Introduction

The great John Milton, referring to American eloquence, said: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” It seems that within the framework of what constitutes “liberty”, the lighted fire called “free-speech” is the greatest sight. The cracks and fissures in the monument we have to human solidarity – supported by the pillars Rights, Liberty, Freedom, Equality – is made to echo by simply the function of free-speech. In order to fix the problems, we must first identify them; this can only be done by the same tools that made them, that raised such a monument to the heights man has allowed himself. To such heights have we been able to gaze far into the future, deeply into grains of sand, and eloquently into our deepest selves. The problems we find – in the future, the grains and ourselves – are made apparent by the liberty to speak. Silence does not remove problems, it only covers them with a transparent veil. To fill the fissures, to smooth the sutures, we must open our eyes and minds and mouths and be prepared to engage with our own fallibility.

We dislike hearing of our own failings and here-in we must allow some support. None wants to be thought a failure. Yet, there is a vast chasm between missing a step and plummeting to the ground. People often mistake the latter for the former, their emotions matching the overzealous self-harm. Jane has forgotten her child at school, thus she is a failure as a mother. She feels the brunt and punishes herself emotionally even when she picks up her child two hours later. But she is not a failure, she is a fallible human. Yes, she has made a mistake. We do not aid Jane by mocking her, though we silently rebuke her to each other. As Bertrand Russell said, we do not gossip about each other’s virtues. The point remains however that she is not a complete failure, though her emotions are dictating as such.

Many will argue that such strong emotions prevent the recurrence of such a mistake. The punishment is done for the benefit of both Jane and her child. This is certainly true, but the problem remains to what extent do we allow such cross-firing to take in collateral damage. That is, how far do we take such a loathing of failing into the public sphere?

The Loathing of Failing and Berlin’s Concepts of Freedom

Jane is not a failure as human being to forget her child, though her actions are examples of what a terrible mother would do. However, it was not Jane’s intention to forget or leave her child (how does one deliberately forget anyway?). She made a mistake and, as a human being, this will happen. No one, not even Megan Fox, is perfect (though in the looks department, she comes “close”). Thus Jane must forgive herself and continue, trying harder. This is a healthy way to progress and better herself. Mistakes are not wooden-planks to produce our own crucifix, but to take higher steps toward an intended destination. This false-dichotomy plays out when it sets it sights on the freedom of others.

The reason to restrict anything within a society, that is curb liberty, is a form of coercion. This might be under the archway of what Isaiah Berlin calls “negative liberty”. To better understand “negative” notions of freedom (within Berlin’s context, freedom and liberty are interchangeable), we can also focus on its corollary.

Berlin states, in his famous essay Two Concepts of Liberty, that negative freedom is defined by the absence of coercion. As Nigel Warburton has succinctly stated: “Coercion is when other people force you to behave in a particular way, or force you to stop behaving in a particular way. If no one is coercing you then you are free in this negative sense of freedom.” An example might be that no curfew prevents one being on the streets, no police force prevents one from driving down to see friends, and so on. If one was prevented because of a curfew, police presence, threats of violence, then one would not be free (in this negative sense).

Berlin then goes on to define a positive conception of freedom. This is the freedom to do as one wants with one’s life, within that life’s context. As Berlin puts it with his usual beautiful phrasing: ” ‘positive freedom’ – the doctrine of self-adjustment to the unalterable pattern of reality in order to avoid being  destroyed by it.” The big concept is self-realisation and the actions toward exercising control over one’s life – rescinding such rights is absolving one’s positive freedom. The point is to help people realise their best virtues, their greatest strengths, their abilities. An example is someone who is stuck in a relationship with an abusive partner – no one is forcing her to stay in the relationship. The partner has told her to leave and abuses her emotionally and sometimes physically. Though the abusive partner is telling her to leave, she keeps telling herself she “loves” him. Her friends and family know this relationship is bad for her and if she could learn to love and appreciate herself more, she would realise she deserves better. In this context, she is not free – even though no one is stopping her from leaving this terrible relationship.

Thus, positive freedom is freedom to do something, as opposed to negative which is freedom from something.  Positive freedom might be thought of under the domain of “rights”. This means the allowance of slight paternalistic interferences – such that, someone who is wasting their life would be put on a better path. However, if the former part of the previous paragraph is troubling – talk of what’s best for the citizen, making them better people – then one is not in solitary company. Berlin himself maintains a heightened suspicion of positive freedom. Throughout history we have seen governments do the most horrid actions in the name of bettering themselves and their citizens.

So, positive freedom is the way one’s freedom is outlined – as outlined perhaps by declaration of rights and constitutions – and negative freedom is lack of coercion when performing certain actions.

Free speech is the ability to speak or express oneself without fear of being “coerced” into silence or violence. Thus, as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy also states, freedom of speech is a negative freedom. Curbing it thus rescinds liberty, not so much bending as breaking it.

Removing freedom of speech is done out of this hatred or loathing of failure (and perhaps other reasons, though I won’t be addressing those here, since I am dealing with freedom of speech in a societal framework). People do not want to hear contradictory remarks about their most deeply held beliefs. The important point here is that the very existence of a challenge to conventional views is evidence of liberty and freedom. It was of course the Greeks who started this idea that one should challenge tradition (what the classicist Peter Jones calls “the tradition of challenging tradition”), basing thought and inquiry into and, more importantly, from the human realm, since this is the only realm that has utility. Even if one is completely wrong to speak out against evolution or Darwinism or cosmology, the fact remains that the established view is forced to cement itself within a stronger foundation. This means more of those who accept the established views within a framework – so the majority of scientists and Darwinism, the majority of liberals and freedom – must almost relearn their views, express them eloquently and understand why their views are better than their opponents’. Notice: I did not say their views are “true” or “perfect”. According to Karl Popper, we should work with ideas that are strongest against its counter-theories. We have ideas that withstood the onslaught of prevailing criticisms. Beneath the storm of outrage, these are the ideas that bloom even in the fog of obscurity, the rain of anger and thunder of discontent.

But these ideas only come to fruition with the ability to express them. Hating an opponent’s view, simply because it upsets or hurts one’s feelings, is not reason enough to rescind freedom of speech.

Religions are often the  groups responsible for demanding censorship,  banning and burning. Throughout modern history, it has been the policy of papal instruction to burn books that speak out against god,  to restrict scientific inquiries which upset the geocentric world-view, and the demand from an Iranian leader to kill a man who lives in London for writing a work of fiction. Unfortunately, religions have been granted so much freedom within a liberal and secular framework that it has poisoned the well of freedom for all. The religions have taken hold of the bucket and laugh as we flail for our fingertips to touch the water’s surface. Instead, our wavering reflections on the water mock us and the bucket is punctured by the religions’ thorny retribution. Now, whenever we reach in to drink from freedom, most of it drains out because of the loopholes driven in by the religions.

This is not meant to sound extreme or to highlight that we have lost this battle. It is true that talking of liberty is hardly ever done in the context of praising it – it is usually done to defend it.

So to be able to express views, within the framework of rescinded coercion, is the most important element of any form of liberty. To encroach upon that fundamental framework for the purposes of avoiding hurt feelings is to ignore that one is rendering the framework hollow. The religious tend to forget that freedom of speech to criticise should be met by freedom to criticise back. In most other areas, it seems that many religious people share the fundamental principles of a liberal society. Yet it is no irony that we often hear about protestations (from where, ironically but unsurprisingly, Protestants derive their name), from religious groups, against the most important value within a free society: free-speech.

The Silencing of Mankind – Why Free Speech Matters

Consider any other fundamental right or important element of freedom – such as equality, justice, and avoidance of harm. All these would be close to nothing if freedom of speech was eliminated, undermined or restricted. Indeed, though freedom of speech is fourteen shades of grey, it is grey nonetheless – not black and white. We can only talk about freedom of speech with freedom of speech; we can only highlight restrictions to our rights with free-speech; we can only find power in numbers to eliminate despotism with free speech.  The first mark of a society that is ruled by a totalitarian regime is when there is no freedom of speech (this does not mean that all totalitarian regimes did not allow free-speech, only that it is a clear indication of a violation of an important freedom).

If we arbitrarily demarcate lines based on nothing but the “tyranny” of “majority” opinion, as Mill viewed it, then we have got no closer to doing best for mankind. All we have done is catered to the feelings of one group – even if it is the majority. Even if the whole of mankind believes the earth flat, the planet remains stubbornly spherical. A better writer than myself, John Stuart Mill, put it like this:

If all mankind minus one, 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. (”On Liberty”, Chapter II. Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, 1869 – Italics mine.)

“Silencing mankind”. The power of Mill’s image is a resounding call to prevent a gag being placed in the mouth of humanity. Mill’s point on the censor himself runs further. The censor must assume infallibility when censoring a work, since he must know beyond all doubt that a work is better off being censored. But this is blatantly incorrect since no one can be absolutely correct in their judgements. The difficulty of course could be shifted to the other extreme: allowing a work to be published which causes harm. The point however that we need to address is that people must be given the choice. When a work is banned, restricted or pulled from distribution, a censor has taken it upon himself to read a work for a whole society. This is paternalism of the worst kind, grinding our emotional maturity into a fine powder of obedience. It seems that on the whole it would be better that a work is presented, even if it does cause harm, as this leads to the overarching growth of maturity in our species. Censoring seems to only allow for juvenile and loud voices to find support for their views: for example, a work is censored, a few “liberals” cry out. No one is hurt. A work is not censored and someone is killed by fanatics who are offended by it. The latter of course we have seen occur to the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verse. Whilst it might appear harsh that we should risk our lives for the sake of some ideal, like freedom, it seems we risk our lives and freedom by not standing up for it. The allowance of religious arrogance threatens every aspect of freedom one can name: personal autonomy, sexuality, friendship, fashion, careers.

Yet some things should be contentious for the liberal agenda, such as racist or misogynist writings. But then, they should be rejected from publication not because it hurts people’s feelings, but because of poor scholarship. I for example would be very interested to read a case, based on reason, evidence and good logic, that states we are better off denigrating women, treating them like cattle, and reducing their minds to dull throbs of rhythmic idiocy. I would like to read this because I know – as far as I know anything – that I never will. The case for the equality of humanity and the emancipation of women is so strong, in terms of a Popperian paradigm, that we can easily backhand arguments against it.

Thus it seems the censor is useless. Who is this person reading works for society? Who is deciding for the average citizen that material is too harsh?

Progress in terms of equality comes about through discussion. Limiting access to the public domain of ideas is to prevent the growth of these ideas toward the betterment of society. Before we can allow the ideas to come to fruition, we must have a foundation open to the light of reason and comprehension. Lucidity, ease of access and an understanding that ideas are fallible and to be contested should be the benchmark for policies that we decide for ourselves. Arbitrarily limiting or restricting certain forms of information assumes, as previously said, infallibility from the censor and as Mill also highlighted, the problem that the restricted document could contain the truth we seek.

The final problem in limiting free speech or censoring a work is the assumption that: only one group is harmed, or, if the whole of society is harmed, that no one benefits. Both are wrong. If, as constantly occurs, Muslims are offended by a work of art or fiction or the way someone scratches their nose, those targets are censored to placate Muslims (similarly when other religious groups cry out that they are offended). Now, that work of art is gone completely and the Muslims are satisfied. But what about the artist, the producer, the audience, and so on, who do appreciate it? Their concerns are swept aside to placate one group because they are religious as opposed to artistic or academic. Religions should not have a moral high ground but should be on the plateau of equality with the rest of us. Then we can speak of judging something; not because the religious groups hanker over us, but because we are all equally horrified at a dog being tortured to death as a work of art, equally dissatisfied with publication of some poor novel. This would mean that religions are taken seriously, not because they are religious people, but because they are people. Mature people, treated as such to show that we want to put them in line with ourselves, as adults dealing with a chaotic world. Not as children who have loud voices and toys of mass destruction they throw out their cot of platitude.

And the second point, that no one benefits is also wrong. By a group censoring or crying for a limit to the free speech in this instance, they prevent themselves from judging it. How many Muslims read The Satantic Verses before deciding Rushdie & Co. should die? How many people bothered to see the cartoons made by Jyllends-Posten before they marched in the streets, demanding death and blood of those who mocked Islam? In these instances, the groups would have benefited by simply engaging with the work. They then have a choice: ignore the silly infidels who just do not understand the power of Allah or retaliate by drawing satirical pictures of the cartoonists, writing a strongly-worded letter (minus death-threats) and so on. There are ways of “retaliating” that do not cross the bounds of discourse to enter the minefield of violence. Muslims reacting in such brash, harmful and violent ways are not making Islam any more a “religion of peace” or their faith any more acceptable by behaving in such stupid, childish ways. If religions want to be taken seriously, they must accept the rules of adult discussion which govern our growth and not the monkey-bars of juvenile delinquency that lets them leap over the lines of conduct we have in place.

This even before equality, justice, and equal suffrage. This before the inducing of minds toward intellectual adventure and fulfilment regardless of race, sex and ethnicity. This all before we decide on how create a path to glory, unifying our shaking hands and raising a platform toward peace. Freedom of speech is itself the decider in what should be free. Not everything should be said or spoken but the decision as to what we shall say, read or publish can only be decided on an open platform, using reason and not emotion as the yardstick. All this can only occur with the freedom to speak, ideas flying across the mental landscape like a flock of migrant birds blackening the ground with their shadows. Freedom starts with the first flap of wings and the dilation of the pupil toward the horizon. Now we can set off and take our wings toward a more peaceful horizon.