> Free speech is a sign that your society is strong, peaceful, or successful, because it doesn't need to suppress subcultures or ideas by force. That suggests that the society is built, if not on consent, at least not on hiding something or getting people to pretend that they agree with things they don't.
In the U.S. we heard a lot about this idea during the Cold War and also during earlier days of tensions with China. Something like:
There's a conflict of these civilizations going on. How do you know which is right? Well, presumably the one that's not afraid to let you hear the other one's narrative or opinions. The one where you can buy the other one's newspapers if you want. That one doesn't have anything to hide, while the one where you can only get access to the local government's view of things presumably has a lot to hide and a lot to fear.
(However, I no longer think this distinction has been as clear-cut as we think. During parts of the Cold War, the U.S. government did a lot to reduce Americans' exposure to Soviet media or messages, or to stigmatize or deter in various ways the advocacy of the idea that the Soviet Union was right or that its system was better. Present-day Americans are also pretty concerned about Russians or others telling us things that we might find internally divisive. Some of these concerns are mediated by the idea that propaganda is bad or of no particular value if it is either false or conceals its origins, which might be approximately right, although the U.S. government has not consistently accepted either of those as ethical constraints on its own propaganda activities, and some recent American discourse has also evinced a surprising level of similarity to the Chinese idea that true information, or sincerely expressed ideas, might sometimes be bad for a society just because they are disruptive or divisive for it and not because they constitute lying or misrepresentations.)
(I also noticed that both North Korea and South Korea have laws prohibiting receiving or spreading propaganda from the other Korea. Even though I think it's obvious who has more to fear from the free flow of information across the Korean border, the symmetry in this legislation seems to show a lack of absolute self-confidence on the South Korean government's part...)
In the U.S. we heard a lot about this idea during the Cold War and also during earlier days of tensions with China. Something like:
There's a conflict of these civilizations going on. How do you know which is right? Well, presumably the one that's not afraid to let you hear the other one's narrative or opinions. The one where you can buy the other one's newspapers if you want. That one doesn't have anything to hide, while the one where you can only get access to the local government's view of things presumably has a lot to hide and a lot to fear.
(However, I no longer think this distinction has been as clear-cut as we think. During parts of the Cold War, the U.S. government did a lot to reduce Americans' exposure to Soviet media or messages, or to stigmatize or deter in various ways the advocacy of the idea that the Soviet Union was right or that its system was better. Present-day Americans are also pretty concerned about Russians or others telling us things that we might find internally divisive. Some of these concerns are mediated by the idea that propaganda is bad or of no particular value if it is either false or conceals its origins, which might be approximately right, although the U.S. government has not consistently accepted either of those as ethical constraints on its own propaganda activities, and some recent American discourse has also evinced a surprising level of similarity to the Chinese idea that true information, or sincerely expressed ideas, might sometimes be bad for a society just because they are disruptive or divisive for it and not because they constitute lying or misrepresentations.)
(I also noticed that both North Korea and South Korea have laws prohibiting receiving or spreading propaganda from the other Korea. Even though I think it's obvious who has more to fear from the free flow of information across the Korean border, the symmetry in this legislation seems to show a lack of absolute self-confidence on the South Korean government's part...)