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Why conservatives won't save freedom of speech
- ContrarianBrit 5y agoConservatives increasingly emphasize freedom of speech, but are their arguments genuine? 'Though the attachment of some conservatives to freedom of speech is genuine, often reflecting Burkean elements of conservatism, I worry that conservative support for freedom of speech has weak foundations, many conservatives wielding the principle as a weapon against outgroups.'
- h2odragon 5y agoI don't see how supporting freedom of speech can be a "weapon against outgroups". Perhaps he refers to incidents where censorship was sold under the wrong label, "War is Peace" bullshit has a long, bipartisan history after all.
- ThrowawayR2 5y agoThe support of freedom of speech by conservatives is both selective, largely limited to issues they feel oppressed on, and temporary, likely to be dropped as soon as they have the upper hand. Liberalism has freedom of speech as a core principle but liberals are now treated as hostile not only by conservatives but also the illiberal left.
- ContrarianBrit 5y agoAgreed - traditional liberalism is being squeezed and it's a tremendous challenge for liberal democracy.
- PaulHoule 5y agoConservatives have embraced a campaign against "cancel culture" because it's one of the few things they offer that sells. However they are hot to ban "critical race theory" even though they struggle to define it.
- sneak 5y agoCancel culture itself, paradoxically, being exercise of free expression (vocal disapproval of socially repugnant things), suggests that perhaps claiming persecution is an authoritarian, anti-free-speech position. Ultimately most people are anti-free expression of some kind. Very few are actually ideologically opposed to censorship (public or private) of things they find unconscionable.
- PaulHoule 5y agoFree-expression cultism expands like a gas. It's one thing to have a constitutional amendment that forbids jailing somebody because the government doesn't like what they say. It's another thing to say that somebody has to provide you with a free printing press, that people have to read it, that communities can't protect themselves from harmful communications, etc. Where does it stop? Several times a week I flag a discussion on HN where somebody leads with how grievously wounded they feel because somebody downvoted their post. Free speech fetishism turns into a sense of entitlement that people are forced to not just read their dreck but we can't express disapproval of it. When are we going to be forced to grin and clap like idiots to appease their narcissism?
- sneak 5y agoI think it is now safe to assume knowledge of xkcd 1357 at this point. Private censorship is still censorship and it is still powerful, otherwise Google and Facebook wouldn't wield it as often as they do (often at the explicit legal behest of the states in which they operate).
- nopenopenopeno 5y agoOf course you’re right that conservatives can’t define ‘critical race theory’. Almost nobody can, but regardless Freedom of speech and public school curriculum constitute entirely different political questions.
- ContrarianBrit 5y agoYes, the legal restrictions against critical race theory are very hypocritical
- shrimp_emoji 5y agoThe overdogs always censor, because they can, and the underdogs always fight for freedom of speech, because they must. I don't think their colors matter.
- ContrarianBrit 5y agoCompletely agree
- PaulHoule 5y agoThe way some people talk these days you'd think that freedom is the freedom to disable the fire alarm and lock the doors in a burning theater. (e.g. climate change and COVID-19 denialism) "Free speech" is so 1980s. Today it is all about protecting communication channels from spam, disinformation, revenge porn and other forms of coordinated disingenuous communications.
- ContrarianBrit 5y agoWhilst these are undoubted challenges, I also think that there are more traditional challenges to freedom of speech. As majorities within societies have accepted liberal ideas, liberals have become increasingly censorious, threatening the freedom of speech of conservatives.
- PaulHoule 5y agoI'll grant that there is a small army of blog posters who write a blog post every day alleging this. It might even have a kernel of truth. In that same day my spam filters caught 80 junk emails and I deleted another 20. If you own a cell phone you probably received multiple robocalls and junk texts in that time frame. The fossil fuel industry has mounted a coordinated attack against our communication infrastructure and intellectual apparatus since the 1980s. to stop or delay a response to human-initiated climate change. If it leads to human extinction this will dwarf every other crime in human history. So in a time when thousands of blog posts complaining about "cancel culture" get written every day I don't want to hear about it.
- moistly 5y agoMajorities have become so tired of disingenuous and untruthful nonsense and rabble-rousing.
- PaulHoule 5y agoTired is the right adjective. That stuff wears people out.
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- giantg2 5y agoIs this really new? It seems subgroups of either side have selectively supported free speech based on whether they agree with the message.
- nopenopenopeno 5y agoIt is new. Historically, the left aggressively defended its opponent’s right to freedom of speech and assembly on the understanding that legalized limits on free speech will ultimately be used against the left more than it will be used against the right. An often cited American example is the ACLU defending the rights of Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members to speak freely and assemble. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html The real story is that the historical left no longer exists.
- ContrarianBrit 5y agoThe balance of power has now changed. Liberal positions are favoured by majorities; conservative positions are favoured by minorities.
- giantg2 5y agoDo you mean favored by minorities, or that the conservative position is the minority?
- ContrarianBrit 5y agoSorry should have been clearer; conservative positions now tend to be in the minority.
- krapp 5y agoCancel culture isn't a pursuit of legalized limits on free speech, it's an expression of free speech. Only conservatives are currently pursuing anything of the sort, by attempting to regulate social media, banning critical race theory, the discussion of gender identity and sexuality, etc.
- andrewclunn 5y agoWhichever group seeks to push its values on others via force or compulsion will find a reason to dismiss or vilify freedom of expression and speech. Then all other groups will band together to oppose that first group of would-be tyrants. Claiming that there's something psychologically distinct about one political party or another at an individual level (which goes beyond a mere snapshot or moment in time) is to see them as ideologically driven monoliths, when they are in fact hodgepodge collectives of various interest groups. Conservatives will support freedom of speech so long as it is a winning strategy politically and they make a cultural space for those seeking to circumvent top down censorship. Blasting this approach as disingenuous is clear cut coping. If liberals want to champion free speech, then let them do so. People are flocking to conservative parties because the ostensibly liberal ones have given them no other option. Don't blame the conservatives, even if you think this is opportunistic. Instead get your own house in order and be glad that oppositional politics provides enough incentives to ensure at least one party will champion the cause for freedom of expression, regardless of the ideological justifications they use to get there.
- ContrarianBrit 5y agoYet countless academic studies find psychological differences between conservatives and liberals; see the blog for references.
- andrewclunn 5y agoIf I split people along a single axis, I would be able to find all sorts of correlations. Does that pattern hold even as the lines and makeup of political parties change? Believing transient patterns to represent powerful truths is why so many social scientists theories are as temporal as their finding.
- smitty1e 5y ago> Psychological factors also underpin attitudes towards freedom of speech. Liberals tend to be more creative and open to new experiences, these attitudes underpinning traditional liberal attitudes towards freedom of speech. If one embraces challenges, diverse viewpoints tend to be less threatening. Conservatives are different, tending to be more fearful; most studies find an association between conservatism and anxieties such as the fear of death. This is unfavourable to freedom of speech; the principle thrives when attitudes are open. What a simplistic view. Conservatives tend to be less interested in the novel follies of the day. Also, conservatives don't think one need be a credentialed Biologist to know to which of the two actually existing genders one was born and shall remain until death, irrespective of the latest fashionable thought.
- hefferbub 5y agoI always find it amusing when the people who deify capitalism and claim the freedom of businesses to do whatever they damn well please start telling private businesses what they must or must not allow on their privately developed platforms.