Greg Lukianoff is, as most of you know, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He’s also a lawyer and co-author, with Jon Haidt, of the excellent book The Coddling of the American Mind. Yesterday in Quillette, Lukianoff wrote a piece that many of us may find useful, outlining how to give comebacks to flimsy arguments against free speech. The advice is especially useful now that both extreme Left and extreme Right are finding reasons to curtail speech, the former through demonizing certain opinions that go against Righthink and the latter through banning or censoring books. I think the article below is free, so have a look.
I’m just going to put the arguments down, and if you’re savvy you should be able to give comebacks to most of these. Nobody will get them all, I think, so go back and read the piece. I’ve indented Lukianoff’s arguments below, but have left out the ripostes. For some reason I can’t see the graphics that Lukianoff has embedded in the article.
I’ll note first that anyone using the phrase “freeze peach” when referring to free speech is simply mocking this important concept. On to the objecftions (Lukianoff thanks some people at the end for helping him out.)
Assertion 1: Free speech was created under the false notion that words and violence are distinct, but we now know that certain speech is more akin to violence.
Assertion 2: Free speech rests on the faulty notion that words are harmless.
Assertion 3: Free speech is the tool of the powerful, not the powerless.
Assertion 4: The right to free speech means the government can’t arrest you for what you say; it still leaves other people free to kick you out.
Assertion 5: But you can’t shout fire! in a crowded theatre. (I have to do some self-aggrandizing here by quoting part of his answer):
This old canard, afavourite reference of censorship apologists, needs to be retired. It’s repeatedly and inappropriately used to justify speech limitations. People have been using this cliché as if it had some legal meaning, while First Amendment lawyers point out that it is, as Alan Dershowitz puts it, “a caricature of logical argumentation.” Ken White penned a brilliant and thorough takedown of this misconception. While his piece is no longer available online, you can find a thorough discussion of the arguments by Jerry Coyne here. Please read it before proclaiming that your least favourite language is analogous to “shouting fire in a crowded theatre.”
Assertion 6: The arguments for freedom of speech are outdated.
Assertion 7: Hate speech laws are important for reducing intolerance, even if there may be some examples of abuse.
Assertion 8: Free speech is nothing but a conservative talking point.
Assertion 9: Restrictions on free speech are OK if they are made in the name of civility. (Note that this argument doesn’t hold for this website; as I explain in the Roolz, if your comment is uncivil or insulting to another reader, I don’t have to publish it. On a website like this, I do not have to put up every comment that comes in, though I try to use a light hand when moderating. But First-Amendment-style free speech doesn’t apply to websites, discussion groups, and the like.)
Assertion 10: You need speech restrictions to preserve cultural diversity.
Assertion 11: Free speech is an outdated idea; it’s time for new thinking. (Note that this is the same argument made in #6 above).
Assertion 12: I believe in free speech, but not for blasphemy.
Of these, the one I think it’s most useful to understand is the rebuttal to #7: the claim that “hate speech” doesn’t count as free speech. To answer this properly you’ll have to know what exceptions to First Amendment-style free speech have been carved out of that Amendment by the courts (false advertising, defamation, etc). Indeed, in countries like Germany and Britain, “hate speech” is a violation of the law, but Lukianoff notes that, at least crudely, “hate speech” laws don’t seem to go along with a strong reduction in bigotry, nor would you expect them to.
In his conclusion, Lukianoff once underlines the need for free speech. And speaking personally, I’d recommend that everyone who hasn’t read Mill’s “On Liberty” do so now (it’s free here on the Internet).
Lukianoff:
Free speech is valuable, first and foremost, because, without it, there is no way to know the world as it actually is. Understanding human perceptions, even incorrect ones, is always of scientific or scholarly value, and, in a democracy, it is essential to know what people really believe. This is my “pure informational theory of freedom of speech.” To think that, without openness, we can know what people really believe is not only hubris, but magical thinking. The process of coming to know the world as it is is much more arduous than we usually appreciate. It starts with this: recognise that you are probably wrong about any number of things, exercise genuine curiosity about everything (including each other), and always remember that it is better to know the world as it really is—and that the process of finding that out never ends.
Okay, how about free speech that kills people. Free speech in the form of misinformation on social media has contributed to a Covid death toll that has been very difficult to counter. I believe social media is a special case, where our ability to confront societal threats is being destroyed.
https://politicsofthelastage.blogspot.com/2023/10/social-media-in-year-2020-was-swarming.html
And who gets to say what is “misinformation”? For example, Fauci has sinced admitted to broadcasting misinformation (he simplified and “curated” the messge from what was actually true to what he thought it good for people to be told).
If we have a reliable method of sorting misinformation from truth then, sure, let’s clamp down on misinformation. But it’s not that easy, so any mechanism for censoring misinformation is liable to be misused, and thus do more harm than good.
The better way to counter misinformation is not censorship (which just leads people to be suspicious, and so leads them to believe the misinformation), but better information.
I agree better information should solve the problem but social media has broken that solution. Countering vaccine misinformation on social media has failed. A new pandemic is likely to be catastrophic because of all the anti-vaccination sentiment generated by misinformation on social media.
You see, Coel, that the Democratic Party in the United States has now become the club of the highly educated, as more and more of the working class moves rightward. And those intellectual inferiors cannot be trusted to know what is good for them or what is harmful. These are the same people, after all, who continually “vote against their interests.” They need us to protect them from themselves, much as the clerics needed to guard the immortal souls from those wayward purveyors of misinformation and blasphemy who exploited the wonders of the printing press.
The working class should just shut up, quit spreading falsehoods on social media, and volunteer for useful tasks, like dying in the desert to protect us from weapons of mass destruction.
Sarcasm and political (endorsement) jab aside, I fear that the rational arguments for free speech are running into a formidable trio of arrogance, tribalism, and feeling. We have moved past the skirmish into a significant confrontation. And the warring parties look little like they did in 1964 and into the ‘70s.
Every abridgement of freedom of speech that has ever been claimed is always for a “special case.” “Just this once.”
Besides, I don’t believe the would-be censors during Covid were really trying to save MAGA Republicans from their benighted selves by shutting off their access to propaganda. The censorship itself, and the power it shows you have, is the attraction. You’ll find this out when your own dissenting views are squashed as misinformation.
I just finished reading reports on several news sites of the situation in Springfield, Ohio, where schools and public services have been closed down for a second day today after threats of violence against Haitian immigrants and others. In some of the articles, there are references to the Arlington Cemetery official who declined to press assault charges for fear of retribution from MAGAS.
At the same time, when I consider curtailing free speech, I always run up against the question of just who should decide what is harmful and where the line is. Anyone can “take offense” against anything they don’t like or don’t understand, and if there is law against “speech violence”, it’s too easy for someone with a grudge to accuse someone else, just to cause trouble.
A vexing question, to which I have no answer.
L
It’s a good piece, one to hang onto for use when needed.
It’s really very simple hate speech and misinformation are the very essence of free speech.
The remedy for either is more speech, not suppressed speech
“Freedom of speech is not tolerance of bad ideas but we cannot rid ourselves of bad ideas if we don’t know what they are and, who decides what a bad idea looks like.”
I like to think that human nature that power house of mishmash and concoction will play a role. Uncertainty is one of the conditions of life (for me) freedom of speech is a tool of navigation into the realm of ideas and of tolerence to listen before critique.
Individuals don’t like to be wrong and humiliation is a strong deterrent. If you’re being “laughed at” there is a good chance you’re not going on repeat… hmm, unless lying to yourself is your MO. A bad idea wimps out to the better ideas.
Good ideas are hard to modify is another tool.
I don’t claim these as my ideas, Karl Popper, David Deutsch, Brett Hall have been a good source of inspiration on the subject.
Tell me which part of the quote below is free speech. I doubt people on this page are recipients of the “free speech” they defend.
“Staff are now receiving calls to our work voice mails saying that we should join their group called Fascists and N*zis of Philidephia, that they will be using our photo and personal information to promote our membership and that if we don’t pay the membership fee of $1555, that they will put a lean on our property. Extortion now.”
Librarians have been told by various county officials the people sending the voice mails are known, but no action will be taken against the callers.
The threat here is that photos and locations will be available to the crazies with guns, out looking for targets. Librarians here, for the past two years, have been under attack by a small group of people who do not like certain books, the LGBTQ+ community, and Drag Queen story hour. They have engaged in violence (trying to force their way into libraries, injuring librarians, charging at very young children while carrying long guns, standing very close to young children to take photographs, despite the protests of the parents of these children, threatening to file CPS reports to list a few of their actions. Some of the children will no longer go to the library; they say they do not want the mean men to hurt them.)
I prefer not to wait until one of our children is shot, or a librarian is attacked, or until some nut walks into the library and starts shooting.
I do not appreciate your defense of free speech. Threats are not free speech and should be taken seriously. There should be clear consequences for those who do make threats — like a few years in jail. You all might feel differently if speech threatened you.
Threats are threats, not just nasty speech, and they are taken seriously and also punishable by law, just like slander and libel. Calling someone an s.o.b. is neither.It is an insult. That’s why Trump can call people names or say they are radical marxists or dumb and why he can lie with impunity.
Reply to Lorna: Unfortunately threats are not taken seriously. That’s the problem. Perhaps I should say they are not taken seriously in my community. Over the past few years many public employees have quit because nothing was done about threats. After a few years of dealing with death threats, and other forms of harassment, people are worn down. It’s difficult to live month after month in a state of heightened anxiety. Yes, lately there has been some progress. In my state, we have laws protecting election workers. We need laws protecting everyone else. All public employees, elected and appointed officials, and everyone else as well.
Reply to Danny: I should make clear. I’m retired. The message I quoted is a recent development in an on-going protest that started in September 2022. A very small group of individuals began to protest at local libraries. Violence seems to have escalated over the summer. I think people here were caught off guard. I imagine County HR is and will react.
For me the problem is not the words. The speech itself is ridiculous. It’s laughable. It is the threat about making pictures and locations of librarians public. It places the librarians in danger, but also affects the entire community if people are killed just because they stood next to someone at the grocery store, or were at a library when someone started shooting.
Stay safe everyone – at least as safe as one can be in our very peculiar world.
I think that verbal harassment/verbal assault is not protected speech (in the workplace, and probably elsewhere). I would certainly take this issue to a lawyer if law enforcement is not doing its job. Good luck, and so sorry you have to contend with this injustice.
A lot doesn’t add up here, Leigh. Why don’t you just call the police yourselves when you observe threats? Someone who admits on a voice mail that he is making a threat to place a lien or file a child endangerment report if money isn’t paid and labeling it extortion is clearly breaking the law—uttering threats we call it. (Placing a lien or filing a CPS report are of course legal but threatening to is usually not. Just do it. Don’t threaten.) Are you saying that people have “injured” librarians without prompting a police response? What does it mean to “force” one’s way into a library during hours that it is open to the public? Ditto “charging” at children? Did the men with guns point them at a person? Generally speaking, anyone can be photographed in a public place. True, weird-looking people who attempt to photograph strangers’ children are often beaten up by parents but I’m assuming that that illegal response isn’t the better part of valour in the circumstances.
You can’t expect “county officials” to do everything for you. Complaining here about not wanting to wait until a child is shot is not going to accomplish anything. It sounds to me that you have a failure of law enforcement, not a deficit of censorship. If your local police won’t enforce existing laws that might be, from your telling, being broken here, what makes you think they will cart the Nazis off to jail for saying bad things about drag queens and frightening children?
Drag-queen story hour uses children as props for an explicitly queering political activity. (“The issue is the Revolution” as TP/Bryan reminds us.). You have to expect counter-protest. To me it sounds like you are trying to create a sanctuary space for drag queens to proselytize children and you want to enlist the heavy hand of the state in silencing vigorous local opposition. Welcome to the public square.
Thank you. Leigh’s comment strikes me as fishy.
I am committed to free speech as outlined in Lukianoff’s article. Clearly it leads to very disturbing results. Comment#1 refers to the special problem of social media. Current technologies allow lies and misinformation to spread across the planet unlike any time in civilization. The results of this have not been counteracted by more speech. If most people are not motivated by knowing the Truth, more speech will fail to stop anti-vaxxers from having an enormous negative impact on public health, as one example.
I found his Assertion #5 interesting. Again, I agree. For example, some employees of a publishing house convinced their employer not to publish a Hollywood director’s biography because they believe he committed sexual abuse. This is counter to free speech in an open society; the cultural commitment.
On the other hand, we have Musk claiming to be a free speech absolutist while censoring voices he doesn’t like and using algorithms to promote his own viewpoints. He is free to do so since he owns the site. He does not care about this cultural commitment. His great power to influence is dangerous. See Assertion 3. He can easily drown out the speech of others.
Assertion #9 is exactly what Ian Buruma asserted was true…that there are some things that no civilized person would ever say. Buruma has fooled lots of people and insulted (as did Nicholas Kristov) Ayaan Hirsi Ali for being”shrill”, among other things. These two guys are missing a couple of tacos from their plate.
“… and the latter [ Right ] through banning or censoring books.”
“… and so the dialectic continues.”
-Delgado and Stefancic
Critical Race Theory – An Introduction, p.66, 3rd Ed., 2017
-> For some reason I can’t see the graphics that Lukianoff has embedded in the article
Me neither. But since they said it was first published in Areo (now too unavailable) I found an archived version here
https://archive.is/eGVDm
There are just a couple of cartoons if I’m not mistaken.
Sorry for double posting JC maybe you can edit my comment above to add this? I was too slow to edit it myself.
I found out a longer series of posts (14!) by Lukianoff and Strossen here
https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/free-speech-does-not-equal-violence-part-1-answers-bad-arguments