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The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

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Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#31

Post by Simple_Guy »

peteretep wrote: post #17
nullc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the US standing almost alone among developed nations and even the ACLU backing away from its policy of defending impolitic or hurtful speech we can probably expect this recent anomaly of free expression to be relatively short lived. I'm glad I got to live now and not some other time.

Could you briefly outline how you think the USA has benefitted from this freedom, in a way that other rich Western countries haven’t? I guess I’m specifically thinking of Australia, New Zealand, UK, Canada, as all have broadly similar legal systems and robust judiciaries / policing, but not the singular focus on free speech.

Freedom is an end in and of itself. You don't have to show that a freedom will benefit a person in another way for it to have value.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#32

Post by peteretep »

Kalium wrote: post #28
peteretep wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you briefly outline how you think the USA has benefitted from this freedom, in a way that other rich Western countries haven’t? I guess I’m specifically thinking of Australia, New Zealand, UK, Canada, as all have broadly similar legal systems and robust judiciaries / policing, but not the singular focus on free speech.

English defamation law makes it very easy to use libel to silence critics. In the US, by contrast, standards are much higher and silencing people much more difficult. The UK has not profited in any way, shape, form, or manner by this. It clogs up courts to no productive use and serves mainly to intimidate people into silence in the face of money. A free society is better without this.

Sure, that's a valid criticism. However -- and as far as I'm aware -- this isn't an issue in any of the other countries, suggesting that this is more a peculiarity of the British system, rather than an inherent feature of not allowing free speech?

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#33

Post by serf »

peteretep wrote: post #23
brigandish wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From The Times[1]: > More than 3,300 people were detained and questioned last year over so-called trolling on social media and other online forums 13 forces declined to give the information which means it is very likely to be far higher. That was a couple of years ago and it appears to be increasing. As to advantages of free speech, social freedoms are strongly correlated with economic freedom, and hence, economic su…

> As to advantages of free speech, social freedoms are strongly correlated with economic freedom, and hence, economic success. Simply to look at an ordered list by GDP would correlate with free speech strongly. I suspect you have not done your research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... But, the question I originally asked remains, although I'll restate it to make it even easier to answer…

>What has the US gained over these countries from that free speech, exactly?

I think it's non-trivial to try to quantify the effects of free speech.

Freeform opinions off the top of my head:

the definitions of 'hate speech' are too fluid, allowing argument opposition to massage the definition until your protest against them is considered to be hateful -- which then allows legal options to silence the opinion.

The United States has been the culture leader of the Western world for some time, and the position seems to be ever-increasing. The United States is , and has been, the largest media producer ever . This allows the United States to own the most effective propaganda engine the world has ever seen.

New branches of media genre and topic since the 1900s are almost entirely US-centric (Pop art, Beatniks, Flower power, hip-hop and rap culture, jazz, blues, etc) -- many of them included topics like public dissent and negative opinion of government that would've been entirely illegal in the majority of the rest of the world. They are all now ubiquitous throughout the world, spreading US-centric culture to all reaches.

I think that freedom of speech helped to facilitate the role the United States now holds within 'Western Civilization', related to the above mentioned points.

In my opinion, in our world, owning the world's biggest propaganda engine seems to be the most dominating weapon yet.

Some questions :

If forming a government, and the results of certain variables are unclear, why not try to wholeheartedly clone the most successful example? The United States is that example, at the moment.

At what point is a parity reached between damages of false-imprisonment, and actual damage accrued from the results of hate speech?

What are the damages of hate speech? Can you realistically consider damages from a violent individual to have been caused by hate speech -- or is that a good scapegoat for a mentally disturbed individual to kill people with?

Why do we attack social problems with less communication, and enforced communication, rather than with care for the ill individuals who display behavior outside the social healthy norm? Will macro actions help problems that stem from individual issues?

And most importantly : Who gets to define our speech? Who holds the keys to the kingdom? Who deserves that trust?

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#34

Post by Kalium »

peteretep wrote: post #32
Kalium wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English defamation law makes it very easy to use libel to silence critics. In the US, by contrast, standards are much higher and silencing people much more difficult. The UK has not profited in any way, shape, form, or manner by this. It clogs up courts to no productive use and serves mainly to intimidate people into silence in the face of money. A free society is better without this.

Sure, that's a valid criticism. However -- and as far as I'm aware -- this isn't an issue in any of the other countries, suggesting that this is more a peculiarity of the British system, rather than an inherent feature of not allowing free speech?

This British peculiarity could perhaps be regarded by some people as one nasty failure mode of free-ish speech.

I would say that once you have free-ish speech, you have incentives for people to find ways to characterize speech they dislike for any reason as on the wrong side of the "ish" lines. The more flexible and privately actionable the enforcement is the more people will seek to find ways to use it for their own gain.

To put it another way, how easy do you want it to be for powerful private citizens or the government to silence anyone they don't like for arbitrary reasons? Before any protests that this can be countered by clear legal drafting, perhaps consider how readily criticism of Israeli policies is cast as anti-Semitic hate speech.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#35

Post by peteretep »

serf wrote: post #33
peteretep wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As to advantages of free speech, social freedoms are strongly correlated with economic freedom, and hence, economic success. Simply to look at an ordered list by GDP would correlate with free speech strongly. I suspect you have not done your research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... But, the question I originally asked remains, although I'll restate it to make it even easier to answer…

>What has the US gained over these countries from that free speech, exactly? I think it's non-trivial to try to quantify the effects of free speech. Freeform opinions off the top of my head: the definitions of 'hate speech' are too fluid, allowing argument opposition to massage the definition until your protest against them is considered to be hateful -- which then allows legal options to silence the opinion. The Uni…

That's a lot of points, so I'm going to simply hone in on one point which I feel is sort of indicative here:

> If forming a government, and the results of certain variables are unclear, why not try to wholeheartedly clone the most successful example?

I genuinely, honestly believe that of the countries I've highlighted, the people in the US get the rawest deal. It ranks lowest in life expectancy, locks up three times as many people as the next highest on that list, people get the least paid time off, obesity is by far the worst, people still go medically bankrupt(!!!), people are killed by law enforcement at three times the rate of the next highest (Canada), inequality (via Gini coefficient), homicide rate is 4x the nearest neighbor (UK). In short, I think it's hard to build an argument off "copy what the United States did because they're the best".

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#36

Post by peteretep »

Kalium wrote: post #34
peteretep wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that's a valid criticism. However -- and as far as I'm aware -- this isn't an issue in any of the other countries, suggesting that this is more a peculiarity of the British system, rather than an inherent feature of not allowing free speech?

This British peculiarity could perhaps be regarded by some people as one nasty failure mode of free-ish speech. I would say that once you have free-ish speech, you have incentives for people to find ways to characterize speech they dislike for any reason as on the wrong side of the "ish" lines. The more flexible and privately actionable the enforcement is the more people will seek to find ways to use it for their own…

> This British peculiarity could perhaps be regarded by some people as one nasty failure mode of free-ish speech.

Sure, but the Americans are innovative yo! (cf: Peter Thiel and Gawker)

> how easy do you want it to be for powerful private citizens [...] to silence anyone they don't like for arbitrary reasons

I do not want this, but I feel the press in the UK counter-balance that pretty effectively. Rich people seem to love bringing down other rich people

> how easy do you want it to be for [...] the government to silence anyone they don't like for arbitrary reasons

I feel like Americans hold a uniquely strong distrust of their government. If you're British you just have to suck up the fact that Parliament can pass any bill they like to do whatever the hell they like with a simple majority, but it's been _working ok_ for a few centuries now.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#37

Post by pjc50 »

brigandish wrote: post #22
peteretep wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lot fewer people being jailed or otherwise punished by authorities for expressing their opinions To be absolutely clear, "their opinions" here (in the example you gave, and presumably what you're referring to) is hate speech, which the US allows[0]. What advantages have accrued to the US through hate speech being protected, in your opinion? You say "a lot fewer people being jailed", but a quick scan of, say, UK c…

From The Times[1]: > More than 3,300 people were detained and questioned last year over so-called trolling on social media and other online forums 13 forces declined to give the information which means it is very likely to be far higher. That was a couple of years ago and it appears to be increasing. As to advantages of free speech, social freedoms are strongly correlated with economic freedom, and hence, economic su…

"Safety" from hate speech is difficult to define in statistical terms, because it tends to be nonlinear - everything looks fine until someone goes on a murder spree or starts up the death camps again. The last European genocide was in my lifetime, at Srebrenica (which, incidentally, Spiked Magazine are denialists of)

Americans seem much more comfortable with the idea that both free speech and free gun ownership will get more people routinely killed; like car ownership, it's just part of the price, it seems.

The US seems to hang on the cusp of this, in having racially motivated mass murders only occasionally, that don't quite spill over into mass genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:21st-century_attacks_...

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#38

Post by Kalium »

peteretep wrote: post #36
Kalium wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This British peculiarity could perhaps be regarded by some people as one nasty failure mode of free-ish speech. I would say that once you have free-ish speech, you have incentives for people to find ways to characterize speech they dislike for any reason as on the wrong side of the "ish" lines. The more flexible and privately actionable the enforcement is the more people will seek to find ways to use it for their own…

> This British peculiarity could perhaps be regarded by some people as one nasty failure mode of free-ish speech. Sure, but the Americans are innovative yo! (cf: Peter Thiel and Gawker) > how easy do you want it to be for powerful private citizens [...] to silence anyone they don't like for arbitrary reasons I do not want this, but I feel the press in the UK counter-balance that pretty effectively. Rich people seem t…

> I do not want this, but I feel the press in the UK counter-balance that pretty effectively. Rich people seem to love bringing down other rich people

Relying on a commercial sector seems like odd. Why can't individuals have those rights too? Does having a printer make someone more deserving of rights? I would think not, in an age where anyone with a smartphone can reach a sizable audience, but I'm also clearly the crazy American in this thread.

> I feel like Americans hold a uniquely strong distrust of their government. If you're British you just have to suck up the fact that Parliament can pass any bill they like to do whatever the hell they like with a simple majority, but it's been _working ok_ for a few centuries now.

There's a pretty strong argument that India, Australia, and indeed the US are clear signs that it hasn't been working OK for a few centuries now. All of them learned a few things about what Parliament might get up to when you can't riot under their noses to drive home the objections.

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#39

Post by brigandish »

peteretep wrote: post #23
brigandish wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From The Times[1]: > More than 3,300 people were detained and questioned last year over so-called trolling on social media and other online forums 13 forces declined to give the information which means it is very likely to be far higher. That was a couple of years ago and it appears to be increasing. As to advantages of free speech, social freedoms are strongly correlated with economic freedom, and hence, economic su…

> As to advantages of free speech, social freedoms are strongly correlated with economic freedom, and hence, economic success. Simply to look at an ordered list by GDP would correlate with free speech strongly. I suspect you have not done your research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... But, the question I originally asked remains, although I'll restate it to make it even easier to answer…

> I suspect you have not done your research

Where did I mention GDP per capita?[1]

When it comes to insights about freedom I prefer to rely on research such as the Human Freedom Index, that I read yearly[2], instead of trying to present data in a way that I can rely on exceptions to support my view, from Wikipedia.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... [2] https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index-new

Re: The fight to publish Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

#40

Post by brigandish »

pjc50 wrote: post #37
brigandish wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From The Times[1]: > More than 3,300 people were detained and questioned last year over so-called trolling on social media and other online forums 13 forces declined to give the information which means it is very likely to be far higher. That was a couple of years ago and it appears to be increasing. As to advantages of free speech, social freedoms are strongly correlated with economic freedom, and hence, economic su…

"Safety" from hate speech is difficult to define in statistical terms, because it tends to be nonlinear - everything looks fine until someone goes on a murder spree or starts up the death camps again. The last European genocide was in my lifetime, at Srebrenica (which, incidentally, Spiked Magazine are denialists of) Americans seem much more comfortable with the idea that both free speech and free gun ownership will…

> Americans seem much more comfortable with the idea that both free speech and free gun ownership will get more people routinely killed; like car ownership, it's just part of the price, it seems.

In 2013 there were 33,636 deaths due to guns. Even without breaking down those figures (2/3 were suicides) it would take 178 years to reach the 6 million regularly claimed to be the total for the Holocaust. That seems to be a fair price to avoid genocide and tyranny.

Why would any of the mass murders "spill over" into mass genocide? I don't see why one should logically follow from the other (I stress logically because they obviously don't in practice, as the example of the US shows).

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