Empowered by Privacy, Why Freedom of Speech is Essential

in #freedom8 years ago

As @tomkirkham illustrates in his post, "I Have Nothing to Hide" Privacy Argument is a Fallacy, you really DO have things to hide, and that’s ok!

Privacy is necessary, even essential for a free society.

The flip side of this coin, is that freedom of speech is likewise essential, and without it, all our privacy is near meaningless.


Without privacy, there can be no freedom of thought. For it is in our inmost seclusion, be it deep in meditation or safe in the confines of our homes, in the absence of external stresses, where we are most free to feel, to think, and to create.

While privacy is our shield and our refuge, freedom of speech is our sword, our plough, our staff; it is a way of creating possibilities, affirming and defending a vision, and moving to bring that vision into existence.

In order to create a free society, we must retain both our natural rights to perceive, and give voice to that perception, to receive and extend, to conceal and reveal.

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” -George Washington

So, what stops freedom of speech? On the most visceral level, it is violence.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 1205 journalists have been murdered around the world since 1992. So we can see that on one level, violence against journalists or others who speak out is one way to stop freedom of speech, but it is the crudest form of such supression.

By extension then, we get the threat of violence.

The threat of violence is the first level of abstraction which begins to percolate into the human psyche. If one fears pain, suffering, death, or imprisonment, one will naturally be less inclined to engage in activity which puts one in such jeopardy; one will weigh the necessity of taking action, or speaking out, against the possibility of bad outcomes, and here already we have set out on the path of self-censorship.

o

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul. -Emma Goldman

For those of us in modern, so called 'developed' Western countries, the methods of thwarting freedom of speech are generally more subtle than outright violence and often even more subtle than even the threat of violence, although violence is always lurking just beneath, or right above the surface.

In our modern social construct, we have any number of things to fear from truly expressing ourselves, real or imagined, and it makes little difference when the outcome in either case is silence.

Much has been written on the subject of why people don't speak up, and why they instead quietly acquiesce to the cultural script which is provided for them.

Many feel their voice does not matter. Many have learned through the example of others that despite impassioned calls to action, and the eloquent survey of a world gone mad, change is slow or nonexistent. Many have grown weary, standing defiantly in the face of overwhelming cultural inertia, only to be crushed or pushed aside.

I am not writing now to provide an exhaustive survey on the topic of self censorship.

I am however writing to suggest that now is a most opportune moment to bust open the escape hatch of this ever narrowing corridor of cultural thought, and step forth into the sunlight. Hey, I think I see one right... here!

You could make a good case that the history of social life is about the history of the technology of memory. That social order and control, structure of governance, social cohesion in states or organizations larger than face-to-face society depends on the nature of the technology of memory--both how it works and what it remembers... In short, what societies value is what they memorize, and how they memorize it, and who has access to its memorized form determines the structure of power that the society represents and acts from. -Eben Moglen

Let's look at that last line one more time for good measure.

In short, what societies value is what they memorize, and how they memorize it, and who has access to its memorized form determines the structure of power that the society represents and acts from.


Enter the Blockchain

They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn. Well, the opportunity for shaping the structures of power that our society represents and acts from has never been greater. Do you think this is just unabashed naiveté?

The information age is giving way to the age of crypto economics, and in this quickly moving realm of development there are emerging innovative and adaptive solutions for the unstoppable spread of immutable information. We've come a long way since the printing press, and we will go much further still.

With Steem, we are just beginning to have a glimpse into what a blockchain can do... just a glimpse mind you... the best is yet to come. In my next post, I will dive deeper into what I see as the revolutionary possibilities for utilizing our newfound power to create a more free society.

Sort:  

really amazing post I sadly cant feature it in my hidden gems today as you have an amazing upvote and this post will be seen but keep up the good work

Thanks! I really appreciate it. And thanks for doing the hidden gems! :)

You can do a special mention of (not so hidden) gem :D

Very interesting thoughts.
In Russia, for example, passed a law on the saving of all human's activities in internet and free access to these by special services. The law - goodbye constitution :(

Thanks. We have the same thing in the US, law or not, information is being vacuumed up constantly... that's the whole world now. That's why encryption is so important. There's a really great Julian Assange quote, but I'm going to save it for my next post. ;)

Those quotes are gold. Thanks for your lucid prospective @lovejoy. Your posts are always a pleasure to read.

Thanks @robrigo! Yeah.. that Eben Moglen quote tho.. did he know the blockchain was on it's way? ;)

really nice post :)

Thanks, I appreciate you reading it. :)

You used great photos ;)
Thank you for posting cool information :)

Thanks.. I had a hard time finding photos I liked for this one. Glad you enjoyed. :)

Hey lovejoy,

I really hope more and more people will get what they deserve: freedom
We live in fast times and the world is changing. Technology starts to become our advantage.
Thanks for the share

Yes, my sentiments exactly! To get more freedom we must exercise our existing freedoms. I for one am also betting on the newfound tech advantage. Thanks for your thoughts! :)

For myself, Freedom, and it's close counterpart Privacy, are two of the most powerful tools one has at their disposal on the path toward truth and self creation/self expression. They are very central to the core of existence.

It's especially important that this post was shared to facebook and I will be sharing it there. Your line about self-censorship as the natural response to threat of violence is especially poignant there. That any comment may be not only viewed but suggested out of context to any friend, is a breach of privacy with the result that "one will weigh the necessity of taking action, or speaking out, against the possibility of bad outcomes, and here already we have set out on the path of self-censorship." I have largely faded my presence on facebook in part because I feel paranoid about loss of control of the context in which my comments are read. On Steemit, while all my comments are as visible, someone has to go looking for them. Thank you for this quality of content. I'll look forward to your future posts!

All of this! I've always had a special hate for the "if you have nothing to hide" argument. These days, whenever the topic comes up, I simply ask two simple questions. "What's your favorite sexual position," and "When's the last time you masturbated?"

These are the easiest questions to ask to illustrate why having nothing to hide has nothing to do with privacy.

of course, there's always the jackass who answers my questions, in which case I continue probing and asking ever more personal and intrusive questions.

Freedom of Speech is important because if we censored everything we wouldn't learn anything new. Sure, people say bad things, but some people say good things. So, just pick and choose which speech you want to listen to. Freedom is what Mel Gibson wanted when we played William Wallace in Braveheart. Remember that!

And in the end... he was cut into pieces and sent to different parts of Scotland. Hmmm... well, I refer back to the second quote in my article.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.16
TRX 0.15
JST 0.028
BTC 55885.64
ETH 2358.26
USDT 1.00
SBD 2.31