> What ideology is that? Musk has hinted that he views Twitter as a public forum and should be moderated as such.
“the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes 'What the hell is water?'”
“the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes 'What the hell is water?'”
EDIT: Seems like a lot of disagreement with this, but would love to hear some compelling arguments to justify activist moderation.
Combine that with the culture that understands free speech issues in this way more generally: less from a regard for the value of liberal discourse and more for the privilege of indulgent speech, related to the idea “my ignorance is as good as your knowledge” but extended into the realm of stewardship or even ownership of an entire platform. This indulgent and degraded view of free speech is required in order to understand twitter as a repressive forum as a consequence of limits on things like some trans jokes and deadnaming or even advocacy of identity-focused violence, which can only feel like repression to someone who fundamentally has nothing else of value to say.
If that seems tired to you, I’d be happy to inject more vigor.
> To be much more specific: the idea that Twitter has a free speech problem is itself immoderate and ideological.
It's ideological in the sense that "free speech is desirable" is ideological. Arguing that it's "immoderate" implies that arguing for stronger free speech protections is radical, which is untrue.
> There is an unquestionably huge range of ideas that can be not only freely but rather aggressively expressed on twitter. There is a very narrow range of speech that is disallowed and even a considerable amount of that actually gets through.
I'm not going to die on the hill of "Twitter needs to be less censorious", but free speech proponents can still legitimately find Twitter problematic even if the censors allow a lot of wrongthink through. For example, Twitter can sort replies by ideology such that wrongthink is much less likely to be seen. It could hide wrongthink from various users altogether. Whether or not it actually does any of these is difficult to assess because there's no transparency.
> Combine that with the culture that understands free speech issues in this way more generally: less from a regard for the value of liberal discourse and more for the privilege of indulgent speech, related to the idea “my ignorance is as good as your knowledge” but extended into the realm of stewardship or even ownership of an entire platform.
Yes, we have a broken epistemology, but this is the result of the politicization of institutions (especially by the left wing). Specifically, the left wing argues that because perfect neutrality and objectivity are impossible thus we should wholesale abandon the pursuit thereof and instead be doggedly (and ideologically homogeneously) activist. This predictably damages trust in the institutions which in turn drives people toward other institutions, many of which are less savory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIwMIrj5Ulo
>I already am eating from the trashcan all the time. The name of this trashcan is ideology. The material force of ideology - makes me not see what I'm effectively eating. It's not only our reality which enslaves us. The tragedy of our predicament - when we are within ideology, is that - when we think that we escape it into our dreams - at that point we are within ideology.
In other words, what you think of as moderate and not ideological is a result of your ideology itself.
For a more thorough, very academic examination of ideology, I can recommend the book The Sublime Object of Ideology.
In Saudi Arabia, death penalty for homosexuals would be considered moderate. They would consider your attitude toward free speech around the prophet radical.
What you consider moderate is always a result of your ideology. There is no objective moderate, there is only moderate within your ideology.
That's exactly what ideology is: It determines what you perceive as "normal" or "moderate".
Relative to your ideology.
You'd be tall in Nigeria relative to the median height.
You'd be a moderate in the US and a radical in Saudi Arabia relative to the prevailing ideology.
Incorrect, not relative to one’s ideology, but relative to the implicit political context (such as “US politics” or “Saudi politics”. If it were relative to each person’s own ideology, then everyone would identify as a moderate: “My ideology is moderate relative to my ideology”.
> You'd be a moderate in the US and a radical in Saudi Arabia relative to the prevailing ideology.
This is correct, but it contradicts your earlier claim that the definition of “moderate” is itself ideological. It’s contextual but not ideological.
The ideology is the context.
Zizek is very ironically an ideologue himself (a "Hegelian" in his words) and as such his version of the story only contains half the lesson -- that culture, which he calls ideology because he seemingly refuses to truly understand what ideology is, lest admit he is an ideologue, can blind members of that culture to certain things, but without addressing that culture and ideology have positive aspects as well.
The man is a neverending font of faux insight and obscurantism posturing as wisdom and this quote is no different from any other.
(and it seems that includes you based on how you contrasted "status quo" and "ideology" in the other comment, as if the status quo were somehow unideological)
Invariably, topics involving "ideology" are a trap for pedants. They think they're going to get a good "gotcha!" in, but they find themselves hoisted on their own petards.
People who want Twitter to be non-ideological in reality just want it to represent some other ideology instead, they don't get to hide behind some veil of neutrality.
Or am I misunderstanding?
To a devout Muslim, the amount of freedom of speech we have around the prophet is radical.
To a leftist, the exploitation of laborers by the capitalist class is radical.
To the religious right, LGBT rights are radical.
To racists, race mixing is radical.
The only thing that makes it seem moderate to you is your ideology.
> To a devout Muslim, the amount of freedom of speech we have around the prophet is radical. To a leftist, the exploitation of laborers by the capitalist class is radical. To the religious right, LGBT rights are radical. To racists, race mixing is radical.
Yep, you're observing that "moderate" is a relative term. Different groups have different Overton windows.
> The only thing that makes it seem moderate to you is your ideology.
No, it doesn't matter what my ideology is, it matters what context we're talking about. That context is often implicit, but that doesn't mean the notion of "moderate" is ideological. If someone says "Joe is of median height", do you leap out from behind the bushes and yell "gotcha! 'median' is an ideological term! In Nigeria Joe is tall!"? That doesn't mean "median" is an ideological term, it means that it's dependent on the context, in which case the context is probably something like "whatever country Joe lives in".
Correct. Which attribute of the population though? Their height? Their skin color? Their weight? No, their ideology.
> Different groups have different Overton windows.
What is an Overton window if not a measure of ideology?
> No, it doesn't matter what my ideology is, it matters what context we're talking about. That context is often implicit, but that doesn't mean the notion of "moderate" is ideological.
That's exactly what ideology is, "implicit context".
Right, “moderate” refers to ideology, but that doesn’t mean the meaning of the word is ideologically determined as you’ve variously claimed.
> What is an Overton window if not a measure of ideology?
Absolutely, but this supports my point against yours.
> That's exactly what ideology is, "implicit context".
Yes, correct. Again, this is all compatible with my points.
I'm not even sure what the point you're trying to make is at this point. You've agreed that "moderate" is a term relative to ideology already, so what even is it you're arguing now? If it's relative to ideology, of course it's ideological, because your definition of "moderate" will change based on ideology.
Right, that was my point from the start. "moderate" isn't an ideology by itself. When we are in a US context (irrespective of whether someone is a US progressive or a US conservative), "moderate" refers to the propensity to hew somewhat closely to the US status quo. On the other hand, you've argued that "moderate" depends on a person's ideology, and people with normative American ideologies can't talk about Saudi moderates because "moderate" would be relative to normative American ideology--of course this isn't true because I'm an American and I just referenced Saudi moderate ideologies. "moderate" doesn't depend on my ideology or normative American ideologies, but the context which I've explicitly designated as "Saudi" but it may also be implicit.
> You've agreed that "moderate" is a term relative to ideology already, so what even is it you're arguing now?
Hah, "moderate is a relative term" was my position from the start, you've changed tack from arguing that the definition of moderate ("occupying any mainstream position avoiding extreme views and major social change") is inherently ideological--it's not. It's an adjective which describes ideologies, and it's relative to some context (e.g., US politics, European politics, etc), but the definition doesn't vary based on anyone's ideology contra your claim.