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As a communist, I'll give you my point of view. To reiterate: I am a communist, not a troll, and this is really what I think. I think that "free speech" as mea

As a communist, I'll give you my point of view. To reiterate: I am a communist, not a troll, and this is really what I think. I think that "free speech" as meant by liberals is harmful. I don't believe that oppressive speech (i.e. homophobic, racist, fascist etc.) should come under the aegis of the liberal ideal of "free speech", at least not until a post-revolutionary society. People take on the ideas to which they're exposed. I'm sure if you look through the history of the Parisian murders you'd find a trail of exposure to extremist ideas.

undersuit 12y ago
>People take on the ideas to which they're exposed. Children take on ideas to which they are exposed, adults evaluate ideas before accepting them. Suppressing opposing viewpoints is therefore treating me like a child.
- mathieuh 12y ago
  I think you'd be surprised. I have family in Paris who have steadily become more and more reactionary as the FN (the French far-right) have been given more exposure, even before these attacks. And it's not an "opposing viewpoint" to me, it's just completely harmful. In my opinion, things like being against gay marriage, or being racist are objectively wrong and not things that are up for debate.
  - Crito 12y ago
    > "I have family in Paris who have steadily become more and more reactionary as the FN (the French far-right) have been given more exposure, even before these attacks." What makes you think there must be a causational relationship between these two things? Or for that matter, if we assume for the moment that one did cause the other, how can you be sure which caused which? Perhaps the FN has become more and more mainstream as a result of more and more French citizens drifting towards the right. > "And it's not an "opposing viewpoint" to me, it's just completely harmful." I don't really understand why being an opposing viewpoint and being harmful are mutually exclusive to you. You do oppose their viewpoint (very strongly it seems), so it surely is an opposing viewpoint.
    - tsotha 12y ago
      >What makes you think there must be a causational relationship between these two things? It's probably more that the growth of the FN is a result of people becoming "more and more reactionary".
  - tokenadult 12y ago
    I'd rather hear you engage in the debate (I'd definitely be on your side in opposing racism) than simply to ban some topics from being discussed at all. The topics will still be discussed, but only in underground cells of fanatics who will not then hear opposing points of view. I happen to strenuously disagree with communism (perhaps because I have been studying Chinese since the Cultural Revolution, and Russian even earlier, so I have read a lot of communist literature over the decades) but I would try to be respectful and hear you out if you desired to convince me that my point of view is wrong and yours is correct. Hacker News isn't exactly the place for a debate about the rights and wrongs of communism, but I think the key principle is that everything has to open for discussion in a public place where adults can join in to debate differing points of view.
  - jiggy2011 12y ago
    Everyone has their own different opinion on which policies and ideas are "objectively wrong and not things that are up for debate". Further, how can you even define terms like racism in ways that are not too broad or too narrow. The meaning of these things can change over time and context. For example debates about immigration, affirmative action etc.
  - mikerichards 12y ago
    Communism is "objectively wrong and not things that are up for debate."
    - gweinberg 12y ago
      Not to mention "completely harmful".
  - zkhalique 12y ago
    Usually things that are vaguely stated aren't great for delineating as "objectively wrong" or not, since the definition can stretch in all kinds of ways. Come up with something you want to maximize, that most people will agree with, like human health, and find ways to quantify it. Then you can at least start to see which policies lead to which results.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- canjobear 12y ago
  I agree when this is about suppressing opinions, but things are trickier when this is about suppressing disinformation. Pervasive propaganda that appears to be factual can easily manipulate the conclusions of rational adults. Of course, laws that attempt to suppress disinformation are probably ineffective and incredibly liable to abuse outside of restricted domains.
  - AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    > I agree when this is about suppressing opinions, but things are trickier when this is about suppressing disinformation. Somebody has to decide what is classified as disinformation. If you have the government do it then whoever the people elect as a censor may make bad decisions. (This is historically what has happened.) If instead you have independent media outlets do it then you have the same problem. Citizens may choose the outlet that publishes disinformation. The difference is that in the absence of censorship the choice is made by the individual. If 51% of people watch Fox News and Fox News reports disinformation, 51% of people are affected by the disinformation. If 51% of people elect a censor who prohibits everything but what is reported on Fox News then 100% of people are affected, which may lead to a feedback loop in subsequent elections. It's not that you don't have anyone whose job it is to prevent disinformation from being reported. It's that the person whose job that legitimately belongs to is called a journalist, and you get to choose the ones you like.
quonn 12y ago
Well, we don't need to given these ideas a platform, sure. But I'm convinced that reasonable arguments and education are our best bet. Trying to completely suppress problematic ideas only makes them more appealing, because the question arises why they are suppressed.
boken 12y ago
People take on the ideas to which they're exposed. Do they? Where did the ideas come from in the first place, then, and how have they ever been rejected? I don't know enough about you personally to make any inferences in this case, but usually when a sentence like the above is spoken, it sounds like it was bowdlerized: the word "other" was clearly intended in front of the word "people." If oppressive speech is to be suppressed--even in a post-revolutionary society--which platforms are to be policed? And with what resources? I'm reminded of John Milton's well-known metaphor, from "Areopagitica," of "that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting his park gate." To use another metaphor, ideas spread by every channel. Do you suppose we could dam them all?
- zenogais 12y ago
  I'd conjecture that people do, in fact, "take on ideas to which they're exposed". The proof is simple: if they didn't, marketing would never have come to be a multi-billion dollar industry. That being said, this in no way implies that people are fated only to have the ideas to which they've been previously exposed or can't actively search out and take on new ideas.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - boken 12y ago
    This is no proof. You're assuming that the products and services marketed have little to no intrinsic or social value, and that the consumers do not engage with the marketing critically--on any level. Certainly we all know some people who seem to act as automatically as this, but I doubt I've ever met anyone who truly does. You could say the exposure is necessary for the idea to be held. With marketing this is, of course, true. And in other aspects of life, certainly none of us comes into the world every morning with a blank slate of a mind. But would removing every expression of an idea, remove that idea? Perhaps in a generation's time? (It can't be done, but it's an interesting question to ask, all the same.) We do know that there was a time when certain hates--homophobia, for instance, to use an example from upthread--did not exist, at least not in a human mind. Yet they're here today. Did they require public fora? I can be exposed to an idea or an advertisement and subsequently walk away from it, having rejected its worth or its relevance to me. Without having done so, I cannot claim any agency in my thinking. Whether this kind of agency is worth protecting is another question altogether. The liberal ideas of free speech assume that it is.
nerfhammer 12y ago
So, the question is, who gets to decide which ideas are harmful?
- aet 12y ago
  The scientific method
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
igrekel 12y ago
Having read Charlie Hebdo quite a few times, I often disagreed with them, or found their stuff disgusting but it sure made one think. Pointing out to the obvious ridiculousness of people taking themselves too seriously. In a way, it is a way to protect ourselves from oppressive speech or at least to have other people adhere to the oppressive speech.
bobcostas55 12y ago
Literally every single society of the past has considered certain types of speech to be harmful or banworthy. I imagine you disagree with the vast majority of them (blasphemy laws, lèse-majesté laws, obscenity laws, etc.) They all thought they were the good guys, that their actions were just and improved society and the people within it. Undoubtedly many of these people were far more intelligent and better educated than you are, yet the culture they lived in blinded them to faults in their thinking. So my question is this: what kind of obscene narcissism gives you the idea that YOU are the one who finally figured out which stuff should REALLY be banned and which shouldn't? Is "matthieuh" really the endpoint of the history of ideas? Are YOU the man who sees clearly, who transcends his culture, where others could not? Such lack of skepticism and self-doubt can only be the result of intense, willful ignorance.
- boracay 12y ago
  The same narcissism that makes you believe that you are right? Not all people value the same things. That we can't give up freedom for security is still just an idea. How much of western culture is really better than something else and just not because we're prosperous.
  - unethical_ban 12y ago
    The difference between bobcostas55's "narcissism" and the communists, is that bobcostas55 is allowed to express his. Holy shit, do I really have to point explicitly to Egypt, Iran, China, Venezuela Russia and the old USSR to show examples of what happens when expression of dissenting thoughts are banned? Freedom of thought IS right.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - Crito 12y ago
        > "The amish doesn't have freedom of thought" This is news to me, and I grew up only a few miles from Lancaster...
MichaelGG 12y ago
Homophobic, racist, etc speech should be just as allowed as speech claiming the world is flat and 100 yrs old. The goal should be to have a society reasonable enough that flawed reasoning doesn't take hold, and instead just elicits an eye roll.
- TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
  As an Australian, when the former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard got up on stage a repeated the mantra "I am deeply offended by the leader of the opposition", referring to various things Tony Abbott had said, I suggested this was exactly the wrong approach for her to take and that she should have just rolled her eyes and laughed at him if she truly thought Tony is out of touch with the average Australia. Not unpredictably I was shouted down by everyone in the room. Maybe this says something about the people I associate with. Perhaps. If we disagree with someone why should we be offended? Wouldn't it be better to just say "I think that is a silly idea, lets move on", rather than heaping yet more attention on the opposing views. I would possibly make an exception to my theorising above. When the marauding hordes are coming over the hill it might be time to dispense with the eye-rolling. It may be prudent to act prior to this occurring. I'm not convinced I know where we go from here.
  - Intermernet 12y ago
    You're right. Julia played the victim too much. If you're the elected leader of a country, even if you are the victim, you take the higher stance. Being offended by Abbott, while a normal response, isn't something she should have mentioned. It makes the argument personal, and derails any possible logical argument.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
      Agreed. It's worth noting she wasn't elected Prime Minister, I mean not by the people. She got to that position via a leadership challenge, party politics.
conradfr 12y ago
I'm more or less a French leftist but I really despise the stance of this side about freedom of speech. This is what is ironic with the Charlie Hebdo situation because France and left parties here don't support real freedom of speech, but they always say they do. I think any idea should be allowed to be expressed and anything less is counter-productive in the end. I like this Noam Chomsky quote : “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”

undersuit 12y ago

>People take on the ideas to which they're exposed. Children take on ideas to which they are exposed, adults evaluate ideas before accepting them. Suppressing opposing viewpoints is therefore treating me like a child.

mathieuh 12y ago
I think you'd be surprised. I have family in Paris who have steadily become more and more reactionary as the FN (the French far-right) have been given more exposure, even before these attacks. And it's not an "opposing viewpoint" to me, it's just completely harmful. In my opinion, things like being against gay marriage, or being racist are objectively wrong and not things that are up for debate.
- Crito 12y ago
  > "I have family in Paris who have steadily become more and more reactionary as the FN (the French far-right) have been given more exposure, even before these attacks." What makes you think there must be a causational relationship between these two things? Or for that matter, if we assume for the moment that one did cause the other, how can you be sure which caused which? Perhaps the FN has become more and more mainstream as a result of more and more French citizens drifting towards the right. > "And it's not an "opposing viewpoint" to me, it's just completely harmful." I don't really understand why being an opposing viewpoint and being harmful are mutually exclusive to you. You do oppose their viewpoint (very strongly it seems), so it surely is an opposing viewpoint.
  - tsotha 12y ago
    >What makes you think there must be a causational relationship between these two things? It's probably more that the growth of the FN is a result of people becoming "more and more reactionary".
- tokenadult 12y ago
  I'd rather hear you engage in the debate (I'd definitely be on your side in opposing racism) than simply to ban some topics from being discussed at all. The topics will still be discussed, but only in underground cells of fanatics who will not then hear opposing points of view. I happen to strenuously disagree with communism (perhaps because I have been studying Chinese since the Cultural Revolution, and Russian even earlier, so I have read a lot of communist literature over the decades) but I would try to be respectful and hear you out if you desired to convince me that my point of view is wrong and yours is correct. Hacker News isn't exactly the place for a debate about the rights and wrongs of communism, but I think the key principle is that everything has to open for discussion in a public place where adults can join in to debate differing points of view.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  Everyone has their own different opinion on which policies and ideas are "objectively wrong and not things that are up for debate". Further, how can you even define terms like racism in ways that are not too broad or too narrow. The meaning of these things can change over time and context. For example debates about immigration, affirmative action etc.
- mikerichards 12y ago
  Communism is "objectively wrong and not things that are up for debate."
  - gweinberg 12y ago
    Not to mention "completely harmful".
- zkhalique 12y ago
  Usually things that are vaguely stated aren't great for delineating as "objectively wrong" or not, since the definition can stretch in all kinds of ways. Come up with something you want to maximize, that most people will agree with, like human health, and find ways to quantify it. Then you can at least start to see which policies lead to which results.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
canjobear 12y ago
I agree when this is about suppressing opinions, but things are trickier when this is about suppressing disinformation. Pervasive propaganda that appears to be factual can easily manipulate the conclusions of rational adults. Of course, laws that attempt to suppress disinformation are probably ineffective and incredibly liable to abuse outside of restricted domains.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  > I agree when this is about suppressing opinions, but things are trickier when this is about suppressing disinformation. Somebody has to decide what is classified as disinformation. If you have the government do it then whoever the people elect as a censor may make bad decisions. (This is historically what has happened.) If instead you have independent media outlets do it then you have the same problem. Citizens may choose the outlet that publishes disinformation. The difference is that in the absence of censorship the choice is made by the individual. If 51% of people watch Fox News and Fox News reports disinformation, 51% of people are affected by the disinformation. If 51% of people elect a censor who prohibits everything but what is reported on Fox News then 100% of people are affected, which may lead to a feedback loop in subsequent elections. It's not that you don't have anyone whose job it is to prevent disinformation from being reported. It's that the person whose job that legitimately belongs to is called a journalist, and you get to choose the ones you like.

quonn 12y ago

Well, we don't need to given these ideas a platform, sure. But I'm convinced that reasonable arguments and education are our best bet. Trying to completely suppress problematic ideas only makes them more appealing, because the question arises why they are suppressed.

boken 12y ago

People take on the ideas to which they're exposed. Do they? Where did the ideas come from in the first place, then, and how have they ever been rejected? I don't know enough about you personally to make any inferences in this case, but usually when a sentence like the above is spoken, it sounds like it was bowdlerized: the word "other" was clearly intended in front of the word "people." If oppressive speech is to be suppressed--even in a post-revolutionary society--which platforms are to be policed? And with what resources? I'm reminded of John Milton's well-known metaphor, from "Areopagitica," of "that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting his park gate." To use another metaphor, ideas spread by every channel. Do you suppose we could dam them all?

zenogais 12y ago
I'd conjecture that people do, in fact, "take on ideas to which they're exposed". The proof is simple: if they didn't, marketing would never have come to be a multi-billion dollar industry. That being said, this in no way implies that people are fated only to have the ideas to which they've been previously exposed or can't actively search out and take on new ideas.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- boken 12y ago
  This is no proof. You're assuming that the products and services marketed have little to no intrinsic or social value, and that the consumers do not engage with the marketing critically--on any level. Certainly we all know some people who seem to act as automatically as this, but I doubt I've ever met anyone who truly does. You could say the exposure is necessary for the idea to be held. With marketing this is, of course, true. And in other aspects of life, certainly none of us comes into the world every morning with a blank slate of a mind. But would removing every expression of an idea, remove that idea? Perhaps in a generation's time? (It can't be done, but it's an interesting question to ask, all the same.) We do know that there was a time when certain hates--homophobia, for instance, to use an example from upthread--did not exist, at least not in a human mind. Yet they're here today. Did they require public fora? I can be exposed to an idea or an advertisement and subsequently walk away from it, having rejected its worth or its relevance to me. Without having done so, I cannot claim any agency in my thinking. Whether this kind of agency is worth protecting is another question altogether. The liberal ideas of free speech assume that it is.

nerfhammer 12y ago

So, the question is, who gets to decide which ideas are harmful?

aet 12y ago
The scientific method

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

igrekel 12y ago

Having read Charlie Hebdo quite a few times, I often disagreed with them, or found their stuff disgusting but it sure made one think. Pointing out to the obvious ridiculousness of people taking themselves too seriously. In a way, it is a way to protect ourselves from oppressive speech or at least to have other people adhere to the oppressive speech.

bobcostas55 12y ago

Literally every single society of the past has considered certain types of speech to be harmful or banworthy. I imagine you disagree with the vast majority of them (blasphemy laws, lèse-majesté laws, obscenity laws, etc.) They all thought they were the good guys, that their actions were just and improved society and the people within it. Undoubtedly many of these people were far more intelligent and better educated than you are, yet the culture they lived in blinded them to faults in their thinking. So my question is this: what kind of obscene narcissism gives you the idea that YOU are the one who finally figured out which stuff should REALLY be banned and which shouldn't? Is "matthieuh" really the endpoint of the history of ideas? Are YOU the man who sees clearly, who transcends his culture, where others could not? Such lack of skepticism and self-doubt can only be the result of intense, willful ignorance.

boracay 12y ago
The same narcissism that makes you believe that you are right? Not all people value the same things. That we can't give up freedom for security is still just an idea. How much of western culture is really better than something else and just not because we're prosperous.
- unethical_ban 12y ago
  The difference between bobcostas55's "narcissism" and the communists, is that bobcostas55 is allowed to express his. Holy shit, do I really have to point explicitly to Egypt, Iran, China, Venezuela Russia and the old USSR to show examples of what happens when expression of dissenting thoughts are banned? Freedom of thought IS right.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - Crito 12y ago
      > "The amish doesn't have freedom of thought" This is news to me, and I grew up only a few miles from Lancaster...

MichaelGG 12y ago

Homophobic, racist, etc speech should be just as allowed as speech claiming the world is flat and 100 yrs old. The goal should be to have a society reasonable enough that flawed reasoning doesn't take hold, and instead just elicits an eye roll.

TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
As an Australian, when the former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard got up on stage a repeated the mantra "I am deeply offended by the leader of the opposition", referring to various things Tony Abbott had said, I suggested this was exactly the wrong approach for her to take and that she should have just rolled her eyes and laughed at him if she truly thought Tony is out of touch with the average Australia. Not unpredictably I was shouted down by everyone in the room. Maybe this says something about the people I associate with. Perhaps. If we disagree with someone why should we be offended? Wouldn't it be better to just say "I think that is a silly idea, lets move on", rather than heaping yet more attention on the opposing views. I would possibly make an exception to my theorising above. When the marauding hordes are coming over the hill it might be time to dispense with the eye-rolling. It may be prudent to act prior to this occurring. I'm not convinced I know where we go from here.
- Intermernet 12y ago
  You're right. Julia played the victim too much. If you're the elected leader of a country, even if you are the victim, you take the higher stance. Being offended by Abbott, while a normal response, isn't something she should have mentioned. It makes the argument personal, and derails any possible logical argument.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
    Agreed. It's worth noting she wasn't elected Prime Minister, I mean not by the people. She got to that position via a leadership challenge, party politics.

conradfr 12y ago

I'm more or less a French leftist but I really despise the stance of this side about freedom of speech. This is what is ironic with the Charlie Hebdo situation because France and left parties here don't support real freedom of speech, but they always say they do. I think any idea should be allowed to be expressed and anything less is counter-productive in the end. I like this Noam Chomsky quote : “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”