Comment by Gormo

3 days ago

No, that's not quite correct. A lot of subcultures and echo-chamber type social contexts certainly do have extreme policing of extremely particular taboo subject matters, but in more general contexts, especially in American society, there's a strong expectation that people ought to be able to speak their mind without excessive interference, and there's usually a high bar to what constitutes subject matters taboo enough to restrict or exclude people for engaging with, along with social norms that often regard excessive policing of other people's expression as itself taboo.

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Gormo

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muddi900  3 days ago

No there isn't. You can't, rightfully, campaign to make rape legal for a day without your life being ruined through ostracization. I wouldn't want to be associated with such a person. And that is in public.

In private you have severe restrictions on speech and expressions. Workplaces, stores, and schools have codes of conduct, dress codes, etc. to restrict expression.

What you call "extremely taboo subjects" is relative, based on your own biases and beliefs. "Woman should be more active in public life" is not an "extreme" view, even in more conservative sections of society. But in Ultra-orthodox jewish communities, or isolationist muslim communities, or even many christian sects, this would be controversial statement.

If a member faces social consequences for these statements, it is not a violation of their right to free speech. Nobody is obligated to tolerate you, no matter how in the right you may be. You can't force society to be on your side.

You might say, "But these social norms are repressive and harmful." Well then change them through activism. Stop whining about "free speech violations". That is, again, ass backwards.

  • Gormo  2 days ago

    > No there isn't. You can't, rightfully, campaign to make rape legal for a day without your life being ruined through ostracization.

    You can't control what other opinions people will have of you, or suppress their expression of those opinions, that's true. But that itself is part and parcel of freedom of speech. The social consequences of expressing opinions that other people find offensive or disgusting are yours to bear, and may indeed motivate others to want to have little to do with you.

    But this is juxtaposed against an expectation of freedom of speech as a cultural norm -- the point above is precisely that the way this is expressed in other contexts is different from the way it's expressed with respect to the political state. So we do have an expectation that formal institutions will not engage in prior restraint, or punish people for speech itself within most (but not necessarily all) categories, etc.

    For example, people might find it reasonable that someone be dismissed from a job for making overtly racist comments in the office. But the same people would consider it inappropriate if, for example, an employee was fired for expressing that he does not like the boss's favorite movie.

    There are absolutely different boundaries and different weighing of consequences between how we apply the norm of freedom of speech to political vs. social situations, but to say that we do not adhere to freedom of speech as a cultural norm at all is quite incorrect.