Controlling speech is rarely the solution

This is the sixth installment of a series of posts on lessons we progressives should take on the election. The overview is here.

We really need to stop trying to control speech.  I get it: Free speech is tough, and it always has been. We don’t make speech free because it is weak – we make it free because it is strong, and “bad” speech can be really hurtful.  But one of our societal values has been that we learn to have thick skin, and we don’t try to exercise control over what others say.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t have counter-speech. Free speech isn’t speech without consequences, it’s speech without control.  So if you say something that is jerky, the correct response is for someone to say you are being a jerk, and that’s completely within the spirit of free speech, which goes both ways.  What is not okay is to say that the person cannot speak AT ALL.

We should let people say hateful and hurtful things, and then get good people to denounce those ideas and work to defeat them in the court of public opinion.  We shouldn’t say that they cannot make a speech … though it is absolutely fine to boycott the speech, to have counter speeches, etc.  Just don’t try to prevent them from speaking at all.

There are some obvious exceptions to this, of course.  Outing someone in some way, or revealing other private information, can be horrible.  Bullying, especially bullying the vulnerable, is terrible.  But saying you disagree with a worldview or that you practice a certain faith … ? Not so much.  That’s true even if it’s about a fundamental belief or lifestyle.  Again, though, it’s also fine if you respond to that with counter-speech – someone doesn’t get to have his speech be free while ignoring the counter-speech consequences.  (And, yes, we need to be intolerant of the intolerant -- that's a necessity to the ideal, not a flaw.)

Also, I’m not saying that people cannot agree to have safe spaces.  Safe spaces can be fine, but they come at a cost.  That cost is extremely high at a place like a university, where the free flow of ideas is a basic tenet of the community.  But you can have specific agreements for a specific classroom, or for a specific church congregation.  There is room for specific places designated to be free of bullying behavior and common areas devoted to free speech, even horrible speech.

This is definitely one of those areas where I think it is worth noting that, while the Left gets beat up for being politically correct, all sorts of groups are trying to control what is said.  I have several right-leaning friends who get upset with someone saying “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”; or with someone using the term “marry” to mean something besides one-man, one-woman; or to refer to themselves by a pronoun that doesn’t match their biological sex. I have a friend who was upset that Hillary Clinton would not make a public Christian prayer (which of course, she did, time and again). Many conservatives think it should be okay to force kids to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and that we “went wrong” when we “removed prayer from schools,” but conversely that they are afraid Sharia Law is going to take over.  The Right likes to control speech.

But I’m not here to talk about the Right.  Many on the Left will get upset if you inadvertently mess up the desired pronoun; they want to stop some jerky right-wing speakers from presenting on campuses, but will happily accept left-wing speakers; some don’t want you to say “Merry Christmas” and take offense, even though Christmas is hardly a solely religious holiday in our materialistic culture. There are definitely some that take odd (and cognitively dissonant) approaches to feminism (is it misogynistic to strike a woman, for instance, or to refuse to strike one?)  People make really strange arguments that black people can’t be racist, when we know that people of all groups are tribal, but that white people even mentioning race should be censored.

We need to stop trying to control what everyone says.  We should try to be decent people, and that means standing up and speaking louder when a jerk says something that is offensive.  Don't like the Westboro Baptist Church?  Instead of trying to arrest them, call the Patriot Guard Riders (or join them). Don't like liberal elites running institutions of higher learning?  Get a degree and out-argue them.  We need more ideas, and to get there, we need to let all the ideas come into the market place, sift through the trolls and dolts, and get to the gems.

Thoughts?