Category Archives: Free Speech

John Stuart Mill: One rebel against the world

Free Speech, Freedom, Liberalism, Truth Seeking

 

The case for free speech is often based on something like a natural right. We all have a natural right to speak freely, goes the argument. That basically was the argument given by one of the two liberal giants of philosophy—John Locke.  John Stuart Mill took a different approach. He justified freedom of speech on the principle of utility alone. In other words, people should have free speech because that will permit the greatest happiness to be established for the greatest number of people. Simple. But how could one argue that?

 

John Stuart Mill wrote his classic defence of freedom, and in particular “liberty of thought and discussion” as he called it, in 1859. His arguments can be very useful in deciding whether or not racists, male chauvinists, people who are ageists, Satanists, vaccine deniers, inciters of riots, fascists, and demagogues among others,  should be allowed to speak. It all depends on whether or not allowing them to speak ensures the greatest happiness for the greatest number. I want to explore that idea.

John Stuart Mill starts off early in his book to declare that his sole guiding light will be the principle of utility. This is how he explains his philosophy that has come to be called Utilitarianism: “The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain, by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.” Of course, by “pleasure” Mill did not endorse any crude definition of pleasure. Pleasure for example, includes all the “higher pleasures.” I also include the cruder pleasures or happiness but not only those. Quality of pleasures is important to Mill.

A couple of years ago I re-read Mill’s famous book, On Liberty, that was written in 1859 after I heard an inspiring talk by Robert George and Cornel West at Arizona State university. One was a conservative and the other a left wing radical but both  strongly recommended this book. I figured it was time to re-read that book.

In that classic book Mill defended freedom of “thought and discussion.”  Mill set himself an astonishing difficult task. Here is how he spelled out the problem:

“Let us suppose therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, nor more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind were of one opinion and only one person were of the contrary 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. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted on a few persons or many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as a great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

 

That is an incredibly powerful statement of the right to hear all opinions, even false ones! We have the right to hear even those opinions with which we strongly disagree. We benefit from that clash of opinions.  The greatest happiness is produced by that openness to ideas. Note as well that he points out those who disagree with an opinion lose even more than those who agree with it! I find this an amazingly profound argument. Even if the entire world is arrayed against one solitary opinion we should be able to hear it and not quell it. Even then we would not be justified in silencing that one opinion!

 

In other words, even a true opinion benefits from being challenged because that challenge lends it “a livelier and clearer expression of the truth.” If you love truth, you must love freedom of expression.

 

 

Freedom to Read

Free Speech, Freedom, Liberalism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

The freedom to read is so vitally important because it is so necessary to help us find the truth. It is needed to seek the truth.

University of California at Berkley professor John Powell is an expert on civil liberties and democracies. He is particularly concerned about at the record number of books that are being banned in schools around the United States (the land of the free!). I am also concerned. They are banning some of my favourite books such as Toni Morrison’s Bluest Eye or Beloved (both of which I have blogged about) and one I want to blog about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a true classic of American literature. I am appalled at the thought that American students in some places won’t be allowed to read these books.

Remember books are being attacked from the left and the right. Conservatives are hung up about sex, gender issues, and racism. Liberals get tout of joint over outdated racial depictions.

Powell commented on the issue of banning Maus, the book about the Holocaust. He made a very good point” “You can’t make the Holocaust a nice thing! Slavery wasn’t a nice thing. That makes people uncomfortable.” Yes that is why it is a good book! As he added, “the goal of education is not to make people comfortable.” If people think the school is not teaching their children the truth they should challenge it. Explain to your children why the school is wrong. We all know they are often wrong! Look at us; we survived that. One of my teachers taught us that when you went to a Chinese restaurant before dining you would be wise to go to the kitchen to make sure there were no cat skins on the coat racks . That same teacher taught me that no religion other than Christianity was worth seriously considering. He didn’t do a very good job.  I survived these intellectual onslaughts.  As Powell said, “If someone really wants to challenge the Holocaust” let him challenge, but don’t ban discussion of it.”

I should mention that Canada’s view of this issue is a more complicated than that,  as demonstrated in the case of R. Keegstra, which I will talk about later.  That gets to the issue of hate speech which I find extremely interesting. Should there be limits on the freedom to make hate speech? If so what are those limitations? And what are the limitations on those limitations? Here Canada and the US have diverged significantly. More on this later.

 

Canada recognizes other limitations on free speech such as the laws of defamation and slander, and the law limiting the freedom to express sexually explicit words or images. Canada also have real controls on election spending, which at one was also limited in the US until the infamous Citizens United case. We have some fascinating Canadian cases on these topics as well. There is a lot of material through which one can meander and I intend to do exactly that.

 

The most important figure on the issue of free speech was English philosopher John Stuart Mill who wrote about it in the mid-18th century. He basically proposed that government should only be able to limit free speech when the speech would cause harm to others. I will dig into Mill as well. He was a brilliant philosopher, but have we learned somethings since the 18th century? One would think so.

 

American laws as well as Canadian laws have generally followed Mill’s guidelines.  As a result even in the US there are permitted limits on the freedom of public expression that include obscenity, defamation, death threats, incitement to violence—harms in other words. Yet those limitations are also limited.

 

However, as Powell indicated, the recent restrictions being imposed in the US have much more to do with culture wars than with preventing harm, though the conservatives and liberals who are leading the charge might well argue that they are just trying to prevent harms. We’ll see. It is certainly wrong to say some speech should be regulated because I don’t like it. Or I am because I am offended by it. As Powell said, “discomfort is not the same as an injury.” Or to put it another way, offense or discomfort are not sufficient harms to justify banning the expression that elicits offense or discomfort.

That of course leads to the next question: How harmful does speech have to be to justify banning it? I think that is the crucial question.

Is there such a thing as Free Speech in Schools?

Free Speech, Freedom, Liberalism

 

Many schools are currently under attack by conservative parents for what is being taught in schools. Next month they might be under attack by left-wing parents. Is there such a thing as free speech in schools?

 

Recently a School board in Tennessee banned from its school district a Pulitzer prize-winning book called Maus in which Jews were mice and Nazis were cats. One of the reasons for the ban was that it was  seen to be pornographic because it showed a graphic of a naked mouse with a breast showing. Can that be pornographic? The idea was that the mouse represented Jews and a cat that looked vicious represented Nazis. It was the author’s way of making the notion of the holocaust graphic. The parents also felt that the book made their children uncomfortable. Should a book about the Holocaust not make people uncomfortable? I would be more tempted to ban a book about the Holocaust that made young students comfortable.

All of this reminds me a bit about the recent film Don’t Look Up where scientists were going on television talk show to warn the world about the impending disastrous collision of a comet with earth that would lead to the destruction of all or most life on earth. The talk show hosts explained to the scientists that in the brief time they had to explain the phenomenon they should “keep it light and fun.” Is that what we want?

In Florida, a committee advanced a bill that would restrict discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools because that is popular in conservative circles. The bill bans discussing these issues in primary schools but also restricts how these things can be discussed in other grades too if they are deemed “not age-inappropriate.” Any parent will be able to sue the school for compensation if they are harmed if they believe such discussions took place. No doubt such legislation will make teachers reluctant to discuss such issues in school. Is that a good thing? Should parents not have a say about what is taught in their schools? Or do students have rights to learn? Interesting questions.

 

Many American schools are banning discussions about critical race theory by which they mean any discussions that might tend to make their children think less of Americans and their treatment of racial minorities. Should such discussions not be welcomed rather than banned? Are such discussions too uncomfortable for adults or even children? Don’t we want our children to learn such things?

In the US many of the attacks on free speech are found in schools. Since January of 2020 Republican lawmakers in 41 states (if I counted correctly) have introduced 156 laws that limit how teachers can speak to their students about race, sexual orientation and gender in schools. As Jennifer Given who teaches history in New Hampshire, one of those 41 or so states, says these are scary times to be a teacher. She might be sued for what she says in class. Why do so many people no longer trust their teachers? As a result of these restrictions Given said “many teachers are self-censoring” and avoiding speaking about certain sensitive subjects. Don’t we want our students to learn about sensitive subjects? Even if the teacher’s views vary from our own? Don’t we want our students exposed to other ideas? After all they might then be able to teach us a thing or two? In the Hanover School Division in Steinbach they attempted to stop teachers in some cases from talking about “sensitive subjects” such as LGBTQ topics. Is that acceptable? What if discussions are merely excluded from early years in school?

Yet if parents are entitled to know what is being taught to their children in schools and object to things they  don’t want the teachers to teach to their children, they have that right and  to that extent their free speech is lost. But only in schools. They can say what they want out of school. Is it that simple?

Students of course have no right to free speech. Or at least we didn’t when I went to school.

In New Hampshire, a conservative group is offering a $500 bounty to anyone who turns in a teacher who violates their new law that limits what teachers can say about racism and sexism! As Given said, “The ghost of Senator McCarthy is alive and well in some of our statehouse hallways.” She might actually lose her license to teach, rendering her unemployable perhaps in any jurisdiction not only her own. As the CBS host pointed out, “But this is New Hampshire the land of ‘live free or die.’” Now these are tricky free speech issues because teachers have to some extent always been restricted in what they could talk about in schools. For example school boards decide when sex education is taught (or not). Employers too can limit what their employees say in their workplace. Does that violate free speech?

There are many questions worth pursuing here. I look forward to trying to tackle them. I would like to hear your views too.

 

 

Questions about the Meaning of Free Speech

Free Speech, Freedom, Liberalism

 

The subject of free speech seems simple. It is not. I am in favour of free speech. Of course I am. Lots of people have had a lot to say about. Even I. But what actually does that mean?

I want to look more closely at this question to figure out what I mean by the statement which I have often made that I believe in free speech. What do I mean by it and what not? What do others mean by it?

I know there are aspects of free speech that I admit are a bit tricky.

I was inspired to consider this issue by considering the words of the author Evelyn Beatrice Hall who said this: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That is a pretty bold claim. Does anyone actually mean that? Voltaire was one of my favourite philosophers and many think he said that. He said many interesting things but not that.

Sometimes, rarely perhaps, lawyers and judges can impart some wisdom to such ideas. The courts have often considered this issue particularly our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as it relates to freedom of expression and conscience. I want to look at what the Charter has to say. One of those judges who has opined on free speech, the American Supreme Court Judge, Louis Brandeis, said when asked if we should try to shut up speech we don’t like: “The remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” Yet, how true is that statement?

We live in the age of the. Internet. In fact, we live in the wild west of the internet which abounds with free speech and much of it is abysmally ignorant, but incredibly dangerous, as we have realized in the Age of Covid, if we did not realize it earlier.

Recently, there have been serious efforts in the United States (the land of the free no less) and, of course, many other places, to limit free speech. Here are a few examples: Twitter banned President Trump permanently (supposedly) from Twitter. Was that right? A lot of Trump’s speech was hateful. Much of it consisted of lies. And much of it encouraged dangerous, reckless, and hateful behavior. Yet he is a controversial political figure revered by millions of Americans. Should we not be able to listen to him? Should such speech be limited? Does it matter that Twitter is a corporation beyond democratic control? Should Jack Dorsey and his partners who own it be able to shut down the president of the United States from their platform? How about Greenpeace? Or the Church of God Restoration? Or your local Satanists?  Should they be shut down? As a corporation owned privately or publicly traded should it be able to do that? How about Mark Zuckerberg should he have such power. His Meta (Facebook) empire already brags about the number of people it ejects from its platforms every day. Are we comfortable with that?

Remember I just ask questions. I never give answers (I wish that were actually true.) As Voltaire said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

There are lots of questions worth pursuing here.

 

Protecting Speech that you Hate

Free Speech, Freedom, Liberalism

 

There is one thing a lot of people seem to forget about free speech. Those of us who actually believe in free speech are those who work to protect the speech we hate. It is not about protecting the speech of those with whom we agree. It is not about protecting the speech of our friends. It is about protecting speech  we despise .  Fro example, if you are a Christian you should fight to protect the speech of Satanists. That is what we must work to defend. If we are not able to do that we don’t really believe in free speech at all.

 

It reminds me of what I learned from watching minor hockey. Frankly, I was disgusted by my fellow parents when I watched my young sons play minor hockey. With hair trigger tempers, many of these parents turned viciously on young referees who were often only a couple of years older than our children. The parents saw every perceived mistake as an assault on their perfect children and complained vociferously about each call while ignoring the mistake of their own children. I never saw them complaining about mistaken calls in our own favor, only those against us. As a result I lost all respect for their claims that the young referees were making unpardonable mistakes. Had the parent complained equally about all mistaken calls I might have taken them seriously. It is the same with free speech. Defend all speech or admit you don’t really favour free speech at all.

 

Although I don’t know much about the attack on Salman Rushdie by a man wielding a knife perhaps because he is despised by much of the Muslim world because they don’t like what he said about their religious leader, Rushdie said this about on the topic: “The defense of free speech begins at the point where they say something you can’t stand. You often have to defend people you find outrageous, unpleasant and disgusting.”

 

It is not important to fight for people to have the freedom to say things you like. You have to have the capacity to listen to people whose opinions you strongly disagree with. Even if you hate their opinions or even hate them. As Piers Morgan, of Piers Morgan Uncensored said the day Rushdie was attacked, “you should be able to tolerate their right to have a different opinion.”

In most Muslim countries this is not on the table. They don’t want that. They resist the right of someone like Rushdie to express his views. More and more in the United States and Canada this point of view is gaining strength. That is why, it seems to me, free speech is on the decline.

According to a recent study in the UK. 86% of students want a trigger warning before they hear something offensive. This even includes classics of English literature like Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare. 36% want academics fired if they say something hurtful or offensive. If speech is not even free in Universities where is it free?

Rikki Schlott a columnist with New York Post mentioned how New York University issues student cards on which it placed a bias hotline for you to phone if you are offended by something you hear.

Many liberals now claim words are violence. If that is true, as Schlott said, then you must fight words with violence because that is how you fight violence with violence. Does that not follow?

Why are young people in particular so anxious? They fear words. They want trigger warnings. Is it because they have been coddled all their lives? I think this is part of the problem

According, to Piers Morgan there is “a celebration of victimhood in society.”  There is prestige in being a victim. People want to be victims because it gives them special status. He of course blames “the woke brigade.” I don’t doubt that extreme liberals are often at fault, but so are extreme conservatives. Are they all woke? Who is left to defend free speech?