Free Speech versus Love

Hi hippies,

Disclaimer: This is NOT a gripe about this site, it's just an observation of the world in general.

Free Speech is good.

Hurting people is bad.

Do we agree so far?

So, how do we balance our right to free speech versus our ethical obligation to not hurt others unneccessarily? Does Free Speech not entail some kind of obligation to use it wisely, constructively, for good, rather than using it to spew filth and badness across the world? An obligation to think about the repercussions of what we say, be it starting a war or hurting one other individual's feelings?

I've seen a whole forum - a hippie place, Aussie-based - fall apart and descend into chaos because, basically, nobody gave a stuff about anybody else. Everyone was shouting and ridiculing everyone else's ideas, nobody was listening and saying 'hey, our ideas are similar. Let's talk.'

 

Both are equally important, but one should try and refrain from hurting ppl's feelings. It is all in HOW you say it. For instance you can say you don't agree with something, or say the same in a way that you put down the person and hurt that person's feelings in the process.

 

There's no obligation.
It's just what kind of person you are.
And how you want to get your message across.

Free speech is free of obligation.

 

i say that we can have a free speech but we should consider in how w must put our ideas in a shape that make it non offensive 4 each other , & when the other person express his ideas we must respect it & if u don't have a point 2 argue with him don't grap some personal sttuf about him & start 2 argue with him about it cuz it has nothing 2 do with the subject u r talking about .

u always have 2 admit if the other person has a point in what he say ..don't act very wise like u know everything in this world ..cuz no matter who u r there's still some things that u r not fully know about it

 

I assume your speaking of free speech that would assumably insult someone... Well in that case a person should wager weather the importance of what they have to say needing to be heard against the personal discomfort that the comment would create.
Common decency, its very rare these days.

 

Cvx, I think you just said exactly what I was trying to, using far fewer words!

If you can't get your point across without offending or hurting other people, you're not doing yourself - or whatever point you're making - any good at all.

So what if you ARE really nice about it, but the other person takes it the wrong way and still gets offended? There's a line, at which it becomes the other person's problem, but I don't think we can use that as an excuse to be horrid in the first place.

I'm glad to see there's some interesting views on this. So many places on the web (and in real life, sometimes) seem to be just people yelling at each other and not communicating.

Not sure if "love" was really the word I meant in the opening post, either. I meant in the 'live and let live' universal love sense, rather than in the personal between-two-people sense.