Disrespect is in the eye of the beholder and depending on how an audience and how the speaker reacts, it would not be censorship, but it would still cause quite a stir with all concerned. A lot would have to go out on the part of the disruptor before the tolerance level of a relevant number of people in the audience would break their patience to finally expel someone. I have observed this in real life situations.
Whether someone is spreading a lie would still have to be proven. Notoriously very difficult to prove, but also known to be the easiest thing to say of all those who call others liars who disagree with their own views.
In this blog environment, you don't know all that. The space can be anything in the mind of the person sitting alone in front of their computer, a theatre space, an art stage, a speaker's corner, a self-promoting performance, a podium, a fighting arena etc. etc. - But above all, the user must get the impression that it is a podium or open space with the character of a dialogue (for the sake of comments).
How do you see the permanent exclusion (house ban, to remain in the linguistic jargon of the offline world) of a commentator? Would you say it already carries the potential of censorship?
I see the online space as a huge experimental field where people try to behave humanely without having direct contact with each other.
I don't see any clear rules here. They are interpreted, I think. I am ambivalent about this, I am neither promoting rules nor do I reject them. I play by my own rules, so to speak.
People only have their intellect at hand here. They don't really see anyone, nor do they hear or smell them, nor can they touch them or interpret their gestures and facial expressions. They miss the real atmosphere of a meeting with the individuals and the many.
There may be something going on at a - how shall I put it - metaphysical level and in the cacophony of bloggers, commentators and the rest of the media din, there may be a field that can be helpful alongside all the unhelpful side effects.
Disrespect, lies, etc are from the basis of their questions or comments, in a open q&a session. If they are removed because of them being of a certain ideology, then it would be censorship, but to remove someone based on the instance, not on their philosophical principles but the instance of disrespect, lies, etc, that's not censorship.
Not at all. Its always incumbent on the person making the claim to provide justification and substance for it. That's why a lie may spread but nobody has to disprove it, it can simply be labeled a lie, even if the liar is convinced its true.
Exactly, this is why I initially said
If that impression doesn't have anything to suggest it, then there's no expectation being crushed.
It all depends on what the rules are. Was there any exceptions, was there any explicit or implicit promises of not being removed? The potential for censorship is penchant on a centralized authority, otherwise its Consensus.
Online space is a broad term, its pointless to ascribe it any kind of characteristics like how people behave or expect.
Because you're looking at a hodgepodge of spaces and trying to characterize them as one field, but that's not fruitful for grasping any one of those spaces, let alone the entire gamut of them.
Those things are as superficial as they are nuanced..
Ideas, pointers, and knowledge, those things are that something. Immortal and more valuable than riches and sentiments.
What then is the difference between disrespect and being accused of lying and "belonging to a certain ideology"?
"Lie" is a strong word, whoever calls another a liar must, after all, think that he himself possesses the truth. In the use of these very words of "lie" and "truth" themselves, I see an ideological spectrum.
How about avoiding these terms altogether?
Where I use this crutch for disagreeing with someone else's statement, I am virtually provoking the counter-question that I am not the one who has to justify a statement, but the one who calls me a liar is supposed to refute it. This very attack of calling me a liar is grist to my mill, because I easily can find something where the other one lied himself.
"You are lying" is not an argument. Then everyone will come and claim such and side with the truthful, while the others are of course put in the camp of the untruthful. An excellent vicious circle, brimming with ideology, I would say. I see it as the very foundation for censorship.
If I perceive someone as a liar and I feel obliged to tell him so, and I then find this is sufficient and the person so called shall admit it (turns his left cheek), then I must think that I am dealing with saints.
If I don't completely ignore my knowledge, I can rather expect the other person to react emotionally to it (angry, vindictive, insulted, offended, sad etc. etc.). Maybe my intent is to defeat them in this way that I non stop call them "liar!", in the hope that one day, they will be defeated (surrendering under shame and blame, for example). If you overpower them, they might surrender but inwardly they may still think they are right (and die with it).
Accusing someone of lying is not an opener for dialogue but a closer. As a result it opens up a fight not allowing any further arguments. To be willing to be defeated by argument, needs the will that this is allowed to happen in the first place.
How do you relate to "The moment I think that I am possessing the truth, I'll lose it, the moment I let doubt happen, I'll win it."?
"Lying" represents one of the christian sins and I feel it's as strong rooted in Westerners as ever.
German source
While I can agree with your definition of censorship, I would say in the very next breath that the stoic insistence on definitions and rules in and of themselves create problems where none need be. For the most part, conflicts are not about the correct statement, but about the relationships between the parties involved. Conflict is usually characterised by the fact that one does not so much uses questions as want to give a lesson or rock-solid answer.
Rather, I can choose to converse and get along with you instead of you having to agree with my stance or opinion.
Disrespect is aimed at the person, their character, like lies, while the last is regarding concepts and theories. The theory and ideas might be sound or impotent, they may be debated without any implications of who debates them and why, to know they are sound or not. Accusing of lying those who lie isn't the same as lying and smearing people as liars, I wasn't implicating that at all, but that they are lying, not merely accused of such, the difference being that the lie is confronted, challenged and evident.
Its specific to the instance, not to the persons habits. Disagreement and lying are two different things. If someone calls you a liar, they burden themselves with the claim to show how and why you're lying, in my hypothetical the liar is the one "accusing of lying with nothing to show for it".
Its simply a matter of making false claims. The claims aren't an argument.
People can be mistaken, they can misconstrue, and not remember correctly.
If you do it because they indeed are lying who cares if you convinced them or not, the point is to confront the lie and stop the lying, mission accomplished. Dispelling denial and delusion alike can't be expected without the other persons willingness, depending how much you care about them it's something you have to decide how much badgering, avoidance or acceptance you extend to them. Delusion and denial is what we all suffer from in various degrees.
Not if they don't intend to lie, it could simply be a mistake.
If you think its true, you'll dismiss everything else in regards to that, as false or incorrect, so the moment you realize that truth is a certainty you'll stop peering into it.
Maybe they gained inner peace, they became teachers and helped others find it and do the same, while everyone else was fraught with titillating between desire and suffering.
Even nuns and monks? The biggest charity is extended by the church.
Language is the domain of definition, without which ideas and concepts are meaningless. Opinion is the domain of preference, of tendency, of our inner desires and aversion, with which we battle not only against one another but ourselves. In effect, language in the domain of definition is the pointer to certainty, like math, and our opinions are the pointer to what's uncertain and resides in our preference, what can't be ascertained as definite and certain. Censorship is but a pointer, an idea, we are defining what it is and inversely dispelling what it isn't.
What is obvious and wrong for one is not necessarily so for the other. Those who believe themselves to be on the safe side (certainty in the definition of language) want to believe themselves equally certain in the preference of their ideas as well as dislike of the ideas of others and mix definition with the same ideas, wishes and hopes. If it were not so, one would not want to refer to a sovereignty of definition.
The individual retains the ultimate sovereignty of definition by either accepting the given definition or rejecting it. A clear boundary between the given or the challenged definition cannot exist permanently in time and space because otherwise all original definitions would never change, they would remain fixed in it. The fact is that they are not. For example, if muting were perceived by a relevant number of people as censorship, even though by definition it is not, the more powerful group appropriates its own definition and negates that of the less powerful group. This can then quite possibly be understood as consensus, and where this consensus remains for a certain period of time, the modified definition enters into sovereignty. The sovereignty of definition marks an ideal, an orientation for certainty.
This is what is meant by the comparison of the Christian Ten Commandments and Buddhist discipline. They are basically a paradox. To put it exaggeratedly, the only certainty is that one cannot be certain of anything. Truthfully, one would then have to answer, "Although I suffer from certain delusions and denials, I am not mistaken." HaHa! A paradox!
To which one might reply, "Only the madman has no doubt". But it would indeed be correct to say that although you might be mistaken, you nevertheless intend to hold fast to the action you are willing to perform and advocate. With a price tag stuck on.
If I were to ask you if you were certain of your own delusions and denials and what exactly they were, and you were able to answer me clearly, they would no longer be delusions and denials at that moment, would they? You would then have a Catch22.
Against this backdrop, it makes perfect sense to keep in mind one's own suppressed ideas of a better world, or to try to get to the bottom of them, otherwise I run the risk of casting the first stone.
I don't see where throwing stones has been crowned with great success in human history. Morally convicted perpetrators in the upper echelons seem to have got away with their deeds as good as ever, apart from peasant victims, since they have not been convicted before the law. They have not, and not only do they see that they used lies or deception, but can assume that anyone who accuses them has some dirt on them themselves. Because "all men are sinners".
But what if I realise that I cannot possibly follow the rules to the letter and that I can never fully rely on definitions? Isn't this paradox one of the most important insights I can have?
Does it mean that I, knowing that I cannot, murder my grandmother and rape little children? That I, aware of my weaknesses, from now on use this as a free ticket?
Ideas aren't an opinion, or preference, they are either sound or not, and that is ascertained by testing them, by debating them. If you cannot find agreement on definition there's absolutely no point in doing so. If you must conform definition to your position, to shape them to your liking why not form your own terms with their own definitions. You want to bastardize language, to make it in your image, fine, may you find agreement then.
It's certain that peace of mind is a benefit. It's certain that the largest charity comes through church and temples.
A paradox isn't significant, or 100 paradoxes even.
There's things that are true, and false at the same time. There's also things which are neither!
No new definitions need apply, just boring affirmative or negatives. How can you root out delusion and denial but by insight born from honest self inquiry?
The rules like definitions are pointers, pointers for your direction.
You'll have a "free ticket" only as long you get away with it. If you see rules as an obstacle, you'll treat them as such, and traversing obstacles comes with its risks.
Testing ideas in debates has its limits.
I told you,
a.) that I agree with your definition of censorship
I further said and implied that
b.) definitions are constantly being changed, making the origin of words either unrecognisable or partially or even significantly altering the attributes describing the word.
Those who have an interest exert influence on language and thus on the definitional sovereignties. Wikipedia is full of them.
What is to be misunderstood about my saying that it is a fact that definitions are indeed shaped at will, as we have seen since 2020 on the subject of "pandemic"? Did I not make it quite clear that there are forces that are doing just that? Where you get the idea that I'm bastardising language after you've obviously read my comment, I'd like to know.
What is the problem with accepting that I find different ways to gain "insight from honest self-questioning"? When I come across a paradoxical statement or experience a paradoxical intervention and it helps me, it is relevant to me. So you could tell me 1000 times that they are irrelevant, that would change my experience not a bit.
Where I perceive something that is new to me, it is an equally completely new understanding of a pre-understood concept. Nevertheless, a dictionary is not the holy grail, because everything that is language and word only refers back to itself.
What I don't agree with you on is the efficacy of what being called a liar does to liars. Retreat? Defeat? Surrendering in shame? I don't know a single liar who, when accused of brazen and impudent lying, has admitted it, even when eggs were thrown at him, like our former Federal Chancellor.
I do not claim to be better at addressing what I perceive as iniquity to those from whom I think it emanates, only that I personally choose other alternatives. Since we are different people, your way is the right way for you and mine is the right way for me. Though I already learned something by watching you debate and receiving answers from you. I picked something up from you. If there was or is something you picked up from me, it doesn't do you harm, I suppose.
It is completely impossible to stick to the rules all the time and everywhere. Of course, it is risky to break them and then expect or fear the consequences.
What I actually aimed at was, "when I know that I cannot possibly stick to the commandments in all life situations" and I am aware that I will have moments where I fail, that insight itself will help me to follow them more skillfully.
I was speaking about the " changing " definition of censorship. I didn't try to argue that language doesn't change or that people aren't constantly trying to bastardize language. Even before the pandemic, the word woman was thus redefined.
I could ask you the same thing, what's the problem with accepting that I find paradoxes as insignificant to finding insight?
Indeed, and words are only pointers, so don't know why you're trying to devalue the pointers as if I was confused about what they are.
Being a liar and lying aren't the same thing. One lie doesn't make one a liar as one chinhair doesn't make a beard.
All I was doing by bringing up someone lying is as a hypothetical for what I would consider a justifiable reason to remove the person. It could be an innocuous lie, or an insidious one, but clearly my hypothetical is concerned with an actual disturbance, in all reason, much like someone claiming there's a murdering psycho or a fire, yes many may be misled, yes many might know with relatively good motives that they are lying.
In that case insight is the new Commander and its Commandments.
Whether you talk about bastardising or whether you find that a term is allowed to have an altered definition are two different things. Both happen. One agrees with the one, but not with the other. Whether one speaks of bastardising or of aligning a term with a changing perception is up to the preference of the person taking on the subject; bastardising is pejorative, aligning is accepting.
For example, it used to be "one should not hide one's light under a bushel", now it is "one should not sell oneself short of self-worth". It used to be "plague", then "epidemic" and now "pandemic". In the past you were gay if you had a merry nature, today you are homo-sexual and so on.
I see a change in the term of censorship as we live in a digital age and I read the comments of those who already use the term in less strict terms. There seems to be something about it or underway and I'm not yet sure what exactly.
Question answered with a counter question. :) And I would answer: no problem at all.
I had been amused by the humour of my given paradox, you could not laugh at it and said it was insignificant.
Agreed. Nevertheless, there can and always is an argument about what is an "actual" disorder. It's not as clear-cut as a fire or someone walking around with a real gun and shooting people that's being argued about.
My thesis is that people cannot be removed (unless you kill them, but then they are replaced by those who will atone for their death, cannot cope with it, or otherwise deal with it pathologically, because murder is always a very disturbing event). Yes, you can remove them from your own field of vision, declare them persona non grata, but they will be up to mischief elsewhere and can appear in many guises, as grey eminences, as provocateurs, as troublemakers, cheats, assholes, etc., so you only shift responsibility. - In this way you shift the responsibility from yourself to others, but you do not prevent them from causing disturbances. I'm not saying you shouldn't, everyone can decide for themselves how much troublemaker they want to use or tolerate in their lives. It's just that it's quite good to be aware that you are passing the baton to others.
I don't understand. What do you mean by that? I have given you a paradox again. The moment of insight that I can be deficient keeps me from being deficient. This aspect is very humorous, I think - doesn't anything about it make you laugh?
I agree. But isn't it the case that the one accused of lying doesn't always think he has anything to prove at all? In recent events, my experience has been that people simply ignore questions and pretend that there is no one who has even asked one. Which shouldn't stop one from continuing to ask.
The people who don't want to accept questions build walls, I have found. They make sure that no more questions reach their ears through blockades. They simply "mute" the uncomfortable questioner (either in thought or deed). The one who asks critical and uncomfortable questions is left in complete uncertainty as to whether it has even been received, let alone heard or read. Silence. This can make you so furious that you are tempted to take all kinds of radical or stupid actions.
I suppose it was/is just such a wall of silence that broke the camel's back in the disruptive events of human conflict.