Hard News: On joining the international troll circuit
179 Responses
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John Farrell, in reply to
The Canadian pair came here to make money.......their business is trolling the weak minded, and charging them for the privilege. There are no high principles involved. Brash has just been caught up in the backwash.
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Watching the entirety of the Sunday journos interview, I realised they were actually genuine. I was surprised. Didn't expect that.
Policy ought to be evidence-based. Our policy on free speech is not excluded by this requirement! Preconceptions & bias have no part to play. They just induce bigotry. Anyone who fails to appraise them with an open mind is prejudiced. Here in Aotearoa, we don't like that. We believe in giving people a fair go.
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Adolf just wanted a fair hearing, but would the world listen?
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mark taslov, in reply to
Here in Aotearoa, we don’t like that. We believe in giving people a fair go.
We sure do, when they’re white
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Neil,
I think the underlying issues that make free speech a rather complex conundrum don’t get overt attention in the debates about free speech.
How resilient is liberal domocracy? Do we really understand how we arrived at liberal democracy? To what extent does society get shaped unexpectedly by changes in communication technology? Are there basic limitations to language that get amplified by social media? Can we trust language itself to favour liberal ideals?
As a related aside, I was thinking about the current controversies surrounding the n and c words. I tend to agree with Mariana Davidson about reappropriation – “cock” is now somewhat comical in comparison. The difference – a vicious demonisation – seems to be some legacy of patriarchy. I do think though there’s an underlying issue of what language is.
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tussock, in reply to
We believe in giving people a fair go.
Maximising tolerance does actually require you be reasonably intolerant toward particularly intolerant people.
We don't give fucking Al Quada a fair go, they don't get to make paid public exultations on the lack of humanity inherent to western society and the urgency of unspoken actions while raising money for thusfar undisclosed future adventures. Because we noticed they were exceptionally bad and banned that shit.
We don't need to give fucking Nazis a fair go either, for the same reasons.
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mark taslov, in reply to
I’ve always imagined widespread validation must be empowering.
Despite the cancellation Brash says he was encouraged by the support for free speech.
“Right across the political spectrum from the left to the right people have been very supportive of my right to speak freely on Massey campus and very critical of the vice chancellor,” says Brash.
Victor writes history. In failing to account for power dynamics these conversations inevitably become a whytathon.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
Maximising tolerance does actually require you be reasonably intolerant toward particularly intolerant people.
Couldn't agree more. And Mark Taslov's points are extremely well made.
Don Brash's latest from last night is this pearl of wisdom;
“Jewish culture is more advanced that other cultures”.
And the evidence?
He then listed the disproportionate number of Nobel prizes and Oscars for film directing that Jewish people had won. This, plus the high number of CEOs in top US companies and the fact that Jewish entrepreneurs had started Facebook and Google
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/08/09/186009/the-martyrdom-of-don-brash?preview=1
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Dennis Frank, in reply to
I've long been aware of that jewish cultural effect on western civilisation. Think Bob Dylan. Many more classic examples of it than Brash quoted. Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Marx Brothers. Rothschilds, the supercapitalists.
"Forbes list of the world’s top 10 billionaires in 2016 counts no less than three Jews." Anyone with a grasp of maths oughta be able to figure out how disproportionate that is relative to population size. Could be in the genes? Could be in the culture.
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Oh great the fascists are making sweeping generalisations about the Jews again :(
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Dennis Frank, in reply to
Einstein. ; )
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Jesus. : )
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
Einstein. ; )
Weinstein.
Look Dennis, it's a silly game. For every name you or Don put forward, I could counter it with another of same or different ethnoreligious background. None of this being at all rational or scientific.
For these specific individuals mentioned by both you and Don Brash (and being mindful these are just a small number of names chosen to suit the superiority argument), it could be that their socioeconomic background and educational privilege favoured the opportunity of expression of their ideas, demonstrations of their skill sets and attention paid to their contributions/endeavours - over those of their global contemporaries of other socioeconomic backgrounds, geographic locations, religions and cultures, e.g.,
http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/6777581/importance-athlete-background-making-nba
And there must be many studies that suggest environment (including time and place of birth) matters, over genetics (race) and religious affiliation (culture).
So no, I don't know of the "maths" (i.e. statistical research) that has been done to quantify this proposition that a Jewish ethnoreligious grouping is any more "culturally advanced", (whatever criteria is meant by "advanced"), than non-Jewish ethnoreligious peoples of the world. Happy to have a read of that evidence if you're aware of it.
And I'm pretty sure that there is no correlation between being a wealthy Jewish mogul and cultural (or social) superiority or advancement.
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Oh, there may well be a correlation; but as always, that doesn’t prove causation. We should be wary of any assertion of g(u)ilt by association, whether cast in terms of “race” or “culture”.
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Dennis Frank, in reply to
I totally agree, Katharine. No jewish ancestry in my family that I'm aware of, and I can quote the Professor of Genetics at Harvard, who in his new book that just arrived from overseas declares that race has no genetic basis.
However, denial of the historical evidence that something is causing them to excel in whatever they apply themselves to at a disproportionate rate is not to my taste. Silly as climate-change denial. Reality is there for us to base our lives on. Sure, part of it is socially constructed, but hiding from it tends to make folks delusional, induces pathologies. Which is what those opposing free speech are demonstrating.
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The danger even in a seemingly positive claim such as Brash’s is that an assertion “Group X is more successful” reliably feeds conspiracy theories attacking Group X on the assumption that their success has been obtained unfairly.
(What is needed is more testable general hypotheses regarding possible causal mechanisms, rather than claiming exceptionism of any one group. E.g., we may hypothesize that – as one ingredient – a monotheistic culture favours a search for single-cause deterministic models, which may promote the advancement of mathematics, science and technology. As another ingredient, the culture’s traditions should be open to question and debate, allowing a faster adoption of improvements as they are discovered.)
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Shaun Lott, in reply to
Exactly this. Speakers' Corner in Albert Park remained available... but I guess you can't charge $99 a ticket there.
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WH, in reply to
There’s a subtext to Mark’s comments that you may not be aware of. He’s alluding to a series of crimes against living New Zealanders.
There are elements of his argument I’m sure you don’t endorse.
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mark taslov, in reply to
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BenWilson, in reply to
Don Brash’s latest from last night is this pearl of wisdom;
He just had to go. John Key's main positive legacy, apart from the three way handshake, was ridding us of this tedious old fool.
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WH, in reply to
The cancelled Harawira lecture you cited as an instance of racism was scheduled to be delivered on 12 May 2011. Harawira’s endorsement of Osama bin Laden was reported on 5 May 2011.
I don’t know whether you’ve offered this seriously but I genuinely invite you to reconsider your position. This is not the way forward.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
If your cryptic comment implies that you think I would endorse the unilateral actions of the US Government in their execution (and disposal) of bin Laden, over-and-above the comments on that action given by those quoted in the link you provided, you are mistaken.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
...this tedious old fool.
Anyone who believes that Brash is in any way his own man has to be compensating for some kind of trauma, such as the shock of discovering that one was deceived over the existence of Santa Claus in childhood.
From having his keyboard hand guided by John "Kiwi-Iwi" Ansell when "posting" in Kiwiblog's comments, through delivering a speech ghost-written by Michael Bassett, it's only ever a question of which team he's currently taking one for. You could count the genuine public intellectuals in this country on the fingers of one hand, though there's no lack of preening crackpots. Brash is a crackpot's crackpot.
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mark taslov, in reply to
I don’t know whether you’ve offered this seriously
perhaps you could continue this with someone you take seriously then, comments are open
In the discussion I referenced the cancellation of Hone Harawira’s talk at the University of Auckland Law School. One student said to me: “Where was the outrage then?”
Yes, indeed. Where were all the outraged “free speech” advocates when Harawira was uninvited from speaking on a university campus? Umm…. hmm.
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WH, in reply to
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