This sounds like a distinction between say a friend and an enemy. Sounds like a political concept I have heard before.
Found the wannabe cultural revolutionary.
It would be like saying "a peaceful person would never punch someone in the nose". But what if you needed to punch someone in the nose because they were trying to kill you for no reason? That doesn't mean peaceful people don't exist, or that peaceful people need to let random people murder them. It just means that the determination of peacefulness is contextual.
it would be like saying, as the sibling comment did "a peaceful person would never punch someone in the nose" ... except that a society that aims for peace, and is beset with violent people, is going to have to quell that violence. This might involve reserving the right to punch the punchers.
Restrictions on free speech are much more dangerous than any hate speech. You won't get a new Hitler by blocking speech you don't like. It's the opposite: new Hitler will start with blocking free speech. That's what every authoritarian regime does first.
No, I am saying that they are "like" each other. It's a comparison not a conflation. Mr Popper is absolutely not conflating anything - his original formulation is very much about speech.
> blocking free speech. That's what every authoritarian regime does first.
You mean, after they become the regime, and get a lock on the power to block free speech; which in turn is after using the free speech ability to emit the divisive populist rhetoric that propels them to that power? There is no regime ever, that blocks free speech before it is voted into power. At that stage they're only to happy to use it. The shutting it down comes later.
So, not first at all then. That was Popper's point.
But there is, we've seen it just recently! Take the US presidential elections in 2020: big media companies, bigtech all were favouring one political party and have successfully suppressed crucial damaging information against their side and baselessly labelled it as 'fake news', which helped the favoured party take power. It immediately proceeded by shutting down the media accounts of the defeated opponent.
The ongoing hate-campaign against musk that started after him buying twitter can absolutely be interpreted as a reaction to breaking the monopoly on the flow of information.
Just because someone wrote in length that white is black, white does not become black. Likewise, intolerance does not become tolerance.
You do not tolerate something => you are not tolerant.
You oppose free speech only for really horrible people => you oppose free speech.
It's really binary, and wherever Popper wrote, it does not change this simple truth. But, of course, you can hypocritically pretend that it does.
Like more or less anything real, this is not a simple binary problem.
That's Popper.
Does that sound like "we can't let people speak"?
Or would that actually be more in the lines of "we should expose their followers to the arguments their leaders don't want them to see"?
They don't get doxxed, they can't be identified in a crowd, they can blend with whatever the majority is.
It is very easy to defend "free speech absolutism" when you're not the target of hate speech. When you're not the target of harassment. When no one is declaring that your rights should be removed, that violence against you or one of your group memberships should be acceptable.
"We just need to have good arguments" is something said by a person who's participation in the discourse is entirely voluntary, and who's stakes aren't "I have a right to make decisions about my own body", "I have a right to live unharassed in my private life", "I am equally entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
"Free speech absolutism" is something only ever advocated for by people who don't have to care about what that speech is advocating. Who have the privilege to turn a blind eye to stochastic terrorism, and will argue out one side of their mouth that "police have no duty to protect you from crime before it happens" while arguing out the other "well a few bad actors should be dealt with by the police".
Meanwhile, in the real world - bomb threats to children's hospitals[1].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/31/boston-child...
Yet, I still would agree with a free speech absolutist much more so than with someone who thinks they know best about what speech is ok or not. And that's precisely because I'm a minority. I know that having a gatekeeper that decides what is or what isn't hate speech is never a good idea in the long run except if you belong to the majority who ultimately gets to decide what speech is ok or not.
It is also quite ironic to use "stochastic terrorism" (which is a dangerous term in and by itself) as a justification for your argument. It's a complete regurgitation of early 2000s talking points, especially to imply that those who disagree with you are turning a blind eye to some form of terrorism. In a way, it proves my point about being suspicious of any attempt to restrict free speech. Because it's the same exact tactic that was used to prop up islamophobia and justify human rights violations (I mean, who would want to turn a blind eye to terrorism, right?!).
What were you prevented from saying "because it was hate speech" with no extra deliberation? It's almost like the content matters.
Content does matter, in an ideal world. But in reality that type of "consideration" will be weaponised against minorities. You are arguing against yourself when you say that we just have to have "due consideration and a good decision making process" to decide what would be allowed. When said process will inherently be controlled and steered by the majority, in any democratic country. It's the type of argument that usually comes from privileged white people who have never experienced what "due consideration" means. It's a completely ridiculous premise, because it does not fit reality. Not the reality of most minorities at least.
You keep saying this, and I am asking you: what were you prevented from saying? What Muslim voices in the West were silenced unfairly?
You insist it happened, but in response to what? What were you not allowed to say that was just so unfair. And no, being criticized for saying it doesn't count.
Some of people here who take free speech for granted do not know its value. I live in a very authoritarian country, that once had free speech, and I have seen how restrictions on it creep in. And what I see happen in US and Europe follows a far too familiar path.
People say it like it's a damnation of the idea. Things in life are fuzzy, that's why it's literally called a paradox.
The most tolerant people in the world are not going to be ok with a 20 year-old having a sexual relationship with their 12 year old daughter because of the danger involved. That's the paradox of intolerance, that everyone has a limit, and if you have no limit, someone else will pick it for you and cause damage on their terms.
We don't generally tolerate violence in the west. Yes, it's an intolerance, but it's for the greater stability of society.
but I have absolutely seen people use the paradox of tolerance to argue for some shitty opinions, so it must still be dealt with care. You can imagine a KKK member using it to defend their choice of not allowing blacks to be free of lynching.
Also, do not equate actions and speech - and we're mostly arguing about free speech here, right?
> "paradox of tolerance" is a hypocrisy. If you are intolerant only to the intolerant you are not tolerant, it is as simple as that.
> It's ok to be intolerant at some things. What's not ok is to be intolerant and still claim to be tolerant. That's hypocrisy
(Don't hurt yourself, I understand it is an uncomfortable situation for you)
Furthermore, such black and white thinking is often a sign of mental illness.
But if you start framing things as "defending peace (by force)", you may quite possibly have your arguments taken over by the people attacking whatever you want to defend. Because they can use the argument just as well as you.
Hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness. [0]
Paradox: A statement that seems to contradict itself but may nonetheless be true. [1]
Every time I see someone here mentioning someone the paradox of tolerance, it is to support restriction of speech for someone else. (someone really bad, of course - fascist, antivaxer, racist, you name it), and these people always hypocritically consider that they support free speech, just not for those bad people.
> Therefore the speech of one side must be tolerated and supported; the speech of the other must be squelched and restricted.
This is actually how you get Nazis. You know, the real ones that existed before the internet. Not 4chan weebs trolling boomers online, but the ones that would jail or kill you for having the wrong opinion or wrong affiliation.
Look at Joseph McCarthy and see a counter-example. He used the exact same logic: that to suppress Soviet-style totalitarian government in the US, we had to be intolerant of all far left views.
It destroyed many peoples' lives, most of who were not at all sympathetic to Soviet-style communism.
Similar to your example, we could also argue that McCarthy was indeed effective at preventing Soviet-style communism in America (since the US still has free speech and there has not been another holocaust). But in both cases we don't have convincing evidence that suppressing speech was actually helpful.
Those who validate dirty pool in pursuit of the greater good will always be enabling people like that.
The problem starts with how you define those two(or any political expression). Because by many definitions, they are contradictory.
Equal chances? Money gives people advantages, so all should have the same money? Even if all would have the same money, some are born smart and some are born dumb. Genetic equalisation?
Pretty much against the idea of "freedom" like I know it.
When people are free, some will party all day, some will work like a dog.
So some will get rich. Some will get by, some will starve.
Unless you mean strictly "equal in front of the law", which we supposedly have, but we all know that the one with the more expensive lawer (or any lawer at all) has a big edge. So de facto we are not even equal in front of the law.
The big question is, how and what would you change about it?
I would actually start with free speech, because when people cannot speak freely, they will start speaking in code. And this will just make the whole political discussions even harder, as it will blur the definitions even more. I think this is mainly what we have on the internet. Lots of talk and lots of people thinking they are right, but only little actual communication and adressing the core problems because people are mostly talking about different things.
"They would include the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements that promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or that oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc."
That is, if you oppose the expansion of government you should have your right to free speech removed.
From : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Marcuse
Which shows the problem with idea of 'we must remove free speech for hate speech' because one of the originators of the idea intended that free speech should be withdrawn from people he disagreed with in ways that many or even most people in most Democratic states would find abhorrent.
Interestingly enough did you know that the original Nazis came about before the internet ever existed, way back in the 1930's, further did you know Nazis existed prior to the internet as well. It is true, in fact one may argue that there is no real correlation between the existence of Nazis and the internet, just their visibility.
But in a less sarcastic vein, I can only speak from my personal experience, but from what I see the more we try and suppress speech that some do not like, whether labeling it as hate speech, misinformation, or whatever else has produced in fact the exact opposite of the intended result, where more people are willing to tolerate actual Nazi's, question official information more readily and tolerate real racism more because the label became so broadly applied that it lost any meaningful effect.
Finally I also heard one interesting theory that part of the reason one side of the political spectrum is currently struggling so much is because the other side had even their moderate views censored from twitter, whereas another side was treated in a much more lenient fashion. The result was only the most reasonable and centerist voices of one side were shared, whereas the other side had many of their most radical and vocal members airing their views for all to see, which was a turn off to many, whereas the most extermist content on the other side was hidden and squelched.
https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repr...
The tl;dr is that if you actually want to move toward a society of free and equal human beings and eliminate oppression, "free speech for all" is not how you go about it. One side of the political spectrum supports equality and emancipation, the other is opposed to it. Therefore the speech of one side must be tolerated and supported; the speech of the other must be squelched and restricted.
The internet has had its time to experiment with free speech for all, and now we have Nazis. Social media companies saw greater value in muzzling the Nazis than they did in hewing to outdated libertarian internet values.