For example, nobody is trying to suppress astrology, because nobody is afraid it might be true. The same goes for phrenology, ancient astronauts, flat earthers, 9/11 conspiracies, etc.
What bollocks, most "ideas" people are trying to surpress like white nationalism and sexism aren't being surpress because people are secretly scared that whites are the master race or women are inferior, they're being surpress because they're objectively harmful ideas that have caused enormous suffering throughout human history.
The idea that people are trying to stop the spread of these ideologies because they're "secretly scared they're correct" is nothing but a way for people who hold these harmful views to justify having them through defending some self delusional "truth" they've substantiated purely through nonsense.
You'll never convince people they're wrong by violently suppressing them.
Tell that to Germany in 1920.
Each facet of nonsense you've mentioned is being battled by one group of skeptics or another. Off the top of my head, there's the work of James Randi, Richard Dawkins, Brian Dunning, and Steven Novella. Those people aren't fighting ideas they're afraid are true, they fear the harmful outcome of misplaced beliefs.
If people weren't battling pseudoscience, you'd see a lot more of it in your day-to-day life, and society as a whole would be much worse off. That's not speculation, it's a solid fact.
Carl Sagan's books ridiculed astrology. He made no attempt to suppress it.
Huge difference.
Mel Brooks once was asked why he wrote a comedy about Hitler (The Producers). He replied that ridicule was the best way to oppose bad ideas.
Not suppressing them.
Are you a scientist researching vaccines and autism? No? Do you know that leading scientists are often wrong, very wrong, especially about health issues? Scientists were wrong about dietary fat causing heart attacks, for example. Isn't it a good thing that we didn't make questioning them illegal?
Besides, you'll just legitimize their opinions if you make them illegal.
I don’t really care whether they feel legitimized; I see the actual physical harm their fear-mongering (and often outright fraud) causes.
There comes a point where the weight of data is such that people are not questioning unsettled science, they are merely lying. You’re welcome to paint a slippery slope if you like, but this is a difference in degree that is a difference in kind. Is there a line drawing fallacy at play? Yes, which is why my original post was specifically worded “the more extreme types.”
To your original point, which I think you have spent a lot of time shifting goal posts on: I would wholeheartedly censor these people, and not because I fear there is any germ of truth in what they are saying.
And I am sad that you would dispense with free speech rights so cheaply. I have family members who fought in terrible bloody battles to ensure we have these rights.
Be very, very careful what you wish for.
I'm sure you do. I was also comfortable with doctors confidently recommending I eat margarine instead of butter for decades. What shit advice that turned out to be. Who knows how many years off my life from heart disease that has gotten me.
I like that people constantly question the things you are "comfortable" with. It keeps science honest. In fact, questioning the conventional wisdom is what science is all about.
You say you're an educated man. Do you know what they did to Galileo when he suggested the current state of research on the planets was wrong?
By the way, all my vaccinations are up to date.
Speaking out against something is battling it, battle is a verb in this context. Both Oxford and Webster agree [0,1].
Forceful suppression of pseudoscience can be achieved through law and education, see the Scopes Trial [2]. This is another with thousands of examples, from women's right to vote, to smoking cigarettes.
[0] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/battle
I'm racking my brain trying to think of counterexamples of suppression from the left. Suppression of white supremacist thought? Anti-gay sentiment? The value of diversity? Who on the left is genuinely (if secretly) afraid that whites are the master race, or that the gays are destroying family values?
Free speech kills bad ideas. The nazis, for example, have free speech in the US. They get nowhere.
- "by definition, PoC can't be racist" - e.g. as an argument to shut down complaints of "reverse racism"
- white people must listen to PoC's before they can engage in discussions about racism (e.g. - don't force PoC's to engage in the emotional labor of educating you)
- you can't make assertions about the experiences of PoC/women/trans/non-binary people if you haven't lived as one
etc.
I'm not making ANY judgements about the truth/validity of the aforementioned "rules of engagement".
I try to follow these rules when talking about social justice issues. It's no skin off my back - but it certainly adds some limits to the types of conversations I'll participate in, and the kinds of things I might say. I don't think there's anything wrong with that - as long as I don't slip into outright dishonesty as a result of these constraints.
I think some of the backlash against social justice by conservatives comes from the belief that these kinds of constraints are unacceptable, and are concocted by stupid, illogical people.
You gave a lot of examples of things nobody is trying to suppress, but no examples of things people are trying to. So..can you give as many examples of things you think fit what you said? Thanks.
For another,
http://crosscut.com/2017/01/uw-shooting-milo-yiannopoulos-ho...
During the last election, there were bricks thrown through the windows of the GOP campaign office in Seattle.
So..these are all things you think happened because the people doing the suppressing were afraid the ideas involved might be true?
(Hmm now I notice there was mention of causality in your initial claim)
edit: OMG, I just read that Ebert page. Are you kidding, that made you like Ebert less?! Can't follow you on that one. He hardly just 'said' it, it was the very start of Ebert's open letter to Limbaugh, it seems. "You should be horse-whipped for the insult you have paid to the highest office of our nation." In context, it sounds a fair enough remark to me.
Ebert goes on, disgusted Limbaugh and caller agree "that Obama might steal money intended for the Red Cross to help the wretched of Haiti. .. This conversation came 48 hours after many of us had seen pitiful sights from Port au Prince. Tens of thousands are believed still alive beneath the rubble. You twisted their suffering into an opportunity to demean the character of the President of the United States." etc Well, I didn't hear about that, maybe Obama did steal the money, in which case I apologize. But I kinda doubt it.
So how does that fit into "suppression because they fear it's true"? I don't see any part of it fits that. But anyway. :-) Thanks for this exchange, it was enlightening.
https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/a-letter-to-rush-l...
Ebert was a prominent liberal, and I liked him a lot. But I was shocked at that article of his. I hope liberals today, given how fashionable it is to insult the President, are glad that Ebert's wish was not granted.
Isn't it grand that we (still) live in a country where one can insult the President and not get horsewhipped? That's a precious right.
"Volcanoes add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than fossil fuel combustion."
"Vaccines cause autism."
I have no fear that these ideas might be right. I am nonetheless loudly and forcefully against them. Spreading anti-vaccination falsehoods is literally a bannable offense on a scientific forum I run. If I were God Emperor of Facebook it'd be a bannable offense on Facebook too.
>The same goes for phrenology, ancient astronauts, flat earthers, 9/11 conspiracies, etc.
If you've ever listened to these people they constantly, constantly talk about how their ideas (just asking questions!) are being suppressed.
I want to see you support and expand on your argument that people only try to suppress ideas that they fear are correct. Are you literally saying that anti-Nazis secretly fear that Jews run the world? That gay rights activists secretly fear that homosexuality is a depraved plot to destroy our moral fibre? If not, then what are you saying?
Just think of the beliefs you hold dear. What would you do if someone produced evidence that you were wrong? You'd be a very rare person to accept it and change your mind. Remember the physicists (including Einstein) who could not accept quantum mechanics?
It is literally impossible to produce solid, well-supported evidence that homosexuality is a Satanic plot. It is exactly as likely as Flat Earth.
And you're still evading the question. Do you, or do you not, believe that dedicated gay rights activists secretly fear the above is true? Yes or no, please.
The only modern viewpoint I can think of that remotely fits your narrative is the tendency of outspoken homophobes to get caught having gay sex, and even that's a stretch.