It was a perfect touch to include Theodor Adorno offering his blockheaded views on popular music and then hear his own derivative and sterile "serious" music in the coda.
If you find it difficult to defend the free speech rights of someone you detest, I find it helps to frame it this way: “I hate this fucker and what he stands for and we shouldn’t make him a martyr by trying to silence him.”
Would the stakes be different if Bob Vylan said: "Death to every single soldier of Hamas as an agent of terror on behalf of Palestine"? (This is briefly mentioned in one of the responses to John Milbank.) What about *insert publicly perceived threat to "the West"*?
I fail to see how what Vylan is doing classifies as "incitement to kill" IDF soldiers. I haven't read much of the follow up. Have there been killings of IDF soldiers or those of Jewish heritage as a result of this chant? This interpretation is dense, but it is as dense of an interpretation as taking a "death to" chant to mean "go kill" in the same vein.
Which renders another point for me: the interpretation of an audience is critical to understanding what level "incitement" occurs on. I'm no legal expert, nor a free speech civil rights expert, but I'd imagine punishing someone for something they said is related to the effects of what they said, not simply just the fact that they said it.
Ultimately, you won't catch me shouting death to anyone in a public setting.
While neither of the John Milbank links went to any such place as him decrying Bob Vylan's performance and demanding retribution I am always happy when free speech bubbles to the top of the conversation.
None of this is that profound but here's what I think:
The real issue of free speech absolutism is one of organization. Compelling or curtailing speech from the top down is almost always the sign of a brittle group of humans. Still, there is always this loud backlash whenever a nazi or some other distasteful voice pops up. My favorite authoritarian argument is the idiotic 'you can say what you want but you have to accept the consequences' leftist logic. Wherein they deny speech freedom by appealing to some private right of the group to punish those they disagree with, (and only for their causes, none of God's causes).
The fact of the matter is that all of this high-level excitement really does nothing to save a society from bad ideas. You have to meet those ideas in a vocal majority that condemns them without butchering the messenger. Why? Well YOU might be the messenger someday! Humans all have bad ideas. The goal should be a society where good ideas really flourish and self-police at the grass roots. Anything else is authoritarian.
But what happens when bad ideas are the majority of speech and ultimately social thought? Well, you see the group decline, or thrive in wickedness (USA), but it's always a better place to live than one where thought police run amok (China/Russia/Iran).
It was a perfect touch to include Theodor Adorno offering his blockheaded views on popular music and then hear his own derivative and sterile "serious" music in the coda.
If you find it difficult to defend the free speech rights of someone you detest, I find it helps to frame it this way: “I hate this fucker and what he stands for and we shouldn’t make him a martyr by trying to silence him.”
Would the stakes be different if Bob Vylan said: "Death to every single soldier of Hamas as an agent of terror on behalf of Palestine"? (This is briefly mentioned in one of the responses to John Milbank.) What about *insert publicly perceived threat to "the West"*?
I fail to see how what Vylan is doing classifies as "incitement to kill" IDF soldiers. I haven't read much of the follow up. Have there been killings of IDF soldiers or those of Jewish heritage as a result of this chant? This interpretation is dense, but it is as dense of an interpretation as taking a "death to" chant to mean "go kill" in the same vein.
Which renders another point for me: the interpretation of an audience is critical to understanding what level "incitement" occurs on. I'm no legal expert, nor a free speech civil rights expert, but I'd imagine punishing someone for something they said is related to the effects of what they said, not simply just the fact that they said it.
Ultimately, you won't catch me shouting death to anyone in a public setting.
Even if you had killings following a speech incident (God forbid), proving causation seems nigh on impossible.
Everyone thinks of a Thomas Becket situation, but the example proves the point. The assassins were never punished, and Henry II certainly wasn't.
While neither of the John Milbank links went to any such place as him decrying Bob Vylan's performance and demanding retribution I am always happy when free speech bubbles to the top of the conversation.
None of this is that profound but here's what I think:
The real issue of free speech absolutism is one of organization. Compelling or curtailing speech from the top down is almost always the sign of a brittle group of humans. Still, there is always this loud backlash whenever a nazi or some other distasteful voice pops up. My favorite authoritarian argument is the idiotic 'you can say what you want but you have to accept the consequences' leftist logic. Wherein they deny speech freedom by appealing to some private right of the group to punish those they disagree with, (and only for their causes, none of God's causes).
The fact of the matter is that all of this high-level excitement really does nothing to save a society from bad ideas. You have to meet those ideas in a vocal majority that condemns them without butchering the messenger. Why? Well YOU might be the messenger someday! Humans all have bad ideas. The goal should be a society where good ideas really flourish and self-police at the grass roots. Anything else is authoritarian.
But what happens when bad ideas are the majority of speech and ultimately social thought? Well, you see the group decline, or thrive in wickedness (USA), but it's always a better place to live than one where thought police run amok (China/Russia/Iran).