Campus Censorship, Forum Censorship

[sopsych]

An article about campus censorship
The Weekend Interview with Greg Lukianoff: How Free Speech Died on Campus - WSJ.com

Not only is that an eye-opener in itself - that wasn't my experience years ago in college - but it led me to make a connection to censorship on forums. Not this one, as far as I know, but many other forums I've visited. Where certain legal expressions are in effect forbidden, like criticizing products advertised there or expressing socially conservative views. My point is that campus censorship conditions people to accept censorship in forums.

What do you think of that?

[gunnels]

To be fair, Coulter has had a history of offending students when she speaks at universities. Once, when a Muslim student questioned her on comments that Muslims should not be allowed on airplanes, she retorted "take a camel".

As far as conditioning people to accept censorship in general and particularly censorship in forums goes, I'm not convinced. I don't believe universities are a city corner for someone to cry their beliefs on; they have a responsibility to protect their students, which may involve shutting down potentially offensive protests or articles. Besides, I generally haven't run into any dampening of the first amendment on my campus; there's a random guy who stands right outside our library with a bible in his hand saying non-Christians will go to hell. Everybody mostly just ignores him. In relation to forum censorship, it's more or less the same thing. The internet isn't America, and the moderators have a right to delete and edit what they see fit.

[sopsych]

I'm not against all censorship, as evidenced by the following:
I do not want this thread to be about the merits of censorship. If you can't think of several arguments for and against it, Google "pros and cons of censorship" and quietly ponder that.

Still, I am disturbed that a college student's reply downplays censorship, as though conditioning has already happened. Whatever one thinks is the purpose of college, it surely doesn't exclude learning in general.

Where forums go wrong, in my opinion, is when they ostensibly are open to all people and all discussion (in the appropriate sub-forum or thread), but then unofficially discourage various polite expression of beliefs.

That returns me to college and the education system in general. It's like few people these days know how to properly debate, which is a skill that has to be taught somewhere; and even the ability of intelligent people to think rationally seems to have deteriorated.

[mr dave]

I think it boils down to a difference between talking at and speaking with.

Believe me, learning how to bite your tongue and say what the other person wants/expects to hear will generally provide significantly better results than just saying what you want because you can. It's not censorship, it's diplomacy.

The biggest hassle I see with freedom of expression is that a lot of people seem to want that freedom for themselves first and foremost and expect everyone else to adapt accordingly without really wanting to provide the same respect in the other direction. Is freedom something you're entitled to? Or something you provide to everyone around you?

As for the decline in 'proper debate' I think that has more to do with an increased respect towards other ideologies. Classic debates seem to be about objectively proving one side to be right or wrong, which just seems absurd to me if you're honestly respectful of the other side's freedom of thought.