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The free exchange of ideas is still held as enlightenment value. Having some limited exceptions to the rule does not negate that. The US has them too, see hate
by the8472 6y ago
The free exchange of ideas is still held as enlightenment value. Having some limited exceptions to the rule does not negate that. The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater.
Freedom of thought and expression are articles in the charter of fundamental rights.
Arguably the tradeoffs made when different fundamental rights conflict are different, but they're still held as fundamental rights.
- catalogia 6y ago> The US has them too, see hate speech or the thing about shouting fire in a theater. America has limits on free speech, but those aren't them. "shouting fire in a theater" came from a SCOTUS case about protesting the draft not being free speech; that was thankfully overturned decades ago. And America doesn't have hate speech laws like Europe. Libel/slander isn't protected though.
- dgellow 6y agoMy point is that you're talking about US specific concepts. But your initial comment was about "western societies" as if they are one bloc. I can tell that a bunch of so called western countries aren't that concerned protecting free exchange of ideas as soon as you start to make people feel uncomfortable. Freedom of speech is mostly a US obsession (not saying that's bad, I personally would like more of it in Europe), here we have whatever we consider to be reasonable and decent speech as a criteria for what is acceptable.