| Don't you think it had to do with the fact that the internet grew so fast? I mean it is a mixing pot of the near immidiate brain streams of totally unrelated people — mostly in text form, mostly in the heat of the moment. I'd love to imagine a fruitful discourse that would happen in the reddit posts you quoted, with everybody arguing their points about society rationally and topic oriented without verbally hurting anybodies human dignity. But if it was like that, it would probably not be locked. Now it has been locked, and as I see it probably nothing of particular great value has been lost, no rare intellectual gems, no thoughtful debate or great discussion — on the other hand however a few people had a nicer day because they didn't have to read stuff that attacks their human dignity. I am all for free speech. In a country where Nazi paroles are actually banned I am the one that would say talking to Nazis is not useless. What is useless however is to try establishing good discourse in the communicative equivalent of a gas station robbery: Everybody is screaming and all for different reasons. But over here in Europe we have a fundamental human right to our human dignity. If someone tells you you should die because of your religion, skin color or sexuality, this is a breach of someone elses rights. You have the right to speak freely, but you don't have the right to rob others of their dignity. If someone can't lead their discourse without robbing others of their dignity, maybe their voice is not one a free society should be willing to hear? |