رد: Re: [Reader-list] The Slimes of =?ISO-8859-6?Q?=20India's=20Patna=20edition=20reprints, =20Danish=20carto?= on

[Lena Jayyusi]

The problem with this, of course, is that it treats 'speech' merely as 'words' that 'express' opinions. The performative dimension of speech (which the ordinary language philosphers did so much to elucidate) is entirely missed. And if so, then we have a problem understanding 'courses of action' in the  world, where speech acts (talk and consequence; utterance and performance) produce constellations of events with real consequences for others over time .

What do we say of speech that creates an atmosphere for war 
against others, for example? 

If I may so say, Koens original posting strikes me as contradictory in this respect (as in several other respects also): did it not object to 'muslim extremists' expressing their opinion on the list?  


Lena Jayyusi




>>> Koen Martens <gmc at sonologic.nl> 02/10/06 11:40 ص >>>
Yazad Jal wrote:
> Koen makes interesting points which need to be examined carefully. I
> applaud your forthrightness!
> 
> Just a thought: how "free" is free speech if we're to be careful of
> people's "sentiments"?

I've been pondering on this a while now. A lot of people i talk with
about this seem to have the opinion that free speech ends where you
hurt someone or don't respect someone. If this is the argument,
there is no speech at all, because i think about anything one can
say will hurt someone.

Others suggest setting forth some guidelines about what can and
can't be said. This reeks of censorship to me, even if it isn't the
government setting up the guidelines/list.

Also, making some things unspeakable is not healthy I think. For the
individual, suppressing certain things will lead to psychological
problems (eg. if one is quiting with smoking, supressing the thought
of smoking will only make it more difficult). I strongly believe
this scales to society too, if a society wishes to supress certain
'memes', the result will be unhealty.

Koen

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