Anti-Climacus

LINK: Walloworld has an interesting post on the joogling campaign, including the following:

"Do I like this? I guess not really. I don't like anti-Semitism, but I also don't like the idea that a company whose stated goal is to simply map the Internet and provide search results based upon the stated inquiry is now picking and choosing content. That isn't direct governmental censorship, but it makes me wonder what other content Google might start restricting simply because people don't like that it shows up in a list of search results. Now, even if I just wanted to find anti-Semitic stuff purely for research purposes, I apparently couldn't run a search and find Jew Watch's site, even though it is clearly quite relevant."

Now, this will surprise probably no one, but I actually don't have a lot of problems with anti-semites being run out of the conversation (and the same goes for holders of other not-cool opinions), because I think it's more of a problem that everyone in civil society plays by the same set of rules than that people feel comfortable to say whatever it is they think, no matter how ridiculous.

Of course, one might easily object that in societies which are fundamentally off in the moral sense (slave-holding societies, Nazi Germany, etc etc) would be crushing the opinions of those who were actually in the right, morally speaking. I don't really find this to be problematic because you might believe, first of all, that common moral norms are available to everyone via whatever their nature may be, and second, that if someone fails to educate themselves as to the correct moral norms (objectively speaking), well, that's just one more black mark against them. But doesn't that mean that you're saying that people can and do get away with being morally perverted, if you will, and that's just sort of the way things are? Yes, indeed. I'm not saying it's good, mind you, but there are rewards to be meted out other than those on earth...