As you probably know, I don't believe in the existence of objective values. But that does not stop me from having subjective values myself. One of the most important ones, if not the most important one, is freedom of thought.
An important distinction here is that, although the two might seem similar on the surface, freedom of thought is very much different from freedom of speech. You could cut people's freedom of speech by denying them access to specific platforms or banning specific words, but as long as they have different, equally suitable, platforms and words they retain their freedom to think. On the other hand, you could allow people to say whatever they want wherever they want while indoctrinating them with a religious system that makes them fear "wrong" thoughts. That would be an inhibition of free thought without an inhibition of free speech. The two concepts are orthogonal.
That being said, speech does play an important role for thinking. If people were limited to the thoughts they can form in their own head, they probably didn't get very far. Instead, our species relies on thoughts constantly being passed around between individuals who filter, distribute and contribute to them. Thinking really is a collaborative process and as such relies on language as a tool to convert thoughts into signals that can be transmitted to other humans. In that sense, thoughts can almost be regarded as independent entities, jumping between humans, splitting, merging, giving birth to other thoughts and sometimes also dying. Freedom of thought is concerned with letting this process play out uninhibited.
You might think that there are very few obstacles to our thought process, but there are multiple ways that society tries to limit freedom of thought. As stated earlier, banning individual words because they carry undesired emotional connotations does not pose an immediate danger to freedom of thought, as long as there are alternatives available to describe the productive part of the concept. For example, slurs may be banned because they cause unnecessary emotional trauma to some participants of the thought process. Unfortunately, I've often noticed that efforts to ban certain words are often driven by the intention to ban the underlying concept. In my view, banning a concept is a direct attack on the freedom of thought and thus not acceptable.
You might say that concepts may also cause emotional trauma to people, but in that case I think they have to endure it, if they want to be part of the thought process. Excluding an entire concept from a discussion is like closing down an entire pathway for those thoughts. The result of the whole thought process may be significantly worse as a result and the participants might be significantly less satisfied. I've experienced this many times and it's just sad. On the other hand, it feels incredibly liberating if you manage to have a discussion that is free of any restrictions, brutally honest, yet friendly and productive.
At this point I need to highlight a certain restriction on freedom of thought that I find necessary. As stated earlier, thinking is a collaborative process. That means that it requires consent from all involved parties. It is entirely fine if someone does not want to participate in a certain discussion. There is no obligation to care about every topic at every time, nor is it required to discuss everything with everyone.
Unfortunately, there is a variety of actors that want to participate in certain discussions and still want to impose bans on certain concepts. By blocking certain thought pathways, they hope to channel the thought process into a direction that they find more desirable with regard to their own subjective values. Te me, this is nothing short of fraud, as they trick people into supporting their cause. If thoughts were allowed flow freely, those people might discover points of friction between that cause and *their* subjective values. Only by allowing uninhibited thought processes can people truly be themselves and act in their own interests.
The problem is that many people cannot handle unconstrained thought. They cannot separate the concepts from their emotional connotations enough to question their own standpoint or acknowledge the validity of different views. I don't have a full explanation for why that is, only a few theories. Religion probably plays a big role in it, as well as the general laziness of people when it comes to thinking for themselves, especially when confronting unpleasant concepts.
Still, I dream of living in a world where all people are thinking freely and one can explore any concept without restrictions. A world where it would be totally normal to discuss any topic, even those that we now perceive as tabu, offensive or disturbing, over lunch. And yes, I do realize that I might be strange for wanting that. After all, we don't do that because most people don't want to. Well, I do.
If you read this and know me personally, please never refrain from bringing up any topic while talking to me, no matter how weird it is. I'll happily talk about anything, as long as it's a productive discussion. Finding intriguing new thoughts is my favorite thing in the world.
