So,
People have been talking a lot about freedom of speech and rights and hate and all this stuff.
It gets me thinking.
You see, there’s always been that old thing about rights and responsibilities. You only get one if you obey the others. It’s the basis of the prison system (for example). If you transgress laws then you lose your right to freedom. Even if you didn’t know the law in the first place, it was your responsibility to establish whether what you were doing was legal. Sometimes this is more clearcut than others.
Anyway, I know plenty of people who disagree with that concept…and I for one challenge the relevance of many laws and believe there is an argument for transgressing them in order to challenge corruption within the government…which only has it’s remit from the people.
But that’s not the point. The prison thing is just an example.
The point is that we know that there are limits. Our rights can be restricted if we fail to respect the laws of the land and the people around us (unless that disrespect is inherent within the system of which we are part…in which case those with the money can do what they want….but whaddya gonna do about it?).
Now. I don’t believe in censorship, but at the same time I think that people should be ridiculed, punished and generally scorned if they show a lack of respect or try to harm.
So….I guess there are limits.
I don’t like the idea of hate-speech…but I don’t like the ideas of laws prohibiting anything verbal…which in its nature is fallible ambiguous and complex. Words are part of a whole web of ideas and thoughts…and they get confused.
I don’t like porn, I think it is degrading to those involved, and more degrading to those who never see it. I think it warps the minds of people who use it and I am generally sad that it is an accepted part of our society. Do I want to see it banned? I don’t know.
I can’t wrap my head around all this you know. How I’m supposed to balance what I know to be wrong and what I know to be wrong.
You see. I think every idea needs to be heard, and everyone should have a right to speak. I believe that people shouldn’t have their lives interfered with and people should be able to do what they will, provided it doesn’t harm others. I believe that people have certain rights that shouldn’t be invaded by anyone; that in itself is complicated enough.
But the big problem is….I believe our world is messed up.
I think that too many people think about things the wrong way round. I think that too few people are willing to challenge what they are taught. I think too many people don’t ask enough questions.
How do you encourage people to learn, challenge and ask?
I think you can do a lot by setting and example…and being open.
I guess that’s the best side of blogging. People reading getting a peek in the head of people they’ve never met and might never care to meet in the real world.
You have to put aside prejudices because often you don’t know anything about who you’re reading at the time. New thoughts and ideas can sneak in because of the anonymity. New viewpoints become interesting.
I increasingly notice that my blogroll (not that it’s public…I just mean my friend surfer) is filling with people whose politics and ideals don’t entirely fit in with mine. But I find that I can learn so much…and I think there’s common threads. Often I just like someone’s writing style, sometimes I just need a different point of view.
You get into the head of somebody you may be terrified of in person. Someone who you’d expect to threaten you or feel threatened by you.
In the real world I’m quite good at being open and honest with a variety of people. I enjoy meeting new and different people. But some people just won’t talk to me…or wouldn’t want to anyway. I look a certain way (Sabbatic goat? Stoner Hippy? Sex mad librarian? Big ball of hair? All of the above?) and not everybody wants to talk to that, even if I’m smiling a lot. Or maybe people will just greet me in a different way.
I was recently visited by a local politician…who I’m sure started gearing his manner of speech and subject matter as soon as he saw me (it was mid afternoon…I was hairy and in a dressing gown…he’s not going to start talking about trains, commuting and parking nightmares). Now, he’s a politician…so I expect lies and misrepresentation, but we know that everybody presents a certain face (ooh-er) when they meet someone.
Now in the world of the web…you know little about someone. I started this blog without being clear about my gender. I tried to keep certain details out of here so I’d be difficult to identify. I concealed part of myself. Though left myself being very honest and open.
As time went on I started to realise that it’s always anonymous. You can splatter your semi naked self all over your blog posts and a reader still can’t know who you really are.
But in another way they do.
You can see the inner workings of someones mind…and learn totally new things. Totally unexpected viewpoints…because they really aren’t yours.
You don’t put up the barriers as quickly, because blogs have an almost at home feeling about them.
I don’t know…this is getting confused again.
But yeah….I think we can change the world by talking. I think we can change the world by being different.
I think we can make a stand for what we believe in simply by doing it and saying that it’s what we are doing.
Once people start asking questions…they never really stop.
So make people raise those questions. Don’t shut people out, keep on talking and keep on rambling and let them get lost in the world you’ve created.
It’s all about learning.
You never know it all…so don’t try….just enjoy yourself.
And learn.
Any questions?
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I used to be a bit nervous about hate speech laws. But I’ve come to believe they’re necessary.
Yes it’s easy to misuse them to enact censorship if they’re poorly written. Consder the various laws agains Holocaust denial–as unneeded as laws against denying gravity.
But Canada has some fairly well-crafted laws against exhorting violence and eliminationism. The moron who runs the “God Hates Fags” website has apparently been stopped from entering Canada at least once, which alone to my mind proves that the system is worth having.
Consider the US, with a proud and fractious tradition of free speech. Their hate speech laws are so weak that publicly aired radio hosts can call for the murders of newspaper editors, torture, and the deaths of “a couple million brown people”–during daylight hours. Google “Spocko’s Brain” or hit his blog off my blogroll for a fine example (look for “KSFO”).
Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, and the rest of that bestial rat-pack owe their entire massively profitable careers to the lack of hate speech laws (and the support of Republicans–Anne Coulter’s best friend runs the Conservative Political Action Comittee, where Anne makes her most outrageous pronouncements and her biggest fees).
We have one or two like them in Canada, but they have to be very careful about how close to the line they dance. Hate speech laws generally keep our airwaves free of Malkin-esque pollution.
In a civil society, we use laws to create a climate of civility. That’s why we have cops. At one time, the notion that the poor, or blacks, had the same rights as the rich and the white was a novel idea.
Once, I asked a Jewish gay friend whether she really believed it was possible to legislate people into thinking differently, or whether hate laws were just censorship by another name.
“You can’t ‘legislate tolerance’,” she told me “But you can legislate a climate in which tolerance is the acceptable default position.”
Some would say this goes too far anyway. But I think that’s the situation we have here, and I am glad of it.
I don’t even know where to begin in commenting this post. I would like to, I’m just not sure where to start.
I’m too tired to properly address the rights/responsibilities component. So, I think I’ll just put excerpts of the “Open Your Mind and Change the World” section on my blog, and respond to the other tomorrow.
[...] Your Mind and Change the World 16Apr07 I just read this post over at Alabaster Crippens and thought that it definitely deserved a mention. I am too tired at the [...]
I also decided I didn’t really want to get into the censorship/free speech part of this debate. I think it is necessary to curb hate speech and threatening/abusive behaviour but at the same time I feel like any institutionalised definition is likely to be biased and corruptible.
I tend to steer clear of the debates I can’t handle, which is perhaps a sign of weakness.
So avoiding the subject I stumbled onto other territory…the stuff about changing the world. This appears to have grabbed you at least surplus and I certainly got wound up and excited by the words as they poured out of me. The internet should be a forum of thought, and people should be able to find out and learn, not just surf for porn and bully people.
I’ve found that I find lots of fascinating people who are exciting, interesting and often totally different from me….so I remain optimistic about the internet age….
I just hope one day it extends to all who want it.
Thanks for linking me…Please do comment…that watch
To return to hate.
It worries me that most debates about free speech revolve around one groups right to hate another. This is a disturbing thing and one that makes me suspicious. Are these really the only fighting grounds for free speech…or are people still having their dissenting voices quietened in the political sphere. Who doesn’t get their voice heard and is simply challenging the status quo?
I worry about these things because I worry about our government overstepping boundaries. I worry about freedom of expression because I think art and creativity should not be controlled.
I certainly don’t believe it because I want people to say how much they hate people.
Bah….this is why I didn’t want to get into this….I’m mired in confusion.
It’s too hot to think at the moment.
In my opinion, governments have to tread a fine line between making sensible legislation, a code of conduct as to say, and over legislating. At the moment, we are on the end of overlegislating everything, as new laws are written and old ones never deleted.
More than legislation, there should a culture in every country of responsibility and freedom. Responsibility for actions, and words said, responsibility for the state of affairs, and responsibility for making changes, and also the freedom to question laws and pre established ideas, freedom to make the changes necessary.
Humans a capable of absolutely, gut wrenchingly, horrible stuff. The real question is what makes us think that this behavior is alright? How exactly did we get to this, and more interestingly and importantly, how can we establish a set of sensible, common and acceptable values that everyone on this dear planet will adhere to?
Nail. Head.
Thanks.