Freedom From Speech

Feb 27, 2017 //
2

You know that old saying, “When I criticize you it’s free speech, but when you criticize me it’s suppressing my free speech”? Well nobody actually says that because it would require an unheard of level of self-reflection, but it’s still an important thing to consider. What is a suppression of free speech, and is there ever a situation that would merit it? Obviously when society collectively tells you to shut the fuck up, that is not a suppression of your speech, but if you are prevented from speaking under threat of state violence, that is. Free speech is the right to speak; it’s not the right to be heard.

I want to look at free speech from its Classical Liberalism origins, and not from a Libertarian perspective for two reasons. Firstly, Libertarians, in the current definition of the term, aren’t actually supporters of free speech. They want to transfer power from democratically elected government who at least is partially beholden to the public to unelected autocrats in the private sector whose only obligations are to profit. They believe that if the government stifles speech then that is oppressive, but if a company wants to prevent their employees from even speaking about unionizing or blocks certain peoples from the rights given to others, well, that is their right! Transferring suppression from one sphere to a measurably worse one is not reasonable thinking, so I will ignore it. The other reason is that Classical Liberalism demands individual freedom so long as the individual does not commit harm against others. This is crucial to my argument. Libertarians think that if a company puts lead in their paint, then it is up to me to start up an entirely new industry of lead-free paint in a vicious, unregulated market with my extremely limited time and funds, as if that is somehow a possible thing. There is no worry over harm so long as the market is free to regulate itself. I prefer the world where we work to prevent unnecessary corpses, but maybe that’s just me.

How does harm fit in with individual freedom? It is fairly uncontroversial to assume that actively killing people is not okay, even under the most free of circumstances, so the idea is that individual freedom is great so long as nobody else gets hurt. Any impositions on the individual outside of these extreme circumstances are immoral. Harm is a difficult concept to nail down, which makes its application to speech tricky, but not impossible.

Consider the fact that uttering threats is illegal. It is nothing more than speech, but it projects an implication of harm that must be taken seriously, therefore it is not allowed. Or sexual harassment laws: it is generally agreed upon that a workplace feels unsafe if a woman experiences unwanted sexual advances, so laws exist to ban this type of speech. Bullying is a little more grey, but consider the case of Amanda Todd who was followed online by her harasser until she ultimately committed suicide, a clear indication that harm had occurred.

Now we’re working under the premise that we don’t want to commit harm to others. Murder is bad, remember. Harm to an individual via the medium of speech is regulated to some degree as seen in the examples I just mentioned, but what about harm to groups of people? This is where people defend free speech with the greatest enthusiasm because they’re fine with some restraints on their ability to harm an individual, but don’t you dare try to take away their right to harm black people. I hope that this appears starkly absurd to most people, and I’m sure those advocates of free speech don’t necessarily see it this way, but that is mostly due to the lack of self-reflection I was discussing earlier. If we accept that harm to individuals is unacceptable when it comes to speech, then we must accept that harm to a group is equally impermissible. Now there are those who will say that the harm that minorities face through hate speech is less than the societal harm that would come to be if absolute free speech (which already doesn’t exist) was leashed by regulations. It’s funny that it’s always disenfranchised groups that are the ones who have to suffer so that liberals can enjoy their free speech.

What about the slippery slope fallacy that curbing hate speech will result in cracking down on political dissent? That’s like saying that making jaywalking illegal will lead to the criminalization of walking on the sidewalk. Cracking down on a single aspect of something does not mean that universal suppression will naturally follow. I mean consider the despotic nations of Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, the Netherlands, and many others with hate speech laws. Meanwhile the country that demands free speech to the point that it overtly encourages hate is doing just fine, right?

What makes an aspect of speech harmful toward a group? This is the biggest question, and the reason that I’m rewriting a previous blog is that now I have something of an answer (an answer that I actually gained from writing another blog! Ain’t it grand how much I’m getting out of writing this stupid thing?) The harm caused by hate speech is expressed through its criticism of an unchangeable aspect of a group instead of focusing on a group’s mechanisms to change. Let’s look at the examples I used from my the previous blog to explain:

Antisemitism

Example A: Obvious Antisemitism

Criticism of Israel

Example B: Genuine critique of Israel which may be mistaken for Antisemitism

The first is critical of something that the group cannot change: their Jewishness in this case. The second is critical of the disproportionate response of Israel against Palestine which could be quite easily rectified. If someone were to say that Muslims are violent, uncultured, and irrational, it could be argued that Muslims could change this by being less violent, gaining cultural significance, and achieving rational enlightenment. However, by generalizing these behaviours, it becomes clear that it is the Muslimness that is being criticized, and not the behaviours at all.  If one were to look only at individual instances of violence and irrationality under the pretense of finding mechanisms for change, then we would be forced to seek the causes of those things rather than disperse the blame on the entirety of the group.

It’s not hard to distinguish hate speech from genuine criticism, just as it is not hard to suppress hate speech without suppressing dissent. Punching someone in the face is assault, but boxing is completely legal. Potentially harmful dialogue can certainly exist in regulated settings, just as violence can exist in a boxing ring with rules governing its exhibition, without allowing it to go unfettered in the streets.

Tags , , , ,
Categories Politics

Feminism Isn’t About Equality

Feb 16, 2017 //
5

Many people perceive the feminist quest as finding its ultimate success in complete equality between men and women, but this is quite easily disproved. Consider the following marital situations as a simple example:

  1. The husband and wife each have the exact same job, and earn the exact same pay. They both do an equal amount of dishes, an equal amount of vacuuming, an equal amount of yard work, etc. Each parent spends identical lengths of time with their children contributing in equal fashion in every aspect of their development. Each duty, household and career-oriented, are identical for each partner to promote total equality.
  2. The husband works as a police officer and the wife works as a nurse. The wife does the dishes, vacuums the carpets, and makes dinner while the husband mows the lawn, takes care of financial obligations, and maintains the family vehicle. The wife is responsible for prepping the children for school in the morning while the husband takes them to their extra-curricular activities. This could be considered the equal-but-different model.
  3. The wife works as the head of a large corporation while the husband stays at home. The husband does most of the childcare, while the wife provides financially for the family. The husband does most of the household chores as well because the wife frequently works long hours, though she does help out around the house on weekends when she has the time. This would be considered a reversal of traditional roles.

Which of these is considered the most feminist? The first is absurd. It’s like calculating the pennies when splitting up the cheque at a restaurant. No one ought to care that much. The second, though equality could be argued, is not feminist because it is representative of conformity to rigid gender roles. The last, though the relationship is unequal in its distribution of wealth dependency and household responsibilities, is the most feminist because it is clear that each partner in that relationship was not pressured to conform by outside social norms. Their roles are a definitive choice.

Feminism, therefore, is clearly not about equality but about the abolition of gender roles. If there were no roles forcing individuals into certain lifestyles, then presumably women and men would naturally navigate freely toward their own preferred choices. The distribution of pay and household responsibilities would become arbitrary since each family would have different motivations and goals.

Feminism is about each gender’s freedom to choose the life they want to live. Some might argue that it is equal opportunity that is necessary for this freedom to exist, but gender roles are the obstacle that must be overcome before equal opportunity can even exist. We must first believe that women and girls are capable of becoming doctors and lawyers or that men are capable of becoming nurses or homemakers before we give them the opportunity to do so.

Tags , , , ,
Categories Gender and Sexuality

Transgenderism as a Mental Illness

Feb 7, 2017 //
0

Transgendered people are individuals who believe that their self-hood does not align with their sex at birth. So for example, someone who was born male but identifies as female would be called a transwoman. This apparently causes problems when it comes to bathrooms, but something I once read, but can now not find to cite, said, “If you care about the gender of the person in the stall next to you, you don’t have to pee badly enough.” That about sums up my feelings on that controversial topic.

Where does transgenderism come from? Well, some say that it is a mental illness. Transgendered people are delusional; their genitals ought to have precedence when determining their mental make-up, so if there is a discrepancy, a quick peak beneath the trousers should clear up any confusion. Let’s go with that for right now. For the sake of argument, being transgender means that you are suffering a mental illness.

I’m going to make a patently false assumption and say that when we consider someone with a mental illness, we want to help them get better. We wouldn’t want to abuse them, sexually assault them, murder them, or commit violence of any kind against them. We wouldn’t want to vocally condemn them as freaks. We would want them to get better. People who abuse the mentally ill are typically considered monsters.

Perhaps transgenderism is morally unacceptable. That certainly would make bullying and harassment a reasonable reaction, I’m sure. The Bible is quite clear in its endorsement of throwing stones. Except we can’t be morally responsible for things outside of our control. If someone declared you morally bankrupt for failing to save the life of a child trapped in a coal mine on the other end of the planet, that would be absurd. It is an impossibility. If you were local and had the skills available to rescue that child, then yes, some degree of culpability could be admonished, but in order for moral responsibility to be present, a measure of ability to perform that action must be present as well. Transgenderism, which research has shown develops concurrently to the overall identity development of the child, as a mental affectation is not a choice, and therefore moral culpability, whatever your argument against transgenderism might be, cannot apply.

What can we do to help transgendered people if judging them and abusing them is out of the question? If we compare their plight to another delusional and incurable mental illness, say, dementia, perhaps we can discover an appropriate treatment plan. Dementia patients frequently believe that they are living in the past, and mistake their adult children with their own siblings, and so on. As it turns out, if well-being and quality of life are our goals, the best treatment plan available to patients with dementia is to acknowledge their delusions and allow them to live in the reality within which they identify. In the context of transgenderism, this would mean that acknowledging the preferred identity is the superior treatment to… verbal abuse, I think is the predominant method today. Some might say that tolerance “encourages” transgenderism, the same way I suppose that treating schizophrenia to a degree that their lives become livable encourages people to become schizophrenics.

I want to take a bit of a detour here. What is an illness, especially a mental illness? If we wish to attribute illness to transgenderism, it’s important we know what we’re calling it. The initial thought could be, “an affectation of the mind or body that produces an uncomfortable feeling.” This is why we consider headaches and the flu to be illnesses, since they make us feel uncomfortable. This can’t be attributed to transgenderism though, because it is their assigned gender that makes them uncomfortable, which would mean that transgenderism is actually the cure to the illness of gender. We’re working under the assumption that transgenderism is the illness here, so this cannot be the case.

Perhaps a better definition might be, “an affectation that produces abnormalities.” The transgendered are a small minority of the population, which would make them technically abnormal, but this is unfortunately too inclusive. Left-handedness is abnormal, but certainly isn’t a mental illness. Nor are green eyes a physical disability. Just because something does not bear a likeness to the majority does not mean it is an illness.

The best definition of illness is something that prevents suitable integration into society. The flu prevents us from working or functioning properly at all. Bipolar disorder produces unpredictable behaviour which leads to social discord if left untreated. The destructive aspects of dementia lead to an inability to communicate with others, or participate in society, and ultimately the greatest alienation from society of all: death. If someone is compelled to deliver puns at every opportunity, this is not considered a mental illness despite how I might think because it only alienates them from people with taste. If someone is compelled to drink at every opportunity, this is considered an illness because they can become destructive, and the long-term physiological damage prevents future social function.

If we view illness as predicated on social ability, then this opens up a serious question. If someone is paralyzed from the waist down and is stuck in a wheelchair, we consider them disabled because they cannot function in our traditional, stair-filled world. However, if there are ramps, suitable desk jobs, household and work accommodations to allow general independence, then wouldn’t this person not be considered disabled at all? If there was a legless human commune somewhere that functioned autonomously without difficulty, then this detriment in our society would be considered the norm and conceiving of it as a disability would be impossible. Left-handedness was once considered a sinful mental affectation because the world was built for right-handed people. Illness, therefore, is not dependent on anything outside of society’s ability to allow it to adapt.

So yes, of course transgendered people are mentally ill because they are indeed unable to adapt in a society that hates them. A society filled with intolerance would not allow a transgendered individual to flourish in the way that a more tolerant society would. I invite you to wonder, then, as to a possible cure.

Tags , ,
Categories Gender and Sexuality
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »