Patronizing: you know what's patronizing? The notion that this kid simply doesn't understand the realpolitik. Of course he does: it just punched him in the face. He's fighting it. I respect him for that.
Infuriating: you know what's infuriating? The person who claims to share the values this guy is standing up for but can't stop trash-talking him.
Naïveté: you know what's naive? Thinking that rolling over and accepting realpolitik bullying is going to make things better.
La-la land: you know where that is? It's right between cynicism and self-loathing. Of course things can get bad here! That's why we need to fight whenever they slide in that direction! Of course the West isn't a bastion of moral purity above all reproach! That doesn't excuse China's behavior, it doesn't make them the lesser evil, and it doesn't mean they aren't worth fighting!
Stop navel-gazing and stand up for what you believe in. At the very least, cheer on those who do.
I'm under no illusions that something has to be done to contain the rising totalitarians around the world. But I won't send a delusional noob to fight it for me.
As to your comments about self-loathing. I love the West. I just don't think self-immolation through twitter is that effective. He's changed nothing for the better and lost everything.
But we agree on something. He just got punched in the face w/ realpolitik
I disagree. His Chinese girlfriend was begging him to stop, but he carried on. It’s either hubris or not realizing what China is willing to do to stop people from criticizing it. He was also enrolled in a Chinese university, and was undoubtedly warned about criticizing the government.
There was also no risk to his GF. At worst, the relationship ends - it's not like the CCP is going to go after her (she did ask him to stop).
> There was also no risk to his GF. At worst, the relationship ends - it's not like the CCP is going to go after her (she did ask him to stop).
I'm not sure why you think being so apparently reasonable is also something her government and its supporters care about?
Including Switzerland, it seems.
If his goal was to complete his studies at the Chinese university or maintain a relationship with his doctoral advisor who has ties to China, or to not make life for his girlfriend and her family difficult, yes.
I don’t agree with the methods of the CCP to silence dissent, but that’s reality. Nothing will change on account of this guy.
This is not a reasonable assumption and once it's throw out it becomes clear this boy was endangering others as well as himself by doing something ill-advised and unplanned.
― Albert Einstein
"ARTICLE 10 Freedom of expression 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."
It is not a fundamental law in scientific sense, i.e. it is not a natural property of any kind. You want freedom of speech, fine, but you have to fight to get it and keep it alive. Otherwise it becomes just another unenforceable legalistic quirk like beheading for insulting the Queen is today.
This needs to be said more often… rights cannot be reduced to a “declaration” or a “bill”. They are social constructs that wither away and die without constant social reinforcement, both formal and informal.
But, given that, natural rights can be violated and fail to be protected from those who would do so. So just because something is natural in nature does not mean it cannot be suppressed. It is natural and proper for human beings to speak, but speech can be suppressed. So yes, a society that stops protecting rights will see more violations of them. Declarations are magic incantations. You need power and authority to back them up.
(Also, w.r.t. freedom of speech, I am here not assuming unrestricted speech and "expression"; this has never existed and cannot exist and so on. Rights are not absolute: you can forfeit even your right to life by murdering another human being, for example. Thus rights must be understood in the context of justice.)
Are you saying that you have achieved perfect understanding of this? I think that implies a sophistication way beyond were we are as a species today.
"Article 36. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief..."
"Article 37. The freedom of person of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable..."
"Article 49. Marriage, the family, and mother and child are protected by the state..."
Just meaningless words on a page. To be completely fair, the text does imply that the above isn't worth a wooden nickel in practice:
"Article 51. The exercise by citizens of the People's Republic of China of their freedoms and rights may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society and of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens."
The European Convention on Human Rights has a similar clause (which you quoted) that allows the state to eliminate one's rights "for the protection of health or morals". It seems that "human rights" are mainly there to make the state seem legitimate. They "protect" humans against the state for exactly as long as the state allows.
Switzerland has a lot of freedom, certainly compared to China and other European countries. It's without a doubt my favorite country, one I'd want to live in. But, as we're finding out, the "free speech protections" that we drone on about are only as good as we are willing to insist on.
"freedom of speech is protected in this country" is meaningless if it only restricts government from silencing its citizens. Companies and powerful interest groups can and do restrict the speech of people, and I don't see the Swiss government rushing to pass laws to force Google to stop censoring.
Anyway, freedom of speech protections in Switzerland are not that good compared to, say, the US. You can't, for example, criticize islam (I hate when people mock islam, btw).
From Article 261 of the Swiss Penal Code:
"Any person who publicly and maliciously insults or mocks the religious convictions of others, and in particularly their belief in God, or maliciously desecrates objects of religious veneration, any person who maliciously prevents, disrupts or publicly mocks an act of worship, the conduct of which is guaranteed by the Constitution, or any person who maliciously desecrates a place or object that is intend- ed for a religious ceremony or an act of worship the conduct of which is guaranteed by the Constitution, is liable to a monetary penalty.277"
So Charlie Hebdo (who are disgusting, btw) should have been fined in Switzerland. Btw, I'm pretty sure a Zurich museum would have no trouble displaying artwork depicting Mary as a whore. Not unless muslims, rightly, get upset about the depiction of the most revered woman in Islam.
But it gets worse:
"Any person who publicly incites hatred or discrimination against a person or a group of persons on the grounds of their race, ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation, any person who publicly disseminates ideologies that have as their object the systematic denigration or defamation of that person or group of persons, any person who with the same objective organises, encourages or participates in propaganda campaigns, any person who publicly denigrates or discriminates against another or a group of persons on the grounds of their race, ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation in a manner that violates human dignity, whether verbally, in writing or pictorially, by using gestures, through acts of aggression or by other means, or any person who on any of these grounds denies, trivialises or seeks justification for genocide or other crimes against humanity, any person who refuses to provide a service to another on the grounds of that person’s race, ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation when that service is intended to be provided to the general public, is liable to a custodial sentence not exceeding three years or to a monetary penalty."
You can drive a Mac truck through that. What does "inciting discrimination" mean? Are the people campaigning to have the veil banned in Switzerland not inciting discrimination?
And, for the record, I despise people who mock any and all religions (although valid criticism is very important). But criminalizing mockery and claiming to believe in freedom of speech? That's rich.
Because I am a Pastafarian, and I can't stand the abuse and mockery anymore. I was thinking of emigrating to Switzerland.
But why would an atheist who likes to mock religion want to live in a country that criminalizes it?
Suggesting these are on the same level is, at best, to show misunderstanding of what the words mean and how the government applies them.
Charlie Hebdo is indeed disgusting. They're nihilists from a cultural milieu that know no moral limits. There is a difference, as you say, between rational criticism of Islam and its mockery and charity is a pretty good way to distinguish between good and bad behavior (i.e., even assuming Islam is terribly flawed, it is uncharitable to mock it in this way given what it is, but charitable to criticize it).
> Btw, I'm pretty sure a Zurich museum would have no trouble displaying artwork depicting Mary as a whore.
You mean like what the Talmud says about Mary, the same Talmud that depicts Jesus boiling in excrement?
The same nihilistic cultural milieu hates Christianity most of all. You think the mockery of Islam was bad? Look at how they depict Christ in those comics. It's far worse as a matter of the kinds of things they depict as well as the subject of the depiction (Mohammad is just a prophet, Jesus is the incarnation of the Logos, of God Himself, thus we're talking about the difference between irreverent desecration and outright blasphemy and sacrilegious imagery). But hatred of Christianity has become normalized and made acceptable by this nihilistic cultural milieu and Christians have been intimidated into acceptance and spineless in their resistance which is why it persists with impunity. Muslims have been known to go in the opposite extreme.
> But criminalizing mockery and claiming to believe in freedom of speech? That's rich.
Freedom of speech was never unrestricted. It cannot be. The days of that libertarian anything-goes thinking is dead even among the same Mother Jones type lefists who wanted it back when they were still dope-smoking boomers. The question isn't whether you restrict speech, but how you restrict it and what you restrict and whether it is good. Without a specific case in mind, I would generally rather risk being a bit too permissive than being too restrictive, greater liberality in what is permitted and greater conservatism in how law is interpreted, but prudential judgement is key.
My problem with that is that criminalizing the provocation has lead in all liberal countries except the US into the criminalization of things that offend the sensibilities of the powerful.
I'd allow Charlie Hebdo to continue swimming in the cesspool of mediocrity it belongs, and I'll put up with blasphemy, if in exchange I have the full unrestricted freedom to argue for my conscience.
My stepfather grew up Jewish in Germany in the early 20th century. He was 13 years old when Hitler became Chancellor. His family got out, and he made his way to the US. He told me very sternly "don't ever think that it can't happen here". Those words stuck with me, and seem now more relevant than ever.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/prince-harry-calls-firs...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/free-sp...
Shocking!
I'm starting to think we Americans are going to have to overthrow the British monarchy to protect our rights!
> Even The Atlantic publishes its doubts about it.
Unlike the Prince Henry thing (who cares), I read this one.
The Atlantic says the exact opposite of what you say it does. It starts and ends firmly defending American style free speech. Full stop.
In the middle it talks about how European style free speech allows for suppressing hate speech, and that there are costs and benefits to that approach. He explains that calls for such restrictions here cannot be dismissed out of hand as insane but that they have to be contended with. He then does so, arguing against restrictions. "Free Speech isn't Free" is just pointing out the often overlooked costs to totally free speech.
I hesitate to call people bad-faith actors, but in general the "article says the literal opposite of what I claim it does" is a giant red flag.
(Edit: I went back and read the Prince thing. I dismissed it because "who cares", but then I figured if you misrepresented the Atlantic article that badly I should check it out. What he was talking about was American vs. British libel laws, not general free speech. In Britain, it is much easier to sue for libel to the point that celebrities often sue international publications there. This protection in Britain especially protects politicians and royalty. In the US, it is almost impossible to win a libel suit against a news organization, especially if the person suing is a public official. This is based on New York Times vs. Sullivan, a first amendment case. )
"Two events were wake-up calls. The first was Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 about the astonishing extent of secret U.S. government monitoring of digital networks at home and abroad. The U.S. government’s domestic surveillance is legally constrained, especially compared with what authoritarian states do. But this is much less true of private actors. Snowden’s documents gave us a glimpse of the scale of surveillance of our lives by U.S. tech platforms, and made plain how the government accessed privately collected data to serve its national-security needs.
"The second wake-up call was Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. As Barack Obama noted, the most consequential misinformation campaign in modern history was “not particularly sophisticated—this was not some elaborate, complicated espionage scheme.” Russia used a simple phishing attack and a blunt and relatively limited social-media strategy to disrupt the legitimacy of the 2016 election and wreak still-ongoing havoc on the American political system. The episode showed how easily a foreign adversary could exploit the United States’ deep reliance on relatively unregulated digital networks. It also highlighted how legal limitations grounded in the First Amendment (freedom of speech and press) and the Fourth Amendment (privacy) make it hard for the U.S. government to identify, prevent, and respond to malicious"
2) It's not a hot-take that titles don't agree with their article's contents. The solution to that is to fix headlines, not to plug our ears and only read headlines and claim nuance is impossible.
3) Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... for widely known example of (2)
> No person ever has made the claim that free speech doesn’t have costs.
Considering the entire article was about how people kept responding to nuanced articles by claiming that free speech didn't have costs and that dismissive and wrong, I think people did in fact make that claim.
This concept of "it can't happen here" is so infuriating. So much hubris in so few syllables. I think it angers me, not only because there's an underlying sentiment of being better than everyone everywhere else, but because the sentiment itself opens the floodgates.
It's important to report on this kind of thing once in a while, even if no individual instance is shocking. It builds up into a major problem.
The message of the article is that a renowned Swiss university cowardly bows to China's oppression instead of guaranteing their students (not legally, but morally their) their democratic rights. Cynics might say not suprising either. Switzerland is somewhat infamous for its silent Nazi support while formally neutral in WWII.
Of course they are. That's a big part of their job. Does that offend anyone? It's reciprocal: I assume if Biden calls Pelosi to talk about the weather almost every country is recording the call (assuming it's unencrypted).
This is not irony but something that apparently doesn't translate well out of Northern Britain...
I'm guessing this site has something against buying a pint of beer for someone you agree with?
How exactly has big tech squashed your rights?
I am not from the West, and I do wonder if people bring up these just to be polite or to sound impartial.
Yes comparing the scales of the Chinese sensorship to googles deplatforming of uncomfortable topics is not nice.
But explaining how one can lead to the other also explains to people in the west why something is bad. Especially when people would readily sleep walk into enabling technologies that would enable state sensorship at a level that would concern everyone.
I'm just pointing out that this kid had a really naive attitude of where our rights currently stand in the West. And I think the story is the proof - the kid got canned.
But I didn't grow up in my parent's country. I grew up in the West. And I cherish very jealously my rights and refuse to trivialize cancel culture, blasphemy laws etc. And if we in the West had taken our rights seriously this kid wouldn't have been fired.
However this comment annoyed me:
"«I'm in Switzerland, not China,» Gerber replied. «I can say what I want here.»"
You can tell this kid grew up in the la-la land that is the West, particularly Europe. I find this comment to be an infuriating mix anivete and patronizing.
For the naïveté Switzerland is a landlocked country of 10 million people. Tough guys, great companies, great economy, sure. But a minnow. China can and does throw it's weight against people in countries like this.
For the patronizing part of the comment, it's the Western attitude of "this can't happen here", or "that will never get to be so bad" typical of people that are 70 years removed from tyranny (I'm Western myself, but my parents lived through a dictatorship).
This is the attitude that allows people in the West to compartmentalize all the known abuses (snowden leaks, NSA spying on European leaders, Big Tech squashing our rights, etc) and live in a permanent state of double-think.