> You're certainly not using SCOTUS arguments for Enlightenment ideals. I sure hope not.

Sorry, I'm not sure what that means. The Tinker example was just a demonstration that, empirically, adding "harm reduction" exceptions to free speech doesn't always result in arbitrary restrictions on speech. Not for any profound ultimate reason, but just because that's just not how the herd dynamics of on particular judiciary worked.

> But unless we can all admit that we suck at determining who should speak or not, we really don't have a basis to continue the conversation, legally or philosophically.

Okay. But that's a bit of a strawman. I don't see anyone here arguing that perfect censorship is possible. NB: most people in this thread aren't even arguing against free speech. We just don't think you're providing a compelling justification for free speech. Which is different from disagreeing with your conclusion. But the difference isn't pedantic; it has important down-stream effects and implications.

> insisting man is a rational animal is yet another can of worms which I didn't open up... I don't think man is a rational animal at all, and that doesn't change my opinion or where I think the conversation has to begin.

Well, I think my entire point was that you do open that can of worms and perhaps don't even realize it.

Perhaps you misunderstand what I mean by "rational" here. I don't mean "perfectly rational" or "good at reasoning" or "not susceptible to emotion/propaganda" or anything like that. I mean it in a much more basic "what is that thing that is happening when we think and speak, regardless of any consideration of truth or correctness or progress or any of that" sense.

To keep things concise and specific, the following sentences exemplify the thing I find philosophically suspect in the way you think about free speech:

- "a lot of those times we got so upset about people saying various things, we were wrong. Those people changed all of us for the better."

- "we really suck at predicting the difference between harm and progress."

- "Unless we continue to humbly think we could continue to be wrong, we stop evolving."

I disagree that these propositions are even particularly meaningful.

To be clear and to avoid a tangent, it's not that I disagree because I think the opposite. I.e., I disagree equally and in the exact same way with the statement "we are good at predicting the difference between harm and progress".

My disagreement is at a fundamental and philosophical level. In the sense that I think there's a bunch of incorrect stuff we have to assume about the role that rationality plays in human thought and human language (and, therefore, human politics) in order for a discussion about any of these propositions to even make sense.

Perhaps this will help get the point across: when I say "you think man is a rational animal", what I really mean is that you have a very specific type of answer you're going to give to the question: "what is the reason that it doesn't occur to us to use any of the quotes I listed above to talk about deer or bears or whales?" And your answer to that question is simply not the answer I would give.

(NB, to avoid a tangent, it's the reason those sentences have meaning for humans and not other animals -- not whether they have meaning for one and not the other -- that is the thing that I think we disagree on at some sort of fundamental philosophical level.)

You see enlightened subjects coming to belief (perhaps false or perhaps true) through the use of cognition (perhaps logical or perhaps emotional; perhaps sound logic or perhaps bad logic; perhaps positive emotion or perhaps negative emotion).

I see a herd of animals acted upon by emergent social phenomenon over which no one of the herd has particularly much control.

When I think about the reason for free speech, I think about herd dynamics and the importance (or not) of entropy. When you think about the reason for free speech, you think about individuals reasoning and the limits (or not) of rationality. Of course both of us see shades of each, I'm just much more to one side of that continuum and you're much more to the other side.