I've written about freedom of speech extensively in all manner of forums, but the one thing that has become clear to me lately, is that people are genuinely uninterested in the philosophical underpinnings of freedom of speech. Today they would rather quote an XKCD comic, than John Stuart Mill's seminar work On Liberty.
Because of this, I've decided to try to reframe the original notion of freedom of speech, into a term I coined: Open Ideas.
Open Ideas is nothing more than what freedom of speech has always been historically: a philosophical declaration that the open contestation of ideas is the engine of progress that keeps moving society forward.
Today the tyranny of the majority believes freedom of speech is anything but that. They believe that "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences", despite the fact that such term came from nowhere, has no author, and in addition all great free speech thinkers argued precisely the opposite. The great thinkers argued that if people are afraid of expressing unpopular opinions, that is functionally the same as government censorship: ideas are suppressed, society stagnates, and progress is halted.
So far I have not yet heard any sound refutation of any of these ideas. All people do is repeat the aforementioned dogmatic slogan with zero philosophical foundation, or mention First Amendment details, which obviously is not equal to freedom of speech.
How is anything I've stated in any way an inaccurate assessment of what is happening?
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Notes -
Being polite doesn’t mean accepting every idea that comes along. It simply means that you express your disagreement in ways that, to paraphrase the rules of this place “give light rather than heat.” That’s entirely possible even in cases like pedophilia where the acceptance of such a bad idea would be a disaster. Saying there are only two genders is perfectly within the bounds of free expression and I don’t think you should be harassed or fired for that. Saying something like “there are only two genders and those who disagree should be considered dangerous to society,” that is over the line. Saying “Trump should not be sending the National Guard to American cities” is fine, saying “Trump is doing an authoritarian power grab by sending the National Guard to American cities” is too far because words like authoritarian, fascist, Nazi, and related are incendiary and dangerously lead to the acceptance of violence against anyone smeared with those terms.
How do you deal with the Euphemism treadmill problem within this logic? "Nigger Rigged" isn't polite and can get a guy in trouble, so construction workers start calling it "Afro Engineered" but we all figure out what that means so they just start calling it "Ghetto," in polite company calling something or someone Ghetto has obvious uncomfortable racial implications, a lot of black lawyers are going to bristle at a white person calling something of theirs Ghetto, even if they themselves would use the term disparagingly in another context. The implication remains the same, and over time the new euphemism becomes rude as well. Moron becomes an insult so we get Retarded which becomes a slur so we get Special Needs and kids start calling each other shortbus.
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I think I didn't communicate it clearly. People that profess pedophilia should be ridiculed and shunned. It's not a matter of accepting the idea, it's the very fact of openly brandishing that constitutes the harm to the social fabric.
The rules of The Motte are not applicable to society at large, any more than the rules of the Oxford Debate Club or the Japanese Parliament.
I’m talking about mostly civilian discussions of political issues, especially over the Internet. It does no good to tear apart communities and create the conditions for political radicalism and political violence. In fact that’s the worst thing that could happen. Societies that radicalized and created the conditions for political violence are generally shit-holes, places with zero social trust, weak economies and crumbling infrastructure. Much of Latin America is like this, parts of the Middle East, and some parts of Southeast Asia. Nobody really wants to live there anymore because of the poor conditions caused by the political chaos.
Right, and I think when there is a real division in the community, we do have a higher obligation than when fringe elements try to pass off their ideas.
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