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Notes -
I read something today which I have long thought deep down, but hadn’t really seen spelled out elsewhere.
Namely, the censoring done by the liberal left, while there, is rather mild in the scheme of things and is probably much less than the same left would be censored by the people it currently censors if that group was in power.
The quote that brought it to my mind was from here, on Richard Hannania’s substack. After a post discussing being banned by Twitter, he drops this at the end of the article.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/saying-goodbye-to-twitter
The attitude of censoring opponents seemed to have crystallized for the left around 2016, where I distinctly remember the conversation centering around the limits of tolerating intolerant ideologies. (Which seems to have become fully settled by now, interesting to observe an ideological movement update in real time in that way).
Does Hannania have a point here? Is the issue that the right takes offense with censorship itself, or would the right if it actually gained back power censor in a much more strict and comprehensive way?
I believe that the "attitude of censoring opponents" has always existed; the idea that of course people who fundamentally disagree on the guiding principles of the society should not have the opportunity to spread their lies and slander, and that it's OK to go as far as to kill them if they do so, has been the natural and obvious pillar of the political society since forever. When the Roman elites heard that the Gracchi were going around proposing some reforms curtailing the powers of the elite, they didn't go "Well, I disagree with them but they should be entitled to say their word!", they went and organized them to be murdered. The churches saw no issues in making sure that heretics can't deter people from the true path by having those heretics slaughtered. And so on. It's the idea that everyone has a freedom of speech and a freedom of religion that is expectional and, indeed, some might say, unnatural; after all, if someone is saying things that you know are untrue, why should they be able to do so? To go around telling lies like that? Preposterous!
It's the wide spread of basic small-l liberal values overriding other values - nationalist, socialist and religious - that makes freedom of speech and freedom of religion and things like that seem natural and even obvious to us; when those values start losing their societal force and their reasons are forgotten, it's only to be expected that censorship and the repression of unwanted ideologies enters in force. It does, indeed, seem that this is happening, and it's only fed and fed by people who are like "well, if the other team is not playing nice, then we are not going to do so, either".
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