Thats a very common view here, not very far from Burke's school. 'I agree with what he says, but not the way he goes about it'
Its also well known here, with a degree of cynicism, that they family are known 'operators'. As in activists, known for butting heads with the law to prove various points.
As someone who also agrees with Burkes central point, and woukd go as far as to say disruptive tactics are necessary, I still feel he is poisoning the well
The problem in these kind of cases is not just the conflating of the two principles that individuals make as Helen points out.
Its much much broader than that and perpetrated by leaders, governmental, media,etc.
Currently, they do it from the stridently progressive side. Most people wouldn't be able to parse it out as Helen does here, but they see the contradictions and hypocricies.
Excellent, Helen (as usual). Thank you for pointing it out so clearly and completely. Have restacked.
It is an abiding sorrow for me that so many of "my" tribe -- liberals -- do not, in fact, support freedom of speech. They can be just as censorious and ILliberal as the radical right.
Hmm. This is a conversation familiar from my household.
If somebody argues, "My cause makes it OK for me to break the law", are they not - whether they like it or not - also *implicitly* arguing that it's OK to break the law if you think your cause is urgent and just?
They are saying that this is what free speech looks like.
(I think being prepared to "accept the consequences" is a red herring, because (a) they reject the social consequences, and (b) it's treating legal consequences as a tariff rather than a deterrent.)
I am not a fan of what Burke did. And I believe he strayed into harrassment. However, when liberalism breaks at some point in a chain or network, somewhere down that same chain, there is a counter-"un-liberal" response. The frustrated response to comply with someone's else's questionable doctrine causes ripples across the system before it finds a weak spot and breaks out somewhere else.
In this case of Burke, I think liberalism would have allowed (however you want to call them) "gender-critical" / "transphobe" / "biological realists" to have their say equally, without punishment. If legitimate debates had not been shut down, I doubt he would have courted sympathy by being such a Burke (forgive the pun). And indeed, he may have been dissuaded from being a burke by reading the social climate as being one where the people who got heard did so because of reasoned contributions to it.
We are seeing, now, the inevitable delayed response to silencing criticism about immigration et al. too, and denying any form of an identity for British/English people that should be recognised, or about the pros and cons of Net Zero etc.
Today we are in an age where about 85% accept same sex relationships, up from about 10% in the 1990s. I somehow sense, however, this was a more organic and sustainable transition in social values. People were not imprisoned or sacked for believing that there shouldn't be same sex marriages.
The people who break first in response to censorship and enforced compliance are not the reasoned ones. They are the ones with low impulse control, who tend to make a bit of a messy entrance. (See Trump - the mothership of this - on the world stage who questioned globalism's orthodoxies).
A healthy discussion is often specific in nature, and open, and people do not close it down because by labelling their opponent. A soon as people start using labels, I am sceptical unless they can quite precisely define what they mean. I am also quite sure that bad unliberal karma will rise somewhere else at some point in the future.
Enlightenment values about free expression were quite smart.
I think civil disobedience may be morally defensible, but it is not unmixed. At least in the US, right to assembly and free practice of religion are just as protected as freedom of speech. Are they saying they shouldn't have been arrested, or are they saying "look at this bad thing" and accepting that what they did was knowingly illegal and they SHOULD be arrested, but look at this gross injustice? Is this actually a freedom of speech case, or is it something else? It doesn't seem to me like their freedom of speech was abridged, except insofar as it would have been had they acted in this manner for ANY cause, or for no cause at all.
To be clear, if we're discussing the underlying issue of if he should be forced to use someone's preferred pronouns, well, that's a speech issue. But that didn't seem to be the part of this the article was concerned with.
This was a superb piece. I completely agree. Enoch Burke was free to highlight his cause. Free speech is alive and well. But there are ways of getting your point across, and he was found to have gone about things in the wrong way. But, you know, a good protest has to be disruptive. There's not much point in protesting if nobody pays attention, is there? Maybe next time he should glue his head to the gates of the school or something.
Sounds logical. I mean, we do have systems and restraints in place at the moment. It's fine to picket and march, for example. Problem is that doesn't always affect any change. Look at the "Just Stop Oil" guys, though - glued themselves to the road and were on TV all over the place (mind you, they didn't stop any oil...hhmm... maybe gluing isn't the best tactic).
Right so in my logic, they can glue themselves to a road, but only if lots of them turn up to do it. Like if 12 turn up, you charge them with terrorism and send them to prison. If 1000 glue themselves to the road, you shrug and charge the ring leaders with some public order offence.
Then what is your problem with what happened? Seems like he got what he wanted. He was arrested, and he got attention. I won't defend someone's "freedom to break the law in favor of a cause they support"; they are NOT free to do that. They will be prosecuted for breaking the law. They are free to act in such a manner, but not free from consequences, and given the consequences are the point, I don't understand what we're arguing about.
Maybe you have misunderstood me, Andrew. I have no problem with what happened to him. I completely agree with what happened to him. I was only saying that often, the people who break the law in order to protest do so because they know that the consequences will bring attention to their cause. But I would not defend it either. They break the law, they suffer the consequences, no matter their cause. That is often what they want though. But I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished. I think we agree with each other 100% - my original comment wasn't directed at anything you had written: I was commenting on the article (just looked back and it seems I replied to your comment instead of commenting on the article in general, which is what I meant to do - sorry, I agree with what you wrote.)
No, you didn't respond incorrectly. I think I was confused on the whole article. I reread it and think I understand it a bit better now, and with that context, my comment to you makes little sense.
Thats a very common view here, not very far from Burke's school. 'I agree with what he says, but not the way he goes about it'
Its also well known here, with a degree of cynicism, that they family are known 'operators'. As in activists, known for butting heads with the law to prove various points.
As someone who also agrees with Burkes central point, and woukd go as far as to say disruptive tactics are necessary, I still feel he is poisoning the well
Excuse the woeful grammar etc, can't seem to go back and edit
Defending free speech as a principle in no way requires defending the Burkes’ actions (nor that of the hypothetical trans activist):
Trespassing & contempt are the crimes.
Yelling at them from the street might be too, if it’s harassment or stalking.
But the words they want to say?
All still can be uttered, but only under shared societal constraints on how to resolve differing points of view.
Yep.
The problem in these kind of cases is not just the conflating of the two principles that individuals make as Helen points out.
Its much much broader than that and perpetrated by leaders, governmental, media,etc.
Currently, they do it from the stridently progressive side. Most people wouldn't be able to parse it out as Helen does here, but they see the contradictions and hypocricies.
It riles people up
You’re right, the stridently conservative side is nothing like this 😹
Appreciate the evening chuckle 👍
Well, it's the establishment that I'm accusing of being stridently progressive.
"Suffragettes were not defending a universal right to chain oneself to railings."
😁
Excellent, Helen (as usual). Thank you for pointing it out so clearly and completely. Have restacked.
It is an abiding sorrow for me that so many of "my" tribe -- liberals -- do not, in fact, support freedom of speech. They can be just as censorious and ILliberal as the radical right.
Hmm. This is a conversation familiar from my household.
If somebody argues, "My cause makes it OK for me to break the law", are they not - whether they like it or not - also *implicitly* arguing that it's OK to break the law if you think your cause is urgent and just?
They are saying that this is what free speech looks like.
(I think being prepared to "accept the consequences" is a red herring, because (a) they reject the social consequences, and (b) it's treating legal consequences as a tariff rather than a deterrent.)
Free speech is very difficult.
Sometimes saying: "Let them speak!" feels like pushing needles under your own fingernails.
I am not a fan of what Burke did. And I believe he strayed into harrassment. However, when liberalism breaks at some point in a chain or network, somewhere down that same chain, there is a counter-"un-liberal" response. The frustrated response to comply with someone's else's questionable doctrine causes ripples across the system before it finds a weak spot and breaks out somewhere else.
In this case of Burke, I think liberalism would have allowed (however you want to call them) "gender-critical" / "transphobe" / "biological realists" to have their say equally, without punishment. If legitimate debates had not been shut down, I doubt he would have courted sympathy by being such a Burke (forgive the pun). And indeed, he may have been dissuaded from being a burke by reading the social climate as being one where the people who got heard did so because of reasoned contributions to it.
We are seeing, now, the inevitable delayed response to silencing criticism about immigration et al. too, and denying any form of an identity for British/English people that should be recognised, or about the pros and cons of Net Zero etc.
Today we are in an age where about 85% accept same sex relationships, up from about 10% in the 1990s. I somehow sense, however, this was a more organic and sustainable transition in social values. People were not imprisoned or sacked for believing that there shouldn't be same sex marriages.
The people who break first in response to censorship and enforced compliance are not the reasoned ones. They are the ones with low impulse control, who tend to make a bit of a messy entrance. (See Trump - the mothership of this - on the world stage who questioned globalism's orthodoxies).
A healthy discussion is often specific in nature, and open, and people do not close it down because by labelling their opponent. A soon as people start using labels, I am sceptical unless they can quite precisely define what they mean. I am also quite sure that bad unliberal karma will rise somewhere else at some point in the future.
Enlightenment values about free expression were quite smart.
I think civil disobedience may be morally defensible, but it is not unmixed. At least in the US, right to assembly and free practice of religion are just as protected as freedom of speech. Are they saying they shouldn't have been arrested, or are they saying "look at this bad thing" and accepting that what they did was knowingly illegal and they SHOULD be arrested, but look at this gross injustice? Is this actually a freedom of speech case, or is it something else? It doesn't seem to me like their freedom of speech was abridged, except insofar as it would have been had they acted in this manner for ANY cause, or for no cause at all.
To be clear, if we're discussing the underlying issue of if he should be forced to use someone's preferred pronouns, well, that's a speech issue. But that didn't seem to be the part of this the article was concerned with.
This was a superb piece. I completely agree. Enoch Burke was free to highlight his cause. Free speech is alive and well. But there are ways of getting your point across, and he was found to have gone about things in the wrong way. But, you know, a good protest has to be disruptive. There's not much point in protesting if nobody pays attention, is there? Maybe next time he should glue his head to the gates of the school or something.
Maybe we need a cultural norm about what constitutes a proportionate protest?
Something like:
acceptable disruption = (relevance of target) x (number of protestors) / (irrelevance of the targeted individuals)
Anything higher should be utterly crushed by the judicial system.
Sounds logical. I mean, we do have systems and restraints in place at the moment. It's fine to picket and march, for example. Problem is that doesn't always affect any change. Look at the "Just Stop Oil" guys, though - glued themselves to the road and were on TV all over the place (mind you, they didn't stop any oil...hhmm... maybe gluing isn't the best tactic).
Right so in my logic, they can glue themselves to a road, but only if lots of them turn up to do it. Like if 12 turn up, you charge them with terrorism and send them to prison. If 1000 glue themselves to the road, you shrug and charge the ring leaders with some public order offence.
Well, as long as there is some form of gluing, I'm happy.
Then what is your problem with what happened? Seems like he got what he wanted. He was arrested, and he got attention. I won't defend someone's "freedom to break the law in favor of a cause they support"; they are NOT free to do that. They will be prosecuted for breaking the law. They are free to act in such a manner, but not free from consequences, and given the consequences are the point, I don't understand what we're arguing about.
Maybe you have misunderstood me, Andrew. I have no problem with what happened to him. I completely agree with what happened to him. I was only saying that often, the people who break the law in order to protest do so because they know that the consequences will bring attention to their cause. But I would not defend it either. They break the law, they suffer the consequences, no matter their cause. That is often what they want though. But I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished. I think we agree with each other 100% - my original comment wasn't directed at anything you had written: I was commenting on the article (just looked back and it seems I replied to your comment instead of commenting on the article in general, which is what I meant to do - sorry, I agree with what you wrote.)
No, you didn't respond incorrectly. I think I was confused on the whole article. I reread it and think I understand it a bit better now, and with that context, my comment to you makes little sense.
Well, I agree with what you wrote above anyway. All good