Check-out Time at the Whole Year Inn
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.
— The First Amendment (Emphasis added.)
In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill stated what is now called the absolutist, or more pejoratively, the “extremist,” position on the right of the free people to express themselves:
If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary 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.
The intentionally ignorant and the willfully deluded cannot, or refuse to, appreciate man’s interest in, or the gravity of, this inalienable right:
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
— On Liberty (1859)
However, those who benefit from the control of speech, whom we can call, the “Masters,” for easy reference, understand very well the power of freedom of speech, and that this power lies not with them, but with the people. As a result, freedom of speech is anathema to the (under-restrained) capitalist system, which ironically, draws its own vitality from the very same well.
It is not a coincidence that as capital has concentrated over the past few decades, censorship has increased — in fact, in geometric relation to capital’s concentration.
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.
— Noam Chomsky (1998)
The point being that one can either jump into the drawn bath of senseless noise, or state or posit positions which practically no one will hear, and fewer will be interested in.
If a tree were to fall on an uninhabited island, would there be any sound?
Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound.
— Scientific American (1884)
I can’t be engaged in the former, and the latter appears at least as pointless.
Buddhism observes that existence is painful. It is the conditions which make an individual which are exactly what gives rise to dissatisfaction and suffering. For individuality implies limitation; limitation gives rise to desire; but desire causes suffering, because what is desired is transitory.
The road out of this trap is more complicated than a weekly column on this website, which seems to be leading nowhere, at least for this one writer. I will be going back to posting occasional videos, since I prefer multi-media presentations. These will be posted here, and on Rumble, and perhaps also on YouTube. In addition, I am likely to have an occasional essay to post here, if something important and interesting happens, or is likely to happen.