Is political discourse even desired?
Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:48 pm
(split from Trump thread)
Complete freedom, being it for speech or anything else, needs as well some ability, some talent to make use of. For many people it would mean getting some overdose of opportunity to cultivate meaninglessness, insults, nihilism or just any depraved form of entertainment or even the lust to destroy, to self-end. In those cases it seems very good to have limited free time, well defined borders and restrictions on free speech. It's like the analogy of gardening: all civilized discourse or civic activity needs some strict maintenance, guides, weeding out and planning. But not that much that it would kill, freeze or discourage the most valuable and often unpredictable, most beautiful surprises. It should be obvious that this is a very difficult balance to strike. Mistakes should be allowed for. Formulas are bound to fail, perhaps in some cases some repression fosters more than freedom!
It seems quite clear to me that the current age looks like one that is struggling with liberating itself from older, increasingly impossible, bankrupt and ghostly ideas which lost most, if not all deeper meaning, apart for those who believe they still contain that by pure force of will and need. It's struggling as well with getting a grip on the requirements of a viable future, one that is not "free" since without proper context or restrictions such freedom could very well become the most destructive, nihilist force, to the same degree as it contains possibilities of creation with its radical recombinations and reorganizations.
Newer ideas arise on how to organize society, ethics and economics. And these are related, all tied together in the surreal political sphere. But it's unavoidable that this will introduce various new restrictions, new authorities and new bandwagons. Right now it's somewhat of a melting pot of ideas but in the end people will increasingly demand some more structure, some set of laws to create the safety and vision that is being craved by this particular structure which we call "human mind". As mind does not function without it -- on this the whole field of psychology can agree in case experience would not suffice.
Or as alternative we'd have the complete disappearance of the human concept of mind, for example by neurological advances, like when the human-machine barrier would be broken. At that stage, we cannot speak anymore of "mind" in any classical sense -- as surface activity between the body and the social -- and as such even the possibilities of reason and morality might radically shift. But while that's really still science fiction, one cannot not exclude this looking at the various emerging technologies. It's important to keep this in mind though when speculating about any "future" -- as if we'd have the means to comprehend all future situations while we might not have at all: mankind defined as transition between two eternities.
So what fosters rational discourse exactly in the public area? Some degree of freedom, space, opportunity? Some emptiness perhaps as "creative space" to foster reason or more like providing work for the devil (as in: idle hands)?jupiviv wrote:But it's not rational to value freedom of speech more than, or even as much as, rationality (...) So the goal should be free speech as one of the ways in which *rational* discourse is fostered, not just discourse in general and unqualified by any standards of truth, decorum or morality.Kevin Solway wrote:For me, the deciding factor is freedom of speech, but others may vary.
Complete freedom, being it for speech or anything else, needs as well some ability, some talent to make use of. For many people it would mean getting some overdose of opportunity to cultivate meaninglessness, insults, nihilism or just any depraved form of entertainment or even the lust to destroy, to self-end. In those cases it seems very good to have limited free time, well defined borders and restrictions on free speech. It's like the analogy of gardening: all civilized discourse or civic activity needs some strict maintenance, guides, weeding out and planning. But not that much that it would kill, freeze or discourage the most valuable and often unpredictable, most beautiful surprises. It should be obvious that this is a very difficult balance to strike. Mistakes should be allowed for. Formulas are bound to fail, perhaps in some cases some repression fosters more than freedom!
It seems quite clear to me that the current age looks like one that is struggling with liberating itself from older, increasingly impossible, bankrupt and ghostly ideas which lost most, if not all deeper meaning, apart for those who believe they still contain that by pure force of will and need. It's struggling as well with getting a grip on the requirements of a viable future, one that is not "free" since without proper context or restrictions such freedom could very well become the most destructive, nihilist force, to the same degree as it contains possibilities of creation with its radical recombinations and reorganizations.
Newer ideas arise on how to organize society, ethics and economics. And these are related, all tied together in the surreal political sphere. But it's unavoidable that this will introduce various new restrictions, new authorities and new bandwagons. Right now it's somewhat of a melting pot of ideas but in the end people will increasingly demand some more structure, some set of laws to create the safety and vision that is being craved by this particular structure which we call "human mind". As mind does not function without it -- on this the whole field of psychology can agree in case experience would not suffice.
Or as alternative we'd have the complete disappearance of the human concept of mind, for example by neurological advances, like when the human-machine barrier would be broken. At that stage, we cannot speak anymore of "mind" in any classical sense -- as surface activity between the body and the social -- and as such even the possibilities of reason and morality might radically shift. But while that's really still science fiction, one cannot not exclude this looking at the various emerging technologies. It's important to keep this in mind though when speculating about any "future" -- as if we'd have the means to comprehend all future situations while we might not have at all: mankind defined as transition between two eternities.