The meaning and extent of freedom of speech
What limits, if any, are justified in a free country on speech and expression? Narveson argues the limits should be minimal. So minimal, in fact, that the "thought crimes" Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant are presumably "guilty" of should be seen as no crimes at all.
Jan Narveson - February 21, 2008
There are a lot of types of speech. The sort of speech that liberals have been especially concerned to protect includes, in the words of free speech's most famous champion, John Stuart Mill, the expression of "opinion." He once famously said that "If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
This has a powerful ring to it. But note how easy it is take it that, after all, expressing an opinion, so far as that goes, is pretty thin stuff. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but the expression of opinion, especially on the abstract questions that we academics tend to go on about, is unlikely genuinely to hurt anybody. Or if it does, what it hurts is their feelings. And whether those need or deserve special protection is questionable, whereas protection from the sticks and stones of other people is central to social life.
And we do, indeed, very often express opinions. But we do a lot more than that with our speech. Suppose that gang member Al is issuing an instruction to gang member Bert, "Here, you be at the south door of the bank at exactly 1:15." Is that an "opinion" whose expression we should want to "protect?" And then there are tricky things such as opinions on matters of doctrine that have pronounced practical implications--"The Jews should be wiped off the face of the earth!"--for example. Was this the kind of opinion that Mill proposed to defend? Perhaps, but it seems unlikely. And then suppose that thought, as so often happens, leads to action, and suppose that some of those actions involve violence--that it was, for that matter, the very point of those speech acts to help initiate the violence in question. Are we so sure that speech of that kind is to be protected?
If we aren't, is there a way to formulate laws that distinguish satisfactorily between the kind of speech that should be protected and the kind that should not? Suppose that A accuses B of being hate-filled--and this is, in fact, true. Doesn't A do us a favour in saying so, if what he says is true? Consider the teaching of general doctrines that call for violence against individuals or groups. It happens, after all. Should we suppress the teaching of doctrines that incite violence for, say, religious or political reasons? Suppose that citizen C supports the proposal that C's government should declare war against some other country: is that "inciting to violence?" Presumably not. But if a great many such citizens do this, we are, after all, likely to see a war being undertaken. Remember the Crusades? If you were a prince of some power and responsibility at the time, would you think that a general rumbling in the populace in favour of going and beating up on the Saracens in the interests of rescuing the "Holy Land" should be protected as a matter of right?
On the path from interior thoughts to exterior violent action, how do we identify the point(s) at which intervention to prevent further progress along that path is now justified? The cost of undoing the damage at the point just before, say, war or dynamite-throwing or whatever is overtly undertaken is a lot higher, possibly, than considerably earlier on when it is a matter of shutting the right people up. Indeed, the difference may be that the damage is undoable at the later point, but preventable at the earlier. Do we theorists have a good formula for computing this point? Presumably not; yet to hold that in principle anything short of the last point before action is wrong does not look very plausible.
Mill's idea is promising indeed in the realm of academia, and up to some pretty generous level in the Fourth Estate. But holding that the right of free speech extends to any and all things said by anyone to anyone is, frankly, mad. So in formulating a solid principle in this area, we have our work cut out for us, indeed. Where, then, do we go from here?
A first thing to appreciate is that there are "wars of words," in which some are trying to persuade others. We can distinguish two things they might be trying to persuade others of: (1) to believe something about something, and (2) to do something about something. It is the beginning of responsibility for the life of the mind to appreciate that these are related. We ought to do this or that if there is good reason to do so, and the reasons are going to involve various facts, such as about what will happen if one does do this or that. If someone advances cause x of the second type, we get to inquire for his reasons on behalf of x, and if they are found wanting, to point this out and say so. Publicity is important; we have to speak up and not merely to speak. One reason for protecting speech is precisely to provide an incentive for getting your reasons upfront and public, where others can examine them and respond, favourably or otherwise.
Those who seek protection from criticism of their beliefs are cause for concern. The oddly famous case of the Danish cartoons is a case in point. Did Muhammad and his followers in fact have the properties the cartoons implied? Isn't it important whether he did or not? (There's ample evidence against him: his followers murdered non-believers just for being non-believers, rather than sitting down with them to persuade them of their errors. John Stuart Mill did have the definitive word about such people: "There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation." The Alberta "Human Rights Commission," as Mark Steyn points out, is wholesale into the business of protecting people in the latter way, against people trying to contest what they believe. That commission, and the province that supports it, have ample reason to be ashamed of themselves.)
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