I read the article and wrote a very long rant, and then condensed it to this:
The idea of shutting people down because you don't agree with their ideas, and want to keep them from expressing them, is so anti-everything I believe in.
WTF is so scary or threatening about the free expression of ideas (in any form)? WTF is so scary and threatening about thinking for yourself? You can't have a free and democratic society without these things.
Read for yourself. Think for yourself. Speak for yourself. No fear.
I understand people wanting to warn others that "this book may be hurtful to you" or "this book perpetuates stereotypes". But the whole cultlike idea that once someone has declared a book "problematic" nobody but THE ENEMY would want to read it and decide for themselves - that nobody could possibly read it and DISAGREE it's problematic - that only a BAD PERSON would read it, agree it's problematic, and possibly enjoy it anyway...this attitude is deeply disturbing to me.
Yes, exactly. This need to attack people and label them as bad/evil/enemies when they don't agree with you is very disturbing. It's intellectual bullying, and the bullies are winning, because, as the article showed, people are afraid to stand up to them, this vague, virtual crowd of ignorant people who hate a book they've never read. They're afraid to give comments using their real names. I find this more disturbing than the bullying itself.
And I do see it fundamentally as these people feeling threatened and reacting. People who are trying to warn others as an act of kindness or concern don't attack others. So why do they feel so threatened by those who would disagree with them over a book that they spew a very hateful rhetoric against them? I mean, if they think that everyone should think the way they do, and they can't handle the fact that it's okay that others don't, they have a serious problem.
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dragovianknight) wrote2017-08-09 09:02 am
no subject
The idea of shutting people down because you don't agree with their ideas, and want to keep them from expressing them, is so anti-everything I believe in.
WTF is so scary or threatening about the free expression of ideas (in any form)? WTF is so scary and threatening about thinking for yourself? You can't have a free and democratic society without these things.
Read for yourself. Think for yourself. Speak for yourself. No fear.
no subject
no subject
And I do see it fundamentally as these people feeling threatened and reacting. People who are trying to warn others as an act of kindness or concern don't attack others. So why do they feel so threatened by those who would disagree with them over a book that they spew a very hateful rhetoric against them? I mean, if they think that everyone should think the way they do, and they can't handle the fact that it's okay that others don't, they have a serious problem.