Tuesday, July 21, 2020
More fake outrage
I've been trying to point out that most complaints about Big Tech censorship are spurious. Not necessarily false flags, just failing to consider history and failing to notice reality.
The same applies to outrage about cancel culture on campus.
Here's outrage from Frank Furedi at Spiked:
What is happening here? Throughout modern history it was the university that sought to uphold free speech against encroachment by governments. Until relatively recently, the commitment to freedom in all its forms was far more robust on campuses than in any other part of society. When I began my career as an academic in 1974, I had no doubt that we enjoyed a wide degree of freedom to express even the most controversial of views. We felt reassured that the freedom to argue and debate was seen as being integral to academic life.Nonsense. I was on various campuses at various times in the '60s and '70s. Several big state universities and one small 'liberal' Christian college. There was freedom to argue for minor variations in the Currently Fashionable view, but no room at all for real alternatives. A serious Christian or Islamic view of the world, or a populist view of politics, or an Aristotelian (purpose-based) view of science, would have been dismissed instantly. There has always been "reassurance" about "the commitment to freedom", but there has never been freedom. Universities have always been rigid tyrannies. Tenure made the tyranny even more rigid after 1970. Censorship is probably louder now, thanks to social media, but it has always been total and effective. ¶ 4:21 AM
