I used to be a Chomsky-esque defender of free speech. Believing the correct response to Holocaust denial was refuting it, not banning it.
But now we know better. How you talk changes how you think. Violent rhetoric normalizes that behavior. Refuting misbeliefs cements the falsehood. Propaganda works.
Worse, the hate speech has become a virtue signal, a tribal identifier. It's become overtly political, a bludgeon.
I now prefer to think of free speech as a form of hygiene. Sure, feel free to poop on the sidewalk, but don't expect me to accept that as permissible behavior.
I see this trend as deeply disturbing where only those official journalist are allowed to write satirical essays online and common persons are banned because they become labeled as racists, mysogenists etc. Heck even PewDiePie was kicked from youtube red because some journalists blatantly mislabeled his satire as racism.
This debate, like most, has a bell curve distribution of positions. Two tails of snowflakes on either side, throwing tantrums, yelling at each other, and the majority in the middle who are tired of their shit.
Who's right? Who's wrong? I don't care. I'm fresh out of goodwill.
My only desire is that society stop enabling the bickering. Which will continue as long as clickbaiting (selling advertisement) makes money.
Exactly. The link from thinking about doing something and actually doing it is much less if one can openly talk about doing it. Oddly enough, much like the act of pooping.
But now we know better. How you talk changes how you think. Violent rhetoric normalizes that behavior. Refuting misbeliefs cements the falsehood. Propaganda works.
Worse, the hate speech has become a virtue signal, a tribal identifier. It's become overtly political, a bludgeon.
I now prefer to think of free speech as a form of hygiene. Sure, feel free to poop on the sidewalk, but don't expect me to accept that as permissible behavior.