The Importance of Not Harming People

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

If we are always careful not to offend, that makes it much easier for people to justify, condone, and even commit acts of violence when they feel offended. This kind of rhetoric of having been hurt is very dangerous because it's used as a justification to cause genuine hurt, violence, and terror in retaliation for a supposed imaginary hurt or a psychological hurt. We can counter opinion with opinion, but not with calls to action to materially hurt the person. I think there is often value in being offensive for its own sake.

When is a certain speech act an opinion versus a call to action? Does that distinction matter for censorship purposes? Why does it seem that human behavior tends towards censorship rather than towards freedom of expression? Is feeling emotionally or politically harmed a valid reason for censoring certain speech acts? Will it always be the case that, given enough time, truth will win out over ignorance, bullshit, misinformation, and lies? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for creating a society in which truth wins at the end of the day? Why are citizens so often attracted to populist and/or fascist ideologies and political parties? What value does religion provide to a society?

Iona Italia is the editor-in-chief of Areo Magazine and the host of its Two for Tea podcast. Iona is the author of two books: Anxious Employment (a study of eighteenth-century essayists) and Our Tango World (sociological and philosophical musings on dance and life). She holds a PhD in English Literature from Cambridge University and publishes weekly creative non-fiction pieces on her Substack, The Second Swim. Her background includes a decade in academe and a 12-year career as a tango dancer and teacher. Iona lives in London with four old friends. She loves dancing, running, choral singing, chess, dogs, and sci-fi.

Staff