The purpose of this writing lies in proposing the new, or new connections of theories, to the problems around the topic of expression and its governance. In a civilised society where a large number of people live together, it is more likely to have wider range of issues which need to be dealt with. One of them is related to expression, and the importance of coping with it has been increasing. Expression is one of the fundamental human activities that not only lasts through different media and different ages but it also needs to be properly recognised by ourselves.
Expression is one of the fundamentals for people in society, and a core part in our civilisation. In relation with the concept of freedom which people value, the topic of expression is often talked. Freedom of expression frequently comes to the table of discussion, often having tension among several groups of people. While thinking of the importance in securing the freedom of expression, I came to recognise that there’s necessity to propose an idea to this topic by focusing on context. This finding that made me aware of the importance of context led to not only thinking of freedom of expression but also be conscious that the concept of context is indispensable for other domains as well. What work focuses on includes the inner part of oneself to alleviate tension among different groups of people in a society. Besides the argument on policies implemented in a society such as regulation of harmful speech, this work tries to progress the debate around freedom of expression by highlighting the importance of cultivation within oneself.
This work takes look at what expression is in relation to its context as such that expression is linked with the past that we have gone through, this linkage could ultimately lead to the argument that free will doesn’t exist (as things are in relation to the past). In addition, it is written, not limited to looking at the perspectives often come to the discussion on this topic such as whether hate speech should be banned, but expanding its sphere to the topics of context which is rules and how people built up the world, culture, history of language, information theory, and the inner part of oneself such as sentiment. Without taking into consideration these domains, the discussion on freedom of expression rests too limited and cannot expect the further progress. Freedom of expression is a political topic, and reflecting on it from a variety of perspectives finally converges on the topic.
As regards the contents, this work addresses the question: what is the principle, or the solution, that should be promoted to govern freedom of expression in a society where there are different groups of peoples with different backgrounds? The term govern is used in a sense that this writing emphasises the governance of a community and takes the stand that governance of freedom doesn’t have to be based on not merely laws but also norms, cultures, and others if any which have effect on peoples’ activities.
People’s activity has certain effects on others in the community. In many cases where a society or a community is phrased in this work, it is used to mean it in multiple levels. From the smaller to the larger to give a few examples, it covers a multiple scales of community such as a community within a nation-state as multiple communities exist within the nation-state, a nation-state as a community, international community as a community, and others. In others, there are cases that refer to a particular size of community, however it should be better to be noted that many refer to different levels of a community simultaneously in one description which readers would enjoy contemplating on communities whose scale is different. This is because one phrase of a community is applicable to not only one size of a community but also other different sizes as well.
In addition, with regards to the meanings embedded in the question above that different peoples of different backgrounds live in a community, although there is dispute between globalism and nationalism, the benefits the civilisations got from the progresses such as the transferability of persons, goods, and information from one place to another has made possible the interactions of different persons, different cultures. This is a progress in terms of technology which brought about the benefits to the world. Also, the progress in terms of the rights of citizens is that the importance of human rights are what societies came to care for. Securing the sphere of freedom for all persons which is one of the essentials, however, there problems also arise given that the exercise of a protected right means taking a certain action towards society in which persons of different backgrounds and interests live. The world became more complex and is interrelated, in which an action of person has an effect to the society. In this worldview, this writing aims at analysing the nature of freedom, what expression means in society, analysing how it works (in association with freedom of expression). Its purpose is to find a way to have less conflicts among different persons living in the same society while taking into account the importance of preserving freedom, and what can be thought of as a principle to guide. Even though the focus is put in the domain of freedom of expression in this writing, it supposes the further extension towards other domains of freedom. It demonstrates the potentials of this topic’s development towards other domains of freedom as well as the relationship of freedom and persons’ actions in a society.
The reason of choosing the topic of freedom of speech and expression is my recognition that this topic will continue to attract the attention of people including the future generations presumably without disappearing completely the topic from our civilisation. People express their ideas and opinions in their daily life. It is one of their rights regarded as a fundamental human right. However, while many people came to be aware of its importance, the world continues to have controversies around this topic. The continuance of the emergence of problems related to freedom of speech and expression is partly because of the change in the conditions of our life.
We have updated our environmental conditions by implementing new technology in the past. It made possible that people of different context encounter more frequently in the real and online world. For example, the transportation system spread over the globe enabled us to move to a different location in a short period of time. This made easier for people to migrate to a different country, study abroad for a short term as well as a long term, and visit a different country as a tourist. It is a positive result of development of transportation system in the sense that people are able to move more conveniently, but in the same time it changed the condition of the world that visiting a different country have never been that easy for people in the past.
Also, due to the evolution of information technology, people of different backgrounds are able to speech online without having shared context on topics. Even, some groups of people strengthen their views and others also move on their own way. The circumstances around expression have been increasing its complexity. Not just the problem of polarised views, but also there’s been a situation that at least some social media platforms have been trying to regulate hate speech online. As time passes, the world changes, we have problems that we need to deal with.
At the beginning of 21st century, the world is globalised ever before, people of different backgrounds are more likely to see each other in-person and online. These changes of the conditions of the world due to the updates of societal circumstances require us to think about our world and continue to redefine our world by dealing with the complex issues in the domain of expression.