The Marketplace of Ideas is important. It is the very reason
we protect free speech, freedom of the press and human rights. The Marketplace
of Ideas is one of our most apt and resonant metaphors in civil discourse. It
is no wonder that a concept pioneered by John Milton, John Stuart Mill and
Oliver Wendell Holmes is as relevant in the internet age as it was hundreds of
years ago.
Like many places where people shop, it can be a crowded,
confusing place. Because it is a place for ideas, it can be disturbing at
times. It is not always well organized,
and the people who claim to know where everything is, invariably do not show us
everything we should see.
Shopping in the Marketplace for Ideas can be expensive. It
requires users to pay attention, spend time and invest critical thinking. When
that cost is too high, there are those who shop in the discount aisle or maybe
pick for discarded concepts in the dumpster out back.
The Marketplace of Ideas is not about facts, it is about
opinions, thoughts and concepts. There are bad opinions, ideas that are
discredited, wrong or destructive. National socialism, racial supremacy,
scapegoating and genocide are a few that come to mind. Some ideas deserve to be in the trash.
Pulling them from the dumpster does not mean their time has come again,
sometimes it means the idea is just cleaned up garbage.
Best to be suspicious of the folks lurking out behind the
Marketplace of Ideas and picking through the dumpster of bad ideas.
Jonathan Vick
International Network Against Cyber Hate, North American Representative
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