Application question

Application question:
Reading 3 and 4 cited different views regarding freedom of expression. Which view do you subscribe to and why?

In my opinion, freedom of expression causes harm if it is not exercised with responsibility. It does not only cause offense as viewed by some. The harm caused may not be physically but also emotionally and mentally. Like in the case of the book on Da Vinci Code, I believe that it has caused people to be worried about their faiths. I would therefore subscribe to the view presented in Reading passage 3.

The author in passage 3 wrote” freedom must come with responsibility”. By using freedom of expression responsibly, I mean that the purpose of expressing something is not to cause insult to others. Words that incite hatred and words of accusations should be avoided at all costs. The language use and tone are to be chosen carefully too.

However some might argue that even if doing so, there will still be some individuals who would be angered over what is being expressed. That brings me to the next point of tolerance to some extent. “We must be prepared to grapple with the complexity of the world and the competing demands of sometimes incompatible values.” In my opinion, there should be an agreement between freedom of expression and tolerance level provided that freedom of speech is exercised with responsibility. This will be the choice of individuals to choose to the extent of tolerance. If not, I would suggest protesting in a peaceful way and not by violence as seen in the protests of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad. Example could be to express the opposition views in a responsible way. Here, it voices back down responsibility again.

The author for reading passage 4 has presented the view that freedom of expression should not be ban and it comes with the choice of tolerance of individuals. I feel that this means that each individual must be a person of much tolerance. Also an assumption is that the people are as rational as the author. In my opinion this is quite impossible since full freedom of expression here is given.

In conclusion, both freedom of expression and tolerance have to give way to each other in order achieve co-existence. Individuals must be able to understand the sensitivity of some issues and not manipulate freedom of speech to incite hatred and thus causing harm to others.