Shifting sands

Tom Stop­pard says the concept of free­dom of speech as an inali­en­able human right makes no sense in a Dar­winian world.

Fas­cin­at­ing.

Not sure what that means for hate speech and how we as a group then choose to move for­ward. I sup­por­ted the NSW anti-vili­fic­a­tion laws which are a form of lim­it­a­tion of free speech and would do so again although I would fight harder for the clause to be ‘vili­fic­a­tion on the basis of sexu­al­ity’ rather than ‘vili­fic­a­tion on the basis of homo­sexu­al­ity’. Ditto eth­ni­city versus mem­ber­ship of an ethnic minority.

This is one of the reas­ons why I am more inter­ested in con­cepts of anarcho-syn­dic­al­ism, which to me try to bal­ance the needs of the group with the needs of the indi­vidual, than lib­eral demo­cra­cies, which trum­pet the rights of the indi­vidual over all things. And why I some­times clash with purist anarch­ists who don’t want to have con­sultat­ive pro­cesses but prefer to oper­ate solo.

Anyhow, thanks to Creed O’Han­lon for the heads-up and while we’re at it, put July 6 in your diary as the date that Hazel Dooney’s art exhib­i­tion opens at MARS, with pho­to­graphy and video by Creed.