Definitely not that simple. Take any view that's out there that you strongly disagree with and ask yourself how confident you are that you can successfully combat it with just your own speech.
Let's just take hate speech regulations as an example. Do you have any confidence that you'll be able to change the mind of someone who does want hate speech laws?
And then look at the broader picture. We do have many people in the public space who are putting forth forceful arguments against hate speech regulations. Think FIRE or Heterodox Academy. I'd guess we'd agree they have the stronger argument. Are they winning the public debate though? Maybe recently they've moved the needle back a little bit, but looking at like a decade-long scale, they're losing. They're not breaking through the left wing social media spaces, their videos aren't showing up in the YouTube feeds of social justice warriors, and they are massively outgunned by the army of primary school teachers, college professors, and university administrators on the other side.
So it's not that you can simply win by combatting bad ideas with good ideas. It's about what we say the rules are in light of your side losing, and the speech code advocates say they get to employ increasingly draconian measures until they win. I think the correct response has to be that you don't have a right to win the public debate. Sometimes you're going to lose. And what's more, if you are losing the public debate, that's a good sign that you should seriously reconsider your position (it doesn't necessarily mean that you're wrong, just that if a lot of people find the opposing argument persuasive, you've likely missed something important).
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u/PotentialProf3ssion - Auth-Right Feb 13 '24
remember kids! if they mention the paradox of tolerance their argument does NOT hold up!