John Adams famously said about the U.S. government: <\/p>\n
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He said the government envisioned in the constitution wasn’t powerful enough<\/i> to contend with unbridled immorality, avarice, ambition, etc. It only worked under certain preconditions. <\/p>\n
A lot of people are concerned today about fake news, misinformation, “news” sites that are more focused on clicks and eyeballs and ad revenue than truth. But that doesn’t even tell the whole tale. If we were limited to “news” sites that had a profit motive, that might still be manageable. <\/p>\n
Unfortunatley, on top of that we have wacky conspiracy sites, flat Earthers, people who spout ridiculous nonsense to get their five minutes of fame … or whatever. Maybe they only do it for the jollies. <\/p>\n
Does free speech — like the U.S. system of government — have its own set of cultural assumptions? Does it only work with people who have certain characteristics? <\/p>\n
I’m beginning to think so, and I’m trying to formulate a list. <\/p>\n
Critical thinking is obviously an important thing. People need to be trained to ask “how do you know this?” and “what facts might go against what you’re saying?” <\/p>\n
Some sort of regard for the witness of the majority is important, but I’m not sure how far to take that. <\/p>\n
When it comes to social media, a commitment not to give or take offense seems like a good idea. <\/p>\n
It’s also necessary to be fair in how you represent other views, and to hear people out. <\/p>\n
You can’t jump to conclusions. You can’t put people in boxes. You can’t say “if you believe A then you believe B,” or “if you’re in this demographic, you believe C.” <\/p>\n
The more I think about it, the more fragile free speech seems to be. It requires a commitment to quite a few public virtues that we’re not pressing on people these days. <\/p>\n
What do you think? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Adams famously said about the U.S. government: Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. He said the government envisioned in the constitution wasn’t powerful enough to contend with unbridled immorality, avarice, ambition, etc. It only worked under certain preconditions. A … Continue reading “Fake news, John Adams and virtue”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2242"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2244,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2242\/revisions\/2244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}