A Distortion or ‘Our’ Default?
Mari Mikkola · Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume · 2021
Introduction. In his 2015 examination of propaganda, How Propaganda Works, Jason Stanley writes: Speech that is silencing has the effect of restricting our free speech rights; this is why states that seem closer to embodying liberal democratic ideals, such as Canada and United States, have considerably less hate speech in the public domain than states further away from such ideals, such as Hungary. (Stanley 2015, p. 37) Given the global events since, I was taken aback by this claim when recently reading Stanley’s book. To me, Stanley seemed to be wrong about the United States more closely embodying liberal democratic ideals and containing considerably less hate speech than (say) Hungary. Or at the very least, his claim seemingly no longer obtains, and the change in the states of affairs has been both rapid and shocking. Having said that, and perhaps with less pessimism than my initial...