blake 3:17
4th January 2013, 21:16
This post might be confusing or just confused. I'm going out on a bit of a limb here.
I'm writing this as a socialist who is pro-feminist, pro-queer and pro-disability rights. I'm also strongly committed to free speech and tend to oppose hate crime and hate speech laws.
In the past few days I've heard or read radicals arguing various not quite state solutions to problems of discrimination at school, on the job, and in the community. Through the partial victories of feminist, queer, disability, and anti-racist struggles, many institutions have implemented various rules and practices meant to protect and defend equity and diversity and, in general, these should be defended and extended.
I guess what concerns me is that we can become over reliant on some Authority being the defender of the oppressed and righter of wrongs and that quasi-legalistic defenses of human rights tend to individualize discrimination. Some of the policies which are generated are censorious and legitimate the suppression of free speech, including the defense of the oppressed. The biggest issue in Toronto and Ontario around free expression has been the condemnation of Israeli Apartheid Week and Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.
I'm trying to think about the contradictions and what they mean for freedom movements.
In the midst of successful social struggle there's often a magical utopianism which the people who've participated in it feel and live, but when the victory is solidified it becomes routine and bureaucratized.
Thoughts?
I'm writing this as a socialist who is pro-feminist, pro-queer and pro-disability rights. I'm also strongly committed to free speech and tend to oppose hate crime and hate speech laws.
In the past few days I've heard or read radicals arguing various not quite state solutions to problems of discrimination at school, on the job, and in the community. Through the partial victories of feminist, queer, disability, and anti-racist struggles, many institutions have implemented various rules and practices meant to protect and defend equity and diversity and, in general, these should be defended and extended.
I guess what concerns me is that we can become over reliant on some Authority being the defender of the oppressed and righter of wrongs and that quasi-legalistic defenses of human rights tend to individualize discrimination. Some of the policies which are generated are censorious and legitimate the suppression of free speech, including the defense of the oppressed. The biggest issue in Toronto and Ontario around free expression has been the condemnation of Israeli Apartheid Week and Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.
I'm trying to think about the contradictions and what they mean for freedom movements.
In the midst of successful social struggle there's often a magical utopianism which the people who've participated in it feel and live, but when the victory is solidified it becomes routine and bureaucratized.
Thoughts?