spurred by a random conversation I had concerning censorship, I had a realization with maybe deeper implications.
you have a privilege. you abuse that privilege. the privilege is taken away.
it's a formula that I'm sure is familiar to anyone who was a kid, but what if that formula is applicable to socio-political life in general?
let us say there was a right to basically unlimited free speech. everything was fine and well until some couldn't help but abuse this right by uttering slurs at every opportunity. this understandably gets a plurality of some others pissed off. the right is soon taken away, and those who abused it cry.
how much of the shit rightists whine about is a result of none other than their own recklessness?
would something like loli hentai ever become such a hot topic if the rejects who enjoyed it just shut the fuck up and kept it to themselves, instead of recklessly spreading memes about it for the whole internet to see?
I think this realization is revealing. it does away with the binary moralism of "is it ok to censor X" and instead looks at it in a similar fashion to historical materialism, that is, abuse has consequences, sociologically. the master that abuses his slaves may eventually happen upon a vengeful slave that will return the abuse.
but why do people abuse their privilege? why do people self-snitch? why is that phenomenon of a criminal bragging about his crimes a thing? it's easy to see why the ruling class pursues short-sighted interest. in the long-term it appears as self-sabotage, yet we know that the ruling class has no choice, such is economics. as Marx put it, the ropes revolutionaries will use to execute their enemies will have been produced by the very same enemies.
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.