These days — perhaps because so many of us are spending more time at home in front of our computers and televisions — there seem to be more "heated debates" about societal "hot button" issues than ever before.
Of course, the "Freedom of Speech" debate isn't exactly new, it just seems to be burning brightly at the moment. Or maybe I am just noticing because we happen to be part of this online social ecosystem that places very high importance on freedom of expression and being a place where censorship is less of a problem than many others.
Starting from the perspective of being purely informational (not taking sides here), alternative viewpoints and conspiracy theories definitely get more "air time" in our community than in many other places. I have no "skin" in the particular game of whether or not specific theories are actually right or wrong, I am just glad they can be heard.
Actually examining and contemplating viewpoints outside our immediate awareness is how we learn things about the world; about ourselves; about our biases and preconceptions.
As I have alluded to a few times in the past, a good friend is a long time Free Speech activist... who often resorts to "shock statements" to get people involved and engaged. To get people talking.
He might put out a poster that reads "Hitler was RIGHT!" with the purpose purely to challenge people to sidestep their immediate conclusions and biases to see if they will actually read the rest of the poster, which might make a completely unrelated but very valid argument.
Some are inclined to just grab the poster and smash it without thinking... and it becomes a "teaching moment."
He used to engage people on the boardwalk in Venice, California; these days he does the same near Pioneer Square in Portland, Oregon. That has been his gig for better than 30 years. Before that, he was a high-powered stockbroker on Wall Street in New York.
Anyway, the point he always like to make — as very much a street warrior in the Freedom of Speech arena — that that your right to free expression does NOT include a "right to be AGREED WITH."
Many times we'd be talking, and he'd lament the fact that so many people proclaiming their right to Free Speech would get all testy and start shouting "CENSORSHIP!" when other folks started disagreeing with them and telling them they were full of shit.
So... you want the FREEDOM to tell other people that their narrative is shit, but if other people try to tell you that your narrative is shit... then it's suddenly "abuse" and an "infringement on your right to Free Speech???"
It happens almost equally with "left-leaning" and "right-leaning" activists... suggesting (at least to me) that we're dealing less with philosophical viewpoints than just basic human nature.
The more I think about it, the more it seems like a substantial number of people with strong opinions might purport to be looking for an arena in which to share their message freely (certainly a fair and reasonable thing to ask), but what they are really looking for turns out to be an Echo Chamber in which everyone uniformly agrees with them and agrees that any challenges (reasonable or otherwise) to their perspectives is actually an attack on their Freedom of Speech and must be crushed immediately.
Perhaps this tendency of people to seek echo chambers (rather than debate forums) for their perspectives has been exacerbated by the advent of the Internet where we can almost instantaneously drum up support for almost any opinion... AND block/ban/eject/censor any dissent at the push of a button.
When I look around at the world, I'm not entirely sure that a chorus of affirmative voices in little bubbles really helps advance the greater societal narrative. If that, indeed, is what is required for "progress."
Maybe a (self) reality check is in order...
Thanks for reading!
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Created at 20200722 13:49 PDT
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