Eight Values of Free Expression

 Learning about the Eight Values of Free Expression was both fascinating and educating. Upon my initial reading of these eight values, my attention was immediately grasped with the Marketplace of Ideas. I have never thought of truth in the sense of its relationship with falsehood, and how falsehood can actually reveal truth. The second value, Participation in Self-Government is another important factor in free expression. Ensuring that all citizens are fully informed of the policies and positions of people in leadership protects them from being manipulated and misinformed. Stable Change presented a new perspective on protesting that I had not previously thought of. This value states that allowing minorities and discriminated people groups to freely vent and protest actually prevents riot and outrage. Individual self-fulfillment, the right to free speech and expression, is the value that I most commonly think of when I consider free-expression. The next value, Check on Governmental Power, describes the checks and balances process, and how it intrinsically protects the people from an abuse of governmental power. Promoting tolerance is an intriguing idea that basically states that free speech, especially hateful or offensive speech, allows people to grow more tolerant of diverse opinions, backgrounds, and lifestyles. This however goes hand in hand with Promoting Dissent, a value that protects minority voices. Lastly, Promoting Innovation ultimately says that a community in which free speech is encouraged is one that will allow for creativity and imagination, and therefore flourish in innovation. 

Of these eight values, the ones that stood out to me the most were the Marketplace of Ideas and the Promotion of Tolerance. In my opinion, these two values are the most complex in theory and impacted my understanding of free expression most. I see the Marketplace of Ideas in action today through the presidential election. Watching heated debates between two people of such starkly contrasting opinions and worldviews tends to reveal the truth and even strengthen the truth. The Promotion of Tolerance intrigued me because of its correlation with censorship in todays world. The tension of promoting free speech and censoring hate speech is so difficult in todays world. I even experienced and witnessed forms of hate speech in my inner-city diverse high school, and it was incredibly upsetting. It would lead you to believe that hate speech is something that is entirely evil, and serves no positive purpose whatsoever. However, through these years at my high school, and the things I witnessed, I have become more understanding of how people different from me think, and likewise, we have been able to grow in respect, through growth and forgiveness. 

There are obviously positive and negative outcomes that result from social media, however I notice the
Promotion of Innovation as one of the positive outcomes of Instagram. So many people use Instagram to share all forms of creativity and expression: art, fashion, humor, poetry, music, and more. Through platforms like Instagram which make expression like this possible, people are able to share these talents with the world and therefore promote innovation, energy, and diversity.