Free Speech, False Polarization, and the Paradox of Tolerance
Liz Jackson · Philosophy of education · 2021
Guoping Zhao observes similarities between the techniques employed, in her words, "to restrict liberty and freedom in China and…to pursue social justice in the US." 1 In both China and the states, she notes how dissent, simple questioning, and opposing prevailing views are treated with intolerance: they are "chilled out," delegitimated, and otherwise marked as unwanted.While the government leads this charge in China (as Zhao notes), cross-sections of the public prevail within an emergent "cancel culture" in the states, described in an open letter in Harper's as holding "a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that