IN VERBAL REBUTTAL INSTEAD OF RETALIATION BY THE SWORD

Assertion : A world where free speech is being increasingly curtailed can scarcely be deemed democratic. It is an illiberal world we are being drawn into where every democratic mode is beng used to subvert democracy. We are going down as a civilisation and are being pushed back to medieval times when the sword of the One God ruled.

Objection : But free speech must have a positive intent and must not denigrate someone else.

Rebuttal :

IN VERBAL REBUTTAL INSTEAD OF RETALIATION BY THE SWORD

But to offend is part of free speech. People should be mature enough to rebut speech with speech instead of resorting to violence. There is no way to determine what may be offensive to some and what may not be. That being so, free speech must be completely safeguarded to allow critical thinking to go on unimpeded. Else, totalitarian diktat will rule the world and cultural censorship will lead to the advance of regressive ideology whose freedom, however, to offend all else is being guaranteed in a world of tolerated intolerance. The only way ahead is to counter word with word and not with the sword of unreason. And there is no absolute standard to judge the 'positive intent' of a discourse in a world of relative and varied values. Hence, allowance is the best way ahead. Legalised protection such as the anti-defamation law may be fine for the preservation of personal rights but to nip rational arguments in the bud by dubbing a set of anti-ideology arguments as being offensive to the easily hurt mentality of a vast body of indoctrinated to indiscretion believers is unacceptable as it is anti-progress.

Science has had to wade through a lot of Christian persecution to arrive at where it is today. Has such offenses made by it against Christian orthodoxy been the reason for banning them, human civilisation would have persisted in the Dark Ages. The Renaissance and the European Enlightenment had to wade through a deluge of blood to settle western civilisation along the progressive rational mode in so far as its secular fabric is concerned. By continuous so-called offence against religious dogma science had to make its way forward. It was deemed negative intent then by Christian orthodoxy but the pressure of the awakened masses led by seminal leaders altered understanding about it in the long run. So, one may conclude that to offend is necessary when it comes to regressive ideas and such offence is more often than not a boon for human progress. Democracy deems free speech inclusive of the right to offend indispensable and such freedom infringed upon by legislation will take human society centuries backwards as theocratic countries even today so amply demonstrate.

Written by Sugata Bose