CDR: Re: Shunning, lesbians and liberty (was: Re: <nettime> Rebirth of Guilds)

[Gil Hamilton]

Sampo Syreeni writes:
>On Mon, 25 Sep 2000, David Honig wrote:

> >Exclusion harms you only if it bugs you ---you have to want to be a 
> >homosexual atheist boyscout for their exclusion to matter.  
>Non-consensual
> >violence always harms.
>
>I do not agree. I think shunning harms you regardless, if it is organized
>well enough. Say, you do something which causes your whole town to shun
>you. Where do you suppose you get food, shelter, whatever from there
>on? You'd say 'just leave', here, right? What if you do not have the
>means? You just die?

This certainly gives one good reason not to piss off one's neighbors, eh?
This is of course the whole point of shunning.  It is a way of getting
people to behave in ways that are approved of by their community.  If they
do not, they risk being left to their own devices for survival.  No doubt
you will argue that people must be forced to provide for those who offend
them, at gunpoint if necessary.


>I also think I'm not totally wrong if I claim that even when the physical
>necessities of life have been taken care of, social contact *can* be
>essential to the survival of people raised up to be/genetically predisposed
>to being social or dependent, as modern people tend to be, on the
>surrounding society for survival. If this holds, shunning someone then
>becomes precisely as 'violent' as physical violence. Even if psychology
>isn't the hardest of sciences, it does suggest that isolation does
>significantly more than simply 'bug' people.

Complete bullshit.  In other words, "Violence is whatever I say it is."


> >No, liberty is absolute, and probably not being exercised if *someone*
> >isn't offended.
>
>I doubt that. Besides, that someone can be offended all s/he wants, s/he
>just shouldn't be allowed to do anything about it. (Except, of course, what
>the freedoms of expression/thought/association/whatever guarantee.)

So, people should be allowed the freedom of expression, thought and
association, yet they are prohibited from shunning?  You simply can't
have it both ways.  Either one is free to not associate with someone or
they are not (in which case, their "freedom of expression and association"
are nothing but lip service).


> >Your suggestion to "play nice" is quaint but irrelevent when talking 
>about
> >sovereign adults.
>
>I don't see it quite like that. In order to have meaningful freedoms one
>needs to have the possibility of enjoying them.

Even if it requires *forcing other people* to do things they don't want
to do.

>                                                 When someone claiming
>their rights in so doing limits the rights of others, I tend to resolve the
>conflict by limiting the rights themselves. In this case, demanding that
>people indeed 'play nice'.

People must behave exactly as you define "playing nice".  Otherwise, you
think they must be forced to "play nice".  Clearly, you're right and
everyone else is wrong and everyone else must be forced to do things your
way.

"Oh, but if they'll just 'play nice' then everyone is free to do as
they please!"


>This is precisely why freedom of thought and expression are so important 
>and
>why they are usually thought of as inalienable - thoughts do not usually
>just jump out and start killing people. They are easy to protect since
>conflicts between other people's similar rights rarely arise. This is not
>the case with liberties involving physical violence, property et cetera.

Except somehow merely refusing to associate with someone is categorized
by you as physical violence.  And apparently as a shop-owner I cannot
exercise rights over *my own property* if what I choose to do is
inconvenient for someone else.


> >Tolerance means tolerating intolerant groups.  The latter-day euros 
>(germans
> >and french esp.) don't get it.  When you burn nazi literature you have 
>become
> >them.
>
>I agree. But the way I see it, tolerance applies to the intangible side of
>things, not the physical. I.e. you can hate and insult the somali or the
>Finnish all you want and webcast as much hate speech as you want but once
>you start beating people, you're off. Similarly, you have to tolerate the
>speech but not the actions. In the case of our proverbial lesbians, you 
>have
>to tolerate their 'deviant ways' and even the occasional kiss, while they
>have to tolerate you speaking behind their back, insulting them and 
>whatever
>else nasty you can do with ideas alone. What you do not have to tolerate is
>a lesbian kissing you (a bit of a bad analogy since you're male), or a shop
>owner throwing you out for a public display of love.

The shop owner must be *forced* to tolerate behavior he doesn't approve
of?  What happened to his right to his own property?  Must he also
allow people to have sex in his shop?  Or masturbate?  Or curse?  Or
insult his customers?  Or slander the shopkeeper?  Or sing loudly?

Which set of things must he be forced to accept?  And if he throws
someone out for engaging in one of these behaviors, which things will
cause the Men With Guns to come and arrest *him* for "violating their
right of expression"?

Since food and the like are necessities of life, isn't anyone free to
come in and just take whatever they like from the shop?  After all,
"What if you do not have the means? You just die?"  No, clearly the
shopkeeper would be "doing violence" to me if he tried to prevent me
from taking what I need to live.


>The argument of private vs. public services, I think, is a bad one - in a
>society in which practically everything can be privately owned it puts the
>rights of everybody in the hands of those with the dough. Against this
>background your view of rights being absolute sort of dries up.

Life is unfair.  Get over it.  Those that depend on others for their
well-being or continued survival would do well to be more polite to
them.  If you live at home with Mommy and Daddy, then you'd better
behave as they specify.  Likewise, if you must rely on commerce with
others for your survival, you'd better think twice about offending them.


>Of course one valid attempt at resolving the problem would be to limit
>private ownership of things somehow essential to the preservation of
>people's liberties. I think I better not go there, right?

Why not?  You're already there.  Whatever Sampo thinks is "fair".
In Sampo's world, it's okay to force someone to provide service to
those who insult them or offend them.  I wonder whatever happened to
*their* liberties.

- GH


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