Sunday, February 6

A Nation Divided Cannot Stand...

 A nation with different speech restrictions for different groups is inherently unstable.  Let's be clear, vulgarities are vulgarities, no matter who utters them.  If it's wrong for one, it's wrong for all.

In America, we err on the side of free speech.  The offended can vote with their feet and their dollars.  The overly offensive will naturally be cancelled and exiled from the marketplace of the pure.  In other markets, the value of the speech will differ, depending on context.

An algorithm can't assign value or determine worth of the words.

We have to do the analysis, each of us, and determine how we judge the actor and the speech used in an individual context.  Stifling legitimate observations cripples society. 

We have to think for ourselves, and determine if the words should be shunned.   Do the analysis.  Not just for racial and sexist vulgarities, but religious blasphemies and ideas too early to advance in polite society too.  

Values change with time.

Maybe what a big media player like Joe Rogan has just done is to make us stand up to the hypocrisies we have been playing under that tells us it is the language that is causing the racial problems in our society, and things would be better if only certain people dare not utter certain words.  I don't think it's that easy a fix myself. And different permissions for different people is as impossible as never letting the word bitch slip from the lips of a person born male.  Not gonna happen in the real world. Pretending it will is part of the problem.

"I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. "