luka

Well-known member
weird situation. Shame to let the thread go to waste with all these people on it and all this attention focussed here. I wish we could do something productive with it.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
It's not my art, but he's free to do that, yeah. He discusses it in the talk which is on youtube. Spike magazine hosted it.

"He's free to do that, yeah" is a fairly vacuous observation in itself. If what you mean is "he should be free to do that without consequences", then I think you're claiming a prerogative to which no-one is entitled: the prerogative to express oneself publicly without being subject to public retort, censure or alteration in one's social standing, including things like the recognition granted one as an artist, and the welcome into public spaces which is extended on that basis.
 

droid

Well-known member
Anti-fascism has existed long before outrage culture and it exists for good reason.

Josef was derided not for being subversibly non-conformist but for adopting a Liberal centrist position that utterly misunderstands and enables fascism at a time when the right is at heights not seen since WWII.

There's no point or purpose to debating Josef. He's always been slippery, even at the best of times, just look at how loaded and disingenuous his last post was.

Poetix is doing just fine anyway.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
But this is "why free speech absolutism is a risibly adolescent position 101". Most people who are not adolescents understand that public expression is a social act, that one can win friends and influence people, or lose friends and alienate people thereby; that these and other consequences are ineluctibly to be reckoned with when choosing what to say and where. Sometimes the right thing to do is indeed to say unpopular things that need to be said, to risk one's neck, to be impolite and untimely and egregious. But poncing around like Daniel going "no-one can judge me, my opponents are all envious liars who merely betray their own intellectual weakness in standing against me" is a fucking poor show, it just makes you look like a self-aggrandising and entitled fantasist, which is what he is and has always been.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I'll bite.

"Over the summer the gallery coordinated talks by and for members of the extreme right, including (in order of appearance) a Danish anti-feminist known for her argument that school shootings in the US are the result of abortion rights; the founder of web journal VDARE, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as ‘an anti-immigration hate website’ which ‘regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites’; a member of the alt-right notorious for his public statements of support for the mass killings carried out by Anders Breivik; an author associated with Return of the Kings, the ‘manosphere’ website owned by Roosh V, mainly known for his argument that rape should be legalised on private property; and a speculative philosopher who, among other things, endorses as ‘race realist’ the idea that there exist human ‘sub-species’."

Is this the type of freedom of discussion you were so invested in defending at the LD50 gallery? Just so we don't mischaracterise you, as a symptomatic consequence of our ethical and intellectual weaknesses :rolleyes:

I'm opposed to the violent illiberal repression by groups of self-appointed political police, or the State, of the right of individuals to freedom of association, freedom of conscience and freedom of discussion.

I don't believe that anybody has the right to tell another person what books they're allowed to read, what thoughts they are allowed to have, and who they can and can't be friends with, and I'm opposed to to anyone and everyone who claims they have this authority, and attempts to impose it by force.

I oppose groups who use tactics of intimidation, propaganda and violence against innocent people and scapegoats to advance totalitarian agendas.

That agenda advances, implacably, when discussion degrades into organized political violence, creating a ratchet effect with extremely destructive results.

I have stated all this very clearly several times.

The determination of individuals to mischaracterize my position is a symptomatic consequence of their ethical and intellectual weakness of their own.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
before someone tries to get me involved in this I'd just like to say that free speech has never existed, does not exist, and will never exist. whenever someone says that the working class has free speech in this country all they are admitting is that we have been rendered totally impotent and neutral by the bourgeois dictatorship - we are not a threat, hence the non-freedom of speech. total spectacle.

It's not that I'm fore or against I don't recognise the construct. so Daniel just comes across as a snotty nosed art twat so high on his own farts that he believes the inane ramblings of classical liberals
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
you've just involved yourself, with a very good point.

Oh, sure. I just have no interest in getting involved in taking sides here. Daniel's construct is risible at the best. it's a sign of total intellectual laziness not willing to look reality in the guts. Like, not that I'm saying the revolution is coming...

Unrelatedly this is why most arty people can't commit to grime, rap or dancehall in the longterm, because it is a populist deconstruction of all liberalist delusions. also why the far right hate it, because they are ultimately loyal to a form of revised 19th century liberalism.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Also emotional laziness, like most academics (I'm presuming he is an academic, anyways, from the style of writing) - generally unable to ask *why* they might be so interested in a particular principle or theory. Why is he turning up only to defend the right of arseholes to associate, and not the rest of us? We could help to properly diarise his defence of freedom of association so it covers all other sectors of society.
 
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droid

Well-known member
And to extend that, considering the multiple crises we face today, environmental collapse, the breakdown of capitalism, accelerating private capture of government, public services and housing by capital, the rise of a multifaceted ubiquitous surveillance state, and of course the looming threat of multinational fascism...

In this context the question of motivation is valid, what kind of person decides to die on the hill of freedom of expression for conservatives, the far-right and neo fascists?
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
I'll bite.

"Over the summer the gallery coordinated talks by and for members of the extreme right, including (in order of appearance) a Danish anti-feminist known for her argument that school shootings in the US are the result of abortion rights; the founder of web journal VDARE, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as ‘an anti-immigration hate website’ which ‘regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites’; a member of the alt-right notorious for his public statements of support for the mass killings carried out by Anders Breivik; an author associated with Return of the Kings, the ‘manosphere’ website owned by Roosh V, mainly known for his argument that rape should be legalised on private property; and a speculative philosopher who, among other things, endorses as ‘race realist’ the idea that there exist human ‘sub-species’."

Is this the type of freedom of discussion you were so invested in defending at the LD50 gallery? Just so we don't mischaracterise you, as a symptomatic consequence of our ethical and intellectual weaknesses :rolleyes:

I think this is a highly tendentious, and therefore not very credible description. What you observe is a series of assertions and associations, for which no evidence is given. The SPLC is certainly not a credible source. I'm not interested in any of these topics personally; if this conference was happening tomorrow, I probably would not go, but if an art gallery wants to discuss them, my question is this: who has the right to stop them? On what basis?

Be specific. What is your criterion for determining if an art gallery or a bookshop or a speaker may be legitimately targeted for political repression, and who, in your opinion, has the right to forcibly repress examples of expression they oppose? And who doesn't have that right?

If you want to know what happened at LD50 my text is here:
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Ah,we're getting somewhere here.

SPLC - why not credible? No assertions please, evidence needed. Are the other assertions in that quoted paragraph factually incorrect - you didn't specifically say that they were?

If you are not interested in these topics personally - and many observers will suspect for good reason that you are - can you explain where else you have turned up to defend freedom of association/speech?

To throw the question back at you - what actual value do you see in the discussions at LD-50 that were quoted, and what harm to others do you imagine that these discussions might potentially produce. Be specific, not vague, please.

Not really interested in reading your account sorry - I'm interested in what you have to say for yourself here.
 
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Agent

dgaf ngaf cgaf
(tears in eyes, stammering) I just wish the Occupy Movement had never happened in the first place! (storms out, visibly shaking)
 

vimothy

yurp
before someone tries to get me involved in this I'd just like to say that free speech has never existed, does not exist, and will never exist.

there's a difference between power and authority or right -- are you saying that the state (or some other body) has the power to (for example) arbitrarily curtail your freedom of association, determine what books you should read, etc, or are you saying that the state has the legitimate right to do so?
 

droid

Well-known member
there's a difference between power and authority or right -- are you saying that the state (or some other body) has the power to (for example) arbitrarily curtail your freedom of association, determine what books you should read, etc, or are you saying that the state has the legitimate right to do so?

Well the state clearly does have the power as it has done this for pretty much as long as the state has existed.
 
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