But you are both right. Ever had a good free debate about anything when the other side of the debate held their ears and screamed their opinion full blast?
The best and most free debates I ever had happened in environments where I knew that I was allowed to be wrong without them holding it against me.
As a European I always thought free speech was very much an American thing. In the past years I realised that debates are lead much more freely here than in the US, because your debates constantly go onto a red vs blue track. That means speakers have to reflect that constantly and signal to everybody else where they stand and which team they like.
The truth is, both environment factors into free speech and every society has to strike a balance.
> The truth is, both environment factors into free speech and every society has to strike a balance.
This, I agree with. But the point I'm trying to make is that this cuts both ways. Alice has every right to make her point however she wants. Bob also has every right to not lend her his resources to amplify that. Charlie has a right to criticize Bob for denying resources, etc etc.
I note that the shoe never seems to be on the other foot — e.g., the crowd that gets angry about Discord banning hate speech is curiously quiet about the chilling effect white nationalist rallies have on people of color.
I agree with what you say. If you look atthe parent comments, they both go to extremes to make a point. A big problem when it comes to discussion, is coming in with an attitude that your view is “right” and soapboxing it to the world. In any discussion their should be room for shades of grey and the respect to listen to different and (in your eyes) descending views.
How you communicate is just as important as what you wish to communicate.
Exactly. Especially when we talk about freedoms and rights it is important to recognize the collision space between the different freedoms/rights of individuals.
If one exercises their freedom of speech in certain ways one might impede the freedom of speech of others (e.g. who are objectively less free). This is one of the big differences between Europe and the US: in the US the freedom of speech of the individual (regardless of the collisions with others) is traditionally valued more, than a collective, utlitarian definition of freedom of speech which is more present in Europe.
Utilitarian freedom of speech would mean that we try to optimized for a society where everybody can speak freely even if this means cutting of some individuals that go to extremes.
Individual freedom of speech means you let everybody say what they wanna say, even if it means that the discourse of the society as a whole gets harder, muffled or destroyed.
I don't say any one of those things is better, but both have their pros and cons and we certainly need to be aware of the downsides and complexities involved when we ask ourselves what society we want to live in.
