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Rowan Atkinson on free speech (2012) [video]

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Re: Rowan Atkinson on free speech (2012) [video]

#31
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the overwhelming dominance in cancel culture over the last few years has been from the left. Sure, the right has also been up to its old tricks in tired corners (it dominated in previous times like the McCarthy era), but lets be realistic about who the modern problem is mainly with in the West or we won't solve it.

What books were banned by "the left"?

Do research papers count as books?

https://unherd.com/2023/04/did-city-uni-censor-my-gender-res...

This one’s hilarious/tragic because the censored paper was researching censorship.

Re: Rowan Atkinson on free speech (2012) [video]

#33
post #19
post #8

There seems to be a generational divide on this topic. A lot of younger people seem to be fine with restrictions on free speech, often under the guise of various progressive causes

Any examples come to mind? I feel most people are pretty free to voice their thoughts

(At the risk of having my comment turn gray) The entire concept of "hate speech", the concept of "dead naming", anyone who thinks "words are violence" and therefore retaliation with physical violence is justified.

These are all forms of attack upon free speech and there have been instances of these in universities for the past decade.

Re: Rowan Atkinson on free speech (2012) [video]

#34
post #9

I believe that an intelligent person should be able to hold two conflicting perceptions at the same time. Therefore, I understand and accept that free speech is a foundation for a civilized life, that there should be no restraints on free speech. But, I also acknowledge that free speech isn't so free at all. For a long time and in many places in the world there are minorities without the right to speech. And the barr…

I agree with the sentiment of what you are saying. I agree with Mr Atkinson (and Obama apparently) that the solution to speech that causes offence is more speech. The problems as I see it are twofold. The first is that 'more speech' presumably means better speech, better rhetoric, better arguments, and I don't see many people in society these days with these skills. If anything universities have taken backwards step…

If everyone is identifiable all the time then you have a totalitarian state. Free speech is the first thing that flys out the window.

And what about whistle blowers or rape victims - should they be identifiable to those they accuse?

Edit:

What about walking along the street, I bump into someone and say sorry. Should I be identifiable to the other person? If not, Where's the limit/cut-off for identifiable? If yes, what is the difference to Chinese social scoring where literal everyone is identifiable?

Re: Rowan Atkinson on free speech (2012) [video]

#35
post #4

Sometimes missing in these debates is that right to free speech isn't the right to be listened to.

Or "freedom of speech is not freedom of reach"

Who gets to decide which ideas are allowed reach? That’s the current frontier in this debate.

Re: Rowan Atkinson on free speech (2012) [video]

#36
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What books were banned by "the left"?

I was commenting on "restrictions on speech", of which book banning is a historically symbolic example but less relevant in the modern age. In the West the left has dominated restricting speech.

Like the famously left-wing Nazi's bookburning?

Re: Rowan Atkinson on free speech (2012) [video]

#37
post #8

There seems to be a generational divide on this topic. A lot of younger people seem to be fine with restrictions on free speech, often under the guise of various progressive causes

History ebbs and flows like the tide. A hundred years ago young people saw how censorship, racism, and authoritarianism were being used to maintain the status quo. A wave of free expression and individuality grew throughout the 20th century as a way to disrupt the power balance. They encouraged diversity of thought, even things you didn't agree with, and expected that freedom of expression would allow the "good" ideas to naturally arise.

Enter the young people of today and their perception of the status quo is that it's built on these principles of individual freedom. As they evaluate the history of their forebears and find it lacking the way that every generation does, they can't help but see the shortcomings of the 20th century. Which means being critical of absolute free speech since that was the dominant motivation of much of the actions by people in Western nations.

To be more specific, older generations entered the 20th century with women not being allowed to vote, evolution not being taught in schools, and racism being coded in the law. They saw that those things existed because social institutions such as churches enforced conformity of thought. So it was progressive to insist on greater personal freedom. Young people today entered the 21st century with climate change, poor mental health, and systemic under-the-table racism. They see that those things exist because of short-sighted individualism. It's progressive now to insist on greater social awareness.

In other words, if kids today were taught "think globally, act locally". You could say that the previous generations grew up with "think locally, act globally".

Re: Rowan Atkinson on free speech (2012) [video]

#38

Defending free speech without going at all into the nuances of the matter is intellectually extremely lazy at best and virtue signalling to the alt right crowd at worst. And the real bummer is that it's basically never interesting.

It's possible that the problem is that speech is not the right abstraction. Perhaps we should be advocating for something along the lines of "free expression of reasoning".

Re: Rowan Atkinson on free speech (2012) [video]

#39
post #8

There seems to be a generational divide on this topic. A lot of younger people seem to be fine with restrictions on free speech, often under the guise of various progressive causes

There is also a gender difference [1]. Women are significantly less supportive of free speech than men.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-antisocial-psych...

Re: Rowan Atkinson on free speech (2012) [video]

#40
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the overwhelming dominance in cancel culture over the last few years has been from the left. Sure, the right has also been up to its old tricks in tired corners (it dominated in previous times like the McCarthy era), but lets be realistic about who the modern problem is mainly with in the West or we won't solve it.

What books were banned by "the left"?

"the left" is perhaps too broad a group, but definitely amongst the progressive liberal left there are now examples of editing particular books to remove problematic terms. I'd consider this an even more insidious attack on free speech than outright banning books.
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