Solutions Oriented Approach to Restoring Meaningful Civil Discourse

Obviously I couldn't do that here if I wanted to, even if I owned the site; so what exactly are you talking about?

 

I saw black hooded wannabe ninja turtles wielding weapons like bike locks to bash in skulls, knees, or whatever they could connect with.

 

And if they do it anyway, then what?

 

There is "postmodern art", but the postmodernism I'm talking about is an ideology. Some even call it a secular religion. My previous post links to the Wikipedia for more info.

I do not believe in banning bad ideas, because I think that banning ideas is a bad idea. My inclination is not to ban it from campus, but it needs to be juxtaposed with competing worldviews rather than being the unchallenged default. The thing about postmodernists is that they question everything...except postmodernism. And that is because the professors treat this pathological ideology as a given, and any challenge is met with ad hominem attacks, deplatforming, and even rioting. So it will take great courage to fight this. So far, the lack of such courage has allowed reason and Enlightenment values to lose ground to this insanity for decades.

 

If leftism or liberalism is not a philosophy then neighter us rightism or conservatism. Yet Hitler was an extreme way out right winger is that better for your ? Hitler does not fit into Liberalism or Conservatism.

 

That of course was the original justification for the sunshine laws. I leave it to you to judge whether our government is working more for the benefit of the people since the sunshine laws were passed. It my opinion the answer is obviously no.

 

Then you do it to them and they learn that it sucks.

 

Most of all, I think that individualism and individual rights need to be taught as an alternative to the postmodern notions of collectivism, which are most readily apparent in their application of "intersectionality". The idea behind intersectionality is that certain groups (LGBT, PoC, women) are "oppressed", and if you fall into multiple categories, you climb the victimhood ladder. So a black person is oppressed, but a black gay trans woman would be quadruple oppressed, and therefore require more "social justice" to right the wrongs in their life. Basically the idea is that if you're any kind of a minority, then you're automatically oppressed and marginalized.

But the best argument debunking this notion I've heard is this: why stop with race, gender and sexuality? Other categories, just as valid, would be things like being short, being of low intelligence, not being raised in a two parent household, having dyslexia, etc. The ways in which humans vary and fall short of one another are limitless, so the ultimate logical conclusion of intersectionality is that everyone is oppressed in innumerable ways, so the most oppressed "class" is the smallest minority of all: the individual. Hence, if carried to its logical conclusion, the end result of intersectionality is what the Western world arrived at centuries ago: individual rights.

Additionally, the Enlightenment value of dispassionate secular reason should be presented as the antidote to postmodern ideas of personal truth and of science as a tool of oppression.

 

Hitler was an authoritarian centrist.

 

Supporting monkey wrenches like Trump as appropriate seems to help to some extent, even though the price may otherwise be rather high in some other respects.

Posting on websites like this one is about all most individuals can do, IMO, aside from keeping as informed as possible and voting for people who are serious about passing, protecting, and enforcing laws against monopolies.

I do not have faith in mass demonstrations or marches; big money seems to have a hand in many of them, and many of the participants seem to me to indulge their feelings more than their common sense.

 

These all strike me as excellent points.

 

You ever try reasoning with someone who's only response is to scream nazi?

 

I didn't say initial, I said only.

 

Actually, I was talking primarily (but not only) about college, but not so much about the classes themselves. It's the people who teach those classes, and the administration. If there were more heterodoxy in the faculty and administrators themselves, the diversity of the classes offered in college would organically increase.

But it's not only about particularly prejudicial classes like "gender studies" which do require direct counterpoint in the form of core curriculum classes teaching individual rights and secular reason; it's also about how postmodern thinking seeps into other classes like law, biology, economics, etc. And it's even more insidious when it comes in the form of assumptions in those seemingly unrelated fields because it bypasses the reasoning process. People end up adopting postmodern ideas and still have no idea what postmodernism even is, because it was never clearly laid out. And that's largely how it spreads. So maybe the best way to get rid of this cancer is to force the logic behind this ideology to be taught in great detail alongside classes much like those you suggested, so that people can really critically examine it instead of getting it "subliminally". Heh, it would probably take the wind out of the sails of the "white patriarchy" yelling activists to know that the philosophy from which their ideas were spawned came from white men in France.

I don't know how to force them to do it, but these institutions need to prioritize ideological diversity before anything can get better. Particularly in the case of "restoring meaningful civil discourse". Why have civil discourse when the "correct" point of view has already been decided?

 

Non sequitur, obviously.

I could have used Stalin just as well, obviously.

 

That's the problem? A lack of effort on the Right to understand the Left? We aren't trying to understand hard enough?

 

I have not given much thought given that I have no standing to change anything, or participate in discussion with those who might be able to change anything. Nor do I know what is technically possible.

Certainly it is possible to make some forums somehow private... as is the case with moderator discussions. So maybe there is a way to lock ability to post on certain forums until a member agrees to the specific rules of that forum... but still making it possible for anyone to read that forum

Or Possibly a forum could be setup so that every posting subject line begins with PARTISAN FREE
and the first post explains the rules, and /or gives a link for a fuller explication of expectations applying to such designated threads... and specifying that there are ample opportunities to discuss any topic within general forum rules for those who do not agree to the intent of PARTISAN FREE threads

In a more general sense I would severely curtail the current moderation predilection for deleting posts
An obvious alternative would be to hide entire postings, or selective portions of postings that might infringe rules... explain why the posting was was hidden..ie profanity... then give the forum reader the option to click through and read the posting if interested despite the offending rules violation

Those are a few thoughts