Ideologists, Free Speech, and Cartoonists

[Mole]

Ideologists hate free speech. Why is that?

The reason is that ideology is entrancing and induces a trance, but unforgivably free speech wakes us from the trance.

Trances are highly desired and do a lot of good and some bad.

But waking us from a trance, good or bad, is a shock. We experience it almost as a blow. At the very least it seems like bad manners, and at its worst, like a deliberate destructive attack.

And today it is fashionable to be offended when we are woken from a trance by free speech. Cartoonists, those doyens of free speech, are murdered in their offices by Islamists, and an Australian cartoonist has been hauled before the Human Rights Commission.

Why are Islamists and the Left offended by cartoonists? On the face of it, we would think cartoonists are pretty harmless. But a closer look shows that cartoonists wake Islamists and the Left from their entrancement, and this is unforgivable.

 

[Lord Lavender]

Basically you are bursting peoples bubbles when you engage in free speech with others as free speech means you will often be saying things that goes against peoples ideas. A lot of people support free speech when they actually mean that they support their voice and not opposing voices. Left wing, right wing, neo-Nazis, Muslims, Christians you name it.

The reason why the groups mentioned above (Left wing and Islamists) often seem to get offended by the cartoons above is that simply they live a life based on one stable view point in which they cannot imagine anyone disagreeing with them until they find people actually have different points of view then they get angry as they feel the "world" has betrayed them so to speak. (It is only like 10% of left wingers and Muslims who get offended at the cartoons, 1% that will be vocal about it and 0.1% that will do something illegal or forceful so dont think I dislike ether group of people as most people in both groups are rational human beings who understand that others will not always agree with them). Plus the media gets a kick out of reporting these type of stories so it is rare stories like these fall through the cracks.

A good analogy to describe people like you are talking about would be a child that thinks that he will always get candy everyday and then suddenly one day he doenst get candy or that he can be rude to everyone then he suddenly meets someone who disagrees with him. A similar sort of feeling if not exact.

 

[Mole]

Basically you are bursting peoples bubbles when you engage in free speech with others as free speech means you will often be saying things that goes against peoples ideas. A lot of people support free speech when they actually mean that they support their voice and not opposing voices. Left wing, right wing, neo-Nazis, Muslims, Christians you name it.

The reason why the groups mentioned above (Left wing and Islamists) often seem to get offended by the cartoons above is that simply they live a life based on one stable view point in which they cannot imagine anyone disagreeing with them until they find people actually have different points of view then they get angry as they feel the "world" has betrayed them so to speak. (It is only like 10% of left wingers and Muslims who get offended at the cartoons, 1% that will be vocal about it and 0.1% that will do something illegal or forceful so dont think I dislike ether group of people as most people in both groups are rational human beings who understand that others will not always agree with them). Plus the media gets a kick out of reporting these type of stories so it is rare stories like these fall through the cracks.

A good analogy to describe people like you are talking about would be a child that thinks that he will always get candy everyday and then suddenly one day he doenst get candy or that he can be rude to everyone then he suddenly meets someone who disagrees with him. A similar sort of feeling if not exact.

In fact it is far more than 10% who are offended by cartoons. It hovers around 50%.

Here are the statistics -

[video]http://www.pewglobal.org/2006/06/22/...-other/253-20/[/video]

 

[Abendrot]

The left does not "hate" free speech. There are people on both sides of the political spectrum who do not want to hear differing opinions, but I do think that there is a growing tendency on the left to see free speech as basically yet another outdated tradition to be torn down. This is aggravated by the fact that the left does not need free speech at the moment, because the mainstream culture favours their opinions. If there are any people on the left on this forum who think otherwise, I'd like to hear your opinions.

 

[Mole]

The left does not "hate" free speech. There are people on both sides of the political spectrum who do not want to hear differing opinions, but I do think that there is a growing tendency on the left to see free speech as basically yet another outdated tradition to be torn down. This is aggravated by the fact that the left does not need free speech at the moment, because the mainstream culture favours their opinions. If there are any people on the left on this forum who think otherwise, I'd like to hear your opinions.

For quite a few years now the Left on campus have had a policy of denying a podium to conservatives by drowning them out by shouting loud slogans and refusing to stop, and so making it impossible for the conservative to be heard.

The Islamist have exactly the same policy only a little more on the aggressive side, for example -

 

[Abendrot]

For quite a few years now the Left on campus have had a policy of denying a podium to conservatives by drowning them out by shouting loud slogans and refusing to stop, and so making it impossible for the conservative to be heard.

The Islamist have exactly the same policy only a little more on the aggressive side, for example -

Yes I'm well aware of these tactics. Here's an incident which occurred at my university:
But remember that this does not mean that the radical left hates free speech, merely that they have no respect for it, particularly because they don't need it. I have no doubt that the radical left would be fighting for free speech if their opinions were being marginalized.

 

[Lord Lavender]

In the long run the people in the above videos are not helping their cause. They are acting like monkeys that have been given caffeine supplements and as one person in the YouTube comments pointed out the famous protesters MLK and Ghandi for all their faults would at least not do anything that disruptive. They would attend the lecture and engage in logical and rational discussion not scream them down with violent slurs and pull fire alarms. In general people are more inclined to listen to what you have to say and take you seriously if you present your case in a mature fashion not be disruptive.

(I'm pretty sure I've seen the one with the red hair glasses and weird lips somewhere)

 

[Abendrot]

In the long run the people in the above videos are not helping their cause. They are acting like monkeys that have been given caffeine supplements and as one person in the YouTube comments pointed out the famous protesters MLK and Ghandi for all their faults would at least not do anything that disruptive. They would attend the lecture and engage in logical and rational discussion not scream them down with violent slurs and pull fire alarms. In general people are more inclined to listen to what you have to say and take you seriously if you present your case in a mature fashion not be disruptive.

(I'm pretty sure I've seen the one with the red hair glasses and weird lips somewhere)

That's what I'm counting on. Lol yeah they call her "Big Red". She's internet famous.

 

[Mole]

It does seem to me that the radical Left are the Marxist influenced Left, and as such they reject liberal democracy. And so quite logically they also reject free speech. In Australia we have the Federal legislation 18c restricting free speech and harassing cartoonists and innocent students.

And it seems to me this is a major change in society, and it is a change from a literate society to an electronic society.

In a literate society we were emotionally restrained, our central nervous system was internal, and we required psychoanalysis to discover our unconscious. But in our electronic society our central nervous system is now electronically on the outside, our unconscious fantasies show themselves in the movies, and we are exquisitely tuned to the emotions swirling around us in real time in the electronic media.

As a result we are sensitive to the slightest emotional change in our environment and so need trigger warnings, and safe spaces, to feel comfortable and safe.

Essentially it is a conflict between free speech and immediate emotional contact across the world.

Like the God of the Book, like the book itself, and the card catalogue in the foyer of all libraries, free speech is dead. RIP. Long live our shared emotion across the globe.

Now we all need to dance to the same tune, and free speech is discordant, emotionally damaging, and unsafe, and makes it impossible for us to dance together in our electronic tribes in the global village. Thank heavens free speech is dead.

 

[Cellmold]