Nobody Has The Right To Be Heard — So Use Your Free Speech Wisely
Free speech is the key issue of our time.
A range of cultural debates have emerged online over the past two or three years that are based around two simple questions:
- Should we be allowed to express controversial ideas that may offend specific (typically minority) groups?
- Do we have a right to direct our opinions to absolutely anybody?
Whether it’s Sam Harris discussing the validity of studying the science of group differences in IQ, Yaron Brook advocating the social virtues of capitalism, Gad Saad talking about sex differences, or Jordan Peterson fighting against the alleged compelled use of gender-neutral pronouns, nothing gets us going as much as a debate about what we can and cannot say.
As a psychological scientist interested in political decision-making, this topic fascinates me. Why do we sacralize certain groups over others? What’s the big obsession with curtailing and compelling others’ words? And why are we all so hypocritical about these issues?
I woke up this past Saturday to find a tweet from The Humanist Report accusing online interviewer Dave Rubin of hypocrisy. The offence? Rubin had blocked THR from viewing his tweets — a move that THR saw as being contrary to Rubin’s explicit claims of…
