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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   42646 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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I think rights are more than just tools we use to protect higher values. They're the values we aspire to themselves because we're happier living in societies that carve out spaces for different human activities. I think depending on where you are in society you're going to have a different view on what kind of society you live in. In my own case I can agree with what people like Jaron Lanier says and I think many people in country's across the world would say the same thing for themselves, even without an explicit commitment to free speech. If you're a black teenager that inherits the circumstances and conditions of having to grow up in inner city Detroit, you still may not say you live in a tyranny, but you live in a dog-eat-dog world in a 1st world shithole society that doesn't care about you, from some of their perspectives. And it's hard to disagree with that when it's baked into your life experiences. Those communities would greatly enjoy a little more security and a little less freedom if you offered it to them on a plate. There are compromises to reach on civil liberties which include free speech. I used to get criticized all the time for "not understanding" how important freedom of speech is. I can assure people I absolutely understand it's importance. But it's important to understand there are different sociopolitical planes and axes that people live under. And freedom of speech isn't a one-size fits all solution. Countries do what they believe makes sense in their circumstance and history.

I have had trouble answering this, because I think we're essentially in agreement about rights, you're just focused on the immediate future while I'm focused on the distant future. Because yeah it does come down to trade offs, and it's hard to support the idea that the first (or the second) amendment is what some poor kid in Detroit or Chiraq needs more of. So it's a bit selfish of me to insist on them just because my own community is in the position where the greatest assaults are on our freedom by pencil pushing bureaucrats making up rules to justify their pay cheques. But that is the position I believe I am in.

But having said that, that Detroit kid also isn't benefiting from getting fired from his job at Wendy's for posting a video laughing at the death of some white guy whom the media claims says black people were happier as slaves. And I do worry that part of the problem is that modern society sees rights too much as values and not enough as tools. Like we've sacralised the idea of the human right, and now everything from the internet to hormone treatment is a human right that people are willing to burn down society over. And maybe I'm pattern matching too aggressively, but I can't help but see a through line from the increasing abrogation of the first amendment under Obama and subsequent administrations and the rise in chaos online and off. It's obviously not the incitement, but I think it definitely plays a part.

Sorry this isn't more coherent, it's a challenging subject to deal with. You nailed it with your second paragraph though.

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