Being liberal in the 90’s meant defending controversial or disruptive speech on the premises of the mantra, “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it.” This principle operated as a liberal self-preservation tactic. The Church had more influence in society than it does today, and if anyone was going to challenge the status quo, it had to be liberals. Hip hop music, feminist art, raunchy daytime television, and that nasty George Carlin all played a role in challenging the modesty that the Church wanted to preserve.
Decades passed. The church lost most of its mainstream power. Raytheon began marketing itself as a diverse workplace. Goldman Sachs marched in parades with rainbow flags. The question of gay marriage was settled. As society liberalized, liberals found themselves usurping the role of cultural hall monitor. It became disadvantageous for liberals to defend controversial speech, so new rationales had to be created to prevent the spread of anti-liberal ideas.
Maybe there's something to that, but I think the main thing that happened was that we developed incredible new technology that allowed all of humanity to communicate openly in real time on an equal footing without gatekeepers or censorship. Then we looked at it and decided we didn't like it.
I really liked it. I think people have already forgotten how it was without these things. It was also predicted for years that small mindedness will become an enemy to such advancements.
Yes, but HN “works” because it is a small-ish community with principled moderators and generally well-educated people. The community guidelines request that commenters assume the best intentions in others. I’ve been in enough heavily-censored forums, groups, and websites to say that too much moderation can be worse than too little.
Indeed. Every single sacred universalist principle liberals claimed to hold sacred is simply a cudgel to get you to do what they want.
Appeals to democracy, rule of law, freedom of association, freedom of speech, equal rights, human rights, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, bodily autonomy etc. - all of these things vanish like a mist if the left decide that they hate you, and you deserve it.
Decades passed. The church lost most of its mainstream power. Raytheon began marketing itself as a diverse workplace. Goldman Sachs marched in parades with rainbow flags. The question of gay marriage was settled. As society liberalized, liberals found themselves usurping the role of cultural hall monitor. It became disadvantageous for liberals to defend controversial speech, so new rationales had to be created to prevent the spread of anti-liberal ideas.