How many times have you said something along the lines of "I will kill you if you put that picture of me on Instagram!"
I believe Bannon was genuinely attempting to fuel the escalation of both disorganized and, through normalization, top-down political violence and intimidation against people insufficiently adherent to his vision; I don't think the statement had either literal or figurative, hyperbolic or otherwise, meaning beyond that intended effect.
Discussing “meaning” of a speech act assumes that the acts intended to operate on a certain rational level, which I don't think actually applies here. But, inasmuch as an interpretation of the intended effect centered around meaning is appropriate at all, I think the literal meaning is the closest.
> How many times have you said something along the lines of "I will kill you if you put that picture of me on Instagram!"
That's not even remotely analogous to what Bannon did here. He wasn't personally and privately addressing the person who was the subject in a context (whether immediate or through a preexisting relationship) that undermined the literal meaning of the expression. His act differed on literally every meaningful aspect from that.
Notice how my example has similarities to what Bannon actually said, and therefore sounds far more inappropriate.
Let's also keep in mind that this hypothetical "boss" is probably not linked to various groups known for frequently making death threats and engaging in political violence.
Regress in social norms doesn't require actual time travel, and that happening through normalization of political violence is a real thing, which has happened lots of places, and which Bannon is overtly calling for here, pointing to the mere firing he expects from the President as inadequate. (Making it clear that the call was not a metaphor for firing.)
We do. That doesn't conflict with platforms having standards that prohibit advocacy of violence.
> If they believe there is a credible threat, they should investigate, that is their purpose.
It wasn't a threat, it was advocacy /incitement, which is a different thing.
> We can hold them accountable via voting and their actions should ideally be transparent to the public.
Their actions, by law, are not transparent to the public, and instead are subject to among the broadest exceptions of any public agencies (beyond defense/intelligence) to transparency laws. Not that your fantasies about law enforcement transparency, even if true, have any relevance to Bannon's incitement.
> If Bannon is part of a real, literal plot to place Fauci's head on a pike at the White House, that is the avenue through which it should be prosecuted.
A plot/conspiracy is a third thing, different from both a threat and incitement.
And no one is talking about prosecution.
Facebook isn't a public utility that is somehow obligated to relay and promote all speech equally without filtering with the only controls being after-the-fact actions by law enforcement. You are free to create a service with those terms of use and try to compete with Facebook, if you wish, but that's not what Facebook users have signed up for. And, while I've certainly seen examples of Facebook being overzealous in enforcing their “Community Standards”, this particular case doesn't come close to that.
I understand what Facebook is and isn't obligated to do. I'm not saying they are obligated to be neutral. They are not obligated to play the role of speech police either. I am saying it would be better for society as a whole if they leave adults to make up their own minds about speech. Speech should not be controlled by corporations.
Yes, they can impose whatever limits they want. That doesn't meant that it's good or that we should be happy about it or that we are not allowed to question whatever limits they impose.
And sure you can argue "just don't use Facebook". That is fine, for now. Facebook is a large, but not completely necessary part of society. What happens when it becomes larger and more necessary (or another company does) and we've already imbued them with the power to decide what people are and are not allowed to say? Do you think then they'll just give that power up?
Have you seen that episode of Black Mirror where you can literally ghost people? I forget exactly, but there was some way to punish people by making them physically invisible and inaudible, so they had could barely interact with the world. I guess they could still eat, but they couldn't talk to or be acknowledged by anyone.
Obviously, getting banned from Facebook is not that, but it's maybe Version 0.01 of that, and I get the distinct impression that people here would be perfectly fine with that as long as it happens to people they don't like.
Essentially, he wants dictatorship.
It's not illegal to promote dictatorship but it is gross, and he should be publicly shunned for it.
That's, again, not analogous to what Bannon said.
What Bannon said was, after having suggested that Trump’s second term would start with firing of Wray and Fauci, "Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I'd put the heads on pikes, right, I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you're gone – time to stop playing games."
He's not using heads on pikes as a metaphor for firing, because firing was the prediction of what the President as a “kind-hearted man” would do, while Bannon wanted more.
People never, ever use hyperbole for effect and only speak 100% literally.
No, just like I never said Bannon's statement should be taken as a threat.
> People never, ever use hyperbole for effect
I never said that. What effect so you think Bannon was going for? I've explained what I think, and that that the statement was a neither literal nor hyperbolic.
If you want a productive dialog, you need to respond to what people actually say, rather than fantasies of what you'd like them to have said because it is convenient to argue against.
To me it sounds like Bannon is just a pompous blowhard who's making outrageous claims he will never, in a million years, be able to back up.
But that's not my point. My point is that I get to read his words myself and make up my own mind about them. I can decide he's a pompous blowhard or a serious threat to democracy and direct my own actions accordingly. I don't have to get a secondhand account from Facebook who tells me what to think about Bannon. Do you see the difference?
If you read Bannon's word and decide he's a threat then you can go around warning people about him if you like, or starting some counter-advocacy movement, or whatever (legal) action you want to take. If you have to rely on Facebook telling you which people are threats and which people are not, that gives them a power to direct the public discourse to their whims. The public needs to have the ability to view primary sources and make up their own minds about them.
I'm not concerned about the specific details of this one piece of speech, I'm concerned about the general principle of where the power to decide which speech is appropriate lies.
But as a tip, 'All you seem to be doing is repeating the statement and gesturing wildly at it going "See? See????? Bad!"' is horrifyingly bad technique when responding to someone who just said 'you need to respond to what people actually say, rather than fantasies of what you'd like them to have said'. gp is literally correct now. When someone says that you'll get much better results with literal quotes rather than unfair characterisations. You've got a good point, you can afford to be gentle.
I guess it was behind the gym, not the bleachers. Regardless, he had a specific location picked out and everything! Clearly a real threat.
There are some things we don’t give the benefit of the doubt for. Murdering public officials is one of them.
How many times and in how many ways is one allowed to intimate that they believe someone should be murdered before it's unacceptable to you?
But his threat was much more graphic and specific. How many times have you e.g. emailed your friend’s whole family with a message along the lines of “If you post that picture online I will eviscerate you and then hang you from your mother’s dining room ceiling by your intestines as a warning.”
That is not normal friendly exaggerated banter, and would be pretty hard to play off as a joke.
"Eviscerate you and then hang you from your mother’s dining room ceiling by your intestines" is not.
But “Mount their heads on pikes at the corners of the White House as a warning the way they used to do to traitors in Tudor England” is nothing close to a common expression.
Book reading has been in decline for a long time, and the loss of high level literacy and the ability to sense nuance and figurative language is a sign of that.
A lot of people indeed can't understand how the quote could have other meanings besides the literal one, because they've rarely encountered such use of language before.
People like Bannon and Trump have lots of followers and someone of them do end up doing things like attempting to kill politicians or trying to kidnap them.
> or as adults do we realize he was using hyperbole
or as adults Bannon and Trump should realize that their words have consequences and some of their followers wont know if its hyperbole. You can still make your point without the violent language.