Publications
Partners
In this world of rampant illiteracy, the meaning of plain English evermore slips from the mental grasp of the masses.
Freedom of speech does not grant anyone the right to say anything they want, but rather grants everyone the right to hear anything someone has to say.
If you grasp the latter part of the meaning of ‘freedom of speech,’ then clearly you understand why it is considered the most sacred tenet of free civilization, i.e., the west.
Now, why is it important to know the distinction and uphold this annoyance of empowerment for the masses in defiance of the oligarchies and dictatorships who decide in minutia of detail what the sheep may or may not know? Because it keeps you and me, the common folk, in power!
The moment the government decides what you may hear, it decides what you will know - and then you are in communist Russia or North Korea or China or Cuba…
“But what about blatant hate speech? Surely we cannot simply allow it under the guise of ‘free speech’?” is a reasonable objection.
Again, let’s approach this from the ‘not so much your right to say it, as my right to hear it,’ interpretation: I would much rather know that radical Islamists intend to kill me, my family, my culture, and, ultimately, my civilization, and make preparations, than have them silenced so that I am not offended.
The case for freedom of speech cannot be simplified, and requires no elaboration. That is why we have freedom of speech, because it allows us to better judge the minds of people who may have beneficial ideas or intents to destroy us.
So freedom of speech ties into something grander, and the ultimate source of all human progress: knowledge.
Knowledge is not created in a vacuum; it is passed down through habits and lessons (called culture and education) and passed between ages like a snowball progressing down a mountain, growing ever larger with experimentation, invention, and experience.
This is why I am in favor of letting western civilization explore extremities of knowledge and experience: stem cell research or using hallucinogenic substances, because how will we know how exposure to what some consider perversion of knowledge and experience may contribute to snowball of knowledge each generation helps roll along?
But we have to be conservative about it to a fair degree, because when you encounter extremes of knowledge and experience, you produce a population of extremists who want to radically transform the world to embody their new utopia.
Can you imagine turning parliament over to a bunch of power hungry, money grubbing, and racist socialists?
–Forgive me; irony is personal indulgence I just can’t shake the habit for.
A transparent government does not fear persisting in a society of people testing out and announcing new ideas. Your ideas matter, and the more extreme they are and the more loudly you voice them, the better we can subject them to the core knowledge we have gathered over the lifetime of western civilization and see where we could make improvements or where we’d weaken the structure if we haphazardly replaced key knowledge structures.
Alongside all of this, the ultra-conservatives will just have to accept the unalterable procession of change that sweeps any civilization not set in a 5,000 year unchanged history.
If we approach knowledge as we do any other resource, we need not inherently fear those attempts that deviate from traditional norms, for we may yet discover tomorrow in all its shiny utopian glory!
