|
|
|
|
|
|
by darby_nine
707 days ago
|
|
|
The curse of liberal society is that we will always struggle with defining who exactly is allowed to gatekeep knowledge. The liberal version of collective censorship comes from widespread consensus among publishers and distributers (and even that is rarely absolute, and I believe only a minority truly think this is possible). For all we lament cancel culture and divisive discourse, our bookstore would look a lot worse without them, and I believe it's your patriotic duty to mock and decry people whom you perceive as harmful to society. |
|
|
I do think it’s our duty to engage in dialogue about the things that we feel are harmful to society. Dialogue is all we have to address issues peacefully, and how we use it is critical.
I disagree that mocking and decrying people is the answer. This may feel good for the person or group doing it, but does little to actually move the needle in terms of actual change. What it does do is drive a wedge between the people doing the mocking and those being mocked, and I’d argue this is at the heart of the increasing polarization we see across almost every subject.
The reality is that good people have questionable or downright bad ideas/beliefs and do things that are harmful. Attack bad ideas, yes. Argue for good ideas, even forcefully when necessary. Don’t attack people.
Almost nothing of value comes from mocking and deriding people when the end goal is to coexist in a free society, especially when achieving actual systemic change via legislation depends on people agreeing/coming together and is directly harmed by creating a zero sum mindset.