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I think this article conflates freedom of speech (which the hate speech law infringes on) with freedom from the consequences of speech (which cancel culture dep

I think this article conflates freedom of speech (which the hate speech law infringes on) with freedom from the consequences of speech (which cancel culture deprives you of). It’s not clear to me how the government (or anyone else) would even go about protecting freedom of consequences in public perception to your speech, without limiting other people’s freedom to not associate with you. I’ve also never heard a convincing argument that this is socially desirable. Overall pretty substance-free article.

belorn 6y ago
Rowan Atkinson is a British actor and so it is important to distinguish American form of freedom of speech with European freedom of speech. The American version is based on the US constitution, while the other is based the European declaration of human rights. Human rights in the EU is not limited to stopping government from doing bad things to citizens, but rather give fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being. The right to not be discriminated against is thus not limited by who is doing the discrimination, and it can limit peoples freedom to not associate with people if the reason behind the non-association falls within discrimination laws. The US federal and state laws has also similar laws that limit companies from making completely free choices in regard to who them want to associate with. They are however not fundamental rights, and not as broad as the European versions.
- mattnewton 6y ago
  I am not European, but I think there is still a legal distinction in most countries between allowing someone to say what they want and shielding them from changes in other’s opinions as a result? Even the word “boycotting” is an Irish invention IIRC. The laws in the united states that prohibit discrimination this way do so only for “protected classes,” which are pretty much all things separate from a persons ideas and often an accident of their birth, with the exception or religions that accept conversions. This seems like something we would not want to conflate with someone’s ideas. It seems self evident to me that one should be able to judge people based on the ideas they espouse.
  - belorn 6y ago
    The concept of "protected classes" illustrate the difference quite well between the European human right as an fundamental right which a person is inherently entitled to, and laws which prevents government from doing specific actions against specific group of people. The similar difference is between acknowledged organized religions, which is what the US has a list of, and the idea of religious freedom as being any view, experience or opinion held by a human being and thus inherently personal aspect of being human. In the US a demographic group is either on or not on the list of protected classes. In the EU the only group that exist is human and we are all on it. On a personal note, I find the very concept of people being born into a religion to be at odds with modern thinking. It would be like people being born into a political side. At most people are born into a cultural environment which religion can have been integrated into, but that says very little about the individual.
    - mattnewton 6y ago
      > The concept of "protected classes" illustrate the difference quite well between the European human right as an fundamental right which a person is inherently entitled to, and laws which prevents government from doing specific actions against specific group of people. It’s meant to illustrate a difference between who you are and what ideas you have; jury is still out whether this works, but it seems reasonable to me. Ideas are protected from government by the first amendment separately. You are forbidden by the law, with limited exception, to treat someone differently because of their age, race or gender, but not the fact that they have insulted you. It seems absurd to extend the full force of legal protections to the latter to me. At the end of the day, you need to enforce a positive human right, the law needs to change someone’s behavior. I don’t think that most Europeans or Americans agree that they have a right to offend their neighbor without their neighbor treating them differently, I think the rub is mostly in what specific ways they are to be prevented in treating them differently. > In the US a demographic group is either on or not on the list of protected classes. In the EU the only group that exist is human and we are all on it. It is not a protection of certain demographics in the US, it is a protection of certain attributes that you might use to define a demographic that are generally considered accidents of birth, plus religion. > On a personal note, I find the very concept of people being born into a religion to be at odds with modern thinking. It’s basically how it has always worked, people’s parents and culture is the main reason they stay in a religion, and it’s the reason it has been grandfathered in as a protected class in the US [conjecture on my part, I’m not a historian]. While this is changing, it’s changing very slowly and mostly in the direction of people becoming irreligious, definitely not converting to religions different from their birth in greater numbers, at least in the US. I could not find global numbers for this. https://www.pewforum.org/2016/10/26/links-between-childhood-religious-upbringing-and-current-religious-identity/ https://www.pewforum.org/2016/10/26/links-between-childhood-... > It would be like people being born into a political side I don’t believe it personally but I remember some studies that pointed to this from a genetic sense. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/can-your-genes-predict-whether-youll-be-a-conservative-or-a-liberal/280677/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/can-you... It certainly seems likely to me that family upbringing for your first 18 years passes on political beliefs and culture for the many Americans.. but like you said we generally expect people to be able to change this, unlike the ability to change their race or gender. Somewhat less drastically, but equally seen as important to a person’s core at the time these laws were written, American laws don’t expect people to change their religion.

belorn 6y ago

Rowan Atkinson is a British actor and so it is important to distinguish American form of freedom of speech with European freedom of speech. The American version is based on the US constitution, while the other is based the European declaration of human rights. Human rights in the EU is not limited to stopping government from doing bad things to citizens, but rather give fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being. The right to not be discriminated against is thus not limited by who is doing the discrimination, and it can limit peoples freedom to not associate with people if the reason behind the non-association falls within discrimination laws. The US federal and state laws has also similar laws that limit companies from making completely free choices in regard to who them want to associate with. They are however not fundamental rights, and not as broad as the European versions.

mattnewton 6y ago
I am not European, but I think there is still a legal distinction in most countries between allowing someone to say what they want and shielding them from changes in other’s opinions as a result? Even the word “boycotting” is an Irish invention IIRC. The laws in the united states that prohibit discrimination this way do so only for “protected classes,” which are pretty much all things separate from a persons ideas and often an accident of their birth, with the exception or religions that accept conversions. This seems like something we would not want to conflate with someone’s ideas. It seems self evident to me that one should be able to judge people based on the ideas they espouse.
- belorn 6y ago
  The concept of "protected classes" illustrate the difference quite well between the European human right as an fundamental right which a person is inherently entitled to, and laws which prevents government from doing specific actions against specific group of people. The similar difference is between acknowledged organized religions, which is what the US has a list of, and the idea of religious freedom as being any view, experience or opinion held by a human being and thus inherently personal aspect of being human. In the US a demographic group is either on or not on the list of protected classes. In the EU the only group that exist is human and we are all on it. On a personal note, I find the very concept of people being born into a religion to be at odds with modern thinking. It would be like people being born into a political side. At most people are born into a cultural environment which religion can have been integrated into, but that says very little about the individual.
  - mattnewton 6y ago
    > The concept of "protected classes" illustrate the difference quite well between the European human right as an fundamental right which a person is inherently entitled to, and laws which prevents government from doing specific actions against specific group of people. It’s meant to illustrate a difference between who you are and what ideas you have; jury is still out whether this works, but it seems reasonable to me. Ideas are protected from government by the first amendment separately. You are forbidden by the law, with limited exception, to treat someone differently because of their age, race or gender, but not the fact that they have insulted you. It seems absurd to extend the full force of legal protections to the latter to me. At the end of the day, you need to enforce a positive human right, the law needs to change someone’s behavior. I don’t think that most Europeans or Americans agree that they have a right to offend their neighbor without their neighbor treating them differently, I think the rub is mostly in what specific ways they are to be prevented in treating them differently. > In the US a demographic group is either on or not on the list of protected classes. In the EU the only group that exist is human and we are all on it. It is not a protection of certain demographics in the US, it is a protection of certain attributes that you might use to define a demographic that are generally considered accidents of birth, plus religion. > On a personal note, I find the very concept of people being born into a religion to be at odds with modern thinking. It’s basically how it has always worked, people’s parents and culture is the main reason they stay in a religion, and it’s the reason it has been grandfathered in as a protected class in the US [conjecture on my part, I’m not a historian]. While this is changing, it’s changing very slowly and mostly in the direction of people becoming irreligious, definitely not converting to religions different from their birth in greater numbers, at least in the US. I could not find global numbers for this. https://www.pewforum.org/2016/10/26/links-between-childhood-religious-upbringing-and-current-religious-identity/ https://www.pewforum.org/2016/10/26/links-between-childhood-... > It would be like people being born into a political side I don’t believe it personally but I remember some studies that pointed to this from a genetic sense. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/can-your-genes-predict-whether-youll-be-a-conservative-or-a-liberal/280677/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/can-you... It certainly seems likely to me that family upbringing for your first 18 years passes on political beliefs and culture for the many Americans.. but like you said we generally expect people to be able to change this, unlike the ability to change their race or gender. Somewhat less drastically, but equally seen as important to a person’s core at the time these laws were written, American laws don’t expect people to change their religion.