hitchens vs tharoor free speech

cavarka9 · #1 by **cavarka9** » Feb 05, 2012 12:29 pm

Animavore · #2 by **Animavore** » Feb 05, 2012 12:32 pm

Don't have time to watch now. Explain briefly, is Thaaror arguing against free speech with the Hitch? Oh Christ I certainly hope not.

cavarka9 · #3 by **cavarka9** » Feb 05, 2012 12:39 pm

Animavore wrote:Don't have time to watch now. Explain briefly, is Thaaror arguing against free speech with the Hitch? Oh Christ I certainly hope not.

yeah, and hitchens pretty much rubbishes it until a person from the audience supports tharoor and puts hitchens in a spot for few seconds.

the argument is at 59:36 sec

its about the civic responsibility, law and order problem, civic duty to be conscious of the harm it brings to the people by offending those who had lesser privileges and hence lesser education than us.

orpheus · #4 by **orpheus** » Feb 05, 2012 4:15 pm

Matt H · #5 by **Matt H** » Feb 05, 2012 4:32 pm

Wonderful to see the Hitch again. This is old but I haven't seen it before, so thank you very much.

Edit: Just watched the whole thing. Loved his slamdunk of George Galloway at the end. What a piece of filth.

jez9999 · #6 by **jez9999** » Feb 06, 2012 12:02 am

Thanks for this, haven't seen it before. Probably one of the most calm and civilized debates I've seen Hitchens in, and to be fair most people in the room agreed with freedom of speech and the argument was really about who the onus was on to avoid violence when something would potentially give offence. Predictably I come down on Hitchens' side and think that the onus is on the offendee; self-censoring to take everyone else's sensibilities into account is not just impractical, but will stifle crucial debate and education.

cavarka9 · #7 by **cavarka9** » Feb 06, 2012 5:53 am

Hitchens had a considerably soft spot on India.But his knowledge on India both in terms of history and current politics was poor.