Parrhesia: The Birth of Free Speech

The license to speak freely has always been held and/or granted by those who have the power, and although we have approximately 5,200 years of written language, the word conceptualizing free speech appeared only about 2,500 years ago.
It comes as no surprise that the Greeks, who introduced the concept of democracy to the world, also came up with the first word for free speech: parrhesia (meaning to say everything/all).
Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures on the subject which are well worth the read. In his lectures, he outlines the parameters for the good kind of parrhesia:
-The speaker is on a lower rung of the hierarchy than the listeners.
-The speech is characterized by frankness and truth; often expressing unpopular or dangerous opinions.
-The words offer criticism or judgement.
-The speaker has a reputation for embodying the words/concepts rather than just saying them.
-The speech comes from a place of duty.
(This frankness of speech is contrasted with sophistry--saying not doing and rhetoric--speech devised to sway convictions).
He mentions the ill-used parrhesia as being uncontrolled speech (mouth like a running spring--a mouth without a door), blustery speech (using volume and force of words to convey one’s point), uneducated speech.
monoskop.org...

The problem is in a free society we won’t see the good parrhesia without the bad.

Free speech was revolutionized by the founding fathers of the United States of America when it was codified into law, granting to all free citizens a privilege which had erstwhile been available only to the powerful.

Make no mistake, free speech benefits the poor and the oppressed and not the ruling class.

May citizens around the world unite to advocate for their inherent rights to freely speak!

Counties ranked by access to free speech today:
worldpopulationreview.com...

a reply to: zosimov

I downloaded the PDF file...182 pages of words about one word...I don't see me reading it, just being honest. I know I sound like a jerk, I read the OP, I feel it is descriptive and informative enough.

"Make no mistake, free speech benefits the poor and the oppressed and not the ruling class."

This. ^^^ Freedom of Speech is verbal Freedom of Thought, and if you control a person's speech eventually you WILL control their thought.

So...if Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Thought, what is Freedom of Thought? Freewill. The ability to form your own thoughts, to make decisions and choices, to discern, to consider consequences, to form opinions, then you put your thoughts, decisions, choices, discernment, considerations, and opinions into words.

Freewill>Freedom of Thought>Freedom of Speech

If, let's say, an oppressive government bans Free Speech, are they not banning Freedom of Thought and Freewill also?

Who....has the biggest gripe with humanity's Freewill?

As pointed out in another thread, how can TPTB/Rulers behind the curtain make money if robots takeover all jobs. The system works, no matter what anyone thinks, it works like it is, money is continuously being funneled through various channels until it reaches its final destination.

So why the need for more oppression and more and more poor people? It's to break our spirit, and diminish our Freewill, and in order to do that you control speech which controls thoughts eventually, think Stockholm Syndrome, and finally Freewill is no more.

Once again, what human being on Earth wants to control humanity's Freewill?

Only one I see that could that would benefit from that is the Antichrist, because Satan is the one with a problem with humans having Freewill.

That's how I see it. I know the God haters are triggered and stroking out, but it's my belief, it's not being forced on you, I respect your Freewill so calm the funk down.

Anywho, excellent thread. I'll try to read that PDF but I'm not making promises, I am on a phone and the more I zoomed in the fuzzier the words became.

a reply to: zosimov

Free thought.

Free speech.

The antithesis of government.

Just noted so I can return later.

S&F

a reply to: EdisonintheFM

I love this response. Very well laid out. Thank you!

(The link is very good, but clearly not needed to have a very good idea of the word and its implications).

a reply to: DBCowboy

Looking forward to hearing your freely expressed thoughts later!

I'll add some quotes from the linked source I find worth sharing as I find them
a few nuances of the word as described by Foucault:

In Euripides' Ion, parrhesia was opposed to Apollo's
silence; in the political sphere parrhesia was opposed to the
demos' will, or to those who flatter the desires of the majority
or the monarch. In this third, Socratic-philosophical game,
parrhesia is opposed to self-ignorance and the false teachings of
the sophists.

a reply to: zosimov

No. Thank YOU. This thread is important considering where we are at when it comes to freedoms of any kind.

Here's my dead horse>>Obama. Contrary to what someone replied to me in another thread, you couldn't speak bad about Obama cuz rayciss. I never said no one complained, I said if you did, say a conservative on MSNBS, another talking head guest would start the White Man Racist rhetoric. I know, goddangit, because I was stuck like glue on YouTube from 2011 to 2019. Eight years, I know what I'm talking about when it comes to the MSM, I may not know much but dammit I KNOW there's been a movement against conservative and Christian speech, even black people leaning right get called RACIST names like Uncle Tom and House Negro and uneducated and even Joe said told a black audience if they didn't vote for him they WERE NOT BLACK.

As someone who also knows and understands black people, that's a spit in the eye. Black people take their color and history seriously. And yes i make statements that on the surface sound racist, I despise being reminded daily about slavery when it goes on in "the motherland" TO-----DAY.....

OK I'm done, I gotta stop there, I just broke out in a sweat and I'm yelling at my phone.

I get diarrhea of the mouth sometimes, I apologize. Don't mean to go off topic.

Anyway, thank YOU, again. Awesome work. Great timing.

originally posted by: EdisonintheFM
a reply to: zosimov



OK I'm done, I gotta stop there, I just broke out in a sweat and I'm yelling at my phone.

I get diarrhea of the mouth sometimes, I apologize. Don't mean to go off topic.

Haha, the beauty of this thread is that one is free to speak everything!

Agreed that it's a timely subject.


As for the continued abuse pandering politicians hurl at the black community (and to the continued use of skin color as a weapon), agreed it's abhorrent.
(If you don't vote for me, you ain't black)
Sorry if the thread got you all worked up, and yelling at phones, lol.

a reply to: zosimov

Michel Foucault - in many ways, the father of post modernism.

a reply to: Whodathunkdatcheese

Yeah, it's a bit ironic coming from the source. Good material and insights though!

a reply to: zosimov

In order for any organism to evolve, to grow beyond what it already is, it needs a challenge. It needs, it requires friction so it can adapt and evolve to it's new environment.

It's the same with thought. With speech. a society built on nice speech, inoffensive speech, stagnates. It plateau's. The mind doesn't grow.

The Founding Fathers were very wise in this aspect to free speech. We need speech to challenge us. To cause us pause, to make us think. Speech we may not like or agree with is necessary for any culture to continue evolving.

The woke crowd, the "enlightened" crowd, stagnates because they refuse to adapt, to grow.

In order for any society that wants to be and stay competitive, free speech, free thought is an absolute necessity.

a reply to: zosimov

It's not the thread, it's acknowledging how Americans and people of other nations are being treated at the moment.

I'm good. Caffeine and nicotine works wonders. Sometimes.

a reply to: DBCowboy

Great points regarding the relationship between challenge and growth.


a reply to: EdisonintheFM
The power struggle that's emerging right now is mind-boggling; I understand the extreme frustration.

a reply to: zosimov

I agree. Although I find some of his stuff off the scale, he has some outstanding ideas.

Camile Paglia, on the other hand, hates him with a passion: "I never met or saw Foucault in the flesh. (He died in 1984.) My low opinion of him is based entirely on his solipsistic, mendacious writing, which has had a disastrous influence on naïve American academics."

originally posted by: DBCowboy

The Founding Fathers were very wise in this aspect to free speech. We need speech to challenge us. To cause us pause, to make us think. Speech we may not like or agree with is necessary for any culture to continue evolving.

The woke crowd, the "enlightened" crowd, stagnates because they refuse to adapt, to grow.

So the people who want to challenge the status quo are refusing to adapt and grow, because some of the greatest minds of the eighteenth century already worked it out.

Think about that a moment.

a reply to: Whodathunkdatcheese

The people who want to "challenge" the status quo are the ones against free thought, free expression, different ideas.