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I haven’t watched the vid and cannot right now. But responding to the comment above, it should be “forbidden to say unpleasant things” when the law makes it illegal, because the law comes from the elected legislature in a democracy (i.e., ≈ the collective will of the people). This is not about cushioning people from unpleasantness, it’s about not breaking laws that exist for a reason.
When should it be made illegal to say such things? When we collectively and democratically agree that it leads to net negative societal outcomes; for example, quoting the worst of the Old Testament, or Hitler’s Mein Kampf in the context of uncritically calling for genocide or apartheid is already illegal in some countries, because we know exactly where this leads. It’s not the books themselves that are problematic, it’s advocating for illegal things like discrimination or mass murder based on race, beliefs, etc. Anyone advocating for such things is already legally liable under several jurisdictions, regardless of whether they couch their argument in some third-party written text.
Such laws were enacted precisely because of historical lessons learned at an expensive cost to humanity. We don’t have to repeat the same experiments just because we didn’t live through that era.
Its a bad idea to rely on the good will of the majority when handing out rights. I think its easy to see in places like America and the UK, and in some places in Europe, public sentiment is slipping backwards. Humans have some terrible impulses and will collectively act on them sometimes. Look at how trans people are being treated right now. Just because its been decided by the state legislatures in Florida that you can’t educate children about sex or gender identity or that exposing kids to the “speech” of dressing in drag is a criminal offense does not make it moral. And yes private companies are not bound to any government laws regarding speech and association. But the ideal of free speech is also worth cultivating beyond strictly state sanctioned violence. It is worth hearing and listening to what people have to say, even if their only value is to used as an example of what not to be or become.
What’s the alternative to the will of the majority, though?
The legislature is meant to be ≈ representative, but that ranges from 1:1 in places like Switzerland (direct votation on everything) to indirect representation such as a bicameral system where the higher chamber (typically, the senate) is supposed to embrace the long view and provide some degree of perennial wisdom that the masses sometimes lack (especially in reaction to current events).
I agree that the mean has regressed toward populism and reactionary sentiment toward social progress (e.g., LGBTQ rights) among Western democracies in the last couple of decades. But I also look at this as history (with a lowercase h) ebbing and flowing, while History (with an uppercase H) trends unidirectionally toward more open and progressive societies. In other words, one step back, two steps forward. Every generation seems to be more tolerant than the previous, and holistically there’s been steady progress (in the “progressive” acceptance of the word) on societal matters over the 19th and 20th century to date.
I also feel that an absolutist free speech position, while dogmatically progressive and permissive on the surface, is actually regressive in its byproducts (cf. Popper’s paradox of intolerance). I also feel that most Western democracies, through their imperfect but somewhat representative legislatures, have struck a nuanced position on free speech that wisely forbids advocating for discriminatory speed (all the way to handing down hefty fines and prison sentences for neonazi speech in Europe, for instance).
That makes me not in favor of naively experimenting with relaxing those rules and risking hate speech (however thinly disguised) become banal once again.
I haven’t watched the vid and cannot right now. But responding to the comment above, it should be “forbidden to say unpleasant things” when the law makes it illegal, because the law comes from the elected legislature in a democracy (i.e., ≈ the collective will of the people). This is not about cushioning people from unpleasantness, it’s about not breaking laws that exist for a reason.
When should it be made illegal to say such things? When we collectively and democratically agree that it leads to net negative societal outcomes; for example, quoting the worst of the Old Testament, or Hitler’s Mein Kampf in the context of uncritically calling for genocide or apartheid is already illegal in some countries, because we know exactly where this leads. It’s not the books themselves that are problematic, it’s advocating for illegal things like discrimination or mass murder based on race, beliefs, etc. Anyone advocating for such things is already legally liable under several jurisdictions, regardless of whether they couch their argument in some third-party written text.
Such laws were enacted precisely because of historical lessons learned at an expensive cost to humanity. We don’t have to repeat the same experiments just because we didn’t live through that era.
Its a bad idea to rely on the good will of the majority when handing out rights. I think its easy to see in places like America and the UK, and in some places in Europe, public sentiment is slipping backwards. Humans have some terrible impulses and will collectively act on them sometimes. Look at how trans people are being treated right now. Just because its been decided by the state legislatures in Florida that you can’t educate children about sex or gender identity or that exposing kids to the “speech” of dressing in drag is a criminal offense does not make it moral. And yes private companies are not bound to any government laws regarding speech and association. But the ideal of free speech is also worth cultivating beyond strictly state sanctioned violence. It is worth hearing and listening to what people have to say, even if their only value is to used as an example of what not to be or become.
What’s the alternative to the will of the majority, though?
The legislature is meant to be ≈ representative, but that ranges from 1:1 in places like Switzerland (direct votation on everything) to indirect representation such as a bicameral system where the higher chamber (typically, the senate) is supposed to embrace the long view and provide some degree of perennial wisdom that the masses sometimes lack (especially in reaction to current events).
I agree that the mean has regressed toward populism and reactionary sentiment toward social progress (e.g., LGBTQ rights) among Western democracies in the last couple of decades. But I also look at this as history (with a lowercase h) ebbing and flowing, while History (with an uppercase H) trends unidirectionally toward more open and progressive societies. In other words, one step back, two steps forward. Every generation seems to be more tolerant than the previous, and holistically there’s been steady progress (in the “progressive” acceptance of the word) on societal matters over the 19th and 20th century to date.
I also feel that an absolutist free speech position, while dogmatically progressive and permissive on the surface, is actually regressive in its byproducts (cf. Popper’s paradox of intolerance). I also feel that most Western democracies, through their imperfect but somewhat representative legislatures, have struck a nuanced position on free speech that wisely forbids advocating for discriminatory speed (all the way to handing down hefty fines and prison sentences for neonazi speech in Europe, for instance).
That makes me not in favor of naively experimenting with relaxing those rules and risking hate speech (however thinly disguised) become banal once again.
Quite a puzzle, isn’t it.