Comment by igorkraw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by igorkraw | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why these type of op-eds see to always defend the speech of racists or those in favour of the beliefs of old billionaires, or the importance of publishing racist (etc) speech in private newspapers with editorial control, while the speech of hardcore Nazis, Hardcore leftists, Taliban sympathisants, radical equality movements, speech that is about sex and link and things that give offense to the prudes amongst us etc. does not get the same defense.

Or speaking less blithely: Freedom of speech does not mean a right to be heard, it means the state can't stop you or punish you for speaking. Likewise, academic freedom does not necessarily mean everyone gets to say what they want. I don't think administrators deciding what should or should not be allowed to be said by faculty is good. But at the same time I don't see the problem of a society deciding that they don't want those endowed with a voice to amplify messages that are obsolete and/or regressive. As long as the hurdles for creating alternative newspapers and universities and...are low enough, I see no problem in faculty and staff lobbying for political stances out in the open - otherwise we'd have hidden political stances anyway.

Another non-partisan example: should academics have free speech to publish opinions they have clearly been paid to promote as if they were research? https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/12/uber-paid-acade...

I think "academics" who sell the reputation of their university to Uber on the cheap have very little to do with academic freedoms. This example seems a bit too obvious to me.

That's academic fraud, a different thing.

> I wonder why these type of op-eds [seem] to always defend the speech of racists or those in favour of the beliefs of old billionaires, or the importance of publishing racist (etc) speech ...

It might help to consider that these beliefs are widely held and therefore more commonly encountered. I don't see why the argument can't be extended to the other classes of speech you mentioned.

> Freedom of speech does not mean a right to be heard ...

I feel like if that's the argument you're making, then you misunderstood the argument that was made. I don't think a person I disagree with has a right to be heard but I'd love to hear what our disagreement is. An important point to understand is that it's more likely for me to have a better understanding of my own opinion (rather than having it changed) specifically because I listened to and considered the dissenting opinion. It seems that it can only help me understand where the disagreement is.

Perhaps more to the point: that it's speech being suppressed not by a government but rather a private entity doesn't mean that I would (or should) agree with said suppression. You can disagree but, indeed, that can only happen after you've heard me out.

To the first: you are free to seek the information elsewhere. That's the whole point of my argument, the whole "the person who loses when X is silenced is not the speaker but the listener" doesn't work when you can go to 100 websites and make your voice heard, possibly earning lots of money while complaining about being silenced. And bans on teaching critical race theory is being called for by similar groups that are decrying the death of free speech when racists get criticized.

To the second: The thing is, if I'm a student paying tuition, or a colleague who's implicated by you, can I push for official sanctioning and/or dissociation once you make your speech? I'd argue yes. It's private institutions which can make their own rules (public institutions are more complicated, but are often held to a standard of "public pressure is okay, state pressure isn't" in my country)

As long as we have a healthy media and educational system of diversity , these debates and issues are not about free speech, they are about people exercising their free speech, then getting a bunch of other people using their free speech to react to it and calling for consequences and the initial speakers wanting indemnity. Those who complain about silence tend to be quite audible. I'd say, let them do like those who founded https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_University_of_Berlin instead of trying to evade consequences in cushy, well paid jobs

It seems that you missed the point behind this statement: You can disagree but, indeed, that can only happen after you've heard me out.

The argument being made in TFA (and by John Stuart Mill) is that an opinion can only be rationally disagreed with after its been heard and understood. I'm all for an argument against that point but you should consider how much you're talking around that point rather than to it.

You can think the way you do all you want but you're misunderstanding if you think John Stuart Mill's argument is anything other than that it is irrational to do so.

These arguments have been heard a lot though, so why do we have to keep giving them platforms?

If free speech doesn't apply to people you dislike then you aren't in favor of free speech.

Again: it does apply. But free speech does not mean no consequences, or the right to a platform. And the ones where it does not apply are generally not the ones featured in the mass media as a response to being "silenced"

But is the University's job to find truth or be a platform for a certain world view?

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