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 -
The social justice decentralised meme labs work shockingly fast - when they went all-out during COVID, three days was slow. This is a fool's errand; you cannot switch terminology fast enough to outflank them, and you'll look like you've something to hide by trying.
They can try, and they might temporarily succeed, but eventually they'll lose, because truth always wins in the long run.
That's precisely what most freedom of speech thinkers argued.
Also, it's not 2020, in 2025 social justice warriors are losing the culture war. The newer generations are not buying their propaganda any more.
Oh, I'm not for a second saying that they can't be beaten. They can be beaten. What I'm saying is that you can't just get around their memes by switching terminology. That is the fool's errand - and is what your post is advocating.
The way to win is to confront them head-on. They're fast, but they're not unstoppable.
Yes you can. That's the whole point of rebranding.
They will have to come up with entirely new memes.
How is that working out?
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