How I learned to defeat fascism with the power of love:
Chapter one:
Realizing you cannot stop fascism with the power of love.Chapter two:
The power of incredible violence.What would "stopping fascism with the power of love" look like? Do you have a hypothetical example?
Chapter three:\ Not actually doing anything
This is like the 3rd or 4th comic from this artist with the same message, same punchline, and same structure. We get it, Jennie.
No, it's literally the same comic being reposted over and over.
They had the meteor one too, so not 100% identical, just 99.99%
Then filter/block her and move on instead of policing what she writes.
Block me and move on instead of policing what I bitch about.
Do you (not you personally) though?
Yeah. The ones who are capable of getting it already got it before the comics were made. The ones who don't get it are already lost. Nothing important is being done here. We could all go an entire century without the creation of even more more little bit of trite, sanctimonious political proselytization and the course of human development would be literally 100.0% identical because that's what happens when you shovel your opinion into a hypersaturated market for that opinion.
"free speech" is a thought-terminating cliche for people too lazy to come up with a real argument or plan to stop fascist rhetoric.
Its also a convient fig leaf for fascist movements so they can be defended while incubating in liberal societies
So is accusations of "troll". Around here we prefer that
A society that values free speech rejects Mustache's philosophy. He never gains enough of a following in panel 1, 2, or 3 to be able to enact panel 4.
As soon as we allow ourselves to silence someone, Mustache can use the same argument to justify silencing Black Shirt. When we allow ourselves to suppress an enemy of society, Mustache merely needs to suggest to us that Black Shirt is such an enemy.
The insidious part of fascism is that by the time we get to Panel 4, we are the ones carrying Black Shirt to the gallows.
I couldn't have said it better.
You have dictatorships you would not identify stereotypically as fascist, yet they silence anyone dangerous by calling them a fascist. Oldest trick in the book.
A very simple test: A f*ing fascist could use the same comic to justify repressing communists in a fascist regime. It just has to replace those "fascists" believes by communist ones.
This is what worries me about large centralized platforms. They normalize the idea that offensive speakers should be silenced, or should be able to silence dissent. They shouldn't. They should be challenged or ignored. You can block an individual, controlling what you listen to. You can urge others to ignore them. But it should be a cringeworthy act of authoritarianism to lay down a banhammer and block someone from speaking.
The offensive, intolerant asshole should not be banning dissenters; dissenters should not be banning assholes. Any banning anywhere should be seen as deeply troubling, and only done openly, publicly, and with the consent and agreement of the community.
Unilateral control over the process should be seen as fascism.
I am thrilled at the decentralized nature of Lemmy effectively eliminating that capability.
i really don't understand this perspective. we aren't talking about the ability for anybody to silence anyone for any reason, we're talking specifically about rhetoric calling for the death of human beings. is that not a well defined category of speech we should at least keep an eye on? should we let people actively call for the death of other people, when we know historically that that specific kind of rhetoric can lead to people being put in camps?
like, if somebody's sole contribution to an platform is doxxing anybody they don't like, they should be stopped. if they shout death threats in a public forum, they shouldn't be in that forum. we don't need to give platforms unchecked power over our lives to put reasonable limitations on conduct for public platforms.
really don't understand this perspective. we aren't talking about the ability for anybody to silence anyone for any reason, we're talking specifically about rhetoric calling for the death of human beings. is that not a well defined category of speech we should at least keep an eye on?
There is a difference between speech and violence. "Calling for the death of a human being" is violence, not speech. The speaker making that call should not be silenced; they should be jailed. And we have a process for doing just that. That process involves far more than someone unilaterally deciding to take away their microphone or ban them from a platform.
That process involves judges, either elected directly, or appointed by elected officials. It involves the community in the form of a jury of one's peers. It involves open processes and procedures, an appellate process, and a wide variety of protections for the accused.
Banning them from the platform is not a sufficient response to such an act of violence.
You seem to have learnt nothing from history and how fascism manifests itself. Adderaline had many good points but you just don't want to actually respond to them? There are so many rightwing, fascistic parties in various countries that already use the rhetoric of panels 1-3. And now society debates if e.g. trans people should be allowed to exist or not, if immigrants should be deported or not, if racism is actually a thing or not. We need to define a line where we will not tolerate further discussions. Because if we allow any form of discussion on certain topics, we will again and again get to the point where we argue about someone's right to exist. And this will result in panel 4. I'm glad for you that you don't seem to be affected by this. But please listen to people who are. It is very very frightening if people are publicly debating if they should consider you a valuable human being or not. And even more so as right wing and fascist politics are gaining more traction worldwide.
Adderaline did, indeed, have many good points, just not any that were actually relevant. None of my arguments denied the prosecution or condemnation of death threats. As I am not defending threats or other forms of violence, there is no issue under dispute, and nothing for me to engage.
Every fascist movement has attempted to suppress groups they deem undesirable or offensive. Your determination that racists are undesirable does not impress me. Nor your targeting of homophobes, transphobes, sexists. The reason your calls for suppression against these people don't impress me today is because I have no idea who you are going to be trying to suppress tomorrow.
I take my guidance from Thomas Paine:
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Fascism manifests by constantly identifying new and exciting targets for oppression. I reserve my right to disagree with you in the future, so I must defend against your suppressive acts today.
This is what worries me about large centralized platforms. They normalize the idea that offensive speakers should be silenced, or should be able to silence dissent. They shouldn't. They should be challenged or ignored. You can block an individual, controlling what you listen to. You can urge others to ignore them. But it should be a cringeworthy act of authoritarianism to lay down a banhammer and block someone from speaking.
The offensive, intolerant asshole should not be banning dissenters; dissenters should not be banning assholes. Any banning anywhere should be seen as deeply troubling, and only done openly, publicly, and with the consent and agreement of the community.
Unilateral control over the process should be seen as fascism.
I am thrilled at the decentralized nature of Lemmy effectively eliminating that capability.
this isn't about "offense" or whatever. its specifically about people calling for other people to be removed from society. when is stopping the spread of that specific conduct ever a bad thing. i broadly agree that decentralized platforms are a good thing overall, but we can't ignore the many ways in which poor moderation make spaces hostile to people, right? or the very real problems that unmoderated, anonymous spaces have with bigotry, CSAM, and other bullshit. i don't fuckin' like 4chan, places like that suck balls. not every aspect of our social lives should be governed by some blanket approval for saying whatever the fuck you like whenever the fuck you want, no actual real life social situation plays by those rules. if a person consistently talks about killing jews, or other bigoted bullshit, i don't want to occupy the same social space as that person, and i want there to be mechanisms in place to stop people like that from bothering people.
I don't think implementing thought police solves any problems, because the same thing could play out if it's pointed the wrong way. Panel 1 and 3 I agree with the guy. Panel 2 is a disturbance of the peace and panel 4 is the fault of a hateful majority in that area, not the guy.
The problem with those panels, in my opinion, isn't the defense of free speech itself, it's ending the conversation with a defense of free speech. This shifts the discussion away from how awful those other ideas are and instead distracts people with a debate over free speech itself.
If you truly want to support a free marketplace of ideas you have to be an active participant, you can't expect others to pick up the bullhorn for good in your place.
Ironically the 'paradox' of 'Tolerance of intolerance' kind of argues for people self-selecting into groups which is anti-thetical to the intent lol.
Careful everyone, comics like these can spread dangerous ideas
Promises....
Remember that there is no paradox of tolerance if you treat it as a social contract instead of a moral issue: Those who do not abide by it are not protected by it.
This assumes there is some clearly defined line of what is intolerance that everyone agrees on. For a while at the company I worked at, just being a white male was considered "intolerant", so they fired many of them. The irony was not lost on the employees. It was a very oppressive environment and I'm glad it recovered. It's a famous company that aired some of this dirty laundry publically so you might be able to guess who it is.
Some people are black and white bigots like this comic, but people are stupid binary thinkers and call people out as intolerant who are not overtly bigoted or bigoted at all, but are of the wrong identity or associate with the wrong groups.
This comic is basically a straw man.
There is no paradox of tolerance if you treat it as a social contract. Those who do not abide by the contract are not protected by it.
Ideology reflects emotion. Angry people adopt angry ideology. Find a justification for anger and somebody to hate.
Cure the anger and the ideology disappears.
Note the nice uniforms. They don't grow on trees. These guys are funded.
