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Sunday, July 17, 2011

speech

words are important.
language is important.

it allows us to explain the world around us, it allows us to share ideas, and it allows us to communicate.
because they are social constructs words and language are not simple things, they can be wielded precisely or loosely. meanings twisted out of all shape to their original intention. they are not impartial. they are used to persuade.
most of us want freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought. most of us don't like censorship. most of us accept that there are limits on these freedoms, the limits change - what was acceptable 50, 30 or 10 years ago is not acceptable now.
we redefine censorship as tolerance (some might say political correctness).

the web is an interesting place one site leads to another and before you know it you have discovered something interesting (and for a change not pornographic). through a circuitous route of which i will spare you the details i came across a quote from one of the champions of free speech.
as with most of those who fight for free speech – he has his usual targets (i will leave you to guess them).
and he says this “i don't care what people believe as long as i don't have to keep hearing about it.” which sort of defeats the purpose of having freedom of speech.
it is a variant of the i-don’t-agree-but-i-defend school of thought.
so the speaker would defend the ability of various groups to say what they will but just not so it can be heard anywhere he might be. so censorship by another name.

the irony is off course is that as the world becomes more wired we are becoming more narrowcasted at: we choose where we get our news from and we generally choose something that agrees with us.
according to the view that is what free speech is all about: just agreeing with us. everything else is wrong or pandering to a minority group.
perhaps the problem is that there is too much speech, there is too much to be heard and we can’t hear the important words through the white noise.

the internet has become our very own tower of babble and confusion and misinterpretation is the new world disorder.


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