Is he right, /his/?
Yes, but today we have safe zones and need to protect our feelings.
>>1271313
Did Voltaire die protecting someone else's freedom of speech?
>>1271325
So he is full of shit because he didn't actually die?
>>1271325
He went to prison for ruffling feathers.
>>1271313
If religion had never been insulted, the Enlightenment and it's benefits in science, technology,literature and governance would never take place. No mocking and criticizing leads to no change. It is by deriding authority that reforms take place and individual freedoms are protected from authoritarian religious beliefs that ideas flourish.
>>1271343
>It is by deriding authority that reforms take place and individual freedoms are protected from authoritarian religious beliefs that ideas flourish.
Yeah, the white mans freedom.
>>1271330
Yes. The OP's quote states that (as a promissory factual claim) he will (claiming his own intentions) defend to the death (this seems to imply dying in order to protect or advance) your (unknown 2nd person reference, presumably to each individual of his public readership) right to say it (I assume, though I could be wrong, that he didn't in fact live in a world of perfect free-speech).
So yes, we can conclude within reason that he was full of shit. Also, is he still alive?
>because he didn't actually die
>>1271313
If only he was as willing to die for the voice of minorities as the voice of racists, the world could have been a much better place.
>>1271343
This is the idea of the Enlightenment. If there's only one phrase I can use to describe its core ideas, it would probably be "arena of ideas". It creates a free space (as opposed to a safe space) where people can debate and discuss their ideas without anyone being given arbitrary special treatment. Hell, why do you think parliaments have the name they have? It comes from the French word "parler" or "to speak". Because that's what happens in a parliament (ideally): people speak. They do nothing but speak and speak and speak until they agree on certain things.
But we all know this age is over. Political party discipline has locked down democratic debate, and the age of "muh feels" gives many groups a special status where they are free of criticism.
>>1271343
this..
fuck relgion...
>>1271313
Voltaire never said that.
>>1271735
>The above passage was confusing because Hall enclosed the now famous statement in quotation marks. Yet, the elegant phrase depicted Hall’s conception of Voltaire’s internal mental attitude and not his actual spoken words. Indeed, Hall asserted that the words were hers and not Voltaire’s in a 1939 letter published in the journal “Modern Language Notes”. Nevertheless, the misunderstanding persists to this day.
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/
>>1271313
Yeah, except if you are his rival.
Then you write to the gov that you are a concerned catholic(and we all know his ideas about religion), and have him banished from the land, and his books burned in public.
“Let the Council punish him with the full severity of the laws … as a blasphemous
subversive who blasphemes Jesus Christ while calling himself a
Christian, and who wants to overturn his country while calling himself a
citizen.”
So, he wasn't full of shit for not putting his money where his mouth was, he was one for being a massive hypocrite that used autocratic censorship when it suited him, while at the same time appearing as some champion of free speech.
Fuck Voltaire for this and many others.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=0GVEpdf6ipEC&pg=PA390&lpg=PA390&dq=Voltaire+Rousseau+book+burning+%22letters+written+from+the+mountain%22&source=bl&ots=ovwWKKO0C-&sig=5biZX0hhUO36oltGp54I4c3ewjs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8RLZUpiHDIWGogT2vYBg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Voltaire%20Rousseau%20book%20burning%20%22letters%20written%20from%20the%20mountain%22&f=false
>>1271755
What the fuck? Voltaire convinced the clergy to burn Rousseau's books? That's low.
What was the beef between Voltaire and Rousseau about anyway? I hear of it a lot but never how it all started.
>>1271313
He is no longer right in Germany, Canada, or th EU in general.
>>1271313
No. It's naive to treat all speech the same way. Hate speech must be controlled.
>>1271313
Voltaire never said this
>>1272313
Or what?
>>1272313
>Hate speech must be controlled?
Controlled by whom? Those who are hated?
The weak can't handle being hated.
The government can't handle being hated.
God can't handle being hated.
PC has gone far enough. I may hate my government, but at least the government is supposed to defend my right to express that hatred. That's life in the good old USA.
>>1272313
>No. It's naive to treat all speech the same way. Hate speech must be controlled.
By whom?
By which standards?
Cui bono?
For what purpose?
Why?
[Assuming you're American] If you don't like freedom of speech then just fuck off to some commie totalitarian shithole.
