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> We want our students to adopt critical attitudes and develop into autonomous thinkers. We cannot pursue these philosophical goals, essential to the functioning of democracy, when politicians are telling people what, when, and how to think

I am perplexed though given the fact that many, distancing themselves from the other political side, expressed an intention to signal ideologists that they were unsympathetic to e.g. student's actions against free speech - blocking access to allegedly controversial conferences and seminars, for example. The previous wave of the "righteous" must be transformed into something more mature not to cause further backlashes.

TimorousBestie · 5h ago

Do I understand correctly that you’re conflating free speech (right to express an opinion in public generally, without legal censure) with the speaker’s right to access a platform (right to express an opinion in a specific space without any obstacle or hindrance, legal or otherwise)?

mdp2021 · 2h ago

I did (in some interpretation of the two expressions), but it was because I did not choose the terms with fullest care (efficiency compromise).

Nonetheless, there is an idea above the two - a "reasonable right to expression" - and above that, "a Right to intellectual activity". And I was reported that students attacked the possibility of debate in several occasions, impeding events promoted by their very educators.

TimorousBestie · 1h ago

See, if you’re going to conflate intellectual freedom and free speech with the right to any specific platform, we’re never going to get anywhere. The distinction is exactly what’s at stake here.

Can you cite a modern law or code of ethics that secures a positive human right to any specific platform? As far as I’m aware it’s not in the American Bill of Rights (the 9th and 10th Amendments notwithstanding) or the European Convention on Human Rights.

It would be a very strange world if, e.g., I could lawfully demand and be obligated to receive fifteen minutes of time on Fox to read my manifesto on deconstruction.

mdp2021 · 1h ago

But no one here has defended a «right to any specific platform». I wrote that the two ideas are conflated «in some interpretation of the two expressions» (not as any absolute right to say anything anywhere), and that what is to be defended is the «reasonable right to expression» (especially with relevance to the «Right to intellectual activity», above all of this).

> It would be a very strange world if, e.g., I could lawfully demand and be obligated to receive

Nothing to do with an University deciding to host an event and its students hindering its happening because they decided they dislike the invited.

TimorousBestie · 48m ago

> But no one here has defended a «right to any specific platform».

Earlier:

> “...student's actions against free speech - blocking access to allegedly controversial conferences and seminars, for example.”

allears · 5h ago

Very well phrased, and I'm guessing your understanding is correct.

mdp2021 · 2h ago

But where's the substantial difference, in context?

An administration cannot decide what's true or proper thought (plainly dystopian);

students cannot decide what's true or proper thought (plainly paradoxical);

a "Nobel prize winner" cannot decide what's true or proper thought (still not how it works)...