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Comment by xyzzyz

You used the word "campus", because you didn't want to say that the students wanted to hear someone speak. You didn't want to say that, because it's clearly false: students are the ones who invited the deplatformed speakers in the first place. Sure, some other students didn't want them to be able to speak, but then we are just talking about differing opinions and a right of a minority students to hear voices that the majority wants deplatformed. By using the word "campus", you attempted to imply a presence of a non-existent consensus.

There's also a second reason why you used the word "campus": because when anyone speaks on a campus, the inanimate campus always hears it. If you said that the "students campuses don't want to hear someone speak", the obvious retort is that nobody is making them do it, they just don't have to attend. Of course, what is actually happening there is not that the majority of students don't want to hear those speakers, instead they don't want the speakers to be able to speak, and they don't want the minority to be able to listen. That's why deplatforming is so pernicious and evil, and why people like to play language games to minimize the illiberalism on campuses.

parent xyzzyz 13 days ago

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