3 ms·

It feels to me that the Overton window shifted rapidly (and arguably inverted) in the late 2010s. I remember this speech being posted and praised in forums and

It feels to me that the Overton window shifted rapidly (and arguably inverted) in the late 2010s. I remember this speech being posted and praised in forums and among people who would now consider it a harmful "dogwhistle". And I concur with the generational divide. As a mid-90s birth I've often found myself defending these principles towards younger people, and have done so by pointing out how the left used to support them (I was one of them), and it was the right suppressing them, only to be alarmed to learn that said younger people have no idea what I'm talking about. They came into politics after the "skeptical/free inquiry left" had been replaced by the "public safety" left

mellosouls 3y ago
They came into politics after the "skeptical/free inquiry left" had been replaced by the "public safety" left I agree (as a person who didn't use to feel embarrassed to describe himself as a man of the left), though I think there was a similar move from class to identity politics during the same period. Much of the moral decline of the left of the recent period can probably be traced to (white) middle class dominance through academia and social media, which has been scaled by the web and led by the young who dominate the demographic in both cases.
- cubefox 3y ago
  Here is another interesting theory why the free speech was pushed back so much: https://www.richardhanania.com/p/womens-tears-win-in-the-marketplace https://www.richardhanania.com/p/womens-tears-win-in-the-mar... In short, women gained much more influence in academia and other positions, and they are significantly less supportive of free speech than men. The theory is that this resulted in a feminization of political discourse.
kaba0 3y ago
I don’t think that generations would be the important difference here — free speech in a pre-modern media world was entirely different than what we have in the modern, chaotic disinformation-y one.
- HKH2 3y ago
  Yes, free speech doesn't work well in multicultural societies because not being offended is more important. There is no society that could effectively support itself as well as the moral idealism that includes retroactively punishing people. Culture is far more brittle than purists believe it to be.

mellosouls 3y ago

They came into politics after the "skeptical/free inquiry left" had been replaced by the "public safety" left I agree (as a person who didn't use to feel embarrassed to describe himself as a man of the left), though I think there was a similar move from class to identity politics during the same period. Much of the moral decline of the left of the recent period can probably be traced to (white) middle class dominance through academia and social media, which has been scaled by the web and led by the young who dominate the demographic in both cases.

cubefox 3y ago
Here is another interesting theory why the free speech was pushed back so much: https://www.richardhanania.com/p/womens-tears-win-in-the-marketplace https://www.richardhanania.com/p/womens-tears-win-in-the-mar... In short, women gained much more influence in academia and other positions, and they are significantly less supportive of free speech than men. The theory is that this resulted in a feminization of political discourse.

kaba0 3y ago

I don’t think that generations would be the important difference here — free speech in a pre-modern media world was entirely different than what we have in the modern, chaotic disinformation-y one.

HKH2 3y ago
Yes, free speech doesn't work well in multicultural societies because not being offended is more important. There is no society that could effectively support itself as well as the moral idealism that includes retroactively punishing people. Culture is far more brittle than purists believe it to be.