Here, I will introduce the main points of three different articles about the freedom of speech and expression called “What ‘Snowflakes’ Get Right About Free Speech” by Ulrich Baer, Guo Jian’s report “California, A University Student Sued the School Violated the Freedom of Speech”, and “Global Press Freedoms Weakening, Group Warns” written by Kevin Drew. Each of these sources make it obvious that freedom of speech is something being violated in everyday life, and we need to fight for the right to express our words, and not allow anyone to shut us down.
Ulrich Baer focuses his article on the fact that no matter how you would like to express yourself, through words or anything else, you should be able to do it without anyone telling you that you can’t. In the beginning of the article, Baer speaks a lot about a Holocaust documentary entitled, “Shoah” (1985). This is shown when the text notes, “At one of the premieres of his landmark Holocaust documentary, ‘Shoah’ (1985), the filmmaker Claude Lanzmann was challenged by a member of the audience, a woman who identified herself as a Holocaust survivor.
Lanzmann listened politely as the woman recounted her harrowing personal account of the Holocaust to make the point that the film failed to fully represent the recollections of survivors. When she finished, Lanzmann waited a bit, and then said, ‘Madame, you are an experience, but not an argument’ ” (Baer 1). This shows that some people share their experiences with the world, but some people lack kindness and quickly make rude statements.
The woman was only trying to share her experience with Lanzmann. I guess that he just didn’t understand that when people don’t speak out, they are vulnerable and sensitive, leaving them with very low self-esteem which gives the people “in power” more power, and it is pretty much a vicious cycle. Something else that Ulrich Baer acknowledged was that throughout generations, people have changed in any good ways, but also some bad ways.
Freedom isn’t being defined very well by people since the late 1900’s. I know this because in the text it states, “My view (and, like all the views expressed here, it does not represent the views or policies of my employer, New York University) is that we should resist the temptation to rehash these debates. Doing so would overlook the fact that a thorough generational shift has occurred.
Widespread caricatures of students as overly sensitive, vulnerable and entitled ‘snowflakes’ fail to acknowledge the philosophical work that was carried out, especially in the 1980s and ’90s, to legitimate experience — especially traumatic experience — which had been dismissed for decades as unreliable, untrustworthy and inaccessible to understanding” (Baer 1). This means that people who have been traumatized by their personal experience have been dismissed and told that they are unreliable. People are being mistreated for speaking out and sharing their stories.
Baer then explains how the freedom of speech should be valued by people worldwide. He also says that the freedom of speech and expression is hard to overestimate and should be brought to attention in politics. Guo Jian, an author for the US China Press, wrote an article on a 24-year-old man by the name of Nicholas Thomas who sued his University for not allowing him to speak his mind freely entitles “California, A University Student Sued the School Violated the Freedom of Speech”. In the text, the author explains the issue that this 24-year-old has.
The text states, “Now 24-year-old Nicolas Thomas (Nicolas Thomas) is a student at the school nutrition, the fall of 2013, when he began distributing leaflets, propaganda committed vegetarian lifestyle, farm animals being treated the way has also been condemned. ‘I’m passionate about animal rights, one of the things we can do is advocate vegetarian life,’ he said. At that time he has achieved some success. According to statistics Thomas himself, within a few hours he was able to distribute hundreds of flyers. Most of his students this approach is not objectionable.
But he was often blocked by managers. ” This piece of evidence proves that Nicolas Thomas was not being permitted to share his opinions and thoughts about something he felt very passionate about onto flyers. Guo Jian also proves this in the text when he writes about how Thomas cannot hand out his flyers within 154 feet of the school yard. In the article, Thomas said, “I think it’s unconstitutional, a violation of my freedom of speech” (“California, A University Student Sued the School Violated the Freedom of Speech” 1). He said, but school administrators refused to negotiate with him.
After that, February 4 in the morning, when Thomas school administration building CLA (CLA administrative building) to distribute flyers, campus police intervention. ” Nicolas was completely deprived of his freedom of speech. The university would only allow him to be at a certain place to hand his leaflets out. The police were even involved in this situation! But that was when Nicolas had come to a conclusion that he was being violated. The article written by Kevin Drew entitled, Global Press Freedoms Weakening, Group Warns, is about journalist and reporters who are being harassed when they try to take notes or report something important.
They definitely need their rights protected. The article starts off with Drew introducing the fact that reporters are being harassed all over the world. In my opinion, most reporters and journalists just want to collect important data to share with the world and make others aware, which can help them, but they cannot do their jobs if every time they go to interview someone, they get injured because some ignorant people do not see the importance in spreading important news. The text mentions the safety of journalists in multiple countries.
This is evidence of compare and contrast because they were comparing the safety of some countries with others. For example, the numbers were ranked, signifying that there was some kind of “contest”. It is awful to think that countries are so unsafe for reporters, that they had to be ranked for their safety. The text clearly argues, “ ‘There is definitely concerns of what is happening in the U. S. , with journalists being harassed. ’ ” When their speaking rights are taken away from them, people would naturally feel violated and feel as if they have tape over their mouths, preventing them from speaking.
In this case, I think that journalist all over the world feel violated because they are shown so much violence and no respect. Another awful example explaining the harassment of journalists is when the text states, “The RSF report did note some promising news: Colombia (No. 129) and Gambia (No. 143), difficult, even deadly places for journalists to work, both moved up in the rankings. No journalists were killed in Colombia in 2016, the first such time that a year passed without a journalist’s dying in that country in seven years, said Margaux Ewen, RSF’s advocacy and communications director based in Washington.
In Gambia, Ewen said the government has rediscovered uncensored newspapers and is planning to amend legislation that is restrictive for the media. ” In conclusion, freedom of speech is something being violated in everyday life, and we need to fight for the right to express our words, and not allow anyone to shut us down. The authors of these three articles portrayed this perfectly by explaining events in everyday life that we may not be aware of. I believe that we should all fight for our rights. Even if we have to sue schools!
