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I agree with this, but also, the fact that you're presenting this at the end of your comment as some alternative or niche defense of free speech in part because the generic "pro-free speech" American normie wouldn't automatically recognize it makes me pretty depressed and reinforces my pessimism about the state of ideological/political discourse in America. When I was growing up in the 90s-early-00s going to hyper-blue/Dem/progressive schools in hyper-blue/Dem/progressive areas of America, this very point was taught to us as one of the - if not the - primary bases for supporting free speech. Literally everyone is biased, literally everyone has blind spots, and so the only way to avoid following biases down a cliff or being crushed by a steamroller coming in from our blind spot is to have many diverse people with diverse perspectives and diverse biases and blind spots be free to speak their opinion without fear of retribution merely for the contents of their opinions, to better mitigate our biases and cover our blind spots. Even so, it was clear that it would never be truly perfect, that it was just the least-worst option. This is also one of the bases of the scientific method and peer review. The thought that the very hyper-blue/Dems/progressives that championed this would turn out to be its most effective killers never occurred to me as a child or even as a very young adult, though by the time I was in my late 20s, it almost flipped to being almost obvious.
Now, there are many failures that led to this happening, but one thing I've noticed is that a lot of people seem to refuse to think recursively. In terms of free speech, we know for a fact that we're all, individually, biased; as such, if we are to judge what sorts of opinions are "within the bounds of free speech" and which opinions aren't, we will helplessly, inevitably, gratuitously, and likely moralistically, falsely judge opinions that we are biased against as being out of bounds, even though, in fact, they are within bounds. As such, no individual or even particular group of individuals can be trusted to make that kind of judgment call. This is why I want opinions that I personally find hateful, evil, pathetic, and even harmful to be spread openly and without any fear by the genuine opinion-holders. The positive contribution to dialogue and society at large comes from the very fact that I and people like me can't read their opinions without shaking and having to suppress our urge to shut them up.
Another aspect is the psychological finding* that fans of teams tend to judge even playing fields as being biased against them, and ones that are biased in favor of their team as being even. As such, if I genuinely want an even playing field, I must seek a playing field that appears biased against my side. This is one reason why I try (try - I'm imperfect) to steelman and to privilege opinions from people who I viscerally or Pavlovianly find, again, hateful, evil, pathetic, harmful, etc., and believe it's the responsibility of anyone who wants to get at truth to do something similar. Refusing to do such on the basis that it's hard or doesn't feel good makes one little better than a blind partisan. I must admit, I'm probably a blind partisan due to cowardice in most contexts.
* The replication crisis does put question to this, but in my biased mind, I believe that this would be one of those findings that would actually come out to be true or true enough if, in the future, psychology researchers were able to gain enough credibility to conclude such a thing from their research.
I also remember growing up in the 2000s being taught and hearing most people defend near-unconditional free speech (except government secrets, immediate threats, etc.). Maybe that’s why I find it particularly important, and strange when it’s criticized.
A report aggregating polls on free speech from 2021 suggests:
Support for “people can say what they want” is still generally high in most nations (94% overall). Support to explicitly allow offending minorities and religions is much lower (an embarrassing example of the framing effect), but still 66% and 78% in the US
From 2015 (notably, before Trump) to 2021, support generally hasn’t decreased globally, but somewhat in the US and some other Western nations
“In the US, young people, women, the less educated, and Biden voters are generally more restrictive regarding free speech” - young people is particularly worrying
Maybe they think people should be allowed to say what they want because they don't think people should be allowed to want to say offensive things.
Yeah, "you can say what you want; the crime is not saying it but that you wanted to say that sort of thing" feels like it comes rather close to the revealed preferences there, what with people trying to dig up evidence of secret beliefs with the same vigour as recording taboo speech.
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