What is free speech in a free society?

Free speech?  Sure, that’s an easy one!  I’m all for it!  So, a strong yes to free speech.  Now that wasn’t hard, was it?  Next question?

Except that the freedom of speaking is never quite that easy.  Everyone, of course, will agree that some speech should be free, else there would be no speech at all.  More specifically, they want their own freedom to express their chosen communications to remain unconstrained.  In other words, they want their speech to be free.  Surely they would not waste time saying things unless they thought those things were worth saying!  And they want the speech of those whose expressions they admire to be likewise free.  That about covers the easy part of the question.  But what about the sorts of speech they don’t like.  Hey, you can’t say that!  If we probe further into specific examples, we find that almost no one wants every kind of speech to be entirely free and unrestricted, particularly the disagreeable speech of others—the offensive, the obscene, the rude, the annoying, the untrue.

Not sure?  Consider the following kinds of speech:  False advertising.  Fraud.  Perjury.  Defamation.  Death threats.  Hawking counterfeit currency.  Shouting fire as a clever prank in a crowded theater.  Or shouting racist slogans with a megaphone outside your home in the middle of the night.  Or shouting anything at all outside of your home in the middle of the night for that matter.  Or cursing out children in a public park.  Or threatening members of your family with violence.  Or even threatening violence against strangers.  Well no, not those kinds of speech, obviously.  And thus, not every kind of speech.  Not nearly every kind.  This means we’ve already been forced to recognize a number of limits to the freedom of speech.

So we can probably agree that some or most kinds—but not any and every kind—of speech should be permitted in a free and functional democratic society.  There, we’ve said it.  Even freedom will be constrained by rules and conventions.  Free speech can never be absolutely and in all ways free, even in a free society.  We wouldn’t want to live in a society where we could be verbally threatened by strangers in any place at any time of the day.  In formal political debates, we ask our opponents to wait their turn and avoid abusive language.  So what’s left of free speech after we’ve roped off the most unacceptable kinds?  Should those who wish to speak freely submit a formal request for permission to do so, just in case their speech crosses some forbidden line or otherwise constitutes unacceptable naughtiness?  (Of course they would actually have to speak the speech so that an authority figure would be able to say yes or no, and even doing this much might put them in legal jeopardy.)  No, of course, that would be going much too far the other way.  A free society, it seems, can never be an entirely safe society.  Freedom must include the possibility of saying and hearing things whose consequences are hard to predict.  To be free, we must be willing to risk harm to our sensibilities.  And so a person who values free speech must have courage to say things that approach or even cross the line of what others think is acceptable.  If that person’s society is to be counted as a free society, then whatever freedoms they would award to themselves must be given equally to all the other individuals (possibly groups) within that specific society.

So what would freedom of speech in a free society look like?  Such a society would have to recognize that a functional society requires at least a few agreed-upon boundaries and rules, and that these rules must apply equally to all the individual members of the society.  If we insist on a maximal freedom of expression for ourselves, we must grant exactly the same to others.  Whatever restraints we would put on others must be placed on ourselves.  So, in a free society, we would agree to the fewest number of constraints on individual members compatible with a manageable and flourishing society at large.  Any public restraints must be clearly defined, liable to even-handed enforcement, and agreed upon by the members at large.  Individuals would remain free to speak as they like in private settings, as long as the speech did not intrude into the shared space of the public sphere.  Within the public realm, however, we would find it beneficial not merely to restrain unacceptable speech but also to search out and encourage forms of speech that might prove useful to the wellbeing and improvement of society at large.  We would want to encourage as much breadth and diversity of speech as possible.  Why?  We cannot know what is socially useful speech until we have heard it.  So we would have to hear as much as possible, including much speech that will not end up being very useful.  With these basic criteria in mind, what would constitute good arguments for encouraging freedom of speech?

#

We might begin by asking ourselves what speech is for.  Speech is our characteristically human means of communicating among ourselves.  It is not the only possible means for a sentient species to communicate, nor even our only means.  Other terrestrial species communicate with purpose and meaning (by display, stance, scent, thumping or vocalizing)—and we share some of their techniques—but only our species communicates with the range and subtlety of civilized speech.  Human beings have enjoyed an extensive oral vocabulary for tens of thousands of years, at least.  In the last five thousand years, we have added visual symbols and written texts to our spoken words, not to mention various manual substitutes for speech.  All of these will be counted under the term speech.  They are all forms of communication between individuals.  Isolated individuals may indeed find practical and sentimental uses for self-directed speech, but we mainly use speech for social purposes.  Its value is to be found in specific social settings, which means that speech can never be considered as a purely private affair (the notion of any sort of private right is really incoherent).  Speech is always a negotiation between individuals and within groups.  Speech would have little sense or meaning without the presence of other comprehending individuals.  Speech without others is really of little purpose at all.  Speech is undertaken for the sake of community.  If two or more individuals did not share a common language, or mean roughly the same things by the words they exchanged, there would be no meaningful speech, free or otherwise.  Speech then cannot be a purely personal concern.

Within its inevitably social context, then, what might it mean to speak freely?  An individual is always free to shout their preferred words from a clifftop, into the wind, or across a barren island, but such would hardly be satisfying venues for members of a social species.  No, when we demand to speak freely, we usually mean that we want others to hear our words.  And sometimes we insist that they hear, so that our freedom to speak becomes their obligation to listen.  In that moment, our freedom is not their freedom.  You must listen to me!  Some will perhaps object that this is overstating things.  Should I not have the right to declare what I think?  Do you mean out loud, in public?  Of course!  Others too?  Well … yes, I suppose—everyone.  What exactly is the value of having everyone being able to say out loud and in public what they already have the right to say quietly inside of their own thoughts or from a lonely cliff top?  But the words must be said out loud!  Why must they?  The more noise, the better?  Do we not have enough people talking already?  Not enough folks already trying to shout over the rest?

No, so that others will listen to what I have to say!  It’s important!

Well that sounds more substantial.  You think that we should protect free speech so that others can hear the important things you have to say.  You are sure that what you have to say is worth hearing and that others (as many as possible!) should be required to hear it, either because you yourself are sufficiently important that your opinions must be taken into public account (whether others like them or not) or that your ideas are important enough that they would benefit those who have not yet heard them.  This would certainly be a plausible argument if we accept that meaningful speech can only happen within a social context.  Either your rank and status is of sufficient weight to compel others in your community to listen to your views or else your ideas are of such merit that failure to listen would bring harm upon the community.  But either way, you are suggesting that the rest of your community has an obligation to listen to you.  They must listen to you.  After all, an obligation (if legally enforced) is a restraint on someone else’s freedom.  Your freedom to speak is their obligation to listen.  Does that mean your freedom of speech will necessarily be a restraint on the freedom of others—such as their freedom not to listen to you?  Is this to be an unequal sort of freedom, enjoyed by some and not by others?  Well no, they will have the right to speak as well.  An equal right to speak?  Well, I suppose so.  Will they have the right to speak at the same time that you are speaking?  No, not at the same time.  They can wait their turn.  That too would be a kind of restraint on their freedom, then, that they would be forced to wait until you have had your say.

Are you sure that you will have the right to go first?  I suppose we can draw lots or something.  Will you be obliged then to listen to them if they draw the lot that grants the right of first speech?  Well, I suppose.  Will you listen to them attentively, for as long as is needed for them to say what they have to say?  After all, they may also believe that they are important enough to be listened to by others or that their ideas are valuable enough that your life would be improved if you heard them.  They can think that if they want.  Are you willing to change your opinions if you discover that their ideas are better than yours?  My ideas are just fine the way they are, thank you!  Yet you think other individuals and the community would be better off if they heard your ideas, which must mean that their ideas are not presently as worthy or complete as they could be.  Look, I’m only trying to make them see reason.  They’ll understand it if I can explain it to them.  That certainly is a possibility, though they might also have the same opinion of their own ideas as you do of yours, and think the same of you as a receiving audience—that you will surely see reason if only they had a chance to explain it to you.  I suppose they can try.  Will this be the case for all who hold such opinions of their own ideas and of you as a potential audience?  Well, maybe not every nutter out there.  There’s an awful lot of them, you know.  Indeed there are, but how do we know which they are?  They all equally think they’re right.  So how do we sort out the nutters in advance?  Wouldn’t we have to hear all their ideas first?  Leapin’ lizards, that’ll take forever.  We’d sure save a lot of time if they just listened to me now!

So here we have a problem.  It seems likely that the people who insist most strenuously on speaking without restraint think that their presently-held ideas are as correct, well-informed and convincing as they can be, and that others would do best to listen.  Yet these folk add up to a lot of people with a lot of ideas and opinions which they think deserve a full and attentive hearing.  Some of these ideas may indeed be worth listening to.  How would we know which ones will prove so?  There is really no other way to know the value of these many ideas until we have heard them through, all of them.  But most of us are unwilling to put ourselves through such an ordeal.  We tend to think we would save valuable time if only others just listened to us (or else to the sort of people we like to listen to), since we’re already pretty sure that our ideas deserve to win the day.  So as a rule, we don’t want to listen to others as much as we want others to listen to us.  That’s one of the unspoken assumptions of the popular notion of free speech.  Here’s the other unspoken part: We want them not only to listen to us but to agree with us and tell us we’re right (since we already know we are) and we want them to change their minds if they don’t already agree with us.  For the most part, we share this view together, even if we don’t agree who among us are the worthiest representatives of the very best ideas.

Have we found an argument yet in support of free speech?  Sure, as long as the freedom is given unequally to all and advantageously to me and my friends.  But if we agree that proper civil freedoms should be granted equally to all members of a free society, then we still have a problem.  What if others also want the same advantage that you want?  Advantages, by definition, cannot be awarded equally.  But why would anyone else be willing to listen to you if you are not willing to listen as attentively to them?  Why should anyone else be willing to consider shifting over to your way of thinking if you are not genuinely willing to consider changing your opinions in light of what they have to say?  Equality of freedoms requires equality of obligations.  Whatever you demand of others in a free society—that is, a society in which your rights (another way of understanding freedoms) are upheld and protected by law—you must be willing to give to them in equal measure.  Their obligations are your obligations.

Yet such a notion of free speech seems unworkable, impossible!  How would we find the time to listen to everyone?  Why would we want to?  And when would we find the opportunity to squeeze in our own views?  The worthwhile ones, the ones we already know are right.  Wouldn’t everybody be too tired to listen by then?  And if we’re thinking about it that way, why would we even bother?  We already have all the ideas we like.  So we don’t really need to get any new ones from others, who are mostly nutters anyhow.  And since they’re nutters, they aren’t going to listen to good ideas—that is, our ideas.  So why waste time either way?  Maybe we should give up this whole notion of free speech equality and go back to the old way, when the surest and loudest voices prevailed.  At least we would get some peace.  Isn’t there a word for the kind of society in which the strongest voice always prevails?  What was it again?  Oh yes, dictatorship.

#

So perhaps we haven’t entirely worked out what free speech is for, at least in the context of a free and equal society.  We’ve been assuming that the purpose of free speech is to allow us—that is, mostly me—to say whatever I want whenever I want to say it.  And, yes, to force others to listen to me.  But any commitment to equal freedoms is going to impose significant constraints on such a notion.  A free and democratic society—one that seeks the maximal freedom (as well as equality) of its members—would have to consider a different notion of speaking freely.  This would involve a social understanding of the value of speech rather than an entirely individualistic conception.  So perhaps the right to declare your opinions whenever you wish at whatever time and volume is not really the chief purpose or value of free speech.  But if not that, what then is free speech for?

Perhaps we might consider that the purpose of free speech is not so much for us (that is, me) to have the greatest freedom to broadcast and impose my opinions on others (our preferred version) but for all of us to have the best opportunity to improve our ideas and opinions by exchanging views and information, as we do in an economic market.  In a public marketplace, we do not assume that we already have all the goods we need, or that ours are always better than those of others.  We exchange some of the valuable things we already possess—not least our time—for valuable things held by others.  The market assumes that we will all be better off if we advertised and traded our resources than if we hoarded and depended exclusively on our presently-held resources.  And so it has proved the foundation of our modern material prosperity.

But in the realm of ideas, this notion of exchange would require some uncomfortable adjustments to our usual thinking.  First, we would have to give up the assumption that the stock of ideas we presently possess is as complete and correct as it could possibly be, or else set that assumption aside.  After all, if you insisted that your existing ideas are entirely adequate to your own maximal well-being, there would really be no point in auditioning new ones.  The speech of others would be entirely a waste of your time, and would therefore decrease your well-being.  But others might well think the same of their own hoard of ideas, and would have no reason in that case to listen to your ideas.  In that case, you might as well give up demanding freedom of speech at all, since they don’t want to know your ideas and you have no use for theirs.

But suppose you encountered another who was willing to listen to you, and was generous enough to think that you might have something to say that they would benefit from hearing.  And if they did listen to you and were swayed, then they would have possibly improved their stock of ideas.  They would be richer in ideas and you would surely think well of that person.  Good for you!  Good for all of us.  You would commend their open-mindedness.  Now pursue this notion just a little further.  If they were better off for having heard your ideas, and if your society became a little better as a result, would this not constitute a good general rule?  Listen to others.  Some among them probably have ideas that would benefit you as well as society at large.  And they would surely be more willing to listen to you if you were the one modelling the behavior.

That would certainly be a more compelling argument for free speech.  The world is not much better off when everyone just shouts whatever they wish whenever they want.  And, frankly, the world is not much better off being compelled to listen to your ideas if they are not as tested and refined as you think they are.  You’re going to have to put your ideas into competition with the ideas of others.  And just as you’d prefer to buy another person’s furniture if they were more skilled at furniture-making than you are, you are better off upgrading your existing ideas if their ideas turn out to be more finely crafted.  Better to lose an argument when your ideas are less well-made compared to those of others.  You will have gained the benefits of a new idea and rid yourself of the burden of a lesser one.  So, as a rule, the members of a society will be better off pooling their stock of ideas, considering ideas that they would not otherwise have heard, gaining knowledge they would not have possessed, perspectives they would never have considered, and powers they would never have enjoyed.  In such a common market approach, free speech is most valuable when we as individual participants give ourselves permission to (ex)change our minds.

So the hope of meaningful free speech in our shared society comes down to this.  Are you willing to listen to every other person who insists that you hear what they have to say?  Are you willing to listen as attentively to them as you want them to listen to you?  Are you willing to consider that their views on certain issues, perhaps on very important matters, may prove to be better than your currently-held views?  (They would have to make a similar concession if they were to seriously consider what you had to say.)  Would you think well of another person who was never willing to entertain the possibility that some of their present views might not be as good as they could be?  You would probably agree that none of us possesses the same knowledge or the same experience, or cultivates the same areas of expertise.  Knowledge is asymmetrical.  What others know does not take away from what you know, but it may fill in gaps.  The value of free speech is the likelihood that others can fill the gaps in your knowledge, just as you can help fill in their gaps.  In this view, the broadest diversity of speech would lead to the greatest public benefits.  We are all better off if we don’t all think the same way.

This diversity of speech means not only listening to the widest range of existing opinions, but also inviting experimental speech.  This is speech that does not necessarily represent the fixed opinions of the speaker but indulges possible ways of speaking about a topic—as a defense attorney might try to anticipate the prosecutor’s case against her client and offer alternatives.  We need to consider strange and unfamiliar points-of-view, not merely to appease the strange and unfamiliar people who hold them, but for the sake of our own potential well-being.  We might conceivably benefit from hearing claims and ideas that we would not otherwise have entertained.  At the least we would know what our opponents, rivals and enemies were thinking or likely to claim, and we would be better placed to refute those claims or to concede their value.  In either case, society—that is, all of us—would be better off.  We are not obliged to accept any and every view that is broadcast in public, though we will surely have to hear and consider many more possibilities than we end up accepting, even (and especially) unpopular ideas.

So what is free speech for?  Not necessarily, as we often think, to protect our own right to broadcast our own opinions in any place and at any time without limit or hindrance, but rather to improve the quality of our shared thoughts and understanding by exchanging information and perspectives (even the bits that turn out to be wrong), thoroughly testing ideas, abandoning familiar assumptions that do not hold up, and adopting new ideas that are better fit for purpose.