Why Free Speech Loses in India
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Well, yes, the probability that you will get sued into oblivion because the system of laws doesn't offer free speech protections could be seen as "commercial reasons". The article states as much.
A private institution censoring its own is very different than an outside entity forcing censorship via threats of lawsuits.
(Remember that, despite what SA falsely claimed when making these threats, nothing posted on /r/jailbait and the like was actually illegal under US law, and that most of the pictures were in fact reposted from sites like Facebook where they were originally posted by the owner of the photo).
[0] http://www.policespecials.com/forum/index.php/topic/126893-s...
But the lawsuit here is private also though right? How do you separate an incorporated entity from a community? I don't know that this can be reasonably done.
"How do you separate an incorporated entity from a community?"
An incorporated entity is still a group of people and you shouldn't have to give up your speech rights to get liability protection. So, my answer is the same for a blog as a publisher. You either believe you were right or come to see you might have been wrong. If you believe you are right, but the lack of protection under the law allows others to crush you, then something is seriously wrong.
I think you're mixing the meaning of "private". A lawsuit is a part of the public law system.
And which of these is a local community? I would argue that the local community, generally has far less power over individuals than their employers and therefore such restrictions are likely to be far less intrusive.
For example, if you are a salaried employee and your employer fires you for speech you make on, say, a political cause that goes against your employer's interests, that's quite possible and if that's ok, that is far more threatening IMO to free speech generally than allowing lawsuits in court over defamation. If it is solely an employer's prerogative, then this means it is something that the wealthy upper classes can hold unilaterally over everyone else, without any political constraints.
You lost me. I have no idea what you're trying to get at or maybe I have no idea what you mean by "local community"?
The article says a book was published then a group of people used threats made possible by a broken law system to get the book censored.
Are we members of communities? Are states "outside entities" any more than employers are? Why or why not? Does it matter if there is a general sense of ownership over the state?
Let's put it another way: Suppose the State of Ohio issues a charter to the New Saigon Initiaitve (name pulled out of thin air) to set up an incorporated, not for profit municipality with full self-governance with all the powers the state can lawfully delegate. Let's say that the charter specifies that all residents shall have an equal share of ownership and an equal say in the running of New Saigon. Suppose New Saigon starts banning books. Suppose the penalty for possessing a banned book is $500 and abatement by destroying or sending the book away, or being exiled from the town (but given an opportunity to sell your residence at market prices).
1. How is this different from a city doing it?
2. How is this different from an employer doing it?
The New Saigon initiative would be deemed by courts to have sufficient nexus with State power such that they act as an extension of state themselves. Such institutions and charter aren't uncommon in US. Most school districts are governed usually by kind of law you outlined. Under settled law, public schools act as arm of government, thus have same restriction on them as any other governmental entity has.
And before you come up with more contrived example, one has to keep in mind that laws are enforced by judges, who can usually see past complicated structure to determine what would be extension of government and what would not be.
Here in Indonesia, for example, there's no civil marriage. A marriage is not legally valid unless it is also a religious marriage. Obviously that wouldn't be appropriate in the States, but I would be annoyed if Americans were to say that had to be changed.
This all matters a great deal because we are talking about cross-cultural critiques here and the argument over whether it is a problem that India doesn't draw the same lines as the US.
some_guy_there broke down your example better than I can.
Almost everyone self censors or society would be quite different. In fact, inability to self censor tends to get people in trouble or is seen as a sign of mental problems[1].
However, I cannot really say your wrong. I'm not sure about the meek or obedient, but I would go with stilted or excessively formal. Societies with massive self censorship are very scary.
I have noticed that societies with massive self censorship often have governments that enforce it with an iron fist. I'm not sure if there is a laid back government with a society into self censorship.
(sorry for the late response - driving 7 hours and I missed your post the first time)
1) played for effect in "Silver Lining Playbook"
Violations of free speech by private institutions should be a crime, just like labour violations are. It should only take an amendment, there is no fundamental irony.
Notice that the state infringes on private parties anyway - the most obvious example is when the state decides to take away children from families if there's harassment of the child at home. I am not debating whether this is right or wrong, but I am just pointing out that the state is not so hands-off as it is generally made out to be.
No court or executive or politician or big business intervened to stop Swamy from teaching at Harvard. Instead, its faculty voted [0] to remove his course after he wrote this hateful diatribe [1].
[0] http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/12/12/swamy-racism-di...
[1] https://janamejayan.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/how-to-wipe-out...
Edit: corrected minor typo
As a second book, The Hindus is pretty accessible if you're used to reading slightly technical books. Her style is good, and she's absorbed the Indian philosophical writing tradition of using far too many analogies :)
The article itself refers to such treatment by naming Edward Said, for example. But then swoops in with personal judgements, calling Rajiv Malhotra's essay as a right-wingist parody and trying to link everything with rise of business-friendly nationalist Modi.
This is to be expected. Economical rise of any non-western country has historically correlated with doom-and-gloom about it in articles in western media, whether it is liberal or conservative. Even now it is hard for me to read an article about China in The Economist. Just today I saw an article about Chinese government cracking down on sex-racket, and how it is fomenting unrest and civil disobedience among Chinese.
Um... I am Hindu. I don't practice folk Hinduism too much but Hinduism and it's history are one of my areas of interest. I really want to discuss with some others who have read this book and find out what exactly put them off. Have you?
The criticism comes from people who are taking the book seriously. :)
Why? Cause I doubt they would agree. To say unless you are X then you can't comment on X is foolish.
"Cause I doubt they would agree." That should tell the complexity of defining Hinduism and the amateurish level western 'Indologists' have achieved which they spread around, calling any criticism to their approach 'foolish'.
But on the other hand, the limits of free speech are ones that must be decided close to those affected. Brandenburg got off with calling for (and stating he wanted to be a part of!) genocide against African Americans at a KKK rally not because this speech contributed anything to the public discourse worth saving but because the US government had made a series of serious overreaches in prosecuting Communists. Since one couldn't draw a principled line between arguing for eventual genocide and arguing for eventual overthrow of the government, Brandenburg had to be set free.
In the end, I think, that communities have a right to make mistakes, and since free speech can't be unlimited (handing someone a gun and saying "I hope someone shoots so-and-so" isn't protected speech anywhere in the world), the peoples affected get to make this discussion.
One thing that bothers me though: there are a number of fields, like historical linguistics which are malaigned by some in India as colonial (and in fact historical Indo-European linguistics arose from the colonial experience historically) but are argued against as straw men (thinking that the Indo-European hypothesis means Europeans invading India, which it doesn't). I do have a concern that by moving towards a more insular culture in this regard, that it is harder and harder for Indian scholars to make their voices and perspectives heard internationally. It would be tragic if in the interest of protecting the Indian cultural experience, these sorts of things lead to the denial of an Indian perspective in these sorts of disciplines.
It's worth noting that not too long after that incident, there was a civil war...
It really would get more Americans engaged in politics.
* or worse - Read the Amazon reviews, specifically the ones by the author's fellow academics http://www.amazon.com/The-Hindus-An-Alternative-History/dp/1...
Don't let that distort your mental model of the country.