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How do you know that something is extreme if you can't hear it? How do you engage individuals, hopefully productively, if you don't allow them to speak? If th
by virmundi 10y ago
How do you know that something is extreme if you can't hear it? How do you engage individuals, hopefully productively, if you don't allow them to speak?
If the answer is social norms, how do you prevent those norms from drifting overtime into authoritarianism? Start small, attack only the extremists. Then slowly turn your forces against your opposition. This is the kind of thought that Pastor Martin Niemöller wrote about in "First they came...." Notice that historically that poem applied to Germany and even Estonia and Australia. These countries were or seem to be morphing into an authoritarian state.
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- physicalist 10y agoThe reason for this poem is also the reason for the restrictions on speech in Germany. Go figure. Also, the US has been morphing into an suthoritarian state for quite a while. What is not the freedom of white affluent males is under constant attack there. From the war against drugs to the war against women's rights, there are countless examples.
- quirkafleeg 10y ago> How do you know that something is extreme if you can't hear it? How do you engage individuals, hopefully productively, if you don't allow them to speak? Or, perhaps more importantly, how do you challenge or disprove their arguments? The answer to "bad" speech is to counter it and illustrate its flaws; banning some speech can have the effect of giving it credibility that it doesn't deserve.