David Irving
On the other hand of the Jyllands-Posten issue, there's this.
Putting odious fools like Irving in jail only proves them right. The entire meta-narrative that people like Irving espouse is a continuation of the old, anti-semitic line that Jews are engaged in a global conspiracy to control the world. In order to perpetuate that conspiracy, the theory goes, they have to control all the flows of information. Thus, putting 'brave truth-tellers' like Irving in jail. The most disturbing thing about the sentence given to Irving is that in handing it down, the Austrian court has only given Irving's foul arguments undeserved credibility.
Free speech is not just a law like jaywalking, there's a whole philosophy behind it... and decisions like this one, and the whole Jyllands-Posten thing, make me wonder if all free nations shouldn't be teaching their children about that underlying philosophy in schools, because an awful lot of people don't seem to understand why free-speech should be free. Free speech needs to be free because that's how we determine that, on average, the better arguments win. Arguments about history, politics, religion etc help to determine the future direction of society. In order to make sure we pick the right direction, and not the wrong one, we need to see every argument put forward, warts and all. Including the nasty ones.
In fact, especially the nasty ones. To believe the average citizen needs to be protected from the rhetoric of holocaust denial is to enter into nanny-state thinking, and to assume that ordinary people aren't smart enough to see vile nonsense when they see it. But of course, by censoring the argument, they make the average citizen that much less likely to be able to tell the difference. Free speech is a process of public education, and encourages ordinary people to become involved in the issues of the day. I'm not scared that people like Irving have a platform -- let him speak. Give him enough rope, and let him hang himself. I'm much more scared that court decisions like this one will make Irving a martyr, and confer upon him the automatic credibility of anyone censored by government machinery.
The common thread here, between this and the Jyllands-Posten affair, is that certain well-meaning people are trying to save others from being offended. Well, when offending someone becomes illegal, free speech is dead. It's sad that we live in a world where people say nasty things and hurt other peoples' sensibilities, but the way to counter such things is to prove the hurt-sayers wrong, or to debate them to the point where a majority of citizens come around to your opinion. Locking them up is an admission that you CAN'T.
Putting odious fools like Irving in jail only proves them right. The entire meta-narrative that people like Irving espouse is a continuation of the old, anti-semitic line that Jews are engaged in a global conspiracy to control the world. In order to perpetuate that conspiracy, the theory goes, they have to control all the flows of information. Thus, putting 'brave truth-tellers' like Irving in jail. The most disturbing thing about the sentence given to Irving is that in handing it down, the Austrian court has only given Irving's foul arguments undeserved credibility.
Free speech is not just a law like jaywalking, there's a whole philosophy behind it... and decisions like this one, and the whole Jyllands-Posten thing, make me wonder if all free nations shouldn't be teaching their children about that underlying philosophy in schools, because an awful lot of people don't seem to understand why free-speech should be free. Free speech needs to be free because that's how we determine that, on average, the better arguments win. Arguments about history, politics, religion etc help to determine the future direction of society. In order to make sure we pick the right direction, and not the wrong one, we need to see every argument put forward, warts and all. Including the nasty ones.
In fact, especially the nasty ones. To believe the average citizen needs to be protected from the rhetoric of holocaust denial is to enter into nanny-state thinking, and to assume that ordinary people aren't smart enough to see vile nonsense when they see it. But of course, by censoring the argument, they make the average citizen that much less likely to be able to tell the difference. Free speech is a process of public education, and encourages ordinary people to become involved in the issues of the day. I'm not scared that people like Irving have a platform -- let him speak. Give him enough rope, and let him hang himself. I'm much more scared that court decisions like this one will make Irving a martyr, and confer upon him the automatic credibility of anyone censored by government machinery.
The common thread here, between this and the Jyllands-Posten affair, is that certain well-meaning people are trying to save others from being offended. Well, when offending someone becomes illegal, free speech is dead. It's sad that we live in a world where people say nasty things and hurt other peoples' sensibilities, but the way to counter such things is to prove the hurt-sayers wrong, or to debate them to the point where a majority of citizens come around to your opinion. Locking them up is an admission that you CAN'T.
3 Comments:
Nice post Joel.
Thank you sir.
Never thought I'd be sympathisizing with a former Holocaust denier, but, the very notion that you can get thrown in jail for 3 years in Austria, simply for uttering your opinion about something, is just incomprehensible. And shameful.
And to think these very people were criticizing Swarzenegger for allowing a proved multiple murderer to be executed (after 25 years of defenses and legal appeals).
Austria has demonstrated that they have far to go before they can be taken seriously as a modern nation.
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