Freedom of Speech

I am pretty damn close to being a free speech absolutist, and in this thankfully short essay I’m going to tell you why I think you should join me. Instead of telling you what I mean by a “free speech absolutist”, I’m going to give you some examples of where I come down on some current events and ideas.

I believe the three Ivy League Presidents had to go, not because they didn’t restrict overtly antisemitic speech to protect the sensibilities of their Jewish students and others who were rightly offended by such ideas, but because they were hypocrites who wanted to control expression to further their own ideological agendas. They had consistently and repeatedly allowed a whole range of opinions to be suppressed on their campuses and punished those who espoused them. They wanted to choose which ideas were appropriate to express without even defending the whys in any rigorous way. Whether you or I agree with those ideas is completely beside the point. For example, it was anathema to suggest that “gender-identity” was unscientific, and more akin to a religious belief than a serious social/political “revolution”, much less a new vision of what it means to be human. Within their institutions it was equally abhorrent to suggest that the proposition that Race is a determinant of social success and moral worth is a fiction. It was not acceptable to challenge the idea that it is vile for a person of one race to quote parts of Huckleberry Finn, while it is fine for a person of another race to do so. It was perfectly acceptable for professors and students of all disciplines to treat as fact the dubious proposition that children bear responsibility in the present for their parents’, grandparents’, or even great, great grandparents’ acts. The notion that equality of outcome was the primary way to measure “Social Justice” was dogma and challenging it a sign of profound moral putrification. These are just a few examples. The Presidents were caught out allowing one group of students and their associated beliefs to be reviled, not because they believed in free speech, which they claimed, but because the group of students who expressed those beliefs was a “bad” one in their pre-established and dogmatic racial, ethnic, religious and historic taxonomy. The “bad” are, of course, deserving targets of the virtuous, and thus may be freely and even joyfully reviled. That is why I believe they had to go, even though their departure did little or nothing to address the underlying problems.

I believe that Hate Speech laws are a terrible idea. If a government is allowed to criminalize speech because of the assumed motivation or emotion state of the speaker, then they can criminalize any speech that suites them. If it is deemed “hateful”, then it must be bad. If it is bad, why shouldn’t it be criminal? Our anglophone neighbors across the Pond are currently charging people with “Non crime hate incidents” for social media posts. Orwell would be proud. Speech must not be criminal except in very specific and limited conditions. In U.S. constitutional law those conditions are met somewhere between the annunciations, “Someone should really kill all the Republicans.”, which is clearly permitted speech, and “Let’s go over to the Capitol and kill all of the Republicans right now!”, which is clearly criminal as long as the speaker and those he is speaking to are armed and close enough to the Capitol to be able to actually carry out the murder of Republicans. In other words, the speech must be a direct and immediate incitement to violence that can actually be carried out. Other countries are far less permissive of dissent than the USA. On this point I believe that the Americans are clearly right.

I strongly believe that my neighbor has the right to be a racist, sexist pig and to express those ideas in public and to me directly. I’ve been called a Honky and a Cracker more than once, and White Boy even more. Ironically, I’ve also been called a “nigger lover” (I guess I was doing something right). Some of these incidents were funny. Some were seriously not, but I assure you that I am a more resilient and thick-skinned person as a result. If my neighbor believes that Men are only good for producing sperm and should be kept around lobotomized only until women figure out parthenogenic reproduction, more power to her. I say, Have at it. Tell me what you think if you can bear to be around a man. Just don’t break into my house, threaten my kids, or try to actually lobotomize any males. Oh, and please don’t tell me to shut up when I disagree with you.

I could go on with many more examples, but I imagine you now have a pretty good idea of where I draw the line on permitted expression.

I believe Free Speech is one of the most important self-correction mechanisms we have as a society. It may be the most important. It is the “Scientific Method” of the Polis. It keeps us honest and forces us to challenge our strongly held beliefs. It teaches us how to defend those beliefs, and in the process makes each one of us a stronger and a more capable citizen of a liberal Democracy. If we cannot learn to recognize and challenge bad ideas, even if only after the fact, we are pretty much screwed. Likewise, if we cannot put our own ideas to the test and admit when they are bad, or our neighbor’s better, we are also screwed. Those who wish to control speech or label some of it as “hateful” a priori seem to believe that “the mob” will be “infected” and corrupted by bad ideas – that “the rabble” cannot be responsible for their own mental hygiene. This doesn’t apply to those arbiters of which ideas are “good” and which “bad”, of course. They have already determined themselves to be right, virtuous and impervious to corruption. In other words, they are Tyrants in the making.

Setting the obvious hypocrisy aside, the notion that people cannot determine the quality, utility and morality of the ideas they encounter and must, therefore, be protected from “the bad ones”, is itself a really bad idea. History has shown this time and time again very brutally. I imagine that each one of you can think of several examples.

The Public Square or Market Place of Ideas is where we must go to play and “eat some dirt” in order to inoculate ourselves against self-serving rhetoric, bad faith and stupidity. Our neighbors and peers are wonderful teachers, even when they teach us that there is something seriously wrong with them, or us. The Public Square reinforces the most important lessons we all have to learn:

· That we are small and limited creatures.

· That what we don’t know far exceeds what we do know.

· That what believe we know is often false.

· That we will inevitably fuck up.

· That, other than the above truths, very little is certain other than death and the fact that we evolved in order to survive on this world and are formidably adaptive and dangerous creatures as a result.

All together these lessons place us squarely and consciously where we actually are. Facing them head-on is the most hopeful and rewarding thing we can do. We are collectively and individually pulling the future out of our asses. We are making it up as we go in the midst of nearly overwhelming uncertainty about which we can do nothing other than take our best shot and learn from our mistakes. We desperately need each other’s wisdom, flaws, creativity, stubbornness and, yes, love if we are going to get out of this alive -- collectively of course. Trying to turn away from these most basic conditions of our collective existence, or even worse believing that we are capable of controlling and managing them from “above”, is, in my opinion, suicidal hubris. A free Public Square and a dynamic and contentious Market Place of Ideas are necessary for our growth and possible success. Participating in this project requires a lot of thankless and far from efficient work. It is annoying sometimes, and downright unpleasant at others. Those are the cards we have been dealt.

We are living in dangerous times. We have always lived in dangerous times. We have been, at least up until now, marvelously adapted to them.