OnPoint: On Freedom of Speech
326 Responses
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The counter-argument is that these businesses probably did quite well out of being associated with Henry and his somewhat nasty success.
People were calling for a complete boycott of TVNZ for what Paul Henry said. If something like that ever works, or even looks like it might work, TVNZ will become much more conservative.
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But ... you didn't get the memo about Public Address Newspeak, where hereafter "cunt" => "twatcock"?
Truth be told, I am a conservative swearer. Liberal, perhaps, only in quantity.
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you believe in the tooth fairy. or santa. this whole "i believe" thing kind of gives me the shits
Well, I believe that freedom of speech is a good thing that should be protected at a constitutional level by the state.
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Deal with the text, Bart, and please don't put anything in my mouth without asking. (I will also require a nice dinner and dancing afterwards. Foreplay, I can do without.)
mmmkay but I just don't dance.
Fair cop, you didn't say you weren't offended by the racism and it's pretty clear you are.
What I was saying is that lying on TV is standard operating procedure. And for me there just isn't enough time in my day (what with dinner dates and all) to bother being offended each time some talking head on TV speaks - er I mean lies (forgive me it's so hard to tell sometimes).
But I do have the time and interest to be offended when one of those talking heads promotes (by example) racism.
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Just don't defend those personal attacks as being the marketplace of ideas in action.
Of course my argument isn't *actually* "Paul Henry is a cunt". My point is that "Paul Henry is a cunt" and Paul Henry's comments have the exact same status.
Both are stupid personal attacks, but freedom of speech applies equally to both. The marketplace for ideas doesn't discriminate between rational, constructive ideas and batshit insane ad hominem attacks.
You can't judge whether ideas are worth protecting or not. They need to be protect - that's why it's important to use those same avenues to challenge them.
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Aside form how utterly depressing the metaphor "marketplace of ideas" is (which is a discussion for another day I suppose), you need to stretch the definition of "idea" quite a bit to include both what Henry said and your gynaecological rejoinder.
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I should probably just let Craig answer this, but I really don't think KiwiBlog is in any way representative of National or its supporters.
I think it's representative of a subset of National supporters, in the same way that The Standard represents a subset of Labour supporters, and the Tea Party represents a subset of Republican supporters. However, a subset is not the same thing as the entirety, nor are supporters the same as the party hierarchy, and those distinctions are worth maintaining and maintaining often.
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If we really start holding advertisers to account for the content of programmes or channels on which their ads appear, then they will be more circumspect about placing ads, and some voices may be lost.
... it will be bad for free speech.Um I think I have trouble with this. Ultimately the advertisers pay Paul Henry's salary. A little indirectly true but certainly the argument has been used by TVNZ that the have to have certain programs to get ratings in order to get advertising dollars.
If you provide the money that pays the salary of someone who speaks publicly, using your money to get a broadcast audience, then I believe you have some responsibility for the content of what is said. You may not have control but you have responsibility.
So yes if Paul Henry is deeply offensive then it is appropriate to communicate that to both his employers TVNZ and to the advertisers who provide the money to employ him.
You seem to be arguing that the advertisers should be immune from responsibility for what gets done with the money. If you provide money to allow someone to speak freely you still have responsibility for what they say. Or at least that's what I believe.
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Graeme: sponsors already set the boundaries of speech in a sponsored broadcast. They can enlarge or move those boundaries as well as constrain them. In fact, we can urge sponsors to hold firm or to change their minds in favour of some threatened voice if we have a mind to.
It seems to me that you are on the verge of advocating that all views be given equal access to the resources currently offered by sponsors. If not, on what basis is it bad to lobby for my particular preference for allocation?
Picking up what Gio said about the unsatisfactory notion of a marketplace of ideas, the offerings we currently enjoy are already arbitrarily limited and homogeneous.
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Well, I believe that freedom of speech is a good thing that should be protected at a constitutional level by the state.
hmmm... still not convinced. i believe you mean "i think that freedom...".
or "i reason that freedom...".
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you need to stretch the definition of "idea" quite a bit to include both what Henry said and your gynaecological rejoinder.
Which is not far from (one of the things) I was saying: calling Paul Henry names is not the marketplace of ideas in action.
The marketplace for ideas doesn't discriminate between rational, constructive ideas and batshit insane ad hominem attacks.
I happen to think it does. Or at least, distinguishes between those things that are ideas, and those things that are not. And perhaps neither o what you have posited, nor Henry, qualifies, but I think his was closer.
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I've suspected for a while that 'cunt' as an insult was making a move into the acceptable NZ cusswords list. In my experience it's been off the menu for respectable liberals like myself, a notoriously prudish group. At uni, it was always tricky using it around the OUSA.
When one of the Phoenix Foundation recently used it in a Twitter post, I know we where making headway on it. I attribute this to UK pop culture, as the US seem to use it mainly anatomically.
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People were calling for a complete boycott of TVNZ for what Paul Henry said. If something like that ever works, or even looks like it might work, TVNZ will become much more conservative.
Not very many people, and I don't think the idea makes sense at all. But people have a right to say it, naturally.
The idea of lobbying sponsors as a response to offensive broadcast speech is always going to be tricky -- do we want Family First targeting our favourite edgy hipster TV shows in the same way?
And, of course, there was a sweaty little clutch of Kiwiblog mouth-breathers yesterday discussing a revenge fantasy involving taking down a left-wing host -- me, personally, by name -- as a means of revenge. As it happens, I don't feel comfortable publicly demanding the sacking of someone in a somewhat similar position to myself -- let alone telling people to boycott the network my damn show's on.
But it is a flat-out commercial reality that sponsors may decide their brand is no longer served by a particular association. That's a consequence. And I do sometimes think that people arguing in favour of free speech are really arguing for speech without consequences.
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The Dikshit thing and the Satyanand thing both actually seemed well summed up, by Phil Wallington I think, as the behavior of a bully.
He had a forum/platform that others did not, and did not use it wisely.
I myself was evidently one of the minority to communicate "Good riddance" to TVNZ about this.
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But it is a flat-out commercial reality that sponsors may decide their brand is no longer served by a particular association. That's a consequence. And I do sometimes think that people arguing in favour of free speech are really arguing for speech without consequences.
And it may also be some commercial reality that lead facebook(?) to delete photos of women breast-feeding their babies, but just because you can still breast-feed, and send photos of yourself feeding to your friends by email, doesn't mean free speech isn't implicated (particularly if, for example, the photo was intended to be used to push for policy change around breastfeeding).
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Picking up what Gio said about the unsatisfactory notion of a marketplace of ideas, the offerings we currently enjoy are already arbitrarily limited and homogeneous.
You might enjoy the internet, it is somewhat less limited.
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Angus: fer sure. I was more thinking about broadcast media and print.
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And it may also be some commercial reality that lead facebook(?) to delete photos of women breast-feeding their babies, but just because you can still breast-feed ...
They were accountable for that twitchy decision -- and were flayed for it -- and sponsors are accountable for any decision they make in pulling out of an agreement. There would have been a provision in the sponsorship contract allowing them to do so.
I'm intrigued though Graeme, that you raise objections to anyone calling Henry a rude name, when the controversy in part is about Henry leeringly pronouncing the name of an Indian government minister as "Dick-in-shit". Why is Henry's rude name a good in the market of ideas and someone calling him a cunt in response not?
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Why is Henry's rude name a good in the market of ideas and someone calling him a cunt in response not?
It's not. I was thinking more of the comments about the Governor-General. Probably not an idea either, but closer than what Keith said.
On the pronunciation of Sheila Dikshit's surname: I wonder what people disappointed with the Government for not acknowledging the winner of Nobel Peace Prize (presumably for fear of offending the Chinese Government) think of the Government's official apology to India.
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Why is Henry's rude name a good in the market of ideas and someone calling him a cunt in response not?
I suspect it's because the Henryites/Teabaggers think they have a monopoly on 'political incorrectness'. When they find their monopoly under threat, they'll often resort to Reductio ad (insert scapegoat here).
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I wonder what people disappointed with the Government for not acknowledging the winner of Nobel Peace Prize (presumably for fear of offending the Chinese Government) think of the Government's official apology to India.
Not seeing the relationship. I thought it was more sad nobody felt it necessary to acknowledge the new Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, medicine and literature. Guess we should change out global brand to "100% philistine", or was the real point a shit-load of meaningless political posturing?
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It seems there are some people disappointed that the Government has not congratulated the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize - basically kowtowing to China. I don't see how our kowtowing to India by officially apologising for something over which the Government has (and should have) no control is all that different.
p.s. I note that John Key has now congratulated the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
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It's not. I was thinking more of the comments about the Governor-General. Probably not an idea either, but closer than what Keith said.
Actually I agree with Graeme in that "the GG [and by inference, people who look like him] isn't a New Zealander" is part of the marketplace of ideas and "Paul Henry is a cunt" isn't.
There clearly is no guarantee of quality in the marketplace of ideas - it's factually and morally wrong. But certainly an idea.
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It seems there are some people disappointed that the Government has not congratulated the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize - basically kowtowing to China. I don't see how our kowtowing to India by officially apologising for something over which the Government has (and should have) no control is all that different.
I don't see an equivalence. Just because both involved 'kowtowing' doesn't make them equivalent.
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Graeme Edgeler
...punishing Heritage Hotels for something Paul Henry said over which they had no control (and shouldn't have control) isn't fundamentally different from arranging a boycott on Canwest/TV3/C4 for airing an episode of South Park about the abuse by Catholic clergy, or someone else for airing pro-homosexual something propaganda something like Queer Nation or The L Word.
Damn. I thought I knew what I thought on advertiser boycott tactics, but I see your point.
I'd like boycotts to force dialogue and mediation until understanding and fairness are achieved, in public and open fora - such as town halls and public television.
But what I'd like isn't what actually happens *in real life*, is it? I'm dreaming.
Damn. It's been a bugger of a week for waking up to the real world.
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