> The reason why freedom of speech is important, is because we want ideas that are counter to mainstream narratives to be able to set root in society.
We want ideas that have value to take root in society, irregardless of their relationship to the mainstream. Not all ideas that are counter to mainstream narratives have positive societal value, nor do all ideas have equivalent value to all others. Alchemy does not have equivalent value to chemistry. The belief that the earth is flat is not equivalent to the belief that it is round, even if neither is perfectly accurate. The Nazis were certainly outside the mainstream, but were also wrong, and evil, and and having their ideas take root again now that they're no longer mainstream is never going to be a good idea.
Marjorie Taylor Greene (to pick an extreme topical example) has the right to believe in QAnon and Jewish space lasers, but everyone else has the right to call out her racist paranoid BS, and one force of speech must inevitably consequence the other. Freedom of speech that doesn't allow the freedom to discern quality of speech isn't really freedom, that's just having society act as a dumb terminal for whatever noise comes its way.
If society can not out-argue "The Nazis" in open debate, then what is going on?
If an idea is bad, the worst one can do is just try to censor it completely, that if anything let's people know that one is afraid of their ideas. Such things come back to bit oneself. (Using the term "one" here rather than "you" to avoid sounding accusatory)
Allowing others to discern the quality of speech is ofcourse part of the whole deal. The border being crossed here goes somewhere along the lines of the current cancel-culture trajectory.
> If society can not out-argue "The Nazis" in open debate, then what is going on?
What's going on is that the world isn't a debate club and the Nazis aren't interested in playing by the rules of the fair fight you want to give them:
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity
of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to
challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary
who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words.
The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with
discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness
of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they
seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.
If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily
indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre
By trying to engage dishonest people in honest debate, you're only making a fool of yourself. Why? Because the playing field isn't level. Radicalization is much easier than deprogramming, and lies spread much more quickly than truth, because most human beings aren't swayed by logic and reason, but by emotion, ego and self-interest. There aren't enough of the rest to matter.
Take QAnon for example. That went from a meme on 4chan to a political cult powerful enough to affect national politics and fuel an attempted insurrection. Do you think no one has ever tried to explain the error of these people's ways to them? Did the years of having them "exposed to sunlight" on all social media platforms do anything but increase their spread and their toxicity?
Anti-vaxxers have been freely spreading their beliefs online for years. Has any of the debate or criticism actually stopped the movement, or even slowed it down?
Can you even name one example where a violent political movement or conspiracy theory was stopped through nothing but polite debate?
>If an idea is bad, the worst one can do is just try to censor it completely, that if anything let's people know that one is afraid of their ideas.
The implication is that people will believe one is afraid of their ideas because they might be true. There may be some people who think that way, but most people don't. And honestly, I was fine with these people being quarantined on Parler and Gab, and if they had been able to simply discuss their views without using their platform to put them into practice they would still be there. But speech doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists in a context and Nazis intend to put their ideas into practice. Trump supporters and QAnons planned to "stop the steal" by kidnapping and killing elected officials. Anti-vaxxers plan to undermine America's vaccination attempts and destroy herd immunity.
So yes, I'd rather try to at least slow down their ability to recruit and radicalize people by not giving them carte blanche on the biggest social and political power multiplying platforms humanity has ever created. If that means some fools suddenly think anti-semitism and crystal healing are hip because they're forbidden, let them stay on /pol/ and make stupid memes.
>Such things come back to bit oneself. (Using the term "one" here rather than "you" to avoid sounding accusatory)
Such things bite even harder when left alone to gather strength in numbers.
>Allowing others to discern the quality of speech is ofcourse part of the whole deal. The border being crossed here goes somewhere along the lines of the current cancel-culture trajectory.
The people with a vested interest in spreading hatred and fear of "the left" have gone so far off the deep end with hyperbole and scare-mongering about "cancel culture" that they've rendered the term as meaningless as "socialist" and "SJW."
But, of all the arguments you could make against cancel culture, it getting used against Nazis, violent seditionists and cranks isn't the most convincing.
Well I suppose as long as you're on the good side of history it's ok to apply censorship to people who are on the bad side of history. Isn't that what the argumentation you put forth boils down to? I mean sure, ethically, if you know that bad things will happen if you allow free speech, then you are ethically obliged to not allow it. Not a very complex situation ethically.
But what happens when you are wrong about the bad things that would happen if you allowed free speech. Being right in some cases does not mean being right in all cases. And as far as I can see, it is not a clear cut ethical situation in that regard.
There is a clear line-drawing problem. Is all nationalism equal to nazism? Is all vaccine-skepticism anti-vaxx?
I totally agree that debate almost never actually changes the views of the one you are arguing with, iirc, there are studies that show the opposite is more common. (that they become more firm in their views) However, debates are seldom held in private, onlookers are far more likely to be subject to positive influence if they do not have a horse in that race. And I do believe that if debates are allowed, the majority of debates will be won by the positive influence, meaning the positive influence will be the dominant one in society.
And regarding the escalation of violence that "Trump supporters and QAnons" have been part of, what came first, the violence or the censorship? I believe that censorship often leads to violence, because what alternate conflict resolution channels do you leave available when debate is stifled?
We want ideas that have value to take root in society, irregardless of their relationship to the mainstream. Not all ideas that are counter to mainstream narratives have positive societal value, nor do all ideas have equivalent value to all others. Alchemy does not have equivalent value to chemistry. The belief that the earth is flat is not equivalent to the belief that it is round, even if neither is perfectly accurate. The Nazis were certainly outside the mainstream, but were also wrong, and evil, and and having their ideas take root again now that they're no longer mainstream is never going to be a good idea.
Marjorie Taylor Greene (to pick an extreme topical example) has the right to believe in QAnon and Jewish space lasers, but everyone else has the right to call out her racist paranoid BS, and one force of speech must inevitably consequence the other. Freedom of speech that doesn't allow the freedom to discern quality of speech isn't really freedom, that's just having society act as a dumb terminal for whatever noise comes its way.