Aphorism #8: Free Speech Requires a Container
Beyond Putrefaction and the Algorithm
Free speech is like happiness.
It isn’t created merely by removing obstacles. This bias went unchecked in psychiatry and psychology for almost a century. Happiness, we’ve since discovered, isn’t the absence of misery — not a double negative.
It is positive.
We must take action to move towards a good life.
Free speech doesn’t happen in the absence of suppression. It requires an appropriate container. Your antisemitism might flow freely at a Neo-Nazi rally or a campus protest but it’s going to feel very uncomfortable having dinner with your Jewish girlfriend’s parents.
Not all voices heard in the wilderness should be trumpeted in the marketplace. But all voices deserve to be heard in the proper container. Maybe that’s a town hall, maybe that’s your therapist’s office. Unheard voices putrefy.
Between putrefaction and the algorithm, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
" Free speech implies that all voices feel they can be heard without censure (or censor). In the domain of social media, " This reply, reorienting my reply, seems to be about the differentiated, rational and reasoned thought based, self ( see Murray Bowen's concept ), not license or other psycho-cultural, conforming constraints to communicate . Where is the " ability " for open discourse sourced , the initiation in power and choice ? The container is just noise in this context , I think .
If you are saying that language and communication requires context to have meaning , then ithat relevance is beyond just speech