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> My views on some social issues, particularly 'free speech', are considered a conservative now. By who? Rosa Luxembourg, for example, was a free speech funda

> My views on some social issues, particularly 'free speech', are considered a conservative now. By who? Rosa Luxembourg, for example, was a free speech fundamentalist, and she is still far left of many left wingers today. Free speech is a value that is often adopted, nuanced, and discarded by political projects from all over the spectrum - and it's naive to think that one side of the spectrum has a monopoly on its defense or denigration.

arka2147483647 5y ago
In princible, the progressive left supports free speach. In practice, disagreement is met with explanations and accusations of ”shifting overton window”, ”new normal” and ”normalization”. Meaning that, Yes, you do have the right of free speach, but No, you should not be saying the wrong things.
- samsari 5y ago
  Just because I support your right to say it doesn't mean I have to celebrate what you say, or why you said it.
  - efaref 5y ago
    This is exactly the problem. "I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" has been replaced with "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences". The latter is, of course, utter nonsense. Repercussions or retaliation for expressing wrongthink is the literal definition of a place that does not have freedom of speech.
    - msg3 5y ago
      I'm sorry but I have to disagree here. You want your speech to be free from consequences -- i.e if you were to call someone a liar / cheat, they can't change their opinion of you based on what you've said? How is that compatible with their freedom of thought? To me, freedom of speech means I shouldn't worry about legal repercussions for expressing wrongthink. There is perhaps a separate discussion to be had about the sort of society we want to live in - do we want to promote open discussion, even if it can be divisive? But I don't think it's really a rights issue unless the consequences progress from social / economic to legal.
      - efaref 5y ago
        Limiting it to legal consequences is not enough. There are also physical and psychological safety consequences that are relevant. You're not, for example, free to speak your mind if expressing wrongthink will result in a punch to the face. In the context of a workplace (being the topic of this post, after all), one such consequence is the loss of your job. Something that is very real these days, with so-called activists doxing people and trying to get them fired just because they dared to express a dissenting opinion.
        msg3 5y ago
        Punching people in the face is illegal regardless of the reason - I don't really see how that's relevant? Are you really saying that it should be impossible for someone to lose their job over what they say? If someone, for example, threatened to kill a co-worker, you don't think they should be fired? I appreciate that this is an extreme example, but when we talk about rights, don't we have to cover all examples of speech? I'd agree that social media mobs trying to get people fired is a bad thing, that it's become too easy to whip up such mobs, and that as a society we should try to be more tolerant of other views. But I don't see somebody losing a job over something they've said as a rights issue - you don't have a right to a job.
        ttt0 5y ago
        > Punching people in the face is illegal regardless of the reason - I don't really see how that's relevant? The 'freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences' was popularized (repopularized?) and became a somewhat mainstream talking point in America around 2016-17 to justify political violence with the "punch a nazi" thing and stuff. It's the "paradox of tolerance".
        africanboy 5y ago
        I think it was popularized in the USA by the first amendment > FREEDOM of speech is a constitutional guarantee. But that doesn't mean it is absolute or not subject to some limitations one important thing is that the burden of the proof is on the accusers. it was "repopularized" because there were literally nazis killing people in the streets, you should be aware that being a nazi it's a crime almost everywhere in the western World (except US) and that nazi usually hide themselves behind the "you should prove that hate speech against the jews is a crime" So the broader definition of freedom of speech AND the consequences is a consequence of nazis taking over the public discourse, not the contrary. Yes, it's the paradox of tolerance.
    - KozmoNau7 5y ago
      No, the expectation of being able to say anything and not be responsible for it, is what's wrong. Say what you want, but be prepared to stand by it and take responsibility for it, in a court of law if necessary. Free speech is a right, and thus it requires the person exercising that right to understand that it does not absolve them from being held responsible for what they say or express. Just like the 2nd amendment doesn't shield you from all possible consequences of exercising that right to bear arms. Rights are not "get out of jail free" cards.
      - efaref 5y ago
        I'm not really sure what the amendments to the US constitution have to do with a post about British workplaces, but I think you have a very different view on "freedom of speech" than the classically liberal one that it is arguably founded upon. That's OK, of course. In the UK we don't have and have never had freedom of speech. In fact, we have some of the harshest libel laws in the world. There are very many consequences for saying or publishing things that you're not allowed to here. But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them. I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days. If one has fear then one is not free.
        KozmoNau7 5y ago
        I'm not from the US either, however I wanted to frame the argument in a way that would be understandable to the majority on this site. > "But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them." In a way, this gives you just a little perspective on how homosexual people have felt for millennia, in fact how anyone with a sexuality, religion, political view or any other aspect that was sufficiently divergent from the status quo have been treated for millennia. In many parts of the world, some of those things still carry death sentences, and it's not very long ago that this was also the case in our western countries. Being told that ones views are "not cool, dude" is extremely mild, and the threat of doxxing is wildly overblown, unless you are an actual political activist. And in that case, it still a lot more dangerous being an ultra-woke leftie than a white supremacist, considering the cases we've seen of violent attacks, car rammings at protests and so on. > "I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days." I'm sorry, but that is just horse manure. You hear of a small handful of cases, which are given completely overblown coverage in the media, because outrage sells. That is not an accurate representation of the world, it is a twisted media picture. It is especially bad in the UK, where the big media is overwhelmingly conservative. As someone who probably agrees with you on a number of things, being of an old-school leftist persuasion (trade unions, progressive taxation, wealth taxes, completely legalize weed, trust that people have good intentions at heart, judge people by their actions, not by where they happened to be born), and someone who interacts with a lot of different companies from all over the spectrum, I simply cannot recognize your argument that people who don't hold "woke leftist" views are discriminated against. On the contrary, there is still a undercurrent of conservative and somewhat xenophobic attitude at a lot of manual labor and otherwise "blue collar" workplaces. It has gotten a lot better, but it is still present.
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      The real issue here is that people never had to utter "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" in the past because people had an implicit understanding that this was reality. If a Catholic school teacher declares publicly that women should have the right to choose to have an abortion, what do you think her chances are of retaining her employment at that school? Conservatives would claim that the school has a right to fire the teacher, because it's just freedom of religion, as if somehow that particular freedom should supersede the others. So what changed? Oh, right, the country has shifted left and Christianity is not the dominant social force that it used to be. One man's belief in a man in the sky is no more important than another's alignment with a set of moral values.
    - yerwhat01010 5y ago
      As the old Soviet joke goes: "We have freedom of speech in the USSR too. The difference is that in the USA, you can use your freedom of speech more than once."
    - propertymagnate 5y ago
      I don't agree with your comparison of the two terms above - and in fact I think they are complementary, not contradictory as you suggest. The right to speak has been to say unpopular opinions and be free from government oppression, not from social opinion. If "freedom of speech MEANS freedom from consequences", as you suggest, then what would be the point of speaking with our absolute freedom, as no one would be allowed to form an opinion on it? Freedom of speech has always meant "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" in America, it is just that you have the right to say it and be free from government persecution. You can and will be judged on it socially, which is what this paper says is not right, as workplace employees are self censoring their views because people will take a principled stand on their opinions. This paper seems to want people to be able to state exactly what they please and for there to be no social repercussions - which the first quote you have acknowledges there are. "I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" contains "I do not agree", meaning that the individual who uttered it has made an opinion based on someone else's speech.
    - pasabagi 5y ago
      I think you have a misconception here about what freedom is. A freedom is a restriction on the state. It simply says that the state cannot act against you for exercising a freedom, or act to prevent you from doing so. Repercussions, consequences, or retaliations are completely unrelated so long as they are not state-sponsored. With this in mind, "I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it", and "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences", are totally compatible. You can both fight for a restriction on state power, and have a personal reaction to what somebody has said.
  - natchy 5y ago
    From the article: > We asked whether it is “fair or unfair for people who say grossly offensive things to be at risk of losing their livelihoods?” Nationally, 48 percent believe it is “fair,” but this figure rises to 65 percent for social democrat-aligned Labour voters, compared with 39 percent for right-leaning Conservative voters. Meaning right leaning are more likely to live and let live.
    - iso1210 5y ago
      "right leaning" is a minority in the UK, and if you exclude those who've retired it's a small minority. Minorities tend to be more accepting of speech that goes against the majority view.
      - jjbinx007 5y ago
        We've not had a Labour government in the UK for 11 years and counting.
        yerwhat01010 5y ago
        And a lot of old-school lefties in the UK consider Blair's New Labour to be centre-right, "Red Tories" etc. Blair might have been left-wing but he certainly wasn't a socialist. The "left" in Britain arguably haven't won an election since 1974.
        toyg 5y ago
        It has to be considered that "the left" has been structurally divided in three parties (Lab, LibDem, Greens) for most of this period, which is a cardinal sin in the British system. The right had fewer splits, and arguably none of them is comparably structural.
        yerwhat01010 5y ago
        Yes, FPTP is the worst. The left might have lost a lot of elections, but I think you can still make a case for the original point the "right-of-centre" are a minority in the UK, even if it's only a narrow majority. The Conservatives haven't won a majority of the popular vote in nearly 90 years (but then neither has any party) https://www.statista.com/statistics/717004/general-elections-vote-share-by-party-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/717004/general-elections...
  - kaoD 5y ago
    But it doesn't mean you have to mobilize an angry mob to ruin his career.
  - thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
    This comment is greyed out on my HN, so it would appear the people disagreeing with you have chosen to do so by making your speech less visible.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    Just because you "don't celebrate it" doesn't mean you should call their boss, harass their workplace, place demands that they are fired from their job, mark them as bad people, and so on. And yet many people do just that, and feel good about it.
- africanboy 5y ago
  > Meaning that, Yes, you do have the right of free speach, but No, you should not be saying the wrong things. Yes. Exactly. What's the problem with that? Yes, you have the right to do what you want, but No, you should not do the wrong things. Have you the right to drive? Yes. Have you the right to run over pedestrians? No. It's simply how societies work. freedom starts where ignorance ends the freedom of one ends where the right of another begins. and hundreds other similar quotes...

arka2147483647 5y ago

In princible, the progressive left supports free speach. In practice, disagreement is met with explanations and accusations of ”shifting overton window”, ”new normal” and ”normalization”. Meaning that, Yes, you do have the right of free speach, but No, you should not be saying the wrong things.

samsari 5y ago
Just because I support your right to say it doesn't mean I have to celebrate what you say, or why you said it.
- efaref 5y ago
  This is exactly the problem. "I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" has been replaced with "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences". The latter is, of course, utter nonsense. Repercussions or retaliation for expressing wrongthink is the literal definition of a place that does not have freedom of speech.
  - msg3 5y ago
    I'm sorry but I have to disagree here. You want your speech to be free from consequences -- i.e if you were to call someone a liar / cheat, they can't change their opinion of you based on what you've said? How is that compatible with their freedom of thought? To me, freedom of speech means I shouldn't worry about legal repercussions for expressing wrongthink. There is perhaps a separate discussion to be had about the sort of society we want to live in - do we want to promote open discussion, even if it can be divisive? But I don't think it's really a rights issue unless the consequences progress from social / economic to legal.
    - efaref 5y ago
      Limiting it to legal consequences is not enough. There are also physical and psychological safety consequences that are relevant. You're not, for example, free to speak your mind if expressing wrongthink will result in a punch to the face. In the context of a workplace (being the topic of this post, after all), one such consequence is the loss of your job. Something that is very real these days, with so-called activists doxing people and trying to get them fired just because they dared to express a dissenting opinion.
      - msg3 5y ago
        Punching people in the face is illegal regardless of the reason - I don't really see how that's relevant? Are you really saying that it should be impossible for someone to lose their job over what they say? If someone, for example, threatened to kill a co-worker, you don't think they should be fired? I appreciate that this is an extreme example, but when we talk about rights, don't we have to cover all examples of speech? I'd agree that social media mobs trying to get people fired is a bad thing, that it's become too easy to whip up such mobs, and that as a society we should try to be more tolerant of other views. But I don't see somebody losing a job over something they've said as a rights issue - you don't have a right to a job.
        ttt0 5y ago
        > Punching people in the face is illegal regardless of the reason - I don't really see how that's relevant? The 'freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences' was popularized (repopularized?) and became a somewhat mainstream talking point in America around 2016-17 to justify political violence with the "punch a nazi" thing and stuff. It's the "paradox of tolerance".
        africanboy 5y ago
        I think it was popularized in the USA by the first amendment > FREEDOM of speech is a constitutional guarantee. But that doesn't mean it is absolute or not subject to some limitations one important thing is that the burden of the proof is on the accusers. it was "repopularized" because there were literally nazis killing people in the streets, you should be aware that being a nazi it's a crime almost everywhere in the western World (except US) and that nazi usually hide themselves behind the "you should prove that hate speech against the jews is a crime" So the broader definition of freedom of speech AND the consequences is a consequence of nazis taking over the public discourse, not the contrary. Yes, it's the paradox of tolerance.
  - KozmoNau7 5y ago
    No, the expectation of being able to say anything and not be responsible for it, is what's wrong. Say what you want, but be prepared to stand by it and take responsibility for it, in a court of law if necessary. Free speech is a right, and thus it requires the person exercising that right to understand that it does not absolve them from being held responsible for what they say or express. Just like the 2nd amendment doesn't shield you from all possible consequences of exercising that right to bear arms. Rights are not "get out of jail free" cards.
    - efaref 5y ago
      I'm not really sure what the amendments to the US constitution have to do with a post about British workplaces, but I think you have a very different view on "freedom of speech" than the classically liberal one that it is arguably founded upon. That's OK, of course. In the UK we don't have and have never had freedom of speech. In fact, we have some of the harshest libel laws in the world. There are very many consequences for saying or publishing things that you're not allowed to here. But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them. I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days. If one has fear then one is not free.
      - KozmoNau7 5y ago
        I'm not from the US either, however I wanted to frame the argument in a way that would be understandable to the majority on this site. > "But this post is about people self-censoring their opinions, particularly in the workplace, for fear of repercussions, and that is something that absolutely is getting worse. Like many others I steer clear of all of these topics myself, as even though I hold "approved" opinions on them." In a way, this gives you just a little perspective on how homosexual people have felt for millennia, in fact how anyone with a sexuality, religion, political view or any other aspect that was sufficiently divergent from the status quo have been treated for millennia. In many parts of the world, some of those things still carry death sentences, and it's not very long ago that this was also the case in our western countries. Being told that ones views are "not cool, dude" is extremely mild, and the threat of doxxing is wildly overblown, unless you are an actual political activist. And in that case, it still a lot more dangerous being an ultra-woke leftie than a white supremacist, considering the cases we've seen of violent attacks, car rammings at protests and so on. > "I fear that someone may wilfully misinterpret something I say and cause me irreparable harm by going on some weird crusade to have me fired and my life ruined, as that seems to be what normally happens these days." I'm sorry, but that is just horse manure. You hear of a small handful of cases, which are given completely overblown coverage in the media, because outrage sells. That is not an accurate representation of the world, it is a twisted media picture. It is especially bad in the UK, where the big media is overwhelmingly conservative. As someone who probably agrees with you on a number of things, being of an old-school leftist persuasion (trade unions, progressive taxation, wealth taxes, completely legalize weed, trust that people have good intentions at heart, judge people by their actions, not by where they happened to be born), and someone who interacts with a lot of different companies from all over the spectrum, I simply cannot recognize your argument that people who don't hold "woke leftist" views are discriminated against. On the contrary, there is still a undercurrent of conservative and somewhat xenophobic attitude at a lot of manual labor and otherwise "blue collar" workplaces. It has gotten a lot better, but it is still present.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    The real issue here is that people never had to utter "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" in the past because people had an implicit understanding that this was reality. If a Catholic school teacher declares publicly that women should have the right to choose to have an abortion, what do you think her chances are of retaining her employment at that school? Conservatives would claim that the school has a right to fire the teacher, because it's just freedom of religion, as if somehow that particular freedom should supersede the others. So what changed? Oh, right, the country has shifted left and Christianity is not the dominant social force that it used to be. One man's belief in a man in the sky is no more important than another's alignment with a set of moral values.
  - yerwhat01010 5y ago
    As the old Soviet joke goes: "We have freedom of speech in the USSR too. The difference is that in the USA, you can use your freedom of speech more than once."
  - propertymagnate 5y ago
    I don't agree with your comparison of the two terms above - and in fact I think they are complementary, not contradictory as you suggest. The right to speak has been to say unpopular opinions and be free from government oppression, not from social opinion. If "freedom of speech MEANS freedom from consequences", as you suggest, then what would be the point of speaking with our absolute freedom, as no one would be allowed to form an opinion on it? Freedom of speech has always meant "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" in America, it is just that you have the right to say it and be free from government persecution. You can and will be judged on it socially, which is what this paper says is not right, as workplace employees are self censoring their views because people will take a principled stand on their opinions. This paper seems to want people to be able to state exactly what they please and for there to be no social repercussions - which the first quote you have acknowledges there are. "I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" contains "I do not agree", meaning that the individual who uttered it has made an opinion based on someone else's speech.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    I think you have a misconception here about what freedom is. A freedom is a restriction on the state. It simply says that the state cannot act against you for exercising a freedom, or act to prevent you from doing so. Repercussions, consequences, or retaliations are completely unrelated so long as they are not state-sponsored. With this in mind, "I do not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it", and "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences", are totally compatible. You can both fight for a restriction on state power, and have a personal reaction to what somebody has said.
- natchy 5y ago
  From the article: > We asked whether it is “fair or unfair for people who say grossly offensive things to be at risk of losing their livelihoods?” Nationally, 48 percent believe it is “fair,” but this figure rises to 65 percent for social democrat-aligned Labour voters, compared with 39 percent for right-leaning Conservative voters. Meaning right leaning are more likely to live and let live.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    "right leaning" is a minority in the UK, and if you exclude those who've retired it's a small minority. Minorities tend to be more accepting of speech that goes against the majority view.
    - jjbinx007 5y ago
      We've not had a Labour government in the UK for 11 years and counting.
      - yerwhat01010 5y ago
        And a lot of old-school lefties in the UK consider Blair's New Labour to be centre-right, "Red Tories" etc. Blair might have been left-wing but he certainly wasn't a socialist. The "left" in Britain arguably haven't won an election since 1974.
        toyg 5y ago
        It has to be considered that "the left" has been structurally divided in three parties (Lab, LibDem, Greens) for most of this period, which is a cardinal sin in the British system. The right had fewer splits, and arguably none of them is comparably structural.
        yerwhat01010 5y ago
        Yes, FPTP is the worst. The left might have lost a lot of elections, but I think you can still make a case for the original point the "right-of-centre" are a minority in the UK, even if it's only a narrow majority. The Conservatives haven't won a majority of the popular vote in nearly 90 years (but then neither has any party) https://www.statista.com/statistics/717004/general-elections-vote-share-by-party-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/717004/general-elections...
- kaoD 5y ago
  But it doesn't mean you have to mobilize an angry mob to ruin his career.
- thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
  This comment is greyed out on my HN, so it would appear the people disagreeing with you have chosen to do so by making your speech less visible.
- coldtea 5y ago
  Just because you "don't celebrate it" doesn't mean you should call their boss, harass their workplace, place demands that they are fired from their job, mark them as bad people, and so on. And yet many people do just that, and feel good about it.
africanboy 5y ago
> Meaning that, Yes, you do have the right of free speach, but No, you should not be saying the wrong things. Yes. Exactly. What's the problem with that? Yes, you have the right to do what you want, but No, you should not do the wrong things. Have you the right to drive? Yes. Have you the right to run over pedestrians? No. It's simply how societies work. freedom starts where ignorance ends the freedom of one ends where the right of another begins. and hundreds other similar quotes...