The Free Speech Debate Needs To Change, Now More Than Ever
It’s time that the discussion on Free Speech becomes more than what you can and cannot say, but also how you say it.
Free Speech discussions need to move beyond drawing lines in the sand of what is and is not acceptable speech, they need to explore the ways that conversations involving all ideas in society will be managed.
Ask someone to justify where they stand on Free Speech and the answer will invariably come along the lines of, “well I think we should be able to talk about X ideas, but Y seems too far.”
A supporter of Free Speech might argue that no matter how heinous an idea is to some people, it is essential that we protect our right to at least engage with it in open conversation. A respondent might then say, “but what about the dangers of this idea being shared in society? What about the harm or trauma it could cause?”
“But we need to learn from those ideas to understand how they are dangerous,” says the supporter.
“Yes, but what about the dangers they pose right now…” says the respondent.
And so on, ad infinitum…
While to some degree these conversations are important, it also massively oversimplifies the issue at the heart of Free Speech advocacy: the free exchange of ideas.
What does to ‘freely exchange’ an idea?
In a time where the ideas being exchanged could fundamentally shift the course of our society, we need to look at how this freedom is being used, not just what falls under its umbrella.
To paraphrase Edmund Burke:
We should wait to see what people do with their freedom before we congratulate them on having it.
After having many, many discussions on Free Speech, I think the same idea very much applies here.
It is all nice and well that you have the ‘freedom’ to engage in contentious topics, but how is that freedom being used?
At a glance, not well…
Hate Speech is rising rapidly, particularly online. In 2016, Canada saw a 600% increase in online Hate Speech. In 2019, a survey showed that half of all Americans had experience Hate Speech online in some form.
These trends are not contained to the Internet either, with online Hate Speech being linked to an increase in hate crimes and the emergence of hate groups as well.
Naturally, figures like these could lend themselves easily towards the Free Speech restriction side of the argument. In Europe for instance, where Free Speech protections are far less entrenched than in the US, the popularity of ‘absolute Free Speech’ tends to be quite lower for the reasons outlined above.
As for the state of ‘idea diversity’ — one of the main pillars around which the Free Speech argument is usually built — I cannot say with any certainty that this value is represented in our political culture.
In the US, despite the 1st Amendment guaranteeing the Freedom of Speech, political discourse seems to be less and less about open debate, and more about confirmation bias and echo chambers. Instead of targetting a person’s ideas, you decry their view as Fake News. While this is not an accurate description of the entire culture, these are certainly factors that are becoming increasingly normalized.
What does rising Hate Speech and poor social discourse mean for Free Speech in 2020?
Hate Speech is, of course, dangerous and its suppression should be a priority for any functioning, democratic society. Similarly, the free exchange of ideas means nothing if the method by which we exchange them is broken; I would argue, at this point in time, it is beginning to show fault lines.
However, these do not have to be points of contention for supporters of Free Speech.
Instead of either ignoring the arguments above or relenting on the need to protect Freedom of Speech, there should instead be a renewed focus on the ways that speech and dialogue are being conducted.
Giving people absolute rights while having no discussion on how they will be practiced is an act destined for failure.
This is as true for Free Speech as it is for any other topic.
Therefore, the how needs to be brought into the foreground.
It is simply not enough to support Free Speech in today’s world without including ways of practicing it. And that’s what it involves, practice. If you want to support Free Speech, that means learning about different forms of dialogue.
It means learning to self-mediate; It means fact-checking online; It means being able to have open conversations with people on contentious topics without resorting to personal attacks, fallacious arguments, or outright dismissing the conversation. It means learning to be wrong.
Free Speech debates cannot simply be about what can and cannot be said, it is far too an important principle for that. But it is not a principle we should value in of itself. It is something we have to practice and get better at constantly.
Free Speech discussions need to move beyond drawing lines in the sand of what is and is not acceptable speech, they need to explore the ways that conversations involving all ideas in society will be managed.
Now more than ever we need to take a long, hard look at the way we are doing politics. How we experience and engage with political issues is just as important — yet far less acknowledged — than simply the content of our political ideas. To read more on this topic, feel free to subscribe to Practicing Politics, a new publication looking at how it is we ‘do’ our politics…
For more articles on the topic of political dialogue, see below…
