There seems to be a generational divide on this topic. A lot of younger people seem to be fine with restrictions on free speech, often under the guise of various progressive causes
I agree (as a person who didn't use to feel embarrassed to describe himself as a man of the left), though I think there was a similar move from class to identity politics during the same period.
Much of the moral decline of the left of the recent period can probably be traced to (white) middle class dominance through academia and social media, which has been scaled by the web and led by the young who dominate the demographic in both cases.
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/womens-tears-win-in-the-mar...
In short, women gained much more influence in academia and other positions, and they are significantly less supportive of free speech than men. The theory is that this resulted in a feminization of political discourse.
There is no society that could effectively support itself as well as the moral idealism that includes retroactively punishing people. Culture is far more brittle than purists believe it to be.
At this point it's pretty disingenuous to lay the blame entirely on the left, or the young.
And I also seem to remember news from a couple of years ago that scientists from state-funded institutions (I think this was also in Florida) weren't allowed to talk about climate change.
I think both of these are pretty serious restrictions of free speech.
Really, the larger ideal of free speech is about the desired orthogonality of distribution channels versus content, and general tolerance for things we dislike. We see the results of its diminishing the strongest where the first amendment to the US constitution doesn't legally apply due to these kinds of distinctions.
Second, does this "Florida issue" include provisions for parents of children that want their children to be able to access those books, to opt out of the restrictions in question? If not, then one can't say the topic is entirely limited to the traditional role of parents deciding what is right for their children. Rather it's also about about controlling what other people's children might read.
Ultimately, both topics are about filtering distribution channels, based on criteria the distribution channel managers deem appropriate - with free speech concerns hinging on how much those distribution channels end up affecting what gets perceived as the total market.
Yes, it does: they are perfectly free to buy or borrow those books themselves. The law is about what’s available in a public school.
I'm not making an argument about what level of opinionated curation is appropriate or justified. Rather it's just disingenuous to say something is censorship when the other team nominally supports it, but then throw out specific reasons why your team's favored censorship shouldn't actually be considered censorship. There are always legitimate sounding reasons for centralized distributors to police the content of speech, and it's also always censorship.
Sure, the right has also been up to its old tricks in tired corners (it dominated in previous times like the McCarthy era), but lets be realistic about who the modern problem is mainly with in the West or we won't solve it.
Not banning but altering would be one form of censorship, e.g., "Roald Dahl books rewritten to remove language deemed offensive":
* https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/18/roald-dahl-boo...
"Why I Decided to Update the Language in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Children’s Books":
* https://lithub.com/why-i-decided-to-update-the-language-in-u...
"D&D: WotC’s New Batch Of Errata Removes Racial Alignments, Retcons Drow":
* https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2021/12/dd-wotc-removes-raci...
To quote George Orwell's 1984: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." The past is being rewritten (as opposed to leaving the original language and simply putting a forward in explaining things).
The Dahl publishers have confirmed that they are only making changes to editions published for schools, and the original unedited books will still be published. Dahl himself authorized changes to his work to keep them marketable.
There's no evidence that the Le Guin books would have been kept from publication if those mild changes had not been made. It appears that we're only even hearing about it as a response to the Dahl controversy.
All together, this seems like piecemeal evidence of works being updated to satisfy contemporary mores, which is something that has been done continually for centuries, not a sign of a growing ideological trend.
Is that the same Dahl that said:
“I’ve warned my publishers that if they later on so much as change a single comma in one of my books, they will never see another word from me. Never! Ever!”
“When I am gone, if that happens, then I’ll wish mighty Thor knocks very hard on their heads with his Mjolnir. Or I will send along the ‘enormous crocodile’ to gobble them up.”
He was referring to his Norwegian roots and to his earlier story of “the greediest croc” in talking to Bacon, who apparently felt just as strongly about the subject, telling him: “There must be no changes to an artist’s original work when he is dead for any reason whatsoever.” Crossing himself in jest, Dahl replied: “I just hope to God that will never happen to any of my writings as I am lying comfortably in my Viking grave.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/25/roald-dahl-thr...
A decade before that quote, Dahl was convinced by the NAACP and others to revise the Oompa-Loompas to avoid the implications of their being "black pygmies".
No, the Dahl books should not have been banned from school either, because they did not contain harmful material. In any case, a content warning or contextual note would be preferable to rewriting them.
When a political system has two parties, this is exactly what one would expect.
The book ban proponents and book editors are likely a tiny fraction of the population.
However in a two party system, they are part of their party.
This is what you get.
https://unherd.com/2023/04/did-city-uni-censor-my-gender-res...
This one’s hilarious/tragic because the censored paper was researching censorship.
In the West the left has dominated restricting speech.
so yes, that's why I used the word "historically" and...
"(it dominated in previous times like the McCarthy era)"
...noted the dominance of the right in previous decades.
Like the famously left-wing CCP book burning:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_China#Mao_Z...
Authoritarians exists on the left as well:
* https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/psychologi...
That's the popular story, but I constantly see evidence that it's overwhelmingly coming from the right.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-antisocial-psych...
Enter the young people of today and their perception of the status quo is that it's built on these principles of individual freedom. As they evaluate the history of their forebears and find it lacking the way that every generation does, they can't help but see the shortcomings of the 20th century. Which means being critical of absolute free speech since that was the dominant motivation of much of the actions by people in Western nations.
To be more specific, older generations entered the 20th century with women not being allowed to vote, evolution not being taught in schools, and racism being coded in the law. They saw that those things existed because social institutions such as churches enforced conformity of thought. So it was progressive to insist on greater personal freedom. Young people today entered the 21st century with climate change, poor mental health, and systemic under-the-table racism. They see that those things exist because of short-sighted individualism. It's progressive now to insist on greater social awareness.
In other words, if kids today were taught "think globally, act locally". You could say that the previous generations grew up with "think locally, act globally".
I will give you far too much benefit of the doubt and assume that you are speaking from a privileged position of ignorance vs being willfully ignorant, or arguing in bad faith. I do not have the time, nor is it my responsibility to educate you on these matters, but here is a very easy place to start.
The second example is confusing. It is completely normal for credit and insurance companies to provide their services based on judgements of risk assessment. Crime rates can factor into that decision. What is supposed to be racist about that? By the way, the article also says "Redlining was prevalent in Canada from the 1930s to 1950s in Ontario, although the practice has since been virtually eradicated due to progressive reforms."
These are all forms of attack upon free speech and there have been instances of these in universities for the past decade.
It’s not a difficult concept.
I swear it’s the same people who couldn’t stand wearing a tiny cloth in front of their mouth because “mY FreEDOm”, endangering every other person. A little empathy goes a long way.
I swear it's the same people who think not using preferred pronouns is "literally genocide".
Similarly with forcing people to use preferred pronouns, I don't mind calling someone by their preferred name or pronoun in general, but courtesy has limits. Furthermore, imposing linguistic changes on other people is literally Orwellian.
If you spend part of your life in a certain identity, and you interact with people under that identity, and they know you that way, banning people from talking about you in that identity is discourteous to THEM. You are laying a claim on other people’s minds that you have no right to make.
It’s not just about names, it’s about policing memory and attempting to manufacture a personal brand through social coercion. It’s immoral.
I remember being a kid when a man named Bruce was on Wheaties boxes. Now some would say I am not permitted to discuss my own life in relation to that experience. Yes that is a curtailment of speech. (Not in a constitutional sense, though, since the government isn’t restricting it.)
That’s such a trivial, no effort courtesy on another human being’s part that I fail to see all this talk about it. Just.. fucking call people by the name they ask you to.
Also, no sane person would get angry at the occasional fuck up in naming them if your intentions are good.
Just be a decent person.
I am not talking about the fact that my sister converted to Hinduism and now, instead of Kristelle, she likes to be called Gauri. We call her Gauri to her face. But her siblings, when discussing events with her in our past, still refer to her as Kristelle amongst each other. That was her identity then. Doing this is not being a jerk.
https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/tonje-gjevjon-faces-up-to-3-ye...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/08/30/more-so-t...
To be fair, I had to check out a few polling websites to find a study that said anything except that the vast majority of Americans support free speech.
But, to be extra fair, most studies did not distinguish older versus younger Americans either.
It's also worth noting that the difference between adults and teenagers isn't enormous, but it is significant.
And this doesn't show changes over time. I'd say it's more meaningful if teenagers used to be more strongly in favor of free speech, and suddenly weren't. But, we don't know that from this article.
Here's a start for you:
Edit: I find it a little funny that all the examples at the top of this page ( godaddy, aunt jemima, urban outfitters and the like) are all still in operation, so I don't know how cancelled they got?
All these stories sure sound like customers deciding to bring their business elsewhere after public relations debacles. This is not free speech related - it's just the free market baby