MINUTES of a MONDAY #107

#minutesofamonday

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Slán - Niall☘️ **

REAL LIFE AUDIO 📻👇🏽🎧

BRAIN FOOD: The Freedom to Offend

“Although the law under discussion has been on the statute book for over 25 years, it is indicative of a culture that has taken hold of the programmes of successive governments that, with the reasonable and well-intended ambition to contain obnoxious elements in society, has created a society of an extraordinarily authoritarian and controlling nature. It is what you might call The New Intolerance, a new but intense desire to gag uncomfortable voices of dissent. ‘I am not intolerant’, say many people; say many softly spoken, highly educated, liberal-minded people: ‘I am only intolerant of intolerance’. And people tend to nod sagely and say ‘Oh, wise words, wise words’ and yet if you think about this supposedly inarguable statement for longer than five seconds, you realise that all it is advocating is the replacement of one kind of intolerance with another.

Which to me doesn’t represent any kind of progress at all. Underlying prejudices, injustices or resentments are not addressed by arresting people: they are addressed by the issues being aired, argued and dealt with preferably outside the legal process. For me, the best way to increase society’s resistance to insulting or offensive speech is to allow a lot more of it. As with childhood diseases, you can better resist those germs to which you have been exposed.”

Excerpt from Rowan Atkinson’s speech on free speech in 2012.

SOUL FOOD:

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions."

Hamlet

L.O.L.

The aformentioned Rowan Atkinson in a racist police comedy sketch from Not the Nine O’Clock News.

APPENDIX:

“I kept my idea a secret from anyone who could not directly help to move it forward. That was my gut instinct at the time, but it’s now one of the best pieces of advice I have to give. Ideas are the most vulnerable at the moment you have them; that’s also the time people are most inclined to run around seeking validation from everyone they know. Discouraging remarks will likely take you off course. You’ll either end up deflated or spend your time defending your idea instead of going for it.”

U.S. entrepreneur Sara Blakely

A.O.B:

That’s it for #107.

Thank you as always for stopping by. And if you enjoyed it maybe someone you know might enjoy it too?

And, as always, mind how you go out there - Niall