Stephen Fry Doesn’t Like Mucking Up Free Speech
Speaking Well and Speaking Free
The dilemma of free speech is an issue I bring up quite often and is the premiere liberty that is all too often a subject of indirect attack by both extremes of political parties. Over the course of what might be more than a dozen articles, I’ve looked at now contentious figures including Jordan Peterson, Bret Weinstein, and Dave Rubin to round out the nuanced and difficult discussion of what this freedom entails and how/why it is being infringed upon. From the American Right, it’s the issue of Political Correctness and the stripping of particular groups particular forms of expression. From the American Left, it’s the threat of hate speech and aggression-lined thinking. All of this shouting from both sides has produced a very disillusioned and confused middle majority that does not really understand both sides.
The issue has also become much more of a direct topic in global media. Many interviewers and debate stages tackle the issue head on and bring on many of the aforementioned “Intellectual Dark Web” figures as they realize de-platforming, physical violence, and general enforced censorship are becoming larger and repeated issues.
Now while I have described and prescribed to the ideas and research of Dr. Jordan Peterson, my curiosity of his recent public debate actually led me to learn more about British actor Stephen Fry’s stance on the whole ordeal. He teamed up with Peterson to support a televised motion that Political Correctness is a problem in society. I won’t butcher his eloquence so I’ll just let his own persona bedazzle you. I’ve time-marked the video so it starts at Fry’s closing remarks since it is a long debate and I want to focus on his particular approach to the topic-
I do recommend watching the entirety of the debate. It’s well structured and both sides talk extensively on facets that are worth pondering over. In fact, as much as I admire the man’s way of thinking and presentation, I don’t think Jordan Peterson’s articulation really shines that much in this particular setting - he becomes too technical that it unproductively causes the opposition to swerve off topic. I think Fry took on the issue very precisely and even with a showmanship that really engaged the entire audience and myself on what can be a very “so what” topic that many dismiss.
If you look at more of the backstory of Fry and how he came into this arena on Free Speech, you’ll find that he is one in a growing population of liberals growing discontent on speech policing and the aggressive approach of contemporary progressives. Here’s another interview with him conducted on the Rubin Report, arguably the most liberal figure Dave has had on the show.
It’s very interesting to hear him maintain his position even after the recent wave of the MeToo movement. Stephen Fry shares a very unique perspective on why Free Speech is so direly needed and I encourage you to watch more of him and let me know what you think in the comments. Steem on!
When you feature two of my favorite peeps, I am going to perk up and pay attention. You wrote an intelligent post. The issue of free speech is a thorny one. Caricaturally speaking, the tension is between the snowflakes on one side and the and hate-speech apologists on the other.
I wonder to what extent this ludicrous dialectic has not been bred by a self-esteem-obsessed culture, where the onus is not on the individual to earn their own self-respect, but on the environment, parents, teachers, governments included, to apply a psychological bubble-wrap so as not to, God forbid, dent their (mythical) God-given self-esteem.
This attempt to eliminate any potential hurt is not consistent with the way the world works.
We have turned human communication into linguistic acrobatics so as not to crack any eggshells, and if we continue to compile The Official Handbook of PC Language, we’ll be down to half-a-dozen sentences and one hundred authorized words.
By the way, your post on poop really offended my artistic sensitivity and my fragile soul.
Not! Actually, it made me laugh, and I will posit, even if I have no empirical basis for it, that many people found it funny too. It appeals to the darker, baser side of our nature. Let’s just own it, not make a big deal about it and move on
I agree with everything you've written and want to point at this part specifically. Many people approach the debate with kind of a "so what" attitude, that it's just cranky people getting worked up over words on both sides. But it shouldn't be underestimated how much this impacts every social sphere of our lives from education to politics. We've become complicit in a social police state where obsessive moms control public education or neo-marxist professors spew propaganda on national television, and it's developing public discourse into a minefield.
Thanks for the enthusiastic response @tmayd!
What happened to human decency, civility and morality? It seems free speech disregards all of that and allows anything to be said.
Aren't those 3 things above make a society that functions efficiently? creates a civilisation that works with proper communications and evolves society. Yes everyone has the right to speech, but no one has the right to personal attacks, insults, character assassination, mockery of a person and just pure hate speech.
You are absolutely right about decency, civility and morality. They are values of a civilized society.
The problem is that when you legislate values, they become laws. Laws are directed by an outside authority whereas values are inherently internal.
For me the biggest problem is that of censorship, whereby the powers that be seek to shut down debate, and in this context free speech means having the ability to talk about any issue, including controversial ones without being afraid to end up in the slammer.
The biggest threat to free speech is society, the government is just a representative of the society which wants to eliminate all the controversies and things that make people uncomfortable.
However free speech is not a solution, but merely a tool which can be used to either do harm or do good. free speech doesn't take into account how to deal with propaganda or hate speech because they are part of free speech.
You are making a very interesting point about free speech being a tool, and I couldn't agree more. I would add that free speech is also a manifestation of a free society.
The thing about hate speech is that it is in the eyes of the beholder and because it is subjective, all you need to do is claim that your feelings were hurt to shut someone up.
One would hope that in an evolved, highly civilized society, one would have enough self-restraint to argue and discuss difference of opinion without resorting to insults, put-downs and emotional manipulations such as brandishing one's victimhood to stop any kind of debate.
Hoping, wishing, should, would, yeah, yeah, yeah... Of course, wishing upon a star is naive and doesn't effect real change.
Until we have reached that blessed state of enlightenment, a great start would be not to censure what can be debated and what cannot, to make certain topics or historical "facts" unavailable to researchers because of political expediency or because it hurst the sensivity or the agenda of a specific group of people and not to shame those who dare have opinions that differ from the norm of the official narrative. Otherwise we are back to an age of obscurantism such as Galileo knew when it was totally not PC to state that the sun doesn't revolve around the earth.
“Hate speech is in the eye of the beholder”
Your right about that because everyone is offended differently. But even freedom is subjective because at the end of the day what is freedom, is it that you can do whatever in society? Is the the right to express yourself however you wish? What is freedom? Freedom and free society is subjective as well.
It would depend on what you define as 'personal attacks' and 'pure hate speech', but I have to disagree on this point. We do have a right to insults. We do have a right to mockery. These are both tools, especially in the case of comedy and satire, to ensure that a case for morality doesn't run unchecked. I can't grasp the entirety of your stance on free speech from this comment but I'll make an approximation that you fall with most when people generally think "free speech is good EXCEPT when..." I'm curious to hear more of what you think.
The biggest point that I think Fry is trying to make is that Political Correctness is a game of words and censorship, both of which contribute to restricting though and expression. Both of these are needed in a free society and neither should be infringed upon just because of someone's feelings or responses. I agree with Fry and simply think Political Correctness is more about control under the guise of "decency, civility, and morality."
Your right and I standby what I said, free speech in my opinion is less of right and more of tool to be used by people to put forward their agenda. I don’t think you have the right to personal attacks, nor right to insult someone else because then you lose the right to be offended when they insult you back.
I do backup criticism and yes we should criticise people, but if there isn’t a limit to put on things then everything is justified, even murder.