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You're not thinking of free speech in its standard Western form. Enlightenment era ideals about the power of individuals to self-govern with reason, to dispose
by orthoganol 10y ago
You're not thinking of free speech in its standard Western form. Enlightenment era ideals about the power of individuals to self-govern with reason, to dispose of laws that don't treat people like they are fully self-sufficient. Any offensive speech laws that purport to 'protect others' is infantilizing to one side and cynical about the other. Just saying, laws make assumptions about people. Protecting freedom of speech is really about protecting our inherent individualism. Minor concessions are a slippery slope. If you want to curb it, you're also likely saying you don't share the same classical enlightenment ideology of self-sufficiency.
- retube 10y agoBut you can make the argument that any law is "infantilising" the individual. Are you saying we shouldn't have any laws at all?
- orthoganol 10y agoSorry, you don't think there are laws that regulate how rational self-sufficient actors interact with one another in a society? I invite you read any work by an enlightenment era thinker, maybe start with Voltaire or Rousseau, if you have interest in learning where Western freedom of speech ideals come from. If you're going to be arguing about the meaning of free speech you ought to have a little background in that.