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Is this Inappropriate?

Entry 2075, on 2020-09-14 at 20:57:34 (Rating 3, Politics)

Free speech is probably the most important thing there is. We progress by evaluating new (and old) ideas and acting on those which seem to be most rational, or likely to produce an outcome we value. Good ideas can come from many places, and it's important to look at them all and be genuinely open-minded regarding them. Of course, no one is completely open to giving ideas from any perspective equal respect, but it's an ideal which is worth attempting to achieve.

There is a down side to this idea. That is, that openness can bring a lot of bad ideas into prominence, as well as good ones. But until we hear them, how would we know which belong in the good category and which in the bad? Maybe we could listen to official statements from institutions like the government and universities only - that might filter out the more crazy extremes. Well maybe it would, although not necessarily, but it would also filter out ideas from outside the mainstream and generally restrict discussion unnecessarily.

And remember that listening to only "official" proclamations is itself incredibly dangerous. One of the first thing repressive regimes have done in the past is to shut down free speech. It happened in Nazi Germany, it happened in fascist Italy, it happened in Stalinist Russia. Is that the sort of model we want to imitate?

Opponents of free speech will say they are trying to shutdown "hate" speech or "harmful" comments, or "fake news and conspiracies", but while their motives might seem superficially reasonable, there are obvious dangers there too. Who decides what is hate speech? People with different political philosophies will have very different ideas on what those descriptions even mean.

I say that the potential harm from irresponsible, irrational, or obnoxious comments exists, but it is a small price to pay for genuine free speech. So I think all speech should be allowed, except where it might involve private information a person wouldn't reasonably want revealed, such as bank account passwords, private medical information, etc, or lead to immediate and obvious physical harm.

I've talked about free speech in many posts in the past, so you might be wondering why I am bringing it back again at this point. Well, it's related to a new campaign from some political groups towards repressing "conspiracy theories" and "false, harmful material". There is even the suggestion of potentially making sharing that sort of material an offence in law, which the mayor of Auckland (and previous leftist Labour MP) Phil Goff seems to favour.

This should be very worrying to us all; even to those on the left or supporters of the current regime. Maybe repressing alternative views suits them right now, when "their team" is in power, but how will they feel when (as inevitably will happen) the "other team" takes over? When they start repressing speech which against their best interests, will it still seem like such a good idea? I suspect not.

Making spreading information which is contrary to the currently accepted "facts" illegal is one extreme, but I suspect (and hope) that will never actually happen. But there are less extreme approaches which are almost as bad, because they are more subtle. The media have been successfully repressing alternative ideas recently, and that is one reason that conspiracies are more attractive on-line. Again, I would prefer to have conspiracies discussed in mainstream sources and fairly and reasonably disproved if they are false (and most of them are).

And in the more crazy corners of the internet we should be doing the same thing. I don't mean going into conspiracy groups on Facebook and abusing the followers there, or ridiculing their beliefs, although that can be a lot of fun! But a more productive approach is to very calmly introduce an element of doubt regarding the conspiracies without becoming intensely confrontational. I have done that fairly successfully on occasions. I don't see an immediate effect in every case, but I think long-term that approach can be successful.

And here's another important point: sometimes when I go in to disprove something I think is fake, it turns out there might be some element of truth in it, and it is me who has to change his mind. It's not usually that simple, because most interesting arguments have elements of truth and falsity about them, but at the least I might change my perspective to some extent. If we repress arguments which don't fit in with what is currently considered "appropriate" then that change would never happen.

And that word, "appropriate", is also a problem here. I really hate it when I see that word used, because it tends to be used in a very authoritarian way. When someone says something is inappropriate they seem to be implying that there is something absolute about the negative aspects they are criticising, but in general it really just comes down to it being something they don't like.

So when I say the Black Lives Matter movement is bullshit (a rhetorical point which isn't strictly true, because some parts of it have a small element of validity) I am told that statement is inappropriate by the sort of people who just blindly follow political trends without putting much thought in. But it's not inappropriate in any objective way, and I don't think critical views, like mine, should be suppressed.

If I'm wrong, then just show me why and I'll change my views. If you just tell me that I'm not even allowed to express that opinion, then it's never going to be corrected because I'll just continue to maintain it in secret.

I really hope Phil Goff is punished politically for his inappropriate (see how easy it is?) comments and his willingness to use the mechanism of state control to suppress views which are contrary to his. Using the law to prosecute opinions just because you don't like them, and halting fair discussion of ideas, no matter how controversial they are, is just about the most reprehensible and dangerous thing imaginable.

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