Well I'm going to leave your comments about me aside since they don't really have any bearing on the rest of my post old chap (or chapette).Secondhand Revenant said:Oh you again. Why am I not surprised you'd accuse me of trying to imply they advocate for it happening. I'm not. I often find them advocating that all discussions have value, in this case likely the tired nonsense thst it needs to be disproved or else dire unproven consequences will occur. I use this as an example of a discussion with none. Not to say they want it to happen.vallorn said:And nobody is advocating for that discussion so stop implying that "Free Speech" (Your spellchecker seems to be set to PZ Myers just FYI) want to have precisely that discussion.Secondhand Revenant said:I think the answer depends on the specifics of the situation. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.Drathnoxis said:In many controversial subjects there are opinions which may offend certain individuals. Opinions that, while offensive, are substantially represented and can serve as opposition to the general consensus.
Opinions including, but not limited to:
-Gay is a choice
-Transwomen are just boys pretending to be girls (and vice versa)
-Christians believe in fairy tails
-Gamers are hateful misogynist neckbeards
-etc.
Opinions that may offend people, but are still held with conviction by their owners.
*Note: Please do not use this thread to specifically discuss any of the opinions mentioned above, I claim no ownership to such opinions, and use them purely as examples of opinions that could be found offensive.*
So let's say that in my town, I have a club that meets to discuss and argue about various issues. Should my club disallow statements of opinions that people find offensive, and after so many warning bar them from access to the discussions? Or, should everybody be entitled to state their opinions, no matter how foul they may seem to others, as long as they aren't meant as attacks upon a specific individual or group that attends the club?
EDIT: If you believe offensiveness should be censored, who do you think should be determining offensiveness? Should it be the owners of the establishment, the guards that work to keep discussions civil, should it be a majority vote type thing, or something else entirely?
Sorry to the pure frozen peach people, but I don't think having a debate on whether black humans are people, for example, would be very productive or useful and productivity and usefulness are bigger concerns for a discussion group, I imagine, than pure free speech on principle just because.
If every time you reply to me I get the joy of having to correct your 'misunderstandings' don't expect much beyond correcting you until you can stop 'misunderstanding'
See, this is what I brought up in my first post in this thread, we do need to revisit the old arguments to make sure that they still hold up. If we do not then we become complacent, we forget why they are right in the first place. And that's not a sign of a healthy society.
All discussions do actually have value in the end, this is because even if it is "settled", playing devils advocate or otherwise testing the old arguments through debate and clever reasoning can show flaws in them or open up new avenues of investigation. Not everything must be rooted in what is useful to us today, the past has lots that it can teach us if we examine it properly, it's not just "tired nonsense" either when populations in certain regions of the world still believe it. How can you hope to, for example, eradicate the mistreatment of women in some foreign nations when you have forgotten the arguments and reasoning that allowed you to do so in your own country?
Finally. Revisiting the old arguments allows one to better understand history. Instead of simply proclaiming that one argument or group was "wrong" or "evil", examining their "tired nonsense" allows you to see if there was anything worth salvaging from the practice. For example, there's a sentiment within Noblesse Oblige that I find quite endearing where those with power, wealth or influence have a duty to help those who are less fortunate than them for one reason or another. That's not to say that the entire argument and practice of Noblesse Oblige is good, but that sentiment within it has some merit that we see reflected in our society today, especially some groups like the British Royal family who use a lot of their time to promote charities for which they are patrons. It's also what spurred the great infrastructure developments of those like Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Joseph Bazalgette who's sense of duty led to the construction of many life improving projects in London like a proper sewer system to prevent cholera's spread.
But enough about that. My point here was to prove that by examining the arguments of the past we can discover things about our modern opinions and we can understand the reasoning that leads us to the societal norms we have today. Therefore it is a good thing to reexamine the old arguments for many reasons.