20240206

Ideology and free speech, a dilemma, a collision, a paradox...

The problem i see with Ideology based hangouts is that ideologies tend to cause

the very thing they tend to fight against.

For instance i see places on the web where they claim to be against

discrimination or racism, that in itself is all good, yet by claiming this and

then set very hard boundaries to ENFORCE the ideology they happen to

discriminate everyone who fails to slavishly submit to the strict rules they

set out. And thereby break all the rules of freedom of speech.

This then leads to all kinds of hopeless bullshit, and creates a kind of

ideology based antisemetic situation that quickly goes over the edge, where the

ideologist become the very discriminators they claim to fight against.

Now, you could say that freedom of speech is also an ideology, but THAT happens

to work different, as disagreement is just more speech, until there is an

agreement. But for that both sides need to have communication skills.

And THAT my friends, is a problem.

People THINK that they are good communicators, yet the truth is that they are

not.

And once they reach the limits of verbally making their point then emotions

start to get the better of them. And then all hell breaks loose.

That said it also turns out to be true that ideologists are very emotional to

begin with. Not sure if that is the general mindset or a severe lack of

communication skills or maybe a combination of the two. Or maybe even some

other reason.

And the few who have communucation skills they also tend to run into emotions

once they collide with others who get emotional. As it is not easy to stay

rational once emotions start to run high. I'm not sure if this is a flaw in

communication skills or a psychological process on the emotional level. As it

looks like everyone is affected by it. No matter their levels of communication

skills.

For these reasons i'm very skeptic about ideologie driven or identity politics

related environments. I tend to look for places where there is free speech and

where people are not affraid to confront anyone with bullshit. But

unfortunately I see a more moderated spaces where free speech is being

moderated with a rather blunt takedown policy.

Where it would make more sense to do the opposite and just let speech be speech.

This is a bit of a street art approach, where bad grafitti is being treated

with better grafitti, if you are lucky. and with worse grafitti in cities where

the art communication skills are less evolved. Eitehr way, there is always MORE

paint to allow more speech. And white paint or pressure washers (censorship)

that merely create a fresh canvas. instead of removing the entire wall or close

the fence so that people no longer can access the wall. This is not the best

analogy, but because it is a bit flawed it forces my readers to think harder.

And hopfully they see that Free speech has more to offer then an ideology based

policy.