So, Salman Rushdie is an author who wrote some books that people found controversial. Essentially, he pissed off the muslims and some Islamic clerics issued a fatwa on him calling for his death. This happened decades ago, but he was recently hospitalized by a knife wielding man who tried to kill him in the name of his god.
You might wonder what this has to do with free speech, as we didn't take away his rights, some people called for his death and someone acted on it. Well, free speech, for me, is an ethos that goes well beyond simply first amendment protections. And as you guys know, I'm also very critical of private attempts to subvert free speech, through means such as "cancel culture". This is essentially islamic cancel culture.
When I left Christianity in 2012, I very quickly fell in with the atheist community, and was exposed to the ideology of "free thought", which is basically the idea that we should be free to think what we want, and no authority should be able to stop us. Before the postmodernists did cancel culture in the modern era, religious people basically invented the concept. In many societies around the world, criticizing god or religion is often considered a grave offense, with many people wanting to do mob justice against those who would dare criticize their religion or dare it to be fake. I've heard of stories in India in which people were forced to flee the country for exposing the science behind miracle statues doing seemingly miraculous things. And of course, apostasy in a lot of countries can carry a death sentence.
So, a major thing that made the atheist community what it was, was the concept of free thought. The idea that we should be able to say what we want and criticize what we want, and not be punished for it. So what if religious people get offended if we criticize religion, we shouldn't bow to religious authoritarians wanted to limit what we can and can't say. The atheist community was ruthless and drew no quarter. Muslims freak out when you draw Muhammad? Free thinkers would organize "draw muhammad day" in which everyone draws muhammad. By doing this, it destroys the image of sacredness religionists try to promote around their ideas. As it turns out, the idea of sacredness is often used as cover for discouraging criticism of ideas, forcing people to behave respectably and limit what they say to avoid offending people in order to avoid dealing with some uncomfortable truths. The moral of the story was supposed to be that we should be able to openly discuss and debate any idea, no idea should be held sacred, and that claims should be weighed by reason and evidence.
Which, brings me to the modern day, and cancel culture. Honestly, cancel culture has the same authoritarian vibes as actions by religious groups to limit criticism of religions. It places certain ideas on a pedestal and tries to keep the idea above all criticism, often censoring people who disagree with it or try to criticize it. I feel like postmodernists mean better in a sense. They want to make a better world, but trying to police people goes way too far. Often times post modernists try to shut down all criticism of ideas that are at times, very controversial, and censor and punish people who disagrees with them. Their way of winning the culture war is like that of the religious right. To try to shut down all dissent.
The atheist community learned long ago that freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry is paramount. Very rarely have I heard of atheists in the atheist community back in the day calling for censoring people. If anything, they tried to accommodate religious liberty. They would often recognize that trying to censor religion is a losing battle as it would just play into the religious right's persecution complex, so they chose their battles carefully. They would say 'you're free to do whatever you want in your own private life, but stop trying to force this stuff on government/society." And it would be convincing. The first amendment, with both a free exercise and establishment clause allows for freedom of speech in one's private life, but the establishment clause limits public involvement. So atheists would focus on secularizing the public square and keeping religion out of government, public schools, and public policy, while allowing individuals to worship or not worship god however they pleased. The ethos was very libertarian. You can do whatever you want, just don't force it on me. And that's the best way to do things I think. We should allow others the liberty of doing what they want with their lives, while not trying to force people to act or think a certain way.
Honestly, the SJW left and the religious right have a lot in common in this sense. They're zealous for their cause, and they believe in evangelically advancing their cause, and trying to punish people who oppose them. And I'm honestly just as opposed to SJWism as I am to organized religion at this point. That's not to say both spirituality and postmodernism can't offer interesting insights from time to time, but they should not be forcibly injected into the public square, while opposing ideas are also ejected out of it.
We should support freedom of speech, and evaluate claims on the reason and evidence, regardless of what they are. And honestly, I can tell you, if the left tried, it could win the battle for facts easily. One of the reasons I'm so hostile and dunk on the right so bad and claim they don't offer anything is because, well, they don't offer anything. They're an intellectually bankrupt movement based on fake news, pseudoscience, and mountains of lies and misinformation. And I think the left should call them on that. While they might not convince everyone (because not everyone is living in reality), they would be factually correct, and we should work from there on convincing people to voluntarily support those ideas, rather than punishing people who don't.
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