“I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.” — Oscar Wilde—
Caveat: This isn’t some ultimate essay about freedom of speech, it’s the start of a journey to explore when freedom of speech helps contribute to solve a specific issue and when it’s surpassing its purpose.
It’s 8am, you turn to your cell phone and you look at what’s in the news. You check off your favourite news sites, your blogs, your rss feeds (if people still use those) or perhaps you’re even getting your news from Facebook. Is there something you notice? Is there something you missed? Did you just read an unfiltered truth? Did you just learn a perspective you haven’t heard about before?
The answer to that question is very likely to be either maybe. Or if if you’re going to be really honest with yourself, probably ‘no’. As we move through this era of incredible technological revolutions, we seem to be struggling in how we adjust. Our default behaviour to this tremendous change, is to protect ourselves from the crocodiles in the river and the lions in the bushes. We’re seeking for comfort in news that confirms what we want to believe. Whether that is to support ideologies you might have, viewpoints about an issue or just a “feeling” that you can’t really put into words.
If you’ve ever browsed the edges of the web, you’ll find communities that hold incredible strong viewpoints on ideologies or just particular issues. From whether women should have equal rights to men, black lives vs all lives matter, immigration in the U.S., the effect of Islam on Western society or legislation of medical marihuana. Most of these discussions can be quite shocking if you’ve been browsing through your Facebook or RSS bubble for the last couple of years of your life. They will surprise you, shock you, disgust you or enlighten you. Now with enlightenment I don’t mean, that if you go to Reddit, 4Chan.org or some other place with non-mainstream opinions, that you’ll finally “see” the light. With enlightenment I mean that you just might discover something about yourself or about others unlike you, you didn’t know or understood before.
Freedom of speech I can handle, can you?
John Scalzi made an excellent statement about this in his blog, ‘Bad Reviews: I Can Handle Them, and So Should You’ on July 17, 2012…
- Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the things they read (or watch, or listen to, or taste, or whatever). They’re also entitled to express them online.
- Sometimes those opinions will be ones you don’t like.
- Sometimes those opinions won’t be very nice.
- The people expressing those may be (but are not always) assholes.
- However, if your solution to this “problem” is to vex, annoy, threaten or harrass them, you are almost certainly a bigger asshole.
- You may also be twelve.
- You are not responsible for anyone else’s actions or karma, but you are responsible for your own.
- So leave them alone and go about your own life.”
The US vs THEM mindset
“If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all” — Naom Chomsky —
The challenge, however, is that these discussions seem to become a lot more US versus THEM. The discussion seems to get ignore, that a discussion isn’t whether you convince me you are right about something, but that we are both willing to change our mind about the subject. That we seek to understand before we’re forcing our rage onto each other. The web is magnificently connected with all of its devices that feed it. We are helping these devices to send information to one another by typing, clicking and tabbing. Then there is a feedback loop as the internet communicates back to us. Somewhere, some 10,000 miles away from you, there is someone else that is taking the effort to type something back and hit send. You receive their input and whatever it is you are reading, it will spark a chemical reaction inside your brain. It might make you blush, it might make you smile or it might make you really angry. This power is, in and on itself, the 9th world wonder. You’re able to spark an emotion with another individual that is 10,000 miles away without even looking that person in the eyes. If you’ve told people that somewhat a 100 years ago, they would have hung you for witchery, or if you’re lucky chemically castrated you.
Emotions are something that we believe makes us human beings unique, it’s what makes us human, it’s what we believe often our soul is made of. The science, however, argues against that. Emotions aren’t an inherently unique experience to human beings. Whales for example, have exhibited deep and complex emotions, that we, with all of our technological advancement can hardly understand. None of the emotions we feel is unique to an individual. Fear, anger, disgust, frustration, self-pity, regret, love or patience are all emotions, everyone of us shares. The colour of your skin simply is irrelevant, the religion of your parents is irrelevant, whether you are gay or straight is irrelevant, your identity is irrelevant. When you are talking about what you feel, the human experience, it’s character can’t be predicated on who you happen to be. The reality is all of us share the same genes that make us all human. The emotions we have are also something all of us share. The problem, however, is that we are confusing discussions by not talking about specific issues, but as an exclusive society we have to have a certain identity for. This is not what free speech stands for or what it’s there for.
Does Freedom of Speech means something different to all of us?
Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one’s opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction.
Now think about for a second, when you felt you could truly articulate your opinion and ideas without fear? I don’t know about you, but I feel like that in the last 5 years we’ve been accelerating towards a society where freedom of speech seems to be a secondary priority. The first priority seems to be, what tribe do we allow to talk about this specific issue? What tribe (often based on our gender, colour or religious worship), do we allow in our narrow-minded society? Then the second priority seems to be, ‘how can we scream as loud as possible blaming the people who we don’t condemn to talk about this?’ And the final priority seems to be, ‘how can we justify our exclusive rights to talk about these issues and disguise it as freedom of speech?’
Freedom of speech is blurred in its execution. In America Freedom of Speech is in the First amendment, yet the court struggles to determine what it exactly constitutes to…
Among other cherished values, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech. The U.S. Supreme Court often has struggled to determine what exactly constitutes protected speech. The following are examples of speech, both direct (words) and symbolic (actions), that the Court has decided are either entitled to First Amendment protections, or not.
The United States Courts say…
The First Amendment states, in relevant part, that:
“Congress shall make no law…abridging freedom of speech.”
ok… that seems reasonable straightforward. But then the examples come…
Freedom of speech includes the right:
- Not to speak (specifically, the right not to salute the flag).
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). - Of students to wear black armbands to school to protest a war (“Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.”).
Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969). - To use certain offensive words and phrases to convey political messages.
Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971). - To contribute money (under certain circumstances) to political campaigns.
Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976). - To advertise commercial products and professional services (with some restrictions).
Virginia Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976); Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977). - To engage in symbolic speech, (e.g., burning the flag in protest).
Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989); United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).
Freedom of speech does not include the right:
- To incite actions that would harm others (e.g., “[S]hout[ing] ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”).
Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). - To make or distribute obscene materials.
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957). - To burn draft cards as an anti-war protest.
United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968). - To permit students to print articles in a school newspaper over the objections of the school administration.
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988). - Of students to make an obscene speech at a school-sponsored event.
Bethel School District #43 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986). - Of students to advocate illegal drug use at a school-sponsored event.
Morse v. Frederick, __ U.S. __ (2007).
There is one thing that I know is very different than the Freedom of Speech that for example is valued in The Netherlands (that tiny happy country below sea level). In the U.S. Freedom of Speech includes the right to: ‘To use certain offensive words and phrases to convey political messages.’
This right has been used to its potential by Donald Trump in his presidential elections (and continuing). Offensive words and phrases are the words that spark the highest explosion of chemical reactions (i.e. emotions) in our brain. It can make us physically tremble if we don’t know how to control this anger and pain.
To be or not to be offensive?
The problem however, is that offensive language and phrases are quite poorly defined and lack follow-up. When you have a U.S. presidential candidate calling ‘Mexicans are rapists’, it’s justified because its “purpose” is ‘to convey a political message’. However, when you have a website like Gawker.com getting burned to the ground because a certain billionaire want his revenge years after an offensive article, it’s getting very grey. The questions that we seem to forget to ask ourselves is “Do we really need to offend people to convey our message?” and “If we merely state facts, yet people are offended by the facts, should those people who are offended grow a thicker skin or should we stop seeking facts (i.e. truth)?”.
The Dutch are known for their bluntness, their radical candor, their brutal honesty that can often come across as offensive to people from cultures who aren’t used to this level of directness. The Dutch communicate in low-context, meaning that we say things we mean. We don’t talk subtle between the lines, like cultures with high-contextual conversations, as for example The British and to a large extend also Americans. However, this doesn’t mean that we have, what we call, a ‘vrijbrief’ (in English this literally translates to a ‘free letter’) to offend people. The Dutch have instilled respect deeply into their ability to speak so honestly and freely. It’s actually a sign of true respect to someone when you provide radical candor. The Dutch view it disrespectful to actually not say what you mean, as it’s viewed as dishonesty.
The meaning and purpose of free speech is slipping away from us
In 2006, Queen Beatrix (now King Willem-Alexander) emphasised that the freedom of speech finds her border, there where the rights of others begin. Freedom of speech is not a free letter to offend. She said, “Wie anderen beschimpt verliest zelf geloofwaardigheid; het onbegrenste woord schiet zijn doel voorbij”, which translates to…
“Who mocks or belittles others, loses their credibility; the uncontrolled word will fly by its purpose.” — Queen Beatrix (The Netherlands)—
(Wow… translating Dutch in plain English is harder than you think.)
Today we’re all witnessing, freedom of speech being broken down, day by day, in regulatory manuals (written and unwritten). Words we can’t use anymore, facts that make others feel uncomfortable and opinions that others vilify. It’s particularly the unwritten rules that freeze us to actually speak freely, without any fear of blowback. Whether this is towards governments, corporations, tribes or individuals.
It’s crucial for the survival of the human race, to not only defy our chances of survival by becoming interplanetary race, but also to transcend beyond our current sense of identity. Our identity is clearly getting in our way to speak, challenge and collaborate on specific issues freely. Yes it’s true that finding our self-identity makes us feel safe (it’s been working like this for thousands of years), and yes it’s true that it feels great to be part of a tribe. However, dividing ourselves into hundreds, thousands, or even millions of tribes will not make us better human beings. It won’t make us a better version of ourselves. The only thing it will do, is that it will make us feel comfortable. Comfortable in denial, and comfortable to never being challenged on your worldview.
It’s time we start designing technology that help us find truth outside our bubble, technology that helps us discover something we didn’t understand about others and ourselves.
