“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use”, Soren Kierkegaard . This quote reflects the present day reality perfectly. As people want to have the right to say whatever they want and not be accounted for it, they do want not to take any responsibility and burden for what they might have said.
Freedom of speech reinforces all other
human rights, thus it allows society to develop and increase their progress in
a constant rate. The ability to state opinion and speak freely is an advantage
for any change in society. Throughout the history, society evolved thanks to the
individuals, great thinkers, courageous leaders, who were not scared to express
their beliefs. At the old days, those beliefs that were contrary to the typical
“mindset” would be considered as hate, hatred towards their way of life,
culture and tradition. The most reputable professors, experts and campaigners
use free speech as to fight for the change, for better future.
Besides that, free speech also essential
due to the ability to hear others and be heard at the same time. Apart where we
giving our own opinion, we also need to hear from other people’s view as well. Unfortunately,
one of the biggest problems of our society is that people rarely listen to
others and ignores their opinions base on certain topics if they do not agree
with them. We should feel comfortable exchanging ideas and thoughts with those
who have opposing views. By doing this, expects say it can reduce “hate speech”
circling ground.
Furthermore, we hear or read the term
“hate speech” regularly, especially now with the easy internet access and
numerous media websites to join. It comes as no wonder why offended comments
and expressing negative ideas are considered a threat to the publicities. A lot
people are anti-semitic, anti-muslim, anti-christianity, and so on. Those who
assume hate speech is not a freedom of speech but primarily, focusing on
expression of negative attitude towards certain people and ideas. However, if
we start banning people from expressing their beliefs, then what comes next?
After one thing, there always comes another end, eventually, the mankind would
live in fear of saying anything that might put a threat in humanity. In
reality, society has become over sensitive, everything one does not agree with
is considered insulting and labelled it as hate.
Finally, freedom of speech is important
for human rights that every individual has the right to speech out. This
freedom comes with the ability to express one’s ideas or opinions, regardless
of its nature good or bad. What society now need are limitations of free speech
but making effort to establish dialogues between people with conflicting belief
may be a little tricky. Overall, we need to listen and be heard to gain
something and with that, we can go a long way and even could build bridges
instead of destroying them.
(505 Words)
(505 Words)
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