide for ourselves who we believe. It's also about Spotify's ability to set its own policies and determine what it wants to present. That isn't legally in play just yet, but there are forces within the US legislative branch who think they have the authority to make it their business. This isn't happening in a vacuum. *You think you're a huge Neil Young fan? I bet I'm a bigger one. Do you have a copy of Landing On Water? How about Everybody's Rockin' with the Shocking Pinks? Yeah, I do. They're mostly awful, but by golly I bought them, because I know that every now and then he will produce a gem like Harvest Moon, and it will speak to me like few other artists have. That said...outside of music he's an airhead. I don't get medical advice from comedians' podcasts or rock and roll musicians. I don't care who he says I should vote for and I don't care what he thinks about...well, anything other than music. He has the right to associate (or not) with whomever he pleases, but he doesn't get to decide who else I get to listen to.
ok, there is a lot in here so I'll arrange my reply in terms of what I think are the most salient points.
1. My first exposure to Neil Young was lying in bed as a young teenager and next door, where students, you know those long-hair drug-taking spoilt brats without a shred of common decency as Mum described them, those ones, were throwing a party. I was totally transported by Neil Young. It was one of the first times ever that music had actually had that kind of effect on me. He does that. Kudos Neil.
2. "This isn't happening in a vacuum". Sure. I get it. I totally agree that shutting down all expression to only allow a bland vanilla politically-correct soup cannot possibly be a desirable end-result. So, yeah, better to let Rogan rant than shut him down. Agreed.
3. "And an absolutist position on free speech is the only morally defensible one." Think you are falling into the fallacy here that an absolutist position is the only morally tenable one. Firstly, what is morally defensible is open to argument. And that argument can be enormously nuanced. You don't have to be absolutist about anything to maintain a position that is, in sum, morally defensible. In fact I would argue that the only morally defensible position is to take into account all interests, rights and duties of all involved before deciding (as a free individual acting on the social stage) what you think the right thing to do is. Trying to simplify this task by dividing it up into isolated parcels defeats the entire purpose of what being moral means.
4. "The impulse to prevail in an argument by silencing those you disagree with it pernicious and worth criticizing." Totally agree.
So, given all the above, and disregarding its business objectives, should Spotify suppress misinformation or not? I say yes. Why?
Rogan is also not spouting forth his trash in a vacuum. He is playing a fanbase that is demonstrably extremely damaging to wider society and is fostering and empowering them to do this. No one has the right to willingly harm others and at some point the duty to protect others from harm outweighs the right of the miscreant to free speech. Inciting riot is a crime for good reason.
That said, the ability of a society to withstand widely divergent views, even radicalised falsehoods, is a measure of how healthy that society is. So, yeah, tolerance must also play a great role here. But tolerance for harmful points of view that get acted on also has its limits.
So let Rogan rant by all means, but I'd deduct a painful sum from his very healthy pay check for each demonstrably false claim made with the intent to deceive and harm others and divvy that money up amongst the musicians who make Spotify what it is.
Firstly, while a desirable goal in its own right, free speech at all costs is an absolutist position and absolutist positions rarely bear up to scrutiny when weighed up against other conflicting rights/duties, such as protecting children and the vulnerable and, yes, even the tribally nostalgic but socially dysfunctional, etc.
In the sense that no one is at risk of going to prison for speaking his/her mind, no this is not a free speech issue. Not legally.
Culturally it absolutely is. The impulse to prevail in an argument by silencing those you disagree with it pernicious and worth criticizing.
And an absolutist position on free speech is the only morally defensible one. Opinions that don't piss anybody off don't need protection. The views that need to be protected are the ones whose expressions are under attack.
Secondly, the Neil Young vs. Rogan thing is not predominantly a free speech issue. It is about Neil Young's freedom not to associate himself (even indirectly via a platform such as Spotify) with demonstrably false and dangerous misinformation that is, in fact, hurting people in the middle of a pandemic (see duty of care in point 1).
I want to make clear that I have no complaint with Neil Young* disassociating himself from Spotify; my complaint is with his ultimatum: silence him or I walk. If I were Spotify I wouldn't be held hostage to that kind of tantrum, and I'm glad they held firm.
Removing NY from the equation, it is obvious that Spotify's policies on the freedom of speech are dictated by market forces. If it feels it can earn more bucks / win more subscribers down the road by being a good corporate citizen then it will enforce its stated policy of suppressing misinformation. If, however, it feels the money lies in tribal incantations of falsehoods all aimed at whipping up a frenzied crowd (see Hannah Arendt), then it will no doubt go down that road. Choices, choices.
Spotify, to be sure, is a business. That doesn't mean it needs to be a short-sighted business. This isn't just about Joe Rogan having the freedom to have any guest he likes on his podcast, it's about our right to hear those guests and decide for ourselves who we believe. It's also about Spotify's ability to set its own policies and determine what it wants to present. That isn't legally in play just yet, but there are forces within the US legislative branch who think they have the authority to make it their business. This isn't happening in a vacuum.
*You think you're a huge Neil Young fan? I bet I'm a bigger one. Do you have a copy of Landing On Water? How about Everybody's Rockin' with the Shocking Pinks? Yeah, I do. They're mostly awful, but by golly I bought them, because I know that every now and then he will produce a gem like Harvest Moon, and it will speak to me like few other artists have.
That said...outside of music he's an airhead. I don't get medical advice from comedians' podcasts or rock and roll musicians. I don't care who he says I should vote for and I don't care what he thinks about...well, anything other than music. He has the right to associate (or not) with whomever he pleases, but he doesn't get to decide who else I get to listen to.
I'm almost certain you just tried to make a point.
Firstly, while a desirable goal in its own right, free speech at all costs is an absolutist position and absolutist positions rarely bear up to scrutiny when weighed up against other conflicting rights/duties, such as protecting children and the vulnerable and, yes, even the tribally nostalgic but socially dysfunctional, etc.
Secondly, the Neil Young vs. Rogan thing is not predominantly a free speech issue. It is about Neil Young's freedom not to associate himself (even indirectly via a platform such as Spotify) with demonstrably false and dangerous misinformation that is, in fact, hurting people in the middle of a pandemic (see duty of care in point 1).
Removing NY from the equation, it is obvious that Spotify's policies on the freedom of speech are dictated by market forces. If it feels it can earn more bucks / win more subscribers down the road by being a good corporate citizen then it will enforce its stated policy of suppressing misinformation. If, however, it feels the money lies in tribal incantations of falsehoods all aimed at whipping up a frenzied crowd (see Hannah Arendt), then it will no doubt go down that road. Choices, choices.
Sticking with the WW2 theme for a moment: I'm sure you've heard the reports about a school board in McMinn County, Tennessee banning the graphic novel Maus from its curriculum. I'm sure you also saw the many heroic social media posts urging students to go out and read Maus not because it is a gripping personal narrative about the holocaust (which it is) but specifically because someone was trying to suppress it.
Are all those heroic champions of free speech wrong in that instance, and why shouldn't that advice apply to Joe Rogan's podcast?
One is a tale of groupthink, bad science, damage to the lives and livelihoods of many innocent people, and the eventual damage it all does to a society... Wait, you're right, it's pretty much the same tale.
Difference would be that one is a retelling in the hopes that we wouldn't repeat such lunacy, the other is a real time proof of our inability to learn from our past.
I don't want Joe Rogan canceled, I want people to recognize that his high point was getting people to lay in a tub of scorpions and drink donkey sperm. This is not a qualification to pontificate on public health.
Well, I think itâs important to have the other side of Maus in kidsâ hands. Itâs the one where the Jewish mice eat everyoneâs food, control the news and TV, and ruin things for everyone so the best thing is for them to be hunted and trapped. It shows the other side of the story, right? And we want our kids to believe in free speech, even when the speech vilifies an entire race for just existing and suggests that their extermination would be good for everyone else.
Wait. Does free speech mean thatâs correct? Does free speech mean that lies, hate, and exhortation to hurt others (notice that all of those are against the traditional religious instructions) are as important for us to push on our culture as the opposite? Should we, after all, shout FIRE in a crowded room because, you know, freedom? Are there, after all, no rules based on community and compassion and making things good instead of âfreeâ?
I'm almost certain you just tried to make a point.
Welp, I know more about who Joe Rogan is now than I did last week; I thought he was a comedian with a radio show spun off from Howard Stern or something. So this whole thing has gotten Neil some headlines and sent people to Spotify/Rogan in droves, I suspect. I mean if Joe's message was their thing but they didn't know about him or where to hear him, hey there you go. Win-win, I guess.
I also learned that Spotify has $100 million to pay him but .3¢ to pay for a song.
should i put it on and let it play 24/7?
or just boot up my hobo crypto mining rig?
please advise
wait, www.joerogansbrain.com is available
maybe we could do something with that
because hawk chow
