Podcasts about On Liberty

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill is an essay about individual freedom and its limits. Mill argues that people should be free to think, speak, and act as they wish, as long as they don't harm others. He believes this freedom leads to progress and happiness. Governments and society shouldn't control people's choices unless those choices hurt someone else. On Liberty is pertinent to contemporary debates about free speech, personal rights, and social control and so retains its relevance, perhaps more urgently than ever. Mill's work is key to a proper understanding of the balance between freedom and responsibility, in a world where the exercise of power and the use of new technologies threaten liberty around the world.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill is an essay about individual freedom and its limits. Mill argues that people should be free to think, speak, and act as they wish, as long as they don't harm others. He believes this freedom leads to progress and happiness. Governments and society shouldn't control people's choices unless those choices hurt someone else. On Liberty is pertinent to contemporary debates about free speech, personal rights, and social control and so retains its relevance, perhaps more urgently than ever. Mill's work is key to a proper understanding of the balance between freedom and responsibility, in a world where the exercise of power and the use of new technologies threaten liberty around the world.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill is an essay about individual freedom and its limits. Mill argues that people should be free to think, speak, and act as they wish, as long as they don't harm others. He believes this freedom leads to progress and happiness. Governments and society shouldn't control people's choices unless those choices hurt someone else. On Liberty is pertinent to contemporary debates about free speech, personal rights, and social control and so retains its relevance, perhaps more urgently than ever. Mill's work is key to a proper understanding of the balance between freedom and responsibility, in a world where the exercise of power and the use of new technologies threaten liberty around the world.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill is an essay about individual freedom and its limits. Mill argues that people should be free to think, speak, and act as they wish, as long as they don't harm others. He believes this freedom leads to progress and happiness. Governments and society shouldn't control people's choices unless those choices hurt someone else. On Liberty is pertinent to contemporary debates about free speech, personal rights, and social control and so retains its relevance, perhaps more urgently than ever. Mill's work is key to a proper understanding of the balance between freedom and responsibility, in a world where the exercise of power and the use of new technologies threaten liberty around the world.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today's revolutionary idea is one with a long history, not all of it revolutionary: David talks to the historian Fara Dabhoiwala about the idea of free speech. When did free speech first get articulated as a fundamental right? How has that right been used and abused, from the eighteenth century to the present? And what changed in the history of the idea of free speech with the publication of J. S. Mill's On Liberty in 1859? Fara Dabhoiwala's What Is Free Speech? is available now https://bit.ly/4jgcvDt Next time: Marx and the Paris Commune w/Bruno Leipold Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Misinformation, fake news, hate speech, satire, the arts, political protest. These are all examples of what you might call disruptive speech. A free speech absolutist would say that all of these forms of speech should be tolerated, if not welcomed. On the other hand, it does look as though some of them are disruptive in a good way, and others are disruptive in a bad way. But can we tell the good from the bad in a way that isn't just politically partisan? Carl Fox, Lecturer in Applied Ethics at the IDEA Centre, thinks we can, and that we should treat different forms of disruptive speech differently. Here is Carl's paper on the subject in the Journal of Social Philosophy.Carl co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Media Ethics with fellow Ethics Untangled alumnus Joe Saunders, which contains a chapter by Carl on satire and stability. For further reading, there's Amy Olberding's book on manners and civility.In the interview, Carl mentions a paper on lying by Don Fallis. That's here:Fallis, D. 2009. “What Is Lying?” Journal of Philosophy 106(1): 29–56. And then there's the classic text on freedom and its limits, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty: Mill, J. S. 1974. On Liberty. London: Penguin.Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangledBluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetlLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

Unde se termină libertatea mea și unde începe libertatea celuilalt? Mill introduce 'principiul vătămării' care este atât de cunoscut în filosofia politică încât a devenit clișeu pe care îl spun toți suporterii înaintea meciurilor amicale sau din preliminarii: poți face ce vrei tu câtă vreme nu mă rănești pe mine. Sună bine, dar care sunt problemele acestui principiu? Octăvelu Capul Chelu' explică. "Despre libertate" (On Liberty) de John Stuart Mill este o lucrare fundamentală a liberalismului clasic, publicată în 1859. Mill susține că libertatea individuală trebuie protejată de stat și de presiunea socială, atâta timp cât acțiunile unei persoane nu dăunează altora (principiul vătămării). Unul dintre aspectele centrale este libertatea de gândire și exprimare. Mill argumentează că toate opiniile, indiferent cât de controversate, trebuie să fie libere pentru a permite progresul și confruntarea ideilor. Cenzura limitează descoperirea adevărului și dezvoltarea intelectuală. Un alt punct cheie este pericolul „tiraniei majorității”, adică impunerea de către societate a normelor dominante asupra indivizilor. Mill avertizează că nu doar guvernul poate restricționa libertatea, ci și opinia publică. Societatea nu ar trebui să impună un mod unic de viață dacă acesta nu afectează direct alte persoane. Mill respinge intervenția statului în aspecte private precum obiceiurile personale, moralitatea sau stilul de viață. Totuși, guvernul are rolul de a proteja cetățenii de violență, fraudă și exploatare. Educația și accesul la informație sunt esențiale pentru ca oamenii să ia decizii raționale. Lucrarea a influențat profund gândirea modernă despre drepturile omului, democrație și libertatea de exprimare, fiind o referință importantă pentru sistemele politice liberale de azi.☞ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/octavpopa ☞ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/podcastuldefilosofie☞ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastuldefilosofie☞ Spotify, Apple: https://podcastfilosofie.buzzsprout.comSupport the showhttps://www.patreon.com/octavpopahttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC91fciphdkZyUquL3M5BiA

Die heutige Episode hat wieder viel Spaß gemacht. Zu Gast ist Prof. Christoph Kletzer. Ich bin auf ihn gestoßen über einen Artikel in der Presse mit dem Titel »Der humpelnde Staat« — und das soll auch der Titel dieser Episode sein. Prof. Christoph Kletzer ist Professor am King's College London und eine profilierte Stimme in politischen Debatten. »Eine seltsame Krankheit hat unsere europäische Staatsordnung befallen: Sie interessiert sich immer stärker für die kleinsten Details unseres Lebens, wird immer einfallsreicher bei der Tiefenregulierung des Alltags, lässt uns aber mit unseren brennendsten Nöten allein.« Wir beginnen mit der Frage nach den immer stärker werdenden staatlichen Eingriffen. Welche Beispiele kann man dafür nennen? »Im Grunde haben wir alle so kleine Sandboxen, in denen wir spielen dürfen« Und dennoch verlieren viele der westlichen Staaten zunehmend die Fähigkeiten, ihre Kernaufgaben zu erfüllen.  Erleben wir in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten einen zunehmenden Illiberalismus? Das Ganze scheint gepaart zu sein mit einer wachsenden Moralisierung aller möglichen Lebensbereiche. »Die Unfähigkeit im Großen wird durch aggressiven Kleingeist kompensiert.« Was ist die Rolle der einzelnen Akteure und des Systems? »Die Funktion des Systems ist das, was es tut« — »The purpose of a system is what it does«, Stafford Beer Woher kommt dieses Verrutschen des staatlichen Fokus? »Machtlosigkeit im Inneren wird mit technokratischem Verwaltungsstaatshandeln kompensiert. Das ist zum Teil in die DNA der Europäischen Union eingeschrieben.«  Sie wird als Neo-Funktionalismus bezeichnet. Was bedeutet dies? Wurden wir in eine politische Einheit geschummelt? Wer hat eigentlich welche Kompetenz und wer trägt für welche Entscheidungen konkret Verantwortung? »Das wirkt mir eher nach FIFA als nach einem demokratischen System.« Oder wie der Komplexitätsforscher Peter Kruse es ausgedrückt hat: »In einem Krabbenkorb herrscht immer eine Mordsdynamik, aber bei genauerem Hinsehen stellt man fest, dass eigentlich nichts richtig vorwärtsgeht.« Wie kann man komplexe Systeme strukturieren oder Ordnung in komplexe Systeme bringen? Gibt es einen verfassungsrechtlichen Geburtsfehler in der EU? Kann man diesen noch beheben? Wird das Problem überhaupt diskutiert? Welche Rolle spielen Preise in der Selbstorganisation komplexer Wirtschaften? Kann Innovation als Arbitrage betrachtet werden? Wie viel kann bei einer komplexen Einheit wie der EU zentral gesteuert werden und wie viel muss sich durch selbstorganisierende Phänomene gestalten lassen? Sollten wir bei Kernaufgaben (was sind diese?) zentralistischer handeln und mehr Staat haben, aber beim Rest viel weniger Staat zulassen? Was können wir von der Situation in Argentinien und Javier Milei lernen? Warum sind Preiskontrollen fast immer eine verheerende Idee? Gleiten Top-Down organisierte, etatistische Systeme immer in Totalitarismus ab? Was sind Interventionsspiralen, wie entstehen sie und wie kann man sie vermeiden? Erleben wir eine Auflösung der regelbasierten globalen Ordnung und wie ist das zu bewerten, vor allem auch aus europäischer Perspektive? Werden wir vom Aufschwung, der aus Nationen wie den USA oder Argentinien kommt, überrollt; haben wir mit unserer Trägheit hier überhaupt noch eine Chance, mitzukommen? Gibt es eine »Angst vor Groß« in Europa? Dafür aber dominieren Sendungsbewusstsein und Hochmut? Wie spielt diese Angst zusammen mit einer der aktuell größten technologischen Veränderungen, der künstlichen Intelligenz? Haben wir es im politischen und bürokratischen Systemen mit einer Destillation der Inkompetenz zu tun? Oder liegt das Problem eher bei einer Politisierung der Justiz? »Die künftige Konfliktlage ist zwischen Justiz und Parlament.« Wer regiert eigentlich unsere Nationen? Politik oder »Deep State«? War der »Marsch durch die Institutionen« erfolgreich und hat unsere Nationen nachhaltig beschädigt? Wer hat eigentlich den Anreiz, in die öffentliche Verwaltung zu gehen? Braucht es die überschießende Rhetorik von Milei, um überhaupt eine Chance zu haben, den Stillstand zu beenden? »By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers.«, John Stuart Mill Erleben wir eine Umkehrung der hart erkämpften Werte der Aktivisten des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts? Ist der Schutz von Politikern wichtiger als die freie Meinungsäußerung? Wo sind wir hingeraten? Was bedeutet Liberalismus überhaupt und wie hat sich der Begriff verändert? Wie setzt sich der liberale Staat gegen seine Feinde zur Wehr? Aber wer entscheidet, wer der Feind ist Wie weit kann der Staat »neutral« bleiben, wie weit muss er Werte haben? Von der Wiege bis zur Bahre, vom Staat bevormundet? Ist das dann zu viel? Oder wollen das viele wirklich? »Die Schwierigkeit der Menschen, erwachsen zu werden, ist auch ein Wohlstandsphänomen. Der Wohlstand, den wir haben, führt auch zum ewigen Kind.« Aber dazu kommt noch eine weitere Dimension: »Auch die Hypermoral ist ja eine infantile Geschichte.« Woher kommen eigentlich die großen Veränderungen im späten 20. und 21. Jahrhundert? »Die neue Revolution ist nicht ausgegangen von der Arbeiterschaft, sondern von der administrativen Elite«, James Burnham Schafft der administrative Staat immer neue Situationen, die immer neue Eingriffe notwendig machen und die eigene Macht verstärken? Werden also immer neue paternalistische Strukturen notwendig, um die Probleme zu »lösen«, die selbst zuvor verursacht wurden? Und diese Problemlösung erzeugt wieder neue Probleme, die … Ist das Lösen der Probleme im Sinne der Machtstruktur gar nicht wünschenswert? Trifft dies nicht nur auf politische, sondern auch auf andere Organisationsstrukturen zu?  Was ist die »eisige Nacht der polaren Kälte« nach Max Weber? Kann man eine Bürokratie der Debürokratisierung und damit eine Multiplikation des Problems vermeiden? Lässt sich dieses Dilemma rational, vernünftig lösen oder stecken wir hier in der Pathologie der Rationalität fest? Braucht es einen Clown, um den gordischen Knoten durchzuschlagen? Aber steckt in dieser Irrationalität nicht auch eine Gefahr? Welches unbekannte Know-how steckt — nach konservativer Logik — in den etablierten Strukturen? Stehen wir vor der Wahl einer tödlichen Verfettung oder einer gefährlichen Operation? Was wählen wir? Welches Hindernis stellt Statusdenken und Verhaften in Hierarchien dar? Signalisierung vor Bedeutung? Hilft das Denken von Foucault, um diese Problemlagen besser zu verstehen? »Academia has a tendency, when unchecked (from lack of skin in the game), to evolve into a ritualistic self-referential publishing game.«, Nassim Taleb Spielen wir in der Wissenschaft Cargo-Kult im 21. Jahrhundert?  »Wenn man nur die richtigen Wörter sagt [passend zum jeweiligen Kult], dann ist es schon wahr.«  Und der Cargo-Kult applaudiert. »Status können wir in Europa. Und Status ist per definitionem Abwendung von Realität.« Wie gehen wir in die Zukunft? »Ich bin für den Einzelnen optimistisch, fürs Kollektiv weniger.« Referenzen Andere Episoden Episode 111: Macht. Ein Gespräch mit Christine Bauer-Jelinek Episode 107: How to Organise Complex Societies? A Conversation with Johan Norberg Episode 106: Wissenschaft als Ersatzreligion? Ein Gespräch mit  Manfred Glauninger Episode 103: Schwarze Schwäne in Extremistan; die Welt des Nassim Taleb, ein Gespräch mit Ralph Zlabinger Episode 99: Entkopplung, Kopplung, Rückkopplung Episode 96: Ist der heutigen Welt nur mehr mit Komödie beizukommen? Ein Gespräch mit Vince Ebert Episode 95: Geopolitik und Militär, ein Gespräch mit Brigadier Prof. Walter Feichtinger Episode 88: Liberalismus und Freiheitsgrade, ein Gespräch mit Prof. Christoph Möllers Episode 77: Freie Privatstädte, ein Gespräch mit Dr. Titus Gebel Episode 72: Scheitern an komplexen Problemen? Wissenschaft, Sprache und Gesellschaft — Ein Gespräch mit Jan David Zimmermann Christoph Kletzer Kings College X Fachliche Referenzen Christoph Kletzer, Presse Kommentar, Der humpelnde Staat: So geht sicher nichts weiter (2024) Stafford Beer, The Heart of Enterprise, Wiley (1979) Thomas Sowell, intellectuals and Society, Basic Books (2010) Friedrich von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Routledge (1944) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859) David Graeber, The Dawn of Everything, A New History of Humanity, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux (2021) Max Weber, Politik als Beruf (1919) Nassim Taleb, Skin in the Game, Penguin (2018) Steven Brindle, Brunel: The Man Who Built the World, W&N (2006)

Should we care about the personal lives of influential thinkers? In Marx's case, probably! In this episode, we discuss two more articles from Thomas Sowell: one evaluating John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, and the other giving a detailed description of Karl Marx. We also talk about Donald Trump's second inauguration and what it means for the country!Follow us on Twitter! https://twitter.com/UlmtdOpinionsGive us your opinions here!

Join the #McConnellCenter as we host Dr. Aurelein Craiutu for a conversation regarding John Stuart Mill's book On Liberty. Aurelian Craiutu (Ph.D. Princeton, 1999) is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Adjunct Professor in the Lilly Family School of Philanthropic Studies at IUPUI, Indianapolis.  We all know we need to read more and there are literally millions of books on shelves with new ones printed every day. How do we sort through all the possibilities to find the book that is just right for us now? Well, the McConnell Center is bringing authors and experts to inspire us to read impactful and entertaining books that might be on our shelves or in our e-readers, but which we haven't yet picked up. We hope you learn a lot in the following podcast and we hope you might be inspired to pick up one or more of the books we are highlighting this year at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center. Stay Connected Visit us at McConnellcenter.org Subscribe to our newsletter  Facebook: @mcconnellcenter Instagram: @ulmcenter  Twitter: @ULmCenter This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center

Você que acompanha o Café Brasil sabe que estamos passando por um período de intensa polarização política e deve ter ficado preocupado como eu fiquei, com a privação de liberdade. De repente, eu me vi impedido de seguir alguns canais que passaram a ser censurados por motivos políticos. Além disso eu queria acessar séries e filmes dos Estados Unidos e Europa que ainda não estão disponíveis aqui no Brasil. Então eu fui procurar um VPN. VPN significa Virtual Private Network ou Rede Privada Virtual. As pessoas recorrem a VPNs para acessar conteúdos restritos de outros países, contornar bloqueios locais e encontrar melhores ofertas de produtos e serviços online. Além disso, VPNs protegem contra vigilância digital, assegurando liberdade de expressão e navegação segura. Sabe o que eu fiz? Eu assinei a NordVPN, com a qual passei a acessar o mundo todo sem deixar traços e com liberdade absoluta. Muito fácil, cara! E ainda ganhei a oportunidade de comprar passagens aéreas mais baratas, como se eu tivesse fora do Brasil, cara. É sensacional. E aqui a melhor parte. Se você acessar nordvpn.com/cafebrasil, eu vou repetir: nordvpn.com/cafebrasil, vai obter um ótimo desconto no seu plano. E além disso mais quatro meses adicionais grátis. Experimente! Se você não gostar, a NordVPN oferece reembolso total em 30 dias sem perguntas. De novo: nordvpn.com/cafebrasil. Comece sua jornada de navegação segura hoje mesmo. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) foi um importante filósofo e economista britânico, conhecido por suas ideias sobre liberdade e utilitarismo. Seu livro mais famoso, On Liberty – Sobre Liberdade - publicado em 1859, defende a importância da liberdade individual e os limites da interferência do Estado. Mesmo sendo um livro antigo, On Liberty mostra que as ideias de Mill continuam atuais.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Andrew M. Bailey is a Professor and co-author of Resistance Money: A Philosophical case for Bitcoin. We discuss the book's approach to communicating the idea of Bitcoin from a global perspective, providing strong arguments for Bitcoin's value as a net good for the world. We also talk about the history of political philosophy and how ideas spread as well as the new interdisciplinary Bitcoin Research Institute at the University of Wyoming where Andrew will be taking on a role as Professor of Philosophy. ‍--- Connect with The Transformation of Value X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/TTOVpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Nostr at: npub1uth29ygt090fe640skhc8l34d9s7xlwj4frxs2esezt7n6d64nwsqcmmmu Or send an email to hello@thetransformationofvalue.com and I will get back to you! --- Support The Transformation of Value: Bitcoin tip address: bc1qlfcr2v73tntt6wvyp2yu064egvyeery6xtwy8t Lightning tip address: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠codyellingham@fountain.fm If you send a tip please email or DM me so I can thank you! --- Credits: Music by Simon James French - https://www.simonjamesfrench.com/ --- Links: Resistance Money - ⁠⁠https://www.resistance.money/ Andrew M. Bailey - https://andrewmbailey.com/ University of Wyoming Bitcoin Research Institute - https://www.uwyo.edu/philrelig/bitcoin/index.html Second Treatise of Government by John Locke - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7370/7370-h/7370-h.htm?ref=americanpurpose.com Jameson Lopp - https://www.lopp.net/ On Liberty by John Stuart Mill - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/385228.On_Liberty Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6763725-capitalist-realism

This episode fits perfectly into my longer-lasting quest to understand complex societies and how to handle it. I am thrilled about the opportunity to have a conversation with Johan Norberg. The title of our conversation is: How to organise complex societies? Johan Norberg is a bestselling author of multiple books, historian of ideas and senior fellow at the Cato Institute. I read his last two books, Open, The Story of Human Progress and The Capitalist Manifesto. Both are excellent books, I can highly recommend. We will discuss both books in the wider bracket of the challenge how to handle complex societies. The main question we discuss is, how can we handle complex societies? Which approaches work, give people opportunity, freedom and wealth, and which do not work. The question can be inverted too: When systems are more complex, is also more control and commands needed, or the opposite? »The more complex the society, the less it can be organised—the more complex society gets, the more simple rules we need.« Knowledge and power behave differently, as Tom Sowell puts it: “It's much easier to concentrate power than knowledge.” The consequence seems to be: “If we centralise power we loose knowledge” We talk about the historic background of the idea of liberty, for instance John Stewart Mills On liberty, Friedrich Hayek Road to Serfdom. Did we lose our desire for liberty? The Austrian philosopher Konrad Paul Liessmann observes: “Dass das Volk nicht herrschen kann, sondern erzogen, belehrt, bevormundet und mehr oder weniger sanft in die richtige Richtung gedrängt werden soll, ist überall spürbar. Die ubiquitäre pädagogische Sprache ist verräterisch.” “The fact that the people cannot rule, but are to be educated, instructed, patronised and more or less gently pushed in the right direction, can be felt everywhere. The ubiquitous pedagogical language is treacherous.” How then, should we think about liberty and responsibility?  “There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”, P. J. O'Rourke. That might be an uncomfortable truth for some, though. Freedom has consequences and responsibilities! The trend of the last decades points to a different direction. Every minute detail seems to be regulated by someone who allegedly knows better: “Large projects are essentially illegal in California and in Europe”, Elon Musk The consequence is, as I have discussed in previous episodes, stagnation since many decades. Follow the links below to other episodes. Now, did we become an old, risk-averse, dying society? This would not be good news because:  “With innovation comes the risk of failure” And the uncomfortable truth is: Our desire to reduce risks might actually increase risks.  “If we are saying that we should not accept anything until it is perfectly safe, that's the most unsafe and risky bet we could do.” How can we muddle out of this mess? “Nothing comes from a committee, nothing from a single genius fully developed. Innovation comes from a process of experiments, trial and error, feedback and adaptation, changes and more people getting involved.”  There is no such thing as an immaculate conception of a new technology. But what about volatility? Is volatility a risk? For whom? The individual, society? Is societal risk decreasing when we reduce volatility?  What does Johan mean by openness, and why is it Important? “Openness for me means openness to surprises. This is the only way for societies to thrive and function long term. […] Historically, life was nasty, brutish, and short. We need new things. We need new knowledge, new technological capacity and wealth.” So why did the industrial revolution happen in the West? What is the connection to openness? What can we learn about control in societies? “Societies have to be decentralised not top down controlled.” But Mervyn King discusses in his excellent book Radical Uncertainty the fact, that we cannot predict the future. What happens with innovation that we cannot predict? “Under open institutions, people will solve more problems  than they create.” Moreover, the opposite is not true. Not innovating does not reduce risk: “If we would do nothing, we would also be surprised by unpredictable developments. […] We solved the problems that were existential and created better problems and level up. […] I prefer those problems to the ones that made life nasty, brutish and short.” In Europe, the precautionary principle is in high regard. Does it work, or is it rather a complete failure of epistemology? But what about capitalism? Has it failed us or is it the saviour? Does the Matthew principle speak against capitalism? “Elites have an interest to protect the status quo” which is a reason why free markets were blocked in many societies. This does not speak against free markets, but rather is an argument for free markets. Is the idea of capitalism and free markets more difficult to grasp on a psychological level? Socialist ideas sound nice (when you are in a family or small group) but they do not scale. And even worse, if you try to scale them, do they create the opposite of the desired effect? In a society, we are the kids, and we have other ideas than some authoritarian figure, and we have the right to our ideas.  “The only way to organise a complex society of strangers with different interests and different ideas and different vantage points on the world is not to control it, but instead give them the freedom to act according to their own individual creativity and dreams.  […]  You can get rich that way, but only by enriching others.” Moreover, the distribution problem evidently is not solved by top-down political concepts. In authoritarian systems, poverty is equally distributed, but the elites still enrich themselves.  But is trade and economy not used as a weapon on an international scale? How does that fit together, and does that not open up massive risks when we stick to free markets? “If goods don't cross borders, soldiers will.” Why is diversification, important, and how to reach it? What happened in Argentina, a very timely question after the new presidency of Javier Milei. “Argentina should be a memento mori for all of us. […] 100 years ago, Argentina was one of the richest countries of the planet. It had the future going for it”. […] If Argentina can fail, so can we, if we make the wrong decisions.” There are countries on every continent that make rapid progress. What do they have in common? At the end of the day, this is a hopeful message because wealth and progress can happen everywhere. Since the turn of the millennium, almost 140,000 people have been lifted out of extreme poverty every day. For more than 20 years. Where did that happen and why? What can we learn from Javier Milei? “I am an incredible optimist once I gaze away from politics and look at society.” How can we repay the debt to previous generations that gave us the living standards we enjoy today? References Other Episodes Episode 103: Schwarze Schwäne in Extremistan; die Welt des Nassim Taleb, ein Gespräch mit Ralph Zlabinger Episode 101: Live im MQ, Macht und Ohnmacht in der Wissensgesellschaft. Ein Gespräch mit John G. Haas. Episode 96: Ist der heutigen Welt nur mehr mit Komödie beizukommen? Ein Gespräch mit Vince Ebert Episode 90: Unintended Consequences (Unerwartete Folgen) Episode 89: The Myth of Left and Right, a Conversation with Prof. Hyrum Lewis Episode 77: Freie Privatstädte, ein Gespräch mit Dr. Titus Gebel Episode 71: Stagnation oder Fortschritt — eine Reflexion an der Geschichte eines Lebens Episode 70: Future of Farming, a conversation with Padraic Flood Episode 65: Getting Nothing Done — Teil 2 Episode 64: Getting Nothing Done — Teil 1 Episode 44: Was ist Fortschritt? Ein Gespräch mit Philipp Blom Episode 34: Die Übersetzungsbewegung, oder: wie Ideen über Zeiten, Kulturen und Sprachen wandern – Gespräch mit Prof. Rüdiger Lohlker Johan Norberg Johan Norberg is Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute Johan Norberg on Twitter/X Johan Norberg on LinkedId Johan Norberg, Open. The Story Of Human Progress, Atlantic Books (2021) Johan Norberg, The Capitalist Manifesto, Atlantic Books (2023) Literature, Videos and Links John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859) Friedrich von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Routledge (1944) Thomas Sowell, intellectuals and Society, Basic Books (2010) Johan Norberg, A Conversation with Elon Musk, The Cato Institute (2024) Reason TV: Nick Gillespie and Magatte Wade, Don't blame colonialism for African poverty (2024) Jason Hickel, The Divide – A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions, Windmill (2018) Victor Davis Hanson on subsidies and tarifs (2024) Konrad Paul Liessmann, Lauter Lügen, Paul Zsolnay (2023) P. J. O'Rourke, The Liberty Manifesto; Cato Institute (1993)

Summary Alex speaks with Jacob Levy about the concept of a liberal party, exploring its philosophical foundations, historical context, and touch on all of these points within the context of Jacob's article "The Liberal Party Idea" (2024). References The Liberal Party Idea by Jacob Levy: Link:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381323406_The_liberal_party_idea_and_American_ideology "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Liberty-John-Stuart-Mill/dp/1505851210 "The Constitution of Liberty" by Friedrich Hayek Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Constitution-Liberty-Friedrich-Hayek/dp/0226320847 "The Federalist Papers" by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Federalist-Papers-Alexander-Hamilton/dp/0486496363 "Reflections on the Revolution in France" by Edmund Burke Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Reflections-Revolution-France-Edmund-Burke/dp/0199539022 "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Democracy-America-Alexis-Tocqueville/dp/0140447601 "Two Treatises of Government" by John Locke Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Two-Treatises-Government-John-Locke/dp/1532846815 "Political Liberalism" by John Rawls Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Political-Liberalism-John-Rawls/dp/0231130899 Thanks to our patrons including: Amy Willis, Kris Rondolo, and Christopher McDonald. To become a patron, go to patreon.com/curioustask

How has 19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill influenced America's conception of free speech and the First Amendment? In their new book, “The Supreme Court and the Philosopher: How John Stuart Mill Shaped U.S. Free Speech Protections,” co-authors Eric Kasper and Troy Kozma look at how the Supreme Court has increasingly aligned its interpretation of free expression with Mill's philosophy, as articulated in “On Liberty.” Eric Kasper is professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where he serves as the director of the Menard Center for Constitutional Studies. Troy Kozma is a professor of philosophy and the academic chair at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire - Barron County. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 02:26 Book's origin 06:51 Who is John Stuart Mill? 10:09 What is the “harm principle”? 16:30 Early Supreme Court interpretation of the First Amendment 26:25 What was Justice Holmes' dissent in Abrams v. U.S.? 30:28 Why did Justice Brandeis join Holmes' dissents? 36:10 What are loyalty oaths? 40:36 Justice Black's nuanced view of the First Amendment 43:33 What were Mill's views on race and education? 50:42 Private beliefs vs. public service? 52:40 Commercial speech 55:51 Where do we stand today? 1:03:32 Outro Transcript is HERE  

Paul Meany of Libertarianism.org walks us through the importance of John Stuart Mill through his powerful treatise On Liberty. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The ongoing crackdown on protests at many American universities prompts a discussion on the politics, ethics, and metaphysics of free expression. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies). Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2), on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com) page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia (https://cosmophonia.podbean.com/). Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! REFERENCES Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780156787338) Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781350044029) George Orwell, The Prevention of Literature (https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-prevention-of-literature/) George Orwell, Inside the Whale (https://orwell.ru/library/essays/whale/english/e_itw) New York Times, “At Indiana University, Protests Only Add to a Full Year of Conflicts (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/us/indiana-university-protest-encampment.html) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780521379175) Indiana Daily Student, “Provost Addresses Controversy” (https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/01/provost-addresses-controversy-suspension-palestinian-artist-bfc) Official government page for the Proposed Bill to address Online (https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/online-harms.html) Harms in Canada. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781515436874) GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781511903608) Daryl Davis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis), American musician and activist DavidFoster Wallace, Just Asking (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-asking/306288/)

»Ist der heutigen Welt nur mehr mit Komödie beizukommen?« Wer könnte diese Frage besser beantworten als der Gesprächspartner der heutigen Episode? Vince Ebert ist Diplom-Physiker und Kabarettist seit über 25 Jahren. In der ARD moderierte er jahrelang die Sendung „Wissen vor Acht“. Seine Bücher sind Bestseller und verkauften sich über eine Million Mal. Außerdem ist er ist einer der gefragtesten Vortragsredner Deutschlands. Wie kommt es, dass sich Vince Eberts Weg von Naturwissenschaft und Physik ins Kabarett und zum beliebten Vortragsredner, "Hofnarren" (wie er es selbst bezeichnet) entwickelt hat? Ist eine solide naturwissenschaftliche Ausbildung eine gute Basis für die meisten Anforderungen, die die moderne Gesellschaft stellt? »Ich habe nach dem Studium als Unternehmensberater gearbeitet. Als Physiker verstehen sie von Beratung genauso wenig wie wie ein BWLer auch, dafür in der Hälfte der Zeit.« Steht heute zu häufig Wunschdenken vor Fakten, und hilft das naturwissenschaftliche Denken bei diesen Problemstellungen? Aber können wir die Welt wirklich rational erfassen? Welche Rolle spielen emotionale Bewertungen in der modernen Welt?  »The only law of history is the law of unintended consequences«, Niall Ferguson Darf ein Politiker/Manager die Komplexität der Welt benennen oder muss er sie ignorieren? Muss er Sicherheit versprechen, wo keine ist? Was macht einen guten und (das könnte eine gänzlich andere Frage sein) erfolgreichen Politiker/Manager aus? Die Liste der gefeierten Manager und Unternehmer, die nur wenige Jahre später bankrott oder verurteilt sind, ist groß und reicht von Jeffrey Skilling und Bernie Ebbers bis zu Elizabeth Holmes und Sam Bankman-Fried. Haben wir Schwierigkeiten damit, Führungspersönlichkeiten differenziert zu betrachten? Andererseits hat die Covid-Krise nahegelegt, dass nur die wenigen Experten, die differenziert und selbstkritisch gehandelt haben, wie etwa der Schwede Anders Tegnell, ihre Vertrauenswürdigkeit nicht verloren haben. Vielleicht hat aber auch die Covid-, Energiewende- und Wirtschaftskrise die Situation verändert? »Es ist lange Zeit nicht aufgefallen, wenn man Mist gebaut hat.« Welche Rolle spielt (vermeintlicher) Perfektionismus im Versagen der letzten Jahre in zahlreichen Krisen? Gibt es in der komplexen Welt gibt es keine perfekten Lösungen, sondern immer nur Abwägungen von Dilemmata? Retten wir die Welt, wenn wir alle Ressourcen auf eine (wie ausgewählte?) Krise richten? Sind wir als moderne Gesellschaft nicht in der Lage breiter zu denken und wie kann man auf die Idee kommen, dass man auf eine kommende Katastrophe als Gesellschaft gut vorbereitet ist, wenn man zuvor Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft beschädigt? Reaktion auf fast alle kommenden Krisen benötigt funktionierende Strukturen, Kompetenz und Ressourcen. »Der Satz, wie müssen mehr verzichten, stammt ironischerweise immer von Menschen, die sowieso keine wirtschaftlichen Probleme haben.« Sind viele der aktuelle populären Aktivisten eher para-religiöse Bewegungen? Alle religiösen »Tugenden« sind zu finden: Verzicht, Propheten, man kann erlöst werden, indem man rituelle Handlungen vollzieht, Sinngebung erfolgt aus der Bewegung und man ist überzeugt absolute Wahrheiten zu verkünden? Erleben wir in der öffentlichen und politischen Diskussion einen destruktiven Effekt durch übertriebene Moralisierung? Was ist das neue Programm von Vince Ebert und wie spricht es die aktuelle Situation der Gesellschaft an? »Wir waren früher in Diskussionen schon weiter.« Es war früher auf der Bühne, im Film, in der Kunst viel mehr möglich. Warum machen wir in den letzten Jahren erhebliche Rückschritte? Wieso polarisieren selbst vernünftige, normalen Aussagen? Ist die Gesellschaft gar nicht gespalten, sondern nur die Rezeption kleiner und an sich wenig relevanter, aber lautstarke Randgruppen? Wie hat sich der Begriff der Freiheit von etwa John Stuart Mill bis heute verändert? Haben wir Angst vor Freiheit und wollen den Staat bis in unser privates Leben entscheiden lassen? Wie lange ist diese Vollkasko-Mentalität noch haltbar? »Politiker behandelnd uns als wären wir 10 jährige Kinder, aber viele von uns - das ist die bittere Wahrheit - wollen auch wie 10 jährige Kinder behandelt werden.« So kann aber eine komplexe Gesellschaft nicht funktionieren. Was dazu kommt: Derjenige, der etwas mit eigenem Risiko schafft wurde langsam aber stetig zum Feindbild aufgebaut. »Wir Deutsche können mit Freiheit schlecht umgehen.« Mit Vollkasko-Mentalität und dem Glauben an unsere unbesiegbare Überlegenheit werden wir die Zukunft nicht bewältigen. »Vor zwanzig Jahren hat China noch kopiert, inzwischen haben sie diese Stufe überschritten […] Es ist bei vielen Leuten in Deutschland immer noch nicht angekommen, dass wir in einer immensen Wirtschaftskrise stecken.« Es scheint, wir leben hier in mehreren Realitäten und große Teile der Elite kapseln sich in von der Realität immer stärker entkoppelten Enklaven ab. Vince Ebert kritisiert diese Entwicklungen auch in seinem Artikel »Vor Theoretikern wird gewarnt«. Häufig wird der Eindruck vermittelt, wenn es am akademischen Reißbrett steht, ist es auch möglich — und das stimmt schlicht nicht. Ist es folglich überraschend, dass viele Menschen Vertrauen in Expertise verloren haben, oder eher ein positives Zeichen, daß Veränderung fordert? Gibt es einen wesentlichen Unterschied zwischen Wissen und Expertise? Ist ein wesentlicher Teil des Problems, dass es für akademische Eliten kein »Skin in the Game« gibt, sprich: falsche Vorhersagen haben zwar für die Gesellschaft große Folgen, aber nicht für den falschen Propheten? »Wenn man nur im Elfenbeinturm sitzt, kann man bestimmte Faktoren einfach nicht abschätzen.« und dies gepaart mit »Theoretischer Arroganz — wenn ich diese Faktoren nicht in meiner Machbarkeitsstudie drinnen habe, dann existieren sich auch nicht.« Im Umfang der Nutzungsbedingungen einer simplen App hat man früher Staatsverträge gemacht. »Wir versuchen immer mehr uns vor Risiken abzusichern, und merken überhaupt nicht, dass das überhaupt das größte Risiko ist.« Zurückkommend auf das Dürrenmatt-Zitat. Ist der heutigen Welt nur mehr mit der Komödie beizukommen und besteht die Gefahr in den Zynismus abzugleiten? Zum Abschluss: Vergessen Sie nicht, das neues Programm von Vince Ebert: Vince of Change zu besuchen! Referenzen Andere Episoden Episode 92: Wissen und Expertise Teil 2 Episode 91: Die Heidi-Klum-Universität, ein Gespräch mit Prof. Ehrmann und Prof. Sommer Episode 90: Unintended Consequences (Unerwartete Folgen) Episode 88: Liberalismus und Freiheitsgrade, ein Gespräch mit Prof. Christoph Möllers Episode 84: (Epistemische) Krisen? Ein Gespräch mit Jan David Zimmermann Episode 81: Energie und Ressourcen, ein Gespräch mit Dr. Lars Schernikau Episode 80: Wissen, Expertise und Prognose, eine Reflexion Episode 76: Existentielle Risiken Episode 74: Apocalype Always Episode 62: Wirtschaft und Umwelt, ein Gespräch mit Prof. Hans-Werner Sinn Vince Ebert Vince Ebert Webseite Vince Ebert Programm/Tour Vince Ebert, Lichtblick statt Blackout: Warum wir beim Weltverbessern neu denken müssen, dtv (2022) Vince Ebert, Unberechenbar: Warum das Leben zu komplex ist, um es perfekt zu planen Vor Theoretikern wird gewarnt, Rowohlt (2016) Fachliche Referenzen ReasonTV, The Truth about Swedens Covid-Policy (2023) Niall Ferguson on Regulation (2023) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Projekt Gutenberg (1859) Konrad Paul Liessmann, Lauter Lügen, Paul Zsolnay Verlag (2023) Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals an Society, Basic Books (2012)

Brendan McCord is the founder of Cosmos Institute — a non-profit dedicated to exploring the intersection of AI and philosophy. Brendan joins the show to discuss Cosmos' origins, the pursuit of philosophy as a technologist, the different schools of thought in AI, complex adaptive systems and MUCH more! Important Links: Brendan McCord's Reading List Cosmos Institute Substack Brendan's Twitter Show Notes: The Genesis of the Cosmos Institute Philosophy as a Quixotic Pursuit The Man of the System Dilemma Existential Risk & Scenario Agnosticism The AI Schools of Thought The Religious Nature of the E/Acc Movement What Tocqueville Can Teach Us About AI The Philosophy-to-Code Pipeline “Cars ignited the Sexual Revolution” and Other Unexpected Occurrences The Best Systems are Adaptive Heterogeneity & Resilient Systems Open Source and the US-China Situation Automation, Augmentation & Open-Ended Generation The Underrated Nuance of Russian Realism Cinematic Visions of the Future Great Talent & the Risk of the Tasmanian Devil Brendan as Emperor of the World MORE! Books Mentioned: Murray Rothbard, “For A New Liberty” David R. Hawkins, “Power vs. Force” Jung Chang, “Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China” Jung Chang, “Mao: The Unknown Story” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “The Gulag Archipelago” Arthur Koestler, “Darkness At Noon” Adam Smith, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” Lewis Carroll, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” Lewis Carroll, “What the Tortoise Said To Achilles” Eliezer Yudkowsky, “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” Marc Andreessen, “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” Alexis De Tocqueville, “Democracy in America” 'Pericles's Funeral Oration' quoted in Thucydides' “History of the Peloponnesian War”. Plato, “Theaetetus” Plato, “The Republic” Nietzsche, “The Gay Science” C.P Snow, “The Two Cultures” Elinor Ostrom, “Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action” James M. Buchanan, "Freedom in Constitutional Contract: Perspectives of a Political Economist” Iain M. Banks, “Consider Phlebas” (Culture Series #1) Chen Qiufan and Kai-Fu Lee, “AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future” Christopher Buckley, “Thank You for Smoking” John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty”

Since its establishment in March 2023, the Ian Mactaggart Programme has provided generous financial support to a range of free speech initiatives among young people. One particularly exciting project is the inaugural ‘Modern Dissent' lecture. This will be given by Professor Eric Kaufmann, FSU Advisory Council member and Head of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science at the University of Buckingham and will take place on Wednesday 28th February (tickets available here). Moving to the arts world, Arts Council England (ACE) funded Soho Theatre had to apologise last week for the behaviour of one of its performers who subjected several Jewish members of the audience to verbal abuse. As the apology makes clear, this was an appalling incident, but The Telegraph also reported that it may have been the catalyst for a broader debate around ACE's new Relationship Framework, released in January of this year. According to the new framework, political or activist statements made by individuals linked to ACE-funded projects – even if they were in a personal capacity and not directly related to the work they were making – could cause reputational risk and ultimately breach funding agreements. Given the ongoing threat to freedom in the arts that we see across the UK, it is encouraging to hear that ACE has since released a statement that the new framework is back under review following concerns raised. There is also the news that Simon Fanshawe OBE has been elected rector of the university of Edinburgh. As Freddie Attenborough reports on our website, this has led to a predictable backlash from transgender rights activists. We end by drawing listeners' attention to an excellent article in The Critic this week by Professor Alan Sokal. He surveys the state of free speech in the West and his piece serves as a useful pointer to much of the great thinking that has come before us, including John Stuart Mill's “On Liberty”. ‘That's Debatable!' is edited by Jason Clift.  

Sabine speaks with Aeon Skoble about the harms of limiting access to information, including book bans and why a better understanding of ideas we disagree with often strengthens rather than weakens our arguments in support of the ideas we endorse. Episode Notes: - “Free Speech and the Function of a University” Aeon J. Skoble https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2081&context=br_rev  - A brief history of Hume's works being banned: https://oll.libertyfund.org/publications/reading-room/2023-10-25-donway-hume-great-work-on-religion-banned  - A handy breakdown from the University of Notre Dame on J.S. Mill's case for disagreement and free speech in “On Liberty”: https://philife.nd.edu/j-s-mills-on-liberty-seek-disagreement/  - Jacob Mchangama's book “Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media” https://a.co/d/8lcEV6a    

Ich habe vor einiger Zeit das hochinteressante Buch »Freiheitsgrade« von Christoph Möllers gelesen. Ich hatte im vorigen Jahr die Gelegenheit, mit Prof. Möllers in Berlin zu sprechen: Christoph Möllers studierte Rechtswissenschaf­ten, Philosophie und Komparatistik in Tübingen, Madrid und München, habilitiert in Heidelberg und ist aktuell Permanent Fellow am Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. In dieser Funktion beschäftigt er sich  insbesondere um das Projekt Recht im Kontext. Zugleich arbeitet er an der Juristischen Fakultät der HU. Er ist Träger des Leibniz-Preises der DFG, des Schader-Preises und des Tractatus-Preises sowie Mitglied der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Deutschen Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung.  Was ist liberal, libertär wie unterscheidet sich die Verwendung  international? Was ist der Zusammenhang mit der französischen Revolution? »good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created.«, Roger Scruton über Konservativismus Was ist das Paradox konservativer Politik? Bedeutet konservativ gestalten zu müssen bewahren? Was aber ist zu bewahren? Aber wie steht »links« oder »«liberal« im Vergleich dazu? Welche Rolle spielt Intervention in verschiedenen Ideologien? »intrinsic values emerge from social cooperation. They are not imposed by some outside authority or instilled through fear. They grow from below, through relations of love, respect and accountability.«, Roger Scruton Welche Rolle spielen soziale- und Rechtsnormen? Wie wirken diese aufeinander? Gelingt die Gestaltung von Sozialnormen durch Rechtsnormen? "Kommt zuerst die Sittlichkeit und dann die Rechtsform oder hat die Rechtsform auch Einflüsse?" Warum sind die Libertären in Europa kaum vorhanden? (im Gegensatz zu den USA) Warum war die Prohibition in den USA möglich, während das in Europe nicht durchsetzbar gewesen wäre? Was ist die Rolle von politischer Vielfalt, arbeiten wir heute aktiv dagegen? Wie gestalten wir sinnvollerweise in komplexen Sachzusammenhängen? Bottom up oder top down? Wie bildet sich das auf die politischen Strömungen ab und was kann funktionieren? »Linke« und »rechte« Parteien tauschen die regelmäßig Rollen und Ansichten, dazu wird es auch noch später eine weitere Episode geben — stay tuned! »Moralisieren macht jede Verständigung unmöglich. […] Im Extremfall, der leider immer häufiger eintritt, sieht der politische Moralist im politischen Gegner einen Unmenschen. […] Politik ist der notwendige Kompromiss mit dem Bösen.«, Norbert Bolz Ist Moralisieren etwas Neues in der Politik? »Entrüstung gilt heute als Echtheitsbeweis, aber wer moralisch entrüstet ist, kann nicht mehr klar denken.«, Norbert Bolz Steigt die Aggressivität in der politischen Auseinandersetzung, erleben wir eine Verrohung des Diskurses bei gleichzeitigem Verschwimmen von Privatsphäre und Öffentlichkeit? Besteht hier ein Zusammenhang mit dem beschriebenen Moralisieren? Wenn die Schwellen der Kommunikation verschwinden (auch technisch), was sind die Konsequenzen? “Transparenz ist das Schlagwort der zweiten Aufklärung.”, Byung-Chul Han Ist mehr Transparenz (in Politik, Gesellschaft) wirklich immer besser? Die Gefahren der Transparenz (Byung Chul-Han). Das Panoptikon ist eigentlich offensichtlich kein Bild der Freiheit und dennoch wird Transparenz heute so verkauft.  Braucht Freiheit Intransparenz? Hilft Transparenz wenigstens Korruption zu verringern?Besteht ein Zusammenhang damit, dass wir in den westlichen Gesellschaften immer weniger auf die Reihe bekommen? Wie sieht es mit Handlungsfähigkeit gegenüber individuellen Rechten aus? »Demokratie ist eine träge Maschinerie, konzipiert, um Entscheidungen zu verlangsamen«, Herfried Münkler Ist die prozessualisierte Langsamkeit nicht vielleicht in Summe doch schneller? Wie steht es um Konsensbildung vs. Konfrontation? Wenn wir Menschen wie Kinder behandeln verhalten sie sich wie Kinder? Was ist vom »Nudgen« zu halten? Sind die Bürger zu blöd selbst zu denken aber doch schlau genug zu wählen — pflegen viele Eliten nicht ein paternalistisches Bild, das zutiefst undemokratisch und auch fundamental falsch ist? Ist die klassische sozialdemokratische Idee »von der Wiege bis zur Bahre« einer der Bevormundung oder der Ermächtigung der Massen zur Selbstbestimmung? Muss man intervenieren um Chancengleichheit zu bekommen? »Es ist ein Dilemma linker Politik, besonders an materieller Versorgung interessiert zu sein, aber keine Mechanismen anbieten zu können, die diese freiheitsfreundlich gewährleisten.« Was sind die Schattenseiten der Aufklärung? Gibt es katholische und protestantische Atheisten? Was ist von Meritokratie zu halten? Der amerikanische Philosoph Michael Sandel sieht diese ja sehr skeptisch. Zurecht? Woran liegt Chancenungleich? Betreiben wir regelmäßig Survivorship Bias? Welche Rolle spielt das Glück? Wie werden Rechte wahrgenommen und entwickeln sich über die Zeit und warum kann die Nutzung von Rechten zu Irritationen führen? Was bedeutet Meinungsfreiheit. Mangelt es an Meinungsfreiheit oder an zivilisiertem Umgang? Was haben wir am Beispiel von Twitter über Zensur und staatliche Intervention gelernt? Welche Rolle spielen privatwirtschaftliche Internet-Plattformen? Wie können diese gesellschaftlich reguliert werden? Wie spielen Krise und Freiheit zusammen? Wer hat die Deutungshoheit, was eine Krise ist und wer definiert die Konsequenzen? Ist dies ein Konflikt Alt gegen Jung? Wer setzt Prioritäten? Wie hat sich der Begriff der Freiheit von John Stuart Mill bis zur heutigen Zeit verändert, ist diese Veränderung wünschenswert? »Aus fundamentalen Abwehrrechten gegenüber staatlicher Gewalt und Willkür wurden ausufernde Anspruchsrechte, für deren Einlösung ein paternalistisch gedachter Staat verantwortlich gemacht werden soll. Aus dem Recht der Bürger, nach ihrem Glück zu streben, wurde längst die Pflicht des Staates, für dieses Glück zu sorgen. Dass in einer Demokratie die Bürger diesen Staat ausmachen und deshalb solche Forderungen an sich selbst adressieren müssten, wird gerne vergessen. Die Einsicht, dass es keine Rechte ohne Pflichten gibt, wird heute ziemlich einseitig interpretiert: Die Rechte des einen sind jedoch stets die Pflichten des anderen.«, Konrad Paul Liessmann  Was geschieht, wenn die Freiheit dazu führt, dass die Menschen die Freiheit abschaffen oder reduzieren wollen? "Es funktioniert auch unglaublich viel." Kritisieren wir auf hohem Niveau? ist das unhistorisch? »Die Intellektuellen scheinen sich geradezu verschworen zu haben, uns immer wieder zu erzählen, wie schlecht die Welt ist, in der wir leben. Ich halte das für einen fürchterlichen Unsinn, eine wirkliche Lüge, die aber fast allgemein geglaubt wird. In der Zeit meiner Jugend, gab es in Deutschland, Österreich, Frankreich, England noch Sklaverei. Vor allem Frauen waren damals versklavt – als Haushaltsgehilfinnen, Köchinnen, Wäscherinnen usw. […] Daneben hat es fürchterliches Elend gegeben.«, Karl Popper Referenzen Andere Episoden Episode 72: Scheitern an komplexen Problemen? Wissenschaft, Sprache und Gesellschaft — Ein Gespräch mit Jan David Zimmermann Episode 65: Getting Nothing Done — Teil 2 Episode 64: Getting Nothing Done — Teil 1 Episode 58: Verwaltung und staatliche Strukturen — ein Gespräch mit Veronika Lévesque Episode 57: Konservativ UND Progressiv Episode 44: Was ist Fortschritt? Ein Gespräch mit Philipp Blom Episode 38: Eliten, ein Gespräch mit Prof. Michael Hartmann Christoph Möllers Lehrstuhl Christoph Möllers Christoph Möllers, Werdegang Christoph Möllers, Freiheitsgrade, Suhrkamp (2020) Fachliche Referenzen Norbert Bolz, Keine Macht der Moral, Matthes und Seitz Berlin (2021) Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitik, S. Fischer (2014) Panopticon (Wikipedia) Nudging: Jesse Singal, The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Societal Ills, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2021) Von der Wiege bis zur Bahre — Sozialdemokratie The Free Press, Why we went to Twitter Marshall Matters (Spectator), Michael Shellenberger, The Censorship Industrial Complex  (2023) Konrad Paul Liessmann, Lauter Lügen, Paul Zsolnay (2023) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Project Gutenberg (1859) Karl Popper, Ich weiß, dass ich nichts weiß – und kaum das (1991)

Die Frage wie viel Toleranz angebracht ist, beschäftigt liberale Gesellschaften seit je her. Aber ist Toleranz überhaupt das, was wir denken was sie ist? Wer hat sie erfunden und was ist das Toleranzparadoxon? All das klärt diese Folge. Viel Spaß beim Hören! Quellen:Baruch, H. (2008). Tolerance in the Age of Pluralism. HUMANISTICA, 6(6), 299-312. Forst, R. (2000). Toleranz. Philosophische Grundlagen und gesellschaftliche Praxis einer umstrittenen Tugend, Campus Verlag. Forst, R. (2003). Toleranz im Konflikt. Geschichte, Gehalt und Gegenwart eines umstrittenen Begriffs, Suhrkamp. Forst, R. (2007). Toleranz und Demokratie, In: Rainer Forst (Hrsg.), Recht auf Rechtfertigung. Elemente einer konstruktivistischen Theorie der Gerechtigkeit, 211-223. Kymlicka, W. (1992). Two models of pluralism and tolerance. Analyse & Kritik, 14(1), 33-56.Meyerson, D. (2012). Three versions of liberal tolerance: Dworkin, Rawls, Raz. Jurisprudence, 3(1), 37-70. Mill, J. S. (1977). On Liberty. Harmondsworth. Popper, K. R. (1945). The Open Society and Its Enemies, Routledge. Schmetkamp, S. (2021). Toleranz. In: Michael G. Festl (Hrsg.), Handbuch Liberalismus, 199-206. Thomassen, L. (2006). The inclusion of the other? Habermas and the paradox of tolerance. Political Theory, 34(4), 439-462. Williams, B. (1996). Toleration, a political or moral question? Diogenes, 44(176), 35-48.GEMAfreie Musik von https://audiohub.de Kontakt:Instagram: @powileaksEmail: info@powileaks.com

Jon Manson, ASeaOfRed.com On Liberty's Fiesta Bowl Experience, The 2023 Season & The Fallout by Ed Lane

John Stuart Mill's On Liberty has been a consistent and prominent reference point in the ongoing debates about free speech. In this episode we discuss an elegant and powerful critique of Mill by the twentieth century political theorist Willmoore Kendall. His essay “The ‘Open Society' and Its Fallacies” was published in the American Political Science Review in December of 1960. Our conversation covers various aspects of Kendall's critique. Kendall claims that Mill's argument for freedom rests on a false conception of the nature of society and human nature itself. We explore Kendall's understanding of Mill's thoroughgoing radicalism. “Mill,” Kendall writes, “is in full rebellion against both religion and philosophy, and so in full rebellion also against the traditional society that embodies them.” We also take up the phenomenon of what Kendall calls the “dispersal of opinion.” He contends that any society which guides itself according to Mill's prescriptions will “descend ineluctably into ever deepening differences of opinion, into progressive breakdown of those common premises upon which alone a society can its affairs by discussion.”   Our guest is James Stoner. Professor Stoner is the Hermann Moyse, Jr., Professor and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute in the Department of Political Science at Louisiana State University, where he has taught since 1988.  He is the author of Common-Law Liberty (Kansas, 2003) and Common Law and Liberal Theory (Kansas, 1992), and co-editor of Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education with Paul Carrese and Carol McNamara—just published in September of 2023. He also contributed a chapter to this volume called “Was John Stuart Mill Right About Free Speech?” which will be of interest to anyone who listens to our conversation here.

Should we be outraged that Roger Waters has been accused of anti-Semitism for a dramatic piece that shows the downfall of an authoritarian leader? We believe with John Stuart Mill's On Liberty which insists that we should never close our ears to disagreeable ideas and always be open to discussion.   The Roger Waters video Jon mentions

تاریخ انتشار: 10 تیر 1402 تو این قسمت در مورد نظریه‌ها و دیدگاه‌های جان استوارت میل درباره آزادی صحبت می‌کنیم. حمایت مالی از خوره کتاب ما اینجاها فعالیم: اینستاگرام - تلگرام - یوتیوب - وبسایت منابع:1- کتاب آزادی (On Liberty) نوشته جان استوارت میل2- کتاب فایده‌گرایی (utilitarianism) نوشته جان استوارت میل3- کتاب موضوع زنان (The Subjection of Women) نوشته جان استوارت میل4- سخنرانی ریک رادریک (Rick Roderick) درباره کتاب “آزادی” موسیقی متن: ترک Lotus از Soen و ترک Girl On Fire از Alicia Keys The post مرز آزادی کجاست؟ از دیدگاه جان استوارت میل (قسمت سوم) appeared first on پادکست خوره کتاب.

Sure, you might be free from things, but now what are you free to do?! Coming up, negative and positive freedom! 

“Life and Liberty with Drew McKissick” “Labeled Hate Groups with Tina Descovich” “Corrupt Systems of Justice Bill Pascoe” “Biden's Distain for Freedom”

Alex speaks with Professor Jacob Levy about the concept of neutrality within the history of liberalism and how many historical thinkers have approached the subject within that tradition.  Episode Notes: Michael Oakeshott on “adverbial rules” https://lawliberty.org/forum/michael-oakeshott-on-the-rule-of-law-and-the-liberal-order/  John Locke's religious beliefs https://rb.gy/1yg43  Heresy of Americanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americanism_(heresy)  Deirdre McCloskey's Bourgeois Virtues Thesis https://www.deirdremccloskey.com/docs/bv_selection.pdf  Ronald Dworkin “Liberalism” https://www.scribd.com/document/313373358/Ronald-Dworkin-Liberalism#  Stephanie Slade, "Must Libertarians Care About More Than the State?" https://reason.com/2022/03/19/two-libertarianisms/  Alexis De Toqueville's concerns about the rising liberal democratic order https://www.economist.com/schools-brief/2018/08/09/de-tocqueville-and-the-french-exception  John Stuart Mill “On Liberty” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Liberty 

Originally Recorded March 14th, 2023 About Professor Nadine Strossen: https://www.nyls.edu/faculty/nadine-strossen/ Check out Nadine's upcoming book, Free Speech: What You Need to Know: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/free-speech-9780197699645 Check out John Stuart Mill's landmark essay On Liberty: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm Get full access to Unlicensed Philosophy with Chuong Nguyen at musicallyspeaking.substack.com/subscribe

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill audiobook. Published in 1859, On Liberty details Mill's view that individuals should be left wholly free to engage in any activity, thought or belief that does not harm others. Simple though it sounds, it is a position that challenges our ideas on the very nature of government and society, and sheds light on some of the key issues we face today. A key text of political philosophy, On Liberty has been continuously in print since its first publication. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Published in 1859, On Liberty details Mill's view that individuals should be left wholly free to engage in any activity, thought or belief that does not harm others. Simple though it sounds, it is a position that challenges our ideas on the very nature of government and society, and sheds light on some of the key issues we face today. A key text of political philosophy, On Liberty has been continuously in print since its first publication. (Summary by David Barnes) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/librivox1/support

Guest host Sigal Samuel talks with professor of philosophy and law Nita Farahany about her new book The Battle for Your Brain. In it, Farahany details the new brain-scanning tech that has already arrived, and the risks this poses to our privacy and freedom of thought. Sigal and Nita discuss what this technology can currently do (and what it can't), how new devices might be used by corporations or governments to infringe on our rights, and the prospect of using new technologies to rid ourselves of painful or traumatic memories — even, potentially, before they've been formed. Host: Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel), Senior Reporter, Vox Guest: Nita Farahany (@NitaFarahany), author; professor of philosophy & Robinson O. Everett Professor of Law, Duke University References:  The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology by Nita A. Farahany (St. Martin's; 2023) "Your brain may not be private much longer" by Sigal Samuel (Vox; March 17) "BGU develops wearable advanced warning system for epileptic seizures" (Jerusalem Post; Sept. 29, 2020) "Elon Musk shows off updates to his brain chips and says he's going to install one in himself when they are ready" by Ashley Capoot (CNBC; Dec. 1, 2022) "Brain-implant companies balk at moves to regulate their nascent tech" by Sarah McBride (Los Angeles Times; Feb. 19) "NHS trials headset that claims to zap depression" by Katie Prescott (The Times; Jan. 23) "Australian man uses brain implant to send texts from his iPad" by Kristin Houser (Freethink; Nov. 12, 2022) "Is 'brain fingerprinting' a breakthrough or a sham?" by Russell Brandom (The Verge; Feb. 2, 2015) "China Claims It's Scanning Workers' Brainwaves to Increase Efficiency and Profits" by Samantha Cole (VICE; May 1, 2018) "Incriminating Thoughts" by Nita A. Farahany (Stanford Law Review, vol. 64 (2); Feb. 2012) John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty" (1859) Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (1788) "Non-conscious brain modulation may help PTSD patients forget their fears" by Brooks Hays (UPI; Feb. 23, 2021) No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering by Thich Nhat Hanh (Parallax Press; 2019)   Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of The Gray Area. Subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Support The Gray Area by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by:  Producer: Erikk Geannikis Engineers: Patrick Boyd & Brandon McFarland Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To celebrate 100 Episodes of On Liberty we flip the script and CIS executive director Tom Switzer interviews regular On Liberty host Salvatore Babones. Over 100 episodes, Salvatore has interviewed a wide range of guests on an incredible range of topics. We hear from Salvatore on what he has learnt about Classical Liberalism and political orthodoxy in Australia and around the world from his many interviews. As well as how On Liberty has shaped Salvatore's views, his new position as Director of China and Free Societies at CIS and what's next for the international affairs portfolio at CIS.

India Policy Watch #1: Futility Of Fighting Lies Insights on burning policy issues in India— RSJI have been following the case of Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of the fact-checking site Alt News with interest. He was granted interim bail by the Supreme Court a couple of weeks back. You can read more about the story here. I border on free speech absolutism, so my opinion on this case, as with many other similar cases in India, is simple. No one should be jailed for any speech unless they are violating Mill’s harm principle. In his essay On Liberty, Mill wrote:“That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind is warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”But free speech is not the only reason I have brought up the case of Mohammed Zubair here. The case illustrates a point I have made before in this newsletter: while countering lies with fact checks is a noble, worthwhile endeavour, it means nothing in an environment where people are intoxicated with half-truths and grand illusions about a ‘real’ past or an ‘imagined’ future.A few years back, I came across this wonderful essay ‘Monopolize the Pretty Lies’ by Bryan Caplan. While I understood it back then, reading it again now is insightful. Caplan writes:What then is the primary purpose of censorship?  It’s not to suppress the truth – which has little mass appeal anyway.  The primary purpose of censorship is to monopolize the pretty lies.  Only the powers-that-be can freely make absurdly self-aggrandizing claims. Human beings like to say – and think – whatever superficially sounds good.  Strict censorship allows rulers to exploit this deep mental flaw.  If no one else can make absurd lies, a trite slogan like, “Let’s unite to fight for a fantastic future!” carries great force.  Truthful critics would have to make crowd-displeasing objections like, “Maybe competition will bring us a brighter future than unity,” “Who exactly are we fighting?,” or “Precisely how fantastic of a future are we talking about?”  A rather flaccid bid for power!  Existing rulers tremble far more when rebels bellow, “Join us to fight for a fantastic future!”This is why I think this case won’t go anywhere. It will fizzle out here because fact-checkers don’t really matter. What will matter is if there is a counter-narrative based on dubious claims of an equally fantastic future. It explains why AAP is seen as a credible threat by the BJP.Caplan ends his essay with a rather pessimistic view of free speech:Doesn’t this imply that free speech is overrated?  Yes; I’ve said so before.  While I’d like to believe that free speech leads naturally to the triumph of truth, I see little sign of this.  Instead, politics looks to me like a Great Liars’ War.  Viable politicians defy literal truth in virtually every sentence.  They defy it with hyperbole.  They defy it with overconfidence.  They defy it with wishful thinking.  Dictators try to make One Big Political Lie mandatory.  Free speech lets a Thousand Political Lies Bloom.Yes, freedom of speech lets me make these dour observations without fear. I’m grateful for that.  Yet outside my Bubble, dour observations fall on deaf ears.  Psychologically normal humans crave pretty lies, so the Great Liars’ War never ends.I guess once you’ve gotten into the chakravyuha of the Mahabharata of lies, there’s no way of getting out. You will only find an avalanche of prettier lies from all sides engulfing you in future. India Policy Watch #2: Nature Of Representation Insights on burning policy issues in India— RSJDroupadi Murmu, the NDA presidential nominee, was elected as the 15th President of India a couple of weeks back. Murmu, a tribal leader from Mayurbhanj, Odisha, had earlier served as the governor of Jharkhand. That a woman from a historically marginalised section of the society now occupies the highest constitutional post is a moment to celebrate in the 75th year of Indian independence. It shows a kind of deepening of democracy. This is because we associate democracy with representation. It was no surprise therefore that a lot of opinion pieces reflected this sentiment while talking about her. Here’s Aditi Narayani Paswan writing for the Indian Express:“Droupadi Murmu is not just a source of inspiration for us; her life and struggle, determination and success in the face of great odds represent the hope and promise of New India.Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian democracy has become more representative and inclusive. The BJP represents the New India of prosperity, equality and socio-economic mobility, reflecting the true embodiment of samajik samarasta (social harmony). A tribal woman succeeding a Dalit to the highest constitutional post of the nation is a remarkable testimony to the deepening roots of Indian democracy.”And here’s a piece in Outlook:“What is really significant for us to understand here is that Murmu’s victory is not merely the victory of a specific party to power. Rather its implications can be drawn deep down to the very philosophy of what India as an independent nation has been striving to practically achieve. Whether or not her victory can bring goals of that philosophy to fruition is a matter of time to tell. But at the moment, from the point of view of a modern, multicultural, multi-ethnic nation-state, Murmu’s victory is the victory of representation.”Origin StorySince we are all talking about the victory of representation, I thought it would be useful to go deeper into the idea itself. What does representation mean in a democracy? How useful is it? Does an increasing emphasis on identity in society mean a greater opportunity for democracies to be truly representative? Is there such a thing as too much representation? To understand this, we will go back to the modern conception of the state and, therefore, to Hobbes. There are good reasons to go back to ancient history and the Roman republic or the Roman empire while talking about representation. But the political theory of the time concerned itself with the question of who was fit to rule us from among the people who should be ruling us. It didn’t answer the question of how we find who was fit to rule us. The process didn’t matter much then. So, we start with Hobbes again. This is a familiar territory for this newsletter so forgive me for going over it again. For Hobbes, human life in the state of nature is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. We would be a ‘fractious multitude’ forever at war with each other for scarce resources because there would be no powerful force to keep us in order. The solution, Hobbes wrote, was for people to come together to form a pact, let’s call it the ‘commonwealth’, where they voluntarily give up some of their freedoms to a powerful entity called the ‘sovereign’ in exchange for protection against the violence that’s inevitable in the state of nature. So that’s how the State worked. There were the multitudes, a notion of the commonwealth, and then there was the sovereign. The sovereign was all-powerful but ruled because of the legitimacy of the commonwealth. If the sovereign itself became brutish, the multitudes might dismantle the commonwealth and look for another. Hobbes didn’t care much about how to search for the sovereign. It could be through a parliament, or it could be a monarch; it didn’t matter so long as it had absolute power to maintain order which was in turn voluntarily offered to them by the people. The enlightenment thinkers who followed Hobbes concerned themselves with two big ideas. One was individual liberty and how it should be protected and championed in the face of a powerful sovereign. The other was the separation of the ‘church’ from the State or how to ensure the sovereign doesn’t bow down to another power in the name of God. The revolutions and political reforms in the late 18th century Europe and North America were a result of the excesses of the sovereign and the propagation of these ideas within those societies. The primacy of individual liberty, the weakening of monarchy and the separation of the church led to the evolution of the modern, representative democracy where the people chose who would lead them. The people would be sovereign through the mode of representation. A system of checks and balances between the legislature, executive and judiciary would limit the concentration of power in any one person. This became the democratic model to emulate. The Problem Of RepresentationThe problem of representation wasn’t too difficult to solve in the early days of democracy. There was no universal suffrage, people lived in villages over generations, their representatives knew their issues well, and the people chose someone who presented the best option to address their concerns. There was very little information asymmetry. This model started fraying with increasing industrialisation and deepening of capitalism leading to greater social and geographic mobility. Cities with diverse populations, new professions, break down of the feudal structure in the countryside and universal suffrage followed. This meant it was difficult for any representative to know their people as well as before. Even the people couldn’t keep pace with all the information around them. Like Walter Lippman would write, there was a world outside, and there was a picture of it inside our heads. We make our decisions based on this picture which is a second-hand view of the world because we cannot see all of the world. Because of this, we search for an authentic messenger who can explain the real world to us. The elites use the media to present themselves as the authentic messengers and shape public opinion. It is this elite then who influence representation for the public. Once this model got established, we saw the elites dominate representation in democracies for most of the 20th century. This wheel turned in the last decade when the excesses of the financial system, the concentration of the benefits of globalisation, the proliferation of media and greater disparity in opportunities led to a populist backlash against the elites.The Three NarrativesThere are now three competing narratives on representation today. The first is the old Burkean point on the role of a representative of people. His speech to the electors of Bristol in 1774 is a classic on the role of a representative:“Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”This is the model of an independent representative with a mind of his own. They work with autonomy using their judgment to do what they think is best for their people.The second narrative is about the representative being either an expert or who will rely on experts for finding the best answers to the concerns of the public. This narrative strengthens when a nation is in crisis because of a war, economic failure or an emergency (health or environment, for instance). These don’t last long, and an expert eventually falls out of favour unless they reinvent themselves. The last narrative is that of a representative who is like you and me, the proverbial US politician who you could have a chat with over a beer. This is the literal interpretation of representation where fealty to someone is drawn because of how closely they resemble us. In a world where every expertise can be questioned, where independent thinking is viewed with suspicion, and tribal loyalty is the highest virtue, this literal view of representation is the strongest. Of course, this isn’t to say that these narratives of representation cannot come together in the shape of a single person who could satisfy all of them. But that looks increasingly rare around the world these days. What’s easier is for a representative to fashion themselves in closer affiliation to a particular identity among the people and use that to come to power. Over-indexing on any one of these narratives and choosing representatives on that basis is bad for democracy. It weakens the state. It is something we must keep in mind while celebrating representation.  Matsyanyaaya: A New East Asian TransitionBig fish eating small fish = Foreign Policy in action— Pranay KotasthaneThis week’s news was dominated by the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. If you weren’t sleeping under a rock, you would have already read many views, claims, blames, and counter-claims around this event. Here’s another one, but from an Indian realist perspective.The dominant narrative sees this visit as another episode of the ongoing US-China great power rivalry. In this narrative, Taiwan by itself, is secondary. All that matters is to place the blame either on China or the US for the escalations. One framing is that this visit was unnecessary, provocative, and irresponsible. The argument goes that the US has worsened the security situation of China’s neighbours by inviting the latter’s aggression. The opposite framing suggests that the blame rests solely on China’s expansionist tendencies over the last five years. China’s response of activating a military response ahead of the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party only shows what this event is really about.Both frames of the dominant narrative are missing a crucial element: the choices of the Taiwanese people. The great power rivalry framing often ignores that other nation-states also have the agency to make their sovereign choices, even if doing so sometimes involves playing one great power against another. Ukraine’s case is similar. Some people blame NATO’s expansion on Russia’s borders, while others point out that an invasion has no justification (I share this view). But we forget that most Ukrainians themselves want to move away from Russia and get closer to the West. Any final analysis needs to take this factor into account. My colleague Nitin Pai made a critical argument in early March: ““NATO/EU shouldn’t have expanded” is an insult to the agency of countries that have willingly exercised their choice to join. Accepting their sovereign decisions is also realism. Pretty silly to call yourself a ‘realist’ while pretending sovereign states don’t exist/lack agency.”So is the case with Taiwan. Some analysts are stuck in the old times, believing that Taiwan is China’s “internal issue”. They haven’t been paying enough attention to Taiwan’s domestic polity. The Taiwanese “nation”—the imagined community in Benedict Anderson’s conception— has been carefully constructed over the last few years. Democracy, freedom, and deep connections with the broader world are key foundations of Taiwanese nationalism. This kind of nationalism is antithetical to the mainland’s nationalism. The two consecutive electoral victories of the ruling party—Tsai Ing-wen’s DPP—is a sign that this Taiwanese identity has taken shape. The DPP defeated the grand old Guomindang, a party that has been soft on China. This is what Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu said in a BBC interview a couple of days ago:"We want to maintain the status quo, which is that Taiwan has no jurisdiction over mainland China and the People's Republic of China (CCP) has no jurisdiction over Taiwan. That is the reality… On the index of freedom Taiwan is ranked number one, on economic freedom Taiwan is also at the top. Taiwanese people enjoy democracy, freedom and the value of human rights, that put Taiwan in the democratic world…. We have the will and the capability. We need other countries to provide Taiwan with defensive articles, but defending Taiwan is our responsibility, we are not asking other countries to sacrifice their lives to protect Taiwan."Read the lines again. They are definitely not about a small internal issue or a minor historical, ideological tussle. What About Pelosi’s VisitHaving understood the categorical shift in Taiwan’s politics, we can better understand Ms Pelosi’s visit. The Taiwanese government knew what they were getting into. Taiwan orchestrated the visit precisely to clarify to the world that its differences with China are irreconcilable. Even the Guomindang came out in support of the visit. Having been under the threat of a mainland invasion for over 73 years, the Taiwanese know China’s intentions and actions better than most others.The visit, by itself, was just symbolic. It didn’t involve a leader from the Biden administration. Moreover, both Pelosi and the Biden administration made it clear that they are not reversing the “One China” principle. It was China that raised the stakes. China could’ve opted to let it pass by with a strong statement alone. But it chose to ratchet tensions, hoping that this tried-and-tested strategy would stare down Taiwan.But that was not to be. Taiwan and Pelosi called China’s bluff. And when that happened, China began conducting massive military drills, fired missiles and withdrew from important dialogue forums with the US. All this in response to just a symbolic visit by a legislators’ group! Just like the unsportsmanlike kid who walks away with his bat, ball and wickets after being adjudged out. (I know I’m breaking my injunction against anthropomorphising international relations.)How Should We in India Process This?Thus far, we have opted for our favourite position of taking a stance by not taking a stance. Foreign ministers of the US, Australia, and Japan jointly condemned China’s launch of missiles. The fourth Quad member was conspicuous by its absence.From an Indian perspective, Taiwan standing up to China’s expansionism is encouraging. India is familiar with China’s tantrums over visits by foreign diplomats. On every occasion a US Ambassador to India visits Arunachal Pradesh, the Chinese government gets riled up. Pelosi’s visit should be seen in the same context. China’s unreasonable demands and the disproportionate escalation when the demands aren’t heeded, deserve strong criticism short of any change in the “One China” formulation. At the same time, India should close the long-pending free-trade agreement with Taiwan. Its strategic value far outweighs the benefits of haggling over import duties.These words from Joseph Wu serve as a useful reminder to India and Indians:“Look at their[China’s] behaviour over Hong Kong, or claiming the East China Sea and the South China Sea. It is the typical expansionism of an authoritarian state.. Countries in this region need to watch out for what China is trying to do. Taiwan is not going to be the last piece in Chinese dream of expansionism.”Want to find out more about India and Taiwan? Start with this Puliyabaazi episode we recorded with Sana Hashmi, an Indian scholar of East Asian international relations (it’s in Hinglish). Earlier this year, Sana also anchored a comprehensive policy report analysing the India-Taiwan partnership for the Taiwan Asia Exchange Foundation. The report has twenty chapters on various facets of the relationship. I have co-written a chapter on semiconductors, while my colleague Shambhavi has a chapter on bilateral cooperation to tackle future pandemics. Finally, my colleagues have analysed a few cross-strait scenarios from an Indian national interest perspective in an excellent Takshashila Intelligence Estimate. Course Advertisement: Admissions for the Sept 2022 cohort of Takshashila’s Graduate Certificate in Public Policy programme are now open! Visit this link to apply.HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters[Blog] If you are interested in the semiconductor angle in the Taiwan-PRC tensions, we have a post on it in our High-tech Geopolitics newsletter. [Book] Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra Vogel is necessary reading to understand China better. [Tweet thread] Common mistakes we make in pronouncing Chinese names. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com

Phil Steele, PhilSteele.com On Liberty, ODU, JMU And Other VA Schools by Ed Lane

Substack — the popular newsletter and publishing service — has made a name for itself by swimming against the current: As many technology companies devise new ways to censor or moderate content on their platforms, Substack made free speech one of its core values and, in doing so, has attracted bloggers and journalists from across the political spectrum.“While we have content guidelines that allow us to protect the platform at the extremes, we will always view censorship as a last resort, because we believe open discourse is better for writers and better for society,” proclaimed Substack's founders.Lulu Cheng Meservey is Vice President of Communications for Substack. She went viral earlier this year when she tweeted about why free expression is an important principle for Substack. She joins us this week to discuss Substack, free speech, and the new media ecosystem. Show notes: Transcript Lulu's viral tweet thread “Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse.” by Hamish McKenzie, Chris Best, and Jairaj Sethi Substack's “Content Guidelines” Substackers mentioned: Andrew Sullivan, Casey Newton, The Fifth Column, Patti Smith, George Saunders, Salman Rushdie, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Freddie deBoer, Nikita Petrov, Blocked and Reported John Stuart Mill's “On Liberty” www.sotospeakpodcast.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SotoSpeakTheFreeSpeechPodcast Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/freespeechtalk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freespeechtalk/ Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org

Does the First Amendment of the Constitution Cover Freedom of Speech?The United States of America is the freest nation on Earth, for the time being. The Supreme Law of the land continues to be the Constitution. The founding document of our great nation on its own is the crowning achievement of the Founding Fathers, but before its ratification, ten articles were included as amendments.These ten articles became known as the Bill of Rights. The first of those rights, called the First Amendment, is:"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."Today, we are going to provide Free Speech 101: The Essential Guide. There are many things which ought to be said in the realm of freedom of speech, but these things are the roots, the essence of the topic.What is Freedom of Speech?The Constitution's First Amendment protects the nation from Congress attempted to make laws abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. This is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy.Geoffrey Stone and Eugene Volokh, in conjunction with the National Constitution Center, provide a fantastic layman's version of this freedom: "Generally speaking, it means that the government may not jail, fine, or impose civil liability on people or organizations based on what they say or write, except in exceptional circumstances."The Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution as protecting speakers from any and all government agencies and officials. Further, "speech" and "press" refers to talking, writing, printing, broadcasting, the Internet, and other forms of expressing oneself. Much to the chagrin of some, "freedom of speech also applies to symbolic expression, such as displaying flags, burning flags, wearing armbands, burning crosses, and the like (Stone, Volokh)."What Circumstances Are Not Covered as Free Speech Under the First Amendment?The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a reputation as a liberal organization, to put it mildly. However, in an article regarding free speech, the ACLU wrote:"Over the years, the ACLU has represented or defended individuals engaged in some truly offensive speech. We have defended the speech rights of communists, Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, accused terrorists, pornographers, anti-LGBT activists, and flag burners. That's because the defense of freedom of speech is most necessary when the message is one most people find repulsive. Constitutional rights must apply to even the most unpopular groups if they're going to be preserved for everyone."Quite right! So, when is freedom of speech NOT covered by the First Amendment of the Constitution?First, certain types of speech are considered "low" value to the Supreme Court and thus provide circumstances under which the First Amendment barely applies or does not apply. These are outlined, with references to specific cases by Stone and Volohk:DefamationTrue threats"Fighting words"Hard-core obscenity (such as highly sexually explicit pornography)Child pornographyCommercial Advertising which is misleadingSecond, if the speaker is in a special relationship to the government, they are less protected. Government employees, such as public school employees can be restricted, even in the content of their speech.Third, the government can restrict speech under certain circumstances which are irrespective of content. For example, restrictions on noise, blocking traffic, and large distracting signs are constitutional, if they are reasonable. However, a law prohibiting demonstrations in public parks or handing out leaflets on public streets would be unconstitutional.Who was John Stuart Mill and What Did He Believe About Speech?Where did the American notion of freedom of speech which we possess come from? The lion's share of that work belongs to the British philosopher John Stuart Mill. In his 1859 book, On Liberty, Mill provided a bold argument for freedom of speech. Mill believed in the freedom of speech to discuss any topic at all, without molestation. The fullest expression of liberty in his mind was following topics of conversation to their logical limits. Social niceties be damned. He did, however, hold to what is called the "Harm Principle." Writing on this subject, Mill says, "... the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others (Mill, J.S., 1978. On Liberty, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing)." Application of this principle is the subject of not a few debates. However, it is important to take note of this principle because it is the default liberal position on almost everything. "Well... I'm not hurting anyone!!!"To find the most liberal position's boundaries, we need only determine if someone would be harmed by someone's else's free expression. Important to distinguish, however, is that Mill would not have argued that freedom of speech be limited simply because a person was harmed. Only when speech causes direct and clear harm should it be limited.What are the Critiques of John Stuart Mill? Do They Bear Any Merit?The extreme liberal position of John Stuart Mill was an important contribution to the debate on freedom of speech. Many topics would have remained undiscussed due to taboos and socially acceptable limits. One important critique comes from an article in the Boston Review by Jacob Stanley in 2018. Stanley rightly points out that, "Disagreement requires a shared set of presuppositions about the world. Even dueling requires agreement about the rules." In his estimation, John Stuart Mill believed that "true belief becomes knowledge only by emerging victorious from the din of argument and discussion, which must occur either with actual opponents or through internal dialogue." Stanley, therefore, argues that false claims and conspiracy theories must be defended, if we are to have a chance of achieving knowledge. Stanley, however, recognizes the limits of the idea of a "marketplace of ideas" saying that human nature does not really allow for the truth to always prevail.This pragmatic view seems to provide a tempering of John Stuart Mill's unadulterated view of freedom of speech. We must understand our own limitations, as humanity, if we are to understand what freedom of speech offers us. We also cannot forget what freedom of speech requires of us!Taking OffensePresently, hate speech and taking offense are unfortunately conflated. Hate speech is determined based on the intention of the speaker. Whereas, taking offense is based on the decision of the hearer. They are not the same. In fact, sometimes a person might say something which another person takes as offensive. Let us imagine, though, that the thing which the speaker said is absolutely true and the problem is with the hearer being out of step with the truth. At this point, we can start analyzing whether what was said needed to be said. Did it need to be said in the way that it did? Did it need to be said in the circumstances that it did? Did it need to be said by that speaker to that hearer at that time?We need to dispel this myth that we have a right to not be offended. Sometimes we need to be offended. We are not perfect, not one of us. And so, if a truth is given to us, we need to be receptive, even if it hurts. That is how we grow.So, it would seem that freedom of speech extends to being offensive? But what about offensive statements which are not based in reality and actually point to a deeper more problematic issue under the surface? True hate speech causes offense, more often than not. But it is not the offense which is the primary issue. Hate speech can do injustice to privacy, equity, and security. Speech which shows a blatant disregard for the equity of people based on skin color, religion, sexual orientation, or gender (biological sex - male or female) which intends harm, cannot be under freedom of speech. No one is free to threaten harm. The Limits of Freedom of Speech and Our God-Given RightsI have no desire to opine on every possible aspect of freedom of speech in which limitations might be appropriate. Instead, I want to call us back to seeing freedom of speech as a right which necessarily is accompanied by responsibility. Here I am going to stray into philosophy rather than legality. To be clear, I am not going to be discussing what is constitutional or not, but rather stating what I believe to be right or not. Rooted in respect for human dignity, all are called to seek the common good. An integral part of securing the common good is protecting the basic and inalienable rights of all people. This begins with the right to life. Mothers and fathers have a responsibility to protect their children (from the first moment of his or her existence) to the best of their ability. Generally, the best decision is made at the local level. And so, each family must make decisions for themselves and their neighbors. These micro-communities need to serve their macro-communities. Those communities need to serve the common good of the state, then the nation, then the world. Our rights do not come primarily from our government. They begin at home. They begin with life. Responsibility Accompanies Rights, AlwaysIn justice, as we seek the common good, we exercise these rights, but we must never lose sight of the accompanying responsibilities. Put another way: we are not given rights by the Creator to be kept for our sole use. When it comes to speech, we do not have freedom of speech so much as freedom FOR speech. Our rights are geared towards our duties and responsibilities. We have to use our gifts and powers well. As Pope John XXIII wrote well in his 1963 letter Pacem in Terris:"... in human society one man's natural right gives rise to a corresponding duty in other men; the duty, that is, of recognizing and respecting that right. Every basic human right draws its authoritative force from the natural law, which confers it and attaches to it its respective duty. Hence, to claim one's rights and ignore one's duties, or only half fulfill them, is like building a house with one hand and tearing it down with the other (30)."When we speak, we do not have a license to say whatever we would like. Certainly, we have the protected right to do so in the United States, under certain limitations. But I am arguing that we should use our freedom of speech wisely. By using it well, our words will have greater impact. Our well-chosen words will add social value and lift our neighbors up. Let us build up this common house and humanity, rather than tear it down.Thanks for reading Will Wright Catholic! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Sources:https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/amendment-i/interps/266What is free speech? What is not considered free speech?https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech/Freedom of Speech entry at Stanfordhttps://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1258/john-stuart-mill1st Amendment Encyclopediahttp://bostonreview.net/politics-philosophy-religion/jason-stanley-what-mill-got-wrong-about-freedom-of-speechLiberal critique of John Stuart Millhttps://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speechACLU on Freedom of Speechhttps://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/Text of the 1st Amendmenthttps://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-ongoing-challenge-to-define-free-speech/in-the-age-of-socia-media-first-amendment/Free speech and the internet This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willwrightcatholic.substack.com

WHY IT'S DESIRABLE TO BE ECCENTRIC: "Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of." In 1859 the great English thinker John Stuart Mill published, in Chapter Three of his treatise On Liberty, one of history's most cogent essays on the subject of Individuality, originality, genius, and eccentricity. To Mill's view, mass opinion (what we might call “mass culture” these days), is an undeniable blight to individuality, and therefore directly threatens freedoms civic and intellectual, cultural, and democratic. While explicitly political, Mill's argument reaches down to the foundations of human nature and culture, articulating many of the challenges artists and writers face in a media-driven society fixated upon dollars earned, hits per day, and “going viral.” Mentioned in this episode: John Stuart Mill; Mill's "On Liberty"; Victorian England; keeping up with the joneses; Ray Bradbury; bestseller lists; Billboard charts; Oprah endorsements; culture vs. commerce; becoming valuable to oneself and to others; despotism; John Gardner; the National Endowment for the Arts; the tyrannical majority; unpopular vs. uncommercial; persons of genius; arts funding.  Music: "Hands of Time" by Narrow Skies; "Interspacing" by Yehezkel Raz; "Fragments" by Borrtex; "Birds & Daisies" by Racoon Racoon (All music used courtesy of the artists through a licensing agreement with Artlist.) --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/in-the-atelier/support

This week On Liberty talks to Prof James Allan of the University of Queensland. In his latest column for Australian Spectator, James explains why the acolytes of irrationality so often turn to accusations of 'hate speech'. As opposing hate is "one of the few remaining first principles that virtually all of us sort of accept". That's why so many activists "throw around the charge of hate with gay abandon". We'll be asking James about hate, humour, the definition of 'gender', and the lack of viewpoint diversity on university campuses and its implications for teaching and research. We will be taking your questions about cancel culture, the weaponisation of hate, and the future of education, so we hope you can tune in. Prof James Allan is the Garrick Professor in Law at the University of Queensland and a weekly columnist for Australian Spectator magazine. His academic research centres on legal philosophy and constitutional law, with a particular focus on bills of rights. He is author of the soon to be released book The Age of Foolishness: A Doubter's Guide to Constitutionalism in a Modern Democracy (2022, Academica Press).

PolicyWTF: Learning Everyday From GST This section looks at egregious public policies. Policies that make you go: WTF, Did that really happen?- RSJMany years ago, I went out for dinner with a client in Paris. It was a nice restaurant. Soon, the wines started flowing, escargots were polished off and I was educated on the mother sauces of French cuisine. The lark was on the wing, the snail was on the thorn plate, the client was footing the bill, God was in his heaven, and all was right with the world etc. You get the picture. Then late (very late) into the evening, desserts were served. And I was served pain perdu. It looked like French toast. It tasted like French toast. But here it sat staring at me as a dessert. For a moment I thought we had dined for so long that we had crossed over to breakfast. But no. This was still dinner time. And here was pain perdu. It was then I added French toast to my list of food items that are difficult to categorise. The Bombay falooda tops the list. For good reasons. After all, what is a falooda? Sevai ki kheer? Icecream? Basil seeds or sago pudding? Jelly with milk and syrup? There’s no answer. There cannot be any. Except, maybe it is 42.However, things have changed in the past few years. I have gotten the answer to such existential food queries of mine from an unlikely source.GST.The GST appellate authority for advance ruling (AAR) of various states has been a steady source of insights on this topic. I have learnt the difference between barfi and chocolate barfi – one is a sweet, the other a chocolate; what’s the essence of falooda – it is icecream, everything else is incidental; is paratha different from parotta – yes, big time; is 100% wheat paratha different from roti and khakra – of course, it is; are basundi and badam milk sweets or are they beverages – they are beverages; is a biscuit with chocolate coating a biscuit; is a chocolate with wafer coating a chocolate – well, the jury is still out on this one. I could go on. AAAR has always come to the rescue. See here and here (section 2).Adding to this long list of nuggets of wisdom was the Haryana AAAR last week. Here’s the ET reporting on pizza and pizza toppings:“A pizza topping is not a pizza and hence should be classified differently and levied a higher 18% goods and services tax (GST), the Haryana appellate authority for advance ruling (AAAR) has ruled. This could complicate taxation for several pizza brands, especially when the pizzas are sold within a hotel or restaurant, said tax experts.GST rates on pizzas differ on the basis of how they are prepared and sold. A pizza sold and eaten within a restaurant attracts 5% GST, the pizza base bought separately attracts 12% while a pizza delivered at home attracts 18% GST.The AAAR ruled on March 10 that pizza topping should face 18% GST as its preparation method is different from that of a pizza. It considered all the ingredients used in a topping and concluded that while a pizza topping is sold as a "cheese topping" it's not really cheese and hence should attract higher taxes.The authority ruled that pizza topping contains "vegetable fat" as a substantial portion, being 22% of the ingredients, and hence, it does not qualify to be categorised as 'processed cheese' or a type of cheese. Pizza topping would merit classification as 'food preparation', it said.Tax experts said GST rates could depend on three tests - common parlance test, end use test or ingredients test - and that often tax rates could differ how a product is categorised. Cheese, for example, is taxed at a lower rate if it is called "fat" or processed food preparation.”This is the kind of clarity I always wanted in life.The unintended benefits of GST through the AAAR clarifications on food items have been tremendous. Those who ask ‘show me an example of a good public policy’, should take note of this.PS: Check out how the inverted duty structure of GST creates professional refund cheaters in edition #50.India Policy Watch: The Kashmir FilesInsights on burning policy issues in India- RSJThere’s a new film in town. The Kashmir Files (TKF). It is so good that even the super busy PM has recommended it. Ministers have tweeted about it in glowing terms. State governments have given their staff a holiday to watch it. I have seen news anchors comparing it favourably with Schindler’s List. I guess a new wave of cinema is upon us. What a time to be alive. Let me admit I haven’t watched it yet, the philistine that I am. So, I cannot say much about the merits of the film. Not that it has made much of a difference to the prospects of the film. The film is a huge commercial success without my patronage. And that merits a discussion.From what I have read about the film, it is a semi-fictional account of the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) from the valley in the early 90s. It traces the events leading to the exodus, the hardship faced by the community during those days and the tragedy of being uprooted from your homeland with the prospect of never going back. Like most displaced communities around the world, the KPs have shown remarkable resilience in building back their lives since. They have gone about doing it in a manner that reflects the ethos of a gentle and graceful community. The many KPs I have met (we all have had them in our colleges) always spoke of those days with a sense of loss and anguish. But never rancour. It is what always struck me about them. The director, it appears, has taken this rich screenplay material and mounted a film that has drawn unqualified praise from the partisans of the BJP. The reaction from the opposite camp has been on expected lines too. That it is a propaganda film weaponising the tragedy of a community to sustain the ongoing campaign to vilify Muslims in India. Like many debates in contemporary India, I suspect this debate will be settled with the film earning billions at the box office in the shortest time. Or another vanity metric of this kind. The majority will have then spoken. Everybody will have to calm down. The Right Reason To Make The FilmI have written in earlier editions about the value of encouraging contesting narratives about our history in the public domain. One of the mistakes in the early years of our independence was that we didn’t let this happen as much. An ‘establishment’ was created that dominated academics, culture and arts which swore by liberty and free speech but muzzled other voices than their own. The state often supported this overtly. There might have been compulsions of the moment then for the state to have propped up a narrative. But this continued far too long and over time turned into a cabal. This meant alternative narratives festered on the fringes with limited academic rigour or challenge. And when their moment came, as it always does, these loose and phantasmagoric versions have taken over social media. You can challenge a book that’s published based on some research. But how do you counter millions of fake WhatsApp messages that are sent out every day to create new history? The eventual outcome of suppressing alternative voices is always worse. John Stuart Mill, while laying down his three arguments in favour of free speech in Chapter 2 of On Liberty, had warned about this. We now see the impact of this around us. This is the reason I believe we should welcome other voices. Our revulsion to them means nothing in the long run. For instance, I read the couple of well documented biographies of Savarkar that have come out of late. I’m no fan of the man. But there are many who are and it is worth having a full account of his life to understand the present moment. The books about him have been challenged both on their content and their message. There are debates about plagiarism of passages, poor research, and reproducing right-wing bile directly from his autobiography into the books. But they are out there for others to read and to criticise. You get a somewhat complete picture of a complex man like Savarkar; warts and all. The criticism of the books makes you more aware of the issues involved and hopefully, you will have fewer WhatsApp messages in family groups about the unproven myth of Savarkar. This should be seen as a net positive social outcome. Better than no books on him. So, my starting position on a film like The Kashmir Files emerges from there. For long there’s the argument made that if you don’t like the left-wing slant in arts and cinema, why don’t you write your own books and make your own films? So, why should anyone complain if these books and films are being made? They may have dubious artistic merits and they may even be unvarnished propaganda but let that be debated in public. It is not that left-wing art didn’t have these faults. History has shown this works out better than suppressing them.And The Wrong ReasonsWith that point on principle out of the way, let’s move on. What interests me more is the question of the role of art in society and what does the phenomenon of TKF reveal about India today.There’s the question of truth here. A lot of discussion about the film has been about its thinly fictionalised storyline that plays fast and loose with facts. Importantly, the partisans of the film have promoted it as a work that tells the ‘truth’ about what happened to the KPs of the valley. There are two problems here. One, all art is a pursuit of a truth of some kind. But it is just that. A pursuit. TKF is a film, regardless of its merit, that pursues a version of truth its makers believe in. That cannot ever be absolute. Art must make what’s invisible, visible. In that limited way only, it serves the truth. So, this relentless campaign to posit this as the only truth about what happened in the valley is dangerous. The exodus of the KPs didn’t spontaneously emerge out of a vacuum. There was half-a-century history to it that’s riddled with wars, false promises and a sense of alienation. And there’s a timeline to Kashmir history after the exodus too that includes the highest military presence in any piece of land in the world, killing of the innocents and upending of lives. TKF will contribute to this composite truth. It cannot replace it. History is always ambiguous. What really happened and why are shape-shifting monsters. We all are in the Proustian search for lost time. Even personal memory gets addled over the years. So what will you make of collective memory? You can only have versions of it.Two, I have an instinctive suspicion of the state promoting a work of art on an ideological basis. The state can be a patron as it has been for ages. It must create an environment for art to thrive. But when it weighs in on what’s good art and what’s not, understand that things have gone wrong. I’m not inclined to draw lazy parallels while writing here. But the experience of Soviet and Nazi attempts in using arts for the political end is too recent to be forgotten. Like Adorno wrote, “all art is an uncommitted crime.” It breathes because it challenges power and dominant narratives. Once it moves in lockstep with the state, it loses its vitality. Because soon works of art will be created to retrofit what pleases the state. Then there’s no pursuit of any truth. It all becomes in service of the state. What remains is propaganda.As Camus wrote in his famous essay on art, Create Dangerously (1957):“To create today is to create dangerously. Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing. Hence the question is not to find out if this is or is not prejudicial to art. The question, for all those who cannot live without art and what it signifies, is merely to find out how, among the police force of so many ideologies, the strange liberty of creation is possible. It is not enough to say in this regard that art is threatened by the powers of the State. If that were true, the problem would be simple: the artist fights or capitulates. The problem is more complex, more serious too as soon as it becomes apparent that the battle is waged within the artist himself.…Of what could art speak, indeed? If it adapts itself to what the majority of our society wants, art will be a meaningless recreation. If it blindly rejects that society, if the artist makes up his mind to take refuge in his dream, art will express nothing but a negation. In this way we shall have the production of entertainers or of formal grammarians, and in both cases, this leads to an art cut off from living reality.…Consequently, its (art’s) only aim is to give another form to a reality that it is nevertheless forced to preserve as the source of its emotion. In this regard, we are all realistic and no one is. Art is neither complete rejection nor complete acceptance of what is. It is simultaneously rejection and acceptance, and this why it must be a perpetually renewed wrenching apart.”The question of TKF as a work of art therefore cannot be separated from what purpose is it serving in today’s India. Is it being used to learn lessons from the past? What does the story of the exodus of a minority community at midnight with a handful of valuables and a heart full of memories teach us? I think the only lesson Kant (Immanuel) would have asked us to take is that which can be applied universally. And that is a society must protect its minorities. The majority shouldn’t turn their heads away when something similar happens again. The moral question then is simple. Is that the lesson that’s being learnt from TKF? Is that why it is a runaway hit? You know the answer as well as I do. Maybe these are big goals for a mere film. So, let’s narrow it. Is the film helping KPs in anyway? Or is it driving a wedge that makes a return to their homelands more distant? Some see the mere act of telling the story of KPs in the way it has been shown as a salve for their wounds. Maybe it is a salve. Maybe it is reopening of old wounds. Maybe it is both. That’s for the KPs to decide. What is the rest of India being asked to learn from it? There are only uncomfortable answers here. Its success tells us something about the times it has been made. Cinematically, I can bet TKF is no Schindler’s List. I don’t need to watch it to state that. We don’t need to declare holidays for people to watch it. If we want to watch a great film about India on a holiday, “uska prabandh kiya ja chuka hai.” It has been arranged. We show that great film every year across TV channels on October 2. Watch it. There’s always something new to learn for anyone who holds humanity dear.The instrumental use of art for political ends is a frontier. When you cross that, you are in strange territory. The success of TKF at the box office points us only in one direction.It is called an ‘andha kuan’ in Hindi.PolicyWTF: Pension Troubles are BackThis section looks at egregious public policies. Policies that make you go: WTF, Did that really happen?- Pranay KotasthaneLong-time readers of this newsletter know that I have cited the civil services pension reform in 2004 as an example of a policy success because the government was able to align cognitive maps in a manner that generated little backlash and protests. Until 2004, Indian governments promised to pay their employees’ pensions from the money collected from future taxpayers. Unlike in the private sector, where employees and the employer together contribute towards an employee’s pension fund, government employees bore no such responsibility. As a result, the burgeoning pension bill led the government to change its stance in 2004. Through the reform, any employee joining the union government from April 1, 2004, contributed a part of their salary to their pension fund and the contribution was to be matched by the government. Over time, state governments (except West Bengal) implemented this reform.To ensure that this doesn’t mean going back on past promises, this reform was applied only to new recruits, which immediately disarmed powerful unions of existing employees. Secondly, new employees effectively received a salary hike of 10 per cent, which was the government’s contribution to their pension fund. Finally, armed forces personnel were kept out of this reform given the short service term of non-officers. Quite a fair proposition, one would think. Good economics intersects with good politics; all bases covered; cognitive maps aligned. Well, not quite. Good economics needs a sustained cover of good politics throughout the policy life-cycle. Without the latter, the former has no chance. Having implemented the reform, governments forgot the need for good politics. The result is that in the last couple of weeks, two states—Rajasthan and Chattisgarh—have gone back to the old pension system. Some others are contemplating a similar move. I don’t need to explain why this rollback is terrible. But just to drive the point home, Rajasthan today spends more than half of all the revenue it raises, on pensions and salaries of state government employees. As Mehrishi & Sane write, this implies six per cent of families in Rajasthan corner 56 per cent of all the state taxes and state fees paid by Rajasthan’s residents. By rolling back the reform, the Rajasthan government is going one step further in increasing this unfair redistribution. Future generations will be left holding the can of these ballooning pensions of today’s government employees. The important question is: why the need for this rollback? The cynical reason is electoral politics. Both Rajasthan and Chattisgarh are due for elections next year and the state government is wooing the powerful lobby of government employees at the expense of faceless, dispersed citizens. However, there is another structural reason emanating from poor politics, like in the case of the now-abandoned farm laws. The employees under the reformed pension scheme, who are starting to retire now, have received much smaller pensions than their older counterparts. This has led to protests to overturn the pension reform completely. State governments are responding to these protests. And hence, it’s important to take this concern seriously. We can understand this phenomenon better using a framework from the 1970 book Why Men Rebel? by American political scientist Ted Gurr. Gurr claimed that one of the reasons why people rebel is relative deprivation. The greater the difference between their perception of “what we deserve” and “what we are getting”, the higher their propensity to protest or rebel.In the case of pensions, the reference point for “what we deserve” is the inflation-linked and unsustainable pensions that the older retirees were getting. The perceived levels of “what we are getting” is already quite low because of implementation issues. Employee and government contributions to the funds have been delayed many times over, a concern the CAG has repeatedly raised. The gap between these two perceptions—the relative deprivation—is quite high, and hence the protests. While this model is descriptive, it can also be extended to offer some lessons in politics. According to this framework, the government’s aim should be to reduce the sense of relative deprivation. This can be theoretically achieved in two ways. One, by making it clear that “what the pensioners are getting” is not that bad a deal. This can be achieved by resolving the implementation issues and modifying the scheme to allow the pensioners to opt for higher market-linked exposure. The same effect can also be achieved by communicating how government employees are already much better placed in comparison to the people employed outside the government, in an economy marred by the COVID-19 shock. Two, by adopting a realist strategy that lowers the pensioners’ perception of “what they deserve”. This is a difficult political strategy as it can backfire: who likes to hear that they don’t deserve the absolute best? But this narrative can be created by highlighting the unsustainable current pension burden and its impact on the economy and future generations. In the current scheme of things, neither of these two strategies has been tried. Governments thought that the pension game-set-match had been done in 2004. 18 years later, they are realising that a lot still needs to be done. The Union government is masterful in creating and shaping narratives. That skill, for once, is much-desired here, lest a promising policy success turns into a grave policy error.*The title of the edition is from L.P. Hartley’s 1953 novel “The Go-Between”Advertisement: If you enjoy the themes we discuss in this newsletter, consider taking up the Graduate Certificate in Public Policy course. Intake for the next cohort is open. 12-weeks, fully online, designed with working professionals in mind, and most importantly, guaranteed fun and learning. Do not miss.HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters[Paper & Podcast] This Ideas of India conversation is not to be missed. The linked paper on why economic growth is a necessary and sufficient requirement for developing countries to meet their citizens’ basic needs is a must-read for all public policy students. [Podcast] The ‘One Nation, One Election’ idea is back in the public discourse. We discuss the problems with this idea in the latest Puliyabaazi.[Note] A work-in-progress compilation of opinions in Indian media about the India-Russia relationship. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com

Misinformation, hate speech, platforming, de-platforming, free speech, and censorship. Almost any recent controversy you can name touches on these topics. Should we allow people to spread hate online? Should we allow tech monopolies and governments to suppress the free expression of individuals? Who should decide and on what basis? John Stuart Mill articulated one of the most powerful, deep, and comprehensive arguments for free speech in an essay called On Liberty. His world-changing argument is as relevant today as it was 163 years ago, and arguably much more so. Dig into this deep and contentious topic with us on this episode of Reading Rebellion and transform your understanding of the nature of liberty.

This month, Toby Buckle, host of the Political Philosophy Podcast, returns to talk about John Stuart Mill's liberty principle! (Also sometimes called the ‘harm principle'.) The occasion for the episode is the recent release of Toby's cool new book, What is Freedom?, which is out now from Oxford University Press. Get it while it's hot!John Stuart Mill is probably one of the most influential intellectuals of the 19th century, having penned treatises on markets, logic, feminism, utilitarianism, and freedom of speech that people continue to pick up and read today. In this episode, we talk about how he had one foot in the free market-oriented tradition of liberalism and another in the more social justice-oriented type of liberalism, how he was raised under the world's most ambitious parenting/education regime, and how he had a lifelong collaboration with Harriet Taylor. We also introduce what gets called his ‘liberty princple'.The idea behind the liberty principle is that we want as much freedom for each person as possible: they should have the ability to set their own agenda and carry it out. But we also need to limit it somewhat, because if everyone was completely unconstrained in how they set their agenda and carried it out, they'd interfere with each other. We'd have one person's freedom detracting from other people's freedom. So in order to achieve the perfect equilibrium we want, the thing to do is aim for sort of a greatest lower bound: every person should be allowed to do whatever they want for whatever reason they want, only stopping shy once they reach the point where doing whatever they want would harm another person. It might seem like an obvious principle to us now, but arguably that's because we're all living in the shadow of Mill!Part of the background context for this principle is a worry about paternalism. There's a natural tendency for Person A to prevent Person B from doing what they want because Person A thinks it's obvious that what Person B wants to do right now is harmful to them. The liberty principle tells us that that's not a good reason to have laws prohibiting some course of action. We should only have a law prohibiting some course of action if allowing that course of action would interfere with other people's freedom. That way, Mill argued, we keep the decision about whether to pass a law prohibiting something grounded in empirical facts about what would actually happen if it were passed. He also wanted to emphasize that each person has the right to be their own arbiter of what kinds of risk they will assume.I hope you enjoy our discussion! It was a fun one.Further ReadingIf you'd like to hear more along the lines of what Toby and I discuss in this episode, you can do no better than to take a look at Mill's exquisite On Liberty, which you can get for free here:https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34901And if you missed the link up at the top, definitely check out Toby's edited volume, which gathers together a number of the interviews from his own podcast. The overarching theme is what freedom is and what it can be.What is Freedom?: Conversations with Historians, Philosophers, and Activists, Toby BuckleHappy reading!Matt Teichman See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Stuart Mill was born on May 20th, 1806, in London. His father James Mill was determined to mold John into a well‐​educated leader. John was given an extremely rigorous education from a young age. He learned Greek at the age of three, Latin at eight, and read Plato's dialogues in the original language before his tenth birthday.His book "On Liberty"; Published  in 1859, is a plea to find a balance between the state and individual. John Stuart Mill believed individual freedom has to be protected  at all cost and should never be restrained unless there is a threat of a physical harm. He states that “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

AVERSION TO COERCION NOVEMBER 14, 2021      AARON SMITH      SEASON 1      EPISODE 4     SHOW NOTES: In Episode #4, we take a look at the COVID-19 vaccine mandates and how the Nuremburg Code may apply to them. We dig into a few scientific papers related to the topic and also consider the ethical implications of coercive techniques being employed by governments and corporations. We recognize that this is a difficult and nuanced subject that has divided many people. It is not possible to present an exhaustive analysis of the issue. My intentions are only to bring some things to light that have not been covered adequately, if at all, by mainstream media. Hopefully this episode will help give you some new perspectives to consider.Thank you for your continued support! Please consider contributing via the links at the bottom of the show notes. Your contributions are a way to help produce this show, as I am not accepting any advertising money to mitigate the risk of having corporate interests influencing the content of The subtlecain Podcast!I am now on Substack: https://subtlecain.substack.comHere are the articles and quotes I referenced in today's episode:  Nuremburg Trials: https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nuremberg-trials"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." — John Stuart Mill: https://www.azquotes.com/author/10083-John_Stuart_Mill“With respect to his thinking about coercion, Mill is most famous for his views, in On Liberty, about what coercion is not fit to do: namely, be used to regulate people's behavior for their own good.” (John Stuart Mill: Stanford paper) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/coercionNIH Articles: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34407747 and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7843207FDA Media Release: https://www.fda.gov/media/150386/downloadCNBC on liability: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/covid-vaccine-side-effects-compensation-lawsuit.htmlExperimental and Clinical Transplantation article: http://www.ectrx.org/forms/ectrxcontentshow.php?year=2021&volume=19&issue=7&supplement=0&makale_no=0&spage_number=627&content_type=FULL%20TEXTIs the Nuremburg Code law? https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199711133372006Feel free to email me at subtlecain@protonmail.com with any questions or suggestions. Your support is always appreciated! You can support the show in these ways:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/subtlecainPayPal: https://paypal.me/subtlecain?country.x=US&locale.x=en_USVenmo: https://venmo.com/u/subtlecainSupport the show (https://paypal.me/subtlecain?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US)

This is the first in a new series of short intellectual snacks in which host of The Political Animals Podcast, Jonathan Cole, will offer a meditation on a single idea or argument from a great book and thinker that is relevant to the cultural and political challenges of 21st century humans. In this inaugural episode, Jonathan meditates on John Stuart Mill's argument for free speech in his classic work On Liberty (1859).

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) penned the most powerful and winsome defense of the freedom of speech, but it is not without its presuppositions. Those assumptions have eroded in our culture, which means the freedom of speech is eroding, too. Are human beings mouthpieces of power and prejudice, or is the truth a valuable common ground from which we can evaluate each other's ideas? Mill concludes that censorship is hubris and indoctrination is cowardice.LinksVisit our website: https://www.wellreadchristian.comCheck our our blog: https://www.wellreadchristian.com/blogFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/wellreadchristianInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wellreadchristianTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/WellReadChrist1Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfGxz4OH1-hVD0fL9AWR4Xg

In this episode, Todd and Nathan discuss Nathan's recent article, “Reading John Stuart Mill's On Liberty in the Age of ‘Cancel Culture' and ‘Fake News'.” We discuss Mill's famous defense of free speech and its limits. Along the way, we talk about the implications for present-day issues like “cancel culture,” Antifa's answer to hate speech, and religious tolerance in a secular world.Reading John Stuart Mill's On Liberty in the Age of “Cancel Culture” and “Fake News”: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/reading-john-stuart-mills-on-liberty-in-the-age-of-cancel-culture-and-fake-news/Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_toleranceExamples of “cancel culture” we discuss:3 cases of people being fired for innocuous things: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing-innocent/613615/Gina Carano: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Carano#Social_media_controversyCanceled young-adult novelist: https://reason.com/2019/02/28/he-was-part-of-a-twitter-mob-that-attack/For Todd's post-episode reflections, check out: https://todd-tavares.medium.com/Follow Nathan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NathGAlexanderNathan's website: https://www.nathangalexander.com/If you find the podcast valuable and want to support it, go to https://anchor.fm/beyond-atheism and click the “Support” button. We are grateful for every contribution.

I'm delighted to kick off this season with an incredibly timely conversation with Dr. Jeffrey Howard (@jeffhowarducl).Jeff is an Associate Professor of Political Theory at UCL's Department of Political Science, where he works on political and legal philosophy, focusing on the moral challenges facing citizens and policymakers.Recently Jeff has been working on a project on “dangerous speech," exploring questions like, is there a right to incite? Is there a moral duty to refrain from dangerous speech? Is it right to restrict or punish dangerous speech?Given our current political climate, in which outgoing US President Donald Trump was impeached last week on the charge of incitement, and was banned from top social media platforms because of dangerous speech, I couldn't think of a better person to ask on the show than Jeffrey Howard.Resources:Jeff's paper on Dangerous SpeechBook recommendation: On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill