A random tweet spotted in a crowd.
…liberalism is about individual liberty & free speech, not about authoritarian rules to protect sensibilities.
Classical liberalism is, but then that’s why classical liberalism by itself isn’t enough.
Or to put it another way, one thing I find increasingly repellent about some classical liberals is this disdain for other people’s “sensibilities” – this assumption that “sensibilities” is all they are, and that they’re kind of a joke. The tweeter checks most of the privilege boxes – male, pale, Anglo, straight, educated – so isn’t subject to the kind of social contempt that people who check fewer boxes may be.
Individual liberty and free speech are good, and so is equality.
It seems like it’s almost always people with those boxes checked who are sneering about “political correctness” and “sensibilities” or “dear muslima”… or shouting FHRITP.
Ophelia,
“Individual liberty and free speech are good, and so is equality.”
Yes, but under which circumstances and what parameters, i.e. where’s the ‘trade off ‘ between the two? How do we accommodate the sensibilities of individuals who consider people outside their particular religious group as inferiors?
I’d err on the side of liberalism.
BTW, I’m ” male, pale, Anglo, straight, educated”, a social democrat and almost, a septuagenarian, as well.
rjw1, #2
Easy. We don’t.
@3 Saad,
“Easy. We don’t.”
Agreed, although it’s no so easy in some circumstances.
How do we accommodate the sensibilities of individuals who consider people outside their particular religious group as inferiors?
A reasonable standard of when you regulate something is when it can be demonstrated to be harmful. That’s why my right to swing my fist ends at the point where it starts to look like it’s going to hit your face. Or my right to say horrible and hateful things to you ends at the point where I am harming your sleep, your mental well-being, triggering your PTSD, whatever. Unlike many libertarian types, I actually accept that my mocking someone’s religion may cause them stress or may harm their mental well-being; that’s why I generally don’t attack people’s faith proactively (if they wave it in my face, then I bite) I accept that dismissing someone’s beliefs may harm them a certain amount. It all ties to the amount of harm being done and how malicious it is. That’s how I can rank drawing a picture of mohammed as less harmful than verbally threatening someone’s life for blogging while female, for example. David Hume made some relevant points about this, regarding anger. If I draw a picture of mohammed and it pisses mohammed off, the bystander who takes offense has chosen to involve themself in the situation by taking offense. That’s always different from a situation in which someone is cornered and threatened so that they don’t have a choice of whether to be afraid or not. That’s the harm.
Tl;dr form: when “goods” compete, weigh “harms” In fact: start with harms, then move to goods once there are no harms. That’s “John Stuart Mill 101 for dummies.”
@5 Marcus Ranum,
“…that’s why I generally don’t attack people’s faith proactively (if they wave it in my face, then I bite) ”
Yes, agreed, I’m not a proselytising atheist, if someone is psychologically disposed towards religion there’s no point in debating the issue.
“A reasonable standard of when you regulate something is when it can be demonstrated to be harmful. That’s why my right to swing my fist ends at the point where it starts to look like it’s going to hit your face. Or my right to say horrible and hateful things to you ends at the point where I am harming your sleep, your mental well-being,’
Outside of the categories of physical harm, or intimidation, I’m not convinced that Mill’s ‘harm principle’, which was conceived in a relatively monocultural society, is generally applicable in a multicultural environment, some minority or other can often be offended when their beliefs are challenged or ridiculed. The definition “horrible and hateful things” often depends on an individual’s sub-culture, religious beliefs or mental state.