We
talked about freedom of thought and freedom of expression and the implications
behind those two ideas. During that discussion, I couldn’t help but think of a Kurt
Vonnegut story that I had read in high school and promptly forgotten. I looked
it up when I got home and it’s titled Harrison Bergeron and I think it played
well into our discussion. Here’s a link to it. Harrison Bergeron. There are some other ideas Vonnegut plays with but I think the theme is the same. So I have some questions that we
sort of talked about and wanted to hear what other’s had to think about it.
Much
like the concept of freedom of speech, freedom of thought means that even “morally
bankrupt” ideas and philosophies are allowed, ranging wildly from pedophilia to
extremism. No one, for better or for worse, can stop you from thinking whatever
is on your mind. In some cases, this has led to awful and repulsive
consequences. As a society we’ve progressed and collectively accepted that this
is in fact bad and that these thoughts are not normal or healthy and should
never be thought. And I think we can all agree (this is a very, very presumptuous
statement but for the sake of argument I’ll keep it) that this is good, that
these thoughts of pedophilia or Neo-Nazism should be eradicated. But how do we
control that? How do we ensure that these thoughts are never thought by another
person again? Is it truly freedom of thought?
This
is where I hesitate and think of Harrison Bergeron. Who should enforce such a
concept? How far are we willing to go to stop such ideas? When the technology
arrives should we go through with it? What are your thoughts?
Josh, I think Harrison Bergeron is an interesting work to supplement your comments and I am intrigued by the thought of how it would play into freedom of thought. Surely the society in the story have some degree of freedom but not all have it equal. This inequality of freedom is ironic due to the purpose of the handicaps. Are the more skilled individuals more limited in freedom of thought, or freedom of expression in this situation?
ReplyDeleteI would probably say both. I think you could argue that expression is derived from thought, which would suggest that with little freedom of thought, there'd be little freedom of expression. In that society, they're getting zapped when they think too hard or think "wrongly" and either shut up or change what they were going to say. When Harrison breaks his handicaps, he is no longer being censored and expresses himself freely. So, in essence, both I think.
DeleteThis piece does emphasize the inequality of freedom, which is a great phrase, through the use of handicaps. I mean they really are putting everyone on a level playing field in terms of intelligence but through censorship. This brings me to a similar thought I had in the post is who’s in charge of the censorship or really who decides what’s equal. I appreciate your insight!
You present a really interesting idea here -- that the tradeoff for us having freedom of thought and expression is that there should be no restrictions on what that thought or expression might be about. It's a scary thought, really, but one which I also think is valid. Because I think you are right; if we learned how to eradicate thoughts which we find repulsive and/or violent from someone's mind, who's to stop others from eradicating thoughts about personal freedoms or cultural beliefs which they deem contradictory of their own personal beliefs? I would hope that if a technology like the one you speak of were to arrive that we would choose not to go through with it for this reason, but I know that there are plenty of people within our own government and many other places who would jump at the opportunity to get rid of all dissension and have a more agreeable society.
ReplyDelete