The interesting question is, just because something thinks differently from you, does that mean it’s not thinking? We allow that humans have such divergences from one another. You like strawberries. I hate ice-skating. You cry at sad films. I’m allergic to pollen. What does it mean to have different tastes – different preferences – other than to say that our brains work differently? That we think differently from one another?
~ The Imitation Game (via)
I watched the movie last weekend, and this was one of the scenes that stayed with me. By sheer coincidence, the book I was reading then was The Age of Spiritual Machines, which dwells on the progress of artificial intelligence, and therefore, its impact on humanity. Humanity will be forced to reckon with AI sooner than later, (an earlier post) but long before that, we will need to learn to deal with ourselves. Have we really learned to live with our divergences? Take this as an example :
Cartoonists don’t kill people, but apparently cartoons do. Sad! :\
— manu prasad (@manuscrypts) January 8, 2015
You’re familiar with the incident, and if you want a history of Charlie Hebdo in this context, Gawker has it. The reactions to that post and the incident in general, are diverse. On one hand, you could say
If a large enough group of someones is willing to kill you for saying something, then it’s something that almost certainly needs to be said, because otherwise the violent have veto power over liberal civilization, and when that scenario obtains it isn’t really a liberal civilization any more.
Ross Douthat, The Blasphemy We Need (via)
A line of thought is that freedom of speech is binary – it exists or it does not. Let me play along, but extend that to Freedom of Expression. (oh, the irony of the acronym!) Physical hurt is relatively more tangible. But how about emotional hurt – objectively, who’s to say that not getting a ticket for a favourite movie is more painful than losing a loved one? We are far from knowing the wiring of the brain and our subjective dispositions towards people and things and their relative importance. In this context, we might have disproved the God Spot, but yet acknowledge the neuropsychological basis for spirituality, and therefore by extension, religion. That is not an endorsement of murder, but as the Pope says, if provoked by using a crude word against someone’s mother, “expect to get punched in the nose”. (read)
While one person might express himself/herself freely with a word and a cartoon, objectively speaking, cannot another use the same freedom to commit bodily harm? Is there an objective way of comparing? Just as we cannot bring back a life, we cannot take away the hurt either. The answer, predictably, is compassion.
(via)
Maybe we need to go a step further and try to imagine what gives another person pain as well. “Je suis Charlie”, goes the phrase. But really, what are you signing up for? Freedom of speech/expression is indeed binary, but perhaps we need to make more conscious choices on its usage, and therefore, its consequences.