Depressingly Familiar Territory
I am disappointed. Speech, as a cultural currency, only has value when it is unrestricted. The remedy to a calm and civil (if to some quarters highly objectionable) work of expression is more expression, not an attempt to silence it into irrelevance. Speech is always relevant, hateful or not. Attacking the messenger and not the message has dire consequences.
Let us be clear on what we are talking about. Suppose we have a man who expresses a view that the majority finds objectionable. Let us further suppose there is a substantial minority who agree with him. What happens if that man is not heard, or his voice is suppressed with social or legal pressure?
…Obviously, they will make themselves heard, as we’ve just witnessed, and it leaves large, valuable institutions with an aura of authoritarianism that won’t wash off; Google can ill-afford this with an aggressive White House and talk of antitrust action in the air.
Worse, this particular issue is likely, over the long run, to involve lots and lots of disaffected young males with no attachment to family or community, since those things have been systematically devalued over the decades. They have nothing to lose that is not their own, and that’s worrisome.
Let us presume further that the groups objecting here — women and minorities — are themselves formerly oppressed groups. How did they win their right to be heard?
Well, beyond the suffragettes of the last century…they won that right through speech. And men listened to the quality of their arguments, and were eventually persuaded.
What is missing here? Do you genuinely think this is a wise cultural pressure to encourage? Ideas will be shared and expressed. Attempting to silence them is just modern-day book burning, and it is even less effective because of a little thing called the Internet. Even attempting to silence someone will generate a Streisand Effect, and results in absolutely nothing but resentment, tribalism, a sense of misjustice, and left unchecked, an angry and weaponized cadre of disaffected military age males.
Trust me. There are serious differences between the sexes and the predictable outcome this generates is not a life lesson you want to experience.
