The Struggles for Voices: Power Dynamics and Free Speech
Freedom of speech is regarded as one of the most fundamental rights of the citizens dwelling in the world of democracy. Every democratic country has it mentioned in its constitution that its residents are free to express their opinions in front of the world. Nevertheless, there is no state on the face of the earth where there is absolute freedom of speech. Neither it is practically possible to exercise this right as free as it is portrayed to be.
The freedom to speech comes with several ethical, moral, political and national security concerns. There are individuals and groups who hurt the sentiments of other people taking advantage of the right to free speech. Also, there are evil intentioned people in the society who, utilizing their right to free speech, want to create upheaval, discomfort and chaos for their personal gains.
In the conditions where the authorities feel being threatened by the free speech of factions and individuals in their states, they either create laws against particular kind of speech or they exercise their power unlawfully for maintaining the so called stability.
There arise certain questions about the right to free speech and the efforts to create boundaries for it. Are authorities always wrong in taking actions against particular ideologies? Are people always right in speaking whatever is in their mind? Should authorities have the right to curb what they feel is dangerous for the society? Should masses have the right to say what they feel is crucial no matter how damaging it may be? Is being free to speak the things in our mind always in the greater interest of humanity? Does taking measures against particular agenda always a condemnable behavior?
The questions like these can never have a clear answer in Aye or Nay. In real world, the concerns, complexities and issues are grey rather than black and white. Most of the matters that societies face do not have an objective criterion to distinguish between right and wrong, fair and unfair. The judgements and actions are based on the subjective interpretation of the situation at hand which are influenced by several factors such as cultural norms, religious beliefs, political affiliations and personal interests.
Third world countries are famous for curbing its citizens' freedom of speech by using strategies like internet blackout, digital surveillance, shut down of social media, putting taxation on social media usage (source), abduction of artists (source) and journalists (source), crackdown on protestors (source] and killing masses for raising their voice against the brutality of institutions in the country (source), by arresting and harassing the leaders of opponent political parties (sources) and by arresting and accusing the activists on social media.
In most of the third world countries the voice raises are facing the wrath of their governments for speaking against the injustice, inequality and corruption prevailing in their states. The authorities are exercising their powers to protect their privileges and personal interests on the name of national security. The tactics and strategies are meant to threaten people so that they stay quiet and be not be a threat to status quo.
Nevertheless, censorship and self-censorship is not merely a problem of struggling and under developed countries. It is also existing in the first world countries with the same excuse of maintaining peace and harmony. For instance, the harsh actions taken by Harvard University against its scholars, professors and students for presenting their concerns and view points about certain topics (source and source) have raised questions about freedom of speech. Following the harsh treatment the students and faculty members have reported going on self-censorship to protect themselves from the consequences.
The use of anti-terrorist laws to curb the voice of Pro-Palestinian in Britain (source) is also a demonstration of how governments go to protect their agendas.
France, too, presents a paradox. on one hand it is considered freedom of expression to make cartoons of prophet Muhammad, while on the other hand protestors are convicted of contempt for burning the effigy of the president. While it is lawful to present offending view on religious beliefs in the name of free speech, wearing religious symbols like Hijab is regarded unlawful in the name of protecting secularism (source). While the country is making waves in giving rights to LGBTQ as an expression of freedom (source), it is intending to dissolve Collective Against Islamophobia in France to curb the voice of Muslims (source) regarding it as an “enemy of the Republic."
Banning protest, arresting journalists and the removal of content on the name of hate-speech, disinformation and terrorism spread in various western countries is an open question on freedom of speech there (source).
The thing that I have understood from the situations about the freedom of speech and its limitations is that only people in power have the real right. They may put a ban on any thing they deem as a threat to their agendas.
If the power lies in the right hand more equity and justice will prevail. If the power lies in the evil hands, humanity will experience more unrest. Nevertheless, might is right had always been a truth and will always remain the truth.
The weaker ones will either be silenced by the force of the mightier ones or their struggles will turn the table gaining them the power and giving them the absolute freedom to speech.
We may choose to be in miseries remaining quiet and impose self-censorship to protect us from the negative consequences, or we may show courage to stand up for our rights, struggling against the opposing forces, grabbing their power and making our voices heard.
The post is my response to Hl-featured edition 3 of week 133.
Image created by me using Bing AI.
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This is going to be a long response.
I object, they can have a clear answer. When you go back to the very principles.
One principle is: "Don't kill".
Over time, exceptions to this rule were added. And added. And added. Now, the exceptions are to become the rules themselves.
But first, I invite you to make a mental experiment:
1. The rule is "don't kill".
It's clear what it means. No further explanation needed.
If you DO kill, it still IS and it remains a punishable act by principle (law). In order having this punishment not being put onto you, you'd name an exception like "I killed in self defense" or "I killed to defend my child".
By principle, you were put on trial and later freed, if you were able to put clear evidence forward to the judge.
STILL, the wrongness of you killing another human being, stands firm in principle. Your record would show: "Mary killed another human being. Since it was in self defense, Mary was released from punishment." Only, that this record would remain in the judiciary archive, unknown to other people.
Can you formulate something other than the first rule in that short form?
Yes, you can.
2. The rule is: "Do kill."
What would be the exception to this rule? Can you think of any?
I can think of infinite exceptions like
Do kill,
and so on and so on. You run into the problem to define the exceptions. Unless you eliminate that problem.
The question is: Are there cultures on earth who have rule no. 2 as their very principle?
Answer: yes. This rule says "Do kill all unbelievers."
If the rule is, that one is not only allowed to kill all unbelievers but must do so, then the one and only exception to it would be "except they are believers themselves."
But how would you know that someone is a believer?
Of course, by their death-record.
So, in a culture where an adult has not already a past death-record (killed so and so many unbelievers so far), they cannot be a true believer by that logic. Which would mean, that they themselves can now be killed by that rule, since they failed to show their true belief, by not having already killed, since they have a blank record.
If we look at rule no. 2, we can clearly see that it is a death cult.
While we see that rule no. 1 is pro life. It's the religious superstructure/culture which puts itself under the principle of not to kill.
To have evidence that someone is a follower of rule no. 1, they have no death-record themselves.
I'll ad some more things in a comment to my comment, so they stay in right order.
Greetings to you so far.
A society in general relies on the criminal records of the people, but does not put certainty in what someone says he "believes" in. What you say you believe is not worth anything, if it is not attached to a record where you can check past facts (your number of criminal offenses). People who are familiar and know one another do not need to see such record, they know it by witnessing their daily lives.
Modern societies, in particular in the West, turned their rules upside down, and did and further do want to make the former exceptions the rules.
Right now, hypocrisy has grown to a frightening extend. And we are in the middle of people and politicians who pretend to be harmless, while at the same time seem to push towards a license to kill - change pro life laws into anti-life laws.
Not only, it seems, do they not want to see and admit that what they really are after, is rule no. 2, but also want it not to be named and seen as a wish to kill/harm without consequences. They wrap it into terms like "protect self actualisation". This is even more dishonest than those extremists who openly shout "Kill the unbelievers!" These former types of seemingly insane minds don't want to be seen as killers/harmers but as saviors and protectors. And they want force you to admit that they are.
We, the people who see us in the midst of those two insanities have the least criminal records, so you cannot punish us since our records are clean. We see that by eliminating free speech and make it a crime to speak out, that our clean records won't be clean anymore.
Also, from the other side we are being killed by ever higher numbers from extremists who shoot, stab, rape and kill us, who set our houses on fire, but are not being arrested and punished in equal terms, since the ones who are anti life, seem to be concentrated to criminalize their own people, while being blind to extremists, oddly enough.
First of all, it's a great delight to see you on my post @erh.germany. 🤗 Your contribution always gives me some flavoursome food for thought.
While I get your point on having a clear answer in Aye or Nay, on the basis of ground principles, I am wondeing how are we to unite everyone to have the same principle. Something that I decide to be right on the basis of my principle might be totally wrong according to the principle the other person holds.
Right. Killing is a wrong act according to the principle. However, I am thinking what would the principle be about being killed?
For instance, the principle says protect yourself and don't get killed. Now, when taking steps in my protection I kill the other person, should the act of killing be considered equally wrong? Or should fall somewhere on the lower side of wrongness continuum, if not considered right.
Everyone has justification for one's actions.
So far as the hypocrisy in the world is concerned. It is everywhere. Everyone is trying to protect their interests by implementing their own right and wrong.
Agreed 💯
Today's world is a place where there is ambiguity about principles. Nothing is clear, everything is clouded by ideaologies of feeling.
Putting the Divine guidelines aside, there is a total emphasis on feeling. If we observe we realize, the thing that we have given the status of god is our Feelings.
Things that one's regarded as delusions or psychopathologies are now being advocated as a right of individual. All based on the feeling. The time is not really far when there will be no issue in saying I feel like a zebra today, let me make a zebra. And a surgeon will be there to turn me into one.
Decisions, actions and judgements based on our feelings are inevitably going to bring devastation in the world.
Thank you once again for your contribution. 💖💖💖
Hello to you,
yeah, once in a while I check up on you, but not too often, in order to not make it so intense.
You said:
Live by this principles of yours, would be my answer. There is not much more you can do other than to be a role model for your family, your kids and other people near you. That in itself is already an achievement, people tend to forget that, with the media business we are all hypnotized by. Say "no" where the regulations and governmental decisions give you a chance.
Right now, we here in Germany can say "no" to the new electronic patient file system. But when people stay un-informed and only buy into the "everything new is great" attitude, we will end up with getting this as a habit (if a majority does not use their right to reject it). This happened with paying cashless and with the mobile phone here in my town for public transportation, and now the few left over folks not wanting it, are being forced by the habits of the rest of the population - where the young dominate over the old ones and rarely think of them and what modernity does to their daily lives in terms of how to navigate through life.
Being informed is difficult, since it is always a balancing act between fear mongering and real concerns or even real benefits when it comes to regulations. There is much to take care of in terms of "what do I think is needed for the style of my life/world-view"?
With principles I am meaning a religious foundation. For us Christians it's the ten commandments, for example. Being conservative, for that matter, is pro life, pro family, pro children, pro marriage. If governments give benefits on these things or motivates its people to live by those principles, it can be taken as a sane sign. Of course, if you are educated in these matters, you can spot a liar or hypocrite. If one is not religiously or ethically trained, you probably are gullible towards propaganda and such. You know what I mean.
True. It began many years ago, who knows how many. If you are clear yourself, you won't let you being bamboozled by the ambiguities of others. It's crucial to answer only with facts and not with feelings if you get into a debate.
do not put them aside. That is already where one loses ground. It is not that you have to preach them. Mostly, it is even better not to mention them but to think of them whenever one gets into a conflict or difficult situation. It'll give you the strength to say the right things in the right situation. To trust yourself and also trust others.
HaHa! Seems like that. It will regulate itself eventually. Question is, if we will witness a down regulation of this nonsense. Or if we have to live with it for the rest of our lives. I hope not, but who knows.
Correct. I call it making the exceptions from the (divine) rules the new rules. But it is a logical fallacy. You cannot make a principle out of the exception of a given principle. Try it out. It won't work.
"Do not lie."
However, there are exceptions where you do have to lie (you can easily deduce the reasons)
For example: you don't reveal someone's whereabouts because you fear that they will be wrongly imprisoned.
But the principle is: "don't lie."
There are exceptions. But it is not formulated according to its exceptions, because after all, it does not say:
"Lie because ... you want to protect someone."
What would be the exception to this formulation?
There would be no exception for protection, there are simply countless other exceptions that you can think of.
Make that mental experiment with other regulations of yours. You'll be delighted by the logic of the principles, I think, at least I was.
This (not so) new normal is mainly the result of the fact that we have allowed more and more exceptions to our principles over the years. This makes us weak and insecure.
‘Living your life the way you want’ is a hollow phrase. There is no such thing. Nobody can do that. And no one ever will be able to.
‘Make yourself independent as a woman.’ From whom? From my husband? Why? What do I exchange this intimate dependence for?
Read Rachel Wilsons Book. It is a shocking lecture and I would not know if it is something you might want to read. Make research on her youtube appearances. She is opting for emancipation but not in the postmodern way.
So far, have a good day. Greetings to you and your family
Hi @erh.germany
I am extremely sorry for being this much late to reply. Life has been ridiculously busy these days.
🥰🙃
Indeed, it is a great achievement. We never know how our positive impact on just one person may shape and effect the lives of many others. Inculcating principles of honesty, justice, kindness etc. in my children's personality is going to go a long way through their dealings in different realms of lives. They might become an ultimate source of bringing relief and joy to other people's whom they interact.
These days, social media has really hypnotized us. We have developed a mindset like if only we have many followers there, we cn be an influencer.
Democracy, unlikely to as it is portrayed, is not the best answer to every problem.
I got that. Religious foundation is the only thing that can provide us the most solid principles, I believe.
Nevertheless, we all know we are standing in a world where religiousity is distinguished from spirituality and people have principles on their own,without divine guidance.
Spot on 💯
🤷♀️
Thankfully, we are mortal.
I am just seeing more and more nonsense and confusions each passing day.
!LOLZ 🤣.
It is the only thing seem to work these days. And then there are fancy names for both the proponents and opponents of the idea.
I came across the term homophobes and I was like huuuuuuh! Now you cannot even oppose the homosexuality without being labelled as something.
What. An. Insanity.
I am sure, it is fascinating
True, indeed. Feelings are just a wave and so anything depending on them is superficial and hollow.
I can decide whether or not I wanted to read her only after reading 😅. Well, which book are you referring precisely?
Thanks for taking your precious time to come across and making a meaningful interaction
!LUV
!
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Hello to you,
No problem, the comment section is patient and we need not to hurry.
That is correct. In order to become this delightful source as future adults, the present children need a strict education and teaching of the traditional principles that are authentically practised by their parents. For this, they need both mother and father as well as those relatives/neighbors whom they watch live their lives and see these principles confirmed.
However, if kindergarten and school education do not follow suit, it will become difficult and children may position themselves against their parents and in favour of programmes initiated by the state and other forces that deviate from this.
That's what happened to me, my siblings and my parents. We came to our country as repatriates and my parents and other relatives were shocked by the godlessness of this new for them society.
Instead of listening to our parents, we children denigrated and mocked their faith as superstition, as backward-looking, as evil and what not, as teens and young adults. We allowed ourselves to be completely taken in by pop culture, the media, the permissiveness of lifestyles and the Germans' lack of Christian identity.
We thought that exceptions to the rules shaped by Christianity were entirely a good thing ('rights) and that getting married, having children, building something of our own was not so important and that we ‘still had enough time’ to consider it. But first have fun, earn money and then see. We arrived at a time when the German identity was already crumbling.
One shall not forget that Germany was defeated in WW II and that the influences of the victory forces were put upon our nation in total. We got the American occupation and culture, the Brits, the English language, the French rejection to everything German and the Russian occupation, dividing us in half.
Since then, we lost more and more of our German culture, traditions and history before the war and we are still sick to the core about our evil past of the German Reich and the Nazis. The grip of it, as it seems, never loosened. Today, it is even worse than back in the 80s and 90s.
What we were allowed to being proud of, was our German Wirtschaftswunder - boosting economy through rebuilding the country and wealth. Our folklores were steadily and gradually being commercialized, missing the deeper cultural links and their meanings. Instead, we became famous for Octoberfest and drinking and brewing beer. Things like that.
It is not the fault of the occupiers in person, though. I actually became friends with Brits and Americans, it was more like we guilt tripped ourselves so much that we remain in that trap. Being defeated by in principle Christian nations is not the worst, if religion stays intact, but since it's never that black and white, one has to take into account that losing can also mean to adopt an atheist world-view, to which I would more attribute the Russian influence, since they did not fraternize with us Germans in person-to-person friendly relations but quite the opposite (from a western Germans perspective). Though atheistic influences came also from the other occupiers and ourselves as well.
Having said that, the new young generations might as well opt for the opposite direction, since they themselves were not being raised Christian, they did not have staying together parents, they realize that a lifestyle without personal relationships long term, single mothers and all the other jazz, might be not such a good idea. They may realize, more than my generation, that times get more insecure, that reliance on government or work force alone may not be sustainable for them.
I myself try to repair my former mistakes and finding my place in the world, also to give my son orientation with the help of my now husband.
Rachel Wilsons book title is 'Occult Feminism: The Secret History of Women’s Liberation'.
Greetings to you @erh.germany . Hope you are doing well.
I was watching a Turkish season in which the last era of Ottomon empire was demonstrated. The political influencers behind the scenes discuss sbout the world to come. Their agenda is to spread atheism after world war too.
If we look back in the history, it is exactly what has happened. Science and religion are being presented as rivals (while in reality, they are not) and in order to be a factual and wise person people take pride on relying on scientific knowledge. It is a mindset that's been built over time.
While in the Western world aethism is spread to get people away from Divine principles, in Islamic society another route is taken. Enormous amount of confusion and strictness is created through sects that people have either become rigid and intolerant or they have deviated from the basic teachings and principles.
I agree that the atmosphere of schools and peers has a huge impact on the perceptions of an individual.
With time, people have started taking pride in going against the tradition as by doing this they consider themselves more wise and modern and open-minded.
So far as German's dark history is concerned, every nation's history has some darkness in it. Wasn't it was inhumane that was done to the American's original habitants? Didn’t Britishers do injustice and exploitation by colonisation? However, they are not regretful of what they did. They prove themselves justified.
Nevertheless, they have inflicted regretfulness and embarrassment in other nations, so that their victory retains.