Detroit

316 readers

6 users here now

The birthplace of techno and the Motown sound. The center of the automotive industry. Resurget cineribus.

Welcome to !detroit@midwest.social, a place to talk about what’s happening in Detroit.

Rules

Please respect each other. Post anything related to Detroit or the two cities within it, Hamtramck and Highland Park. Racist and classist language will not be tolerated.

Icon photo courtesy of
Jubbar J.
at Unsplash

Banner:
Family by Hebru Brantley, Murals in the Market 2017, 2611 Russell Street, Eastern Market.
Photo courtesy of
Terence Faircloth at Flickr

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

FaygoOfficial@midwest.social

In the 'big tent' of free speech, can you be too open-minded? (theconversation.com)

submitted 10 months ago by raoulraoul@midwest.social to c/detroit@midwest.social

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The answer is never…with caveats.

An interesting article by WSU's Dean of the Irvin D. Reid Honors College and Professor of Philosophy, John Corvino Ph.D I'd seen in the Freep, but originally published over at https://theconversation.com.

As a college dean, I regularly observe campus controversies about the Israel-Hamas war, race relations and other hot-button issues. Many of these concern free speech – what students, faculty and invited speakers should and shouldn’t be allowed to say.

The primary argument for the big tent approach is rooted in intellectual humility: properly recognizing the limitations to what each of us knows. In one sense, it is a recognition of human fallibility – which, when combined with hubris, can have disastrous results.

[Philosopher Jeremy] Fantl grants that such engagement can have value but worries that it is often ineffective or dishonest. Ineffective, if you tell your opponents from the outset “You’re not going to change my mind” – a conversation-stopper if anything is. Dishonest, if you pretend to engage open-mindedly when you’re really not.

Possibly a little headier than what you were expecting in a Lemmy post but, hey, I'm trying my best to raise us all up a little.

top 4 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] cerement 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

(obligatory – paradox of tolerance)

[–] raoulraoul@midwest.social 1 points 10 months ago

Thanks for that; another wonderful thing about being human and human society, dilemmas like that. No one said vigilance wasn't part of the equation. If we were chimpanzees—as we are prone to imitating occasionally—we'd kill and eat, or merely banish, the "transgressors."

I like to think we're better than that.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Open-minded is letting everyone speak their mind. You're willing to hear someone out, and if they have a convincing argument, you might change your mind.

It doesn't mean you tell people to shut the fuck up when their speech is odious, offensive, ignorant, inappropriate, or inciting violence. When you don't find the arguments persuasive, that doesn't mean that you were lying about being open minded.

[–] raoulraoul@midwest.social 1 points 10 months ago

Help me to be on the same page as you.

Is your comment a response to a specific passage from the linked article or is it just your translation?