"Free Speech is the Language of the Powerless"

Student Audrey BadjouenDzouabet reflects on the value of disagreement

As I mentioned in my last podcast, in the spring of 2023 I offered a course on the global history of free expression in great part to debunk the notion that free speech is exclusively an American or western value. I enjoyed teaching this course immensely. For the final assignment, I asked students to write a letter to a person of their choosing reflecting on how their learning in class has made them rethink the parameters of speech and expression in their own contexts. Many addressed their letters to a peer or friend at Carleton. Others wrote to members of their families. I am featuring some of these letters on Banished. I believe they deserve a wider audience and I’m grateful to my students for permission to share their work. Today I am posting the second student letter: Audrey BadjouenDzouabet’s letter to her Tinder date, Guy.

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Dear Guy,

Yes, that’s right. It’s me, your Tinder match from two months ago. I bet you never thought you’d hear from me again. Now, before you start to feel too special, I should let you know this is for a class assignment. My history professor has asked us to write a letter to a friend detailing what we’ve learned from her course on the global history of free expression over the last ten weeks. We aren’t exactly friends, but you served a really interesting purpose in my life. 

While I understand your stance as a proponent of free speech, it seems we may harbor differing motivations behind our advocacy for safeguarding and advancing the principle of free speech. You [Guy] adhere to the popular notion that we should protect free speech because it is our fundamental human right to say whatever we want, in any way, in any place, at any time—harmful or not. My advocacy, however, comes from the notion that free speech is the language of the powerless, so we must protect it at all costs if we want to protect those who are oppressed. I’m dividing my letter into sections organized around arguments I found convincing in favor of free speech during this course. 

The Temptation to Fall to Totalitarianism

Jacob Mchangama’s book Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media and George Orwell’s Animal Farm showcase how many people tend to argue that “one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods.”^[1] Historically those in positions of authority have understood the importance of controlling knowledge, which is frequently acquired through various types of speech. Mchangama demonstrates that the Bolshevik state's rulers were cognizant of this.^[2] They believed that total control over information flow was a requirement for the ideal Bolshevik state. So, in order to maintain supervision over all publishing, including fiction and scientific research, the General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press, or, Glavlit, as it was called, was founded in 1922. ^[3] Glavlit engaged thousands of censors to weed out "propaganda against the Soviet Union" that "stirred up public sentiment”" or "aroused nationalistic or religious fanaticism."^[4] The censors took away thousands of books, films, and audio recordings from libraries, bookstores, movie theaters, and clubs. These they subsequently destroyed.^[5] The bureau created an annual index of prohibited literature, imitating Henry VIII and the Catholic Church's tried-and-true procedures.^[6] Similar censorship of information in Germany enabled Hitler to secure chancellorship and ultimately dictatorship.^[7]

Now here’s the thing: 

The whole point of epistemology is to debate and disagree—knowledge is not supposed to be stagnant, and it hasn’t been historically. This is why we should question everything—especially established cultural norms and received wisdom. This is also why we need to protect the value of disagreement; it has literally built the world around us. The paternalistic defense of why individuals on the right feel the way they do—frequently offered by those on the left—breaks down when we understand how knowledge is acquired. Some on the left frequently attribute the ignorance of the right to their lack of education, but I've seen far too many intellectuals who hold conservative beliefs to buy into this line of reasoning. It’s not that they aren’t educated; they simply interpret the “facts” differently. Contrary to Ben Shapiro’s catchphrase (“facts don’t care about your feelings”), facts do, in fact, care about your feelings because your feelings are influencing how you understand those facts!

Censorship also includes the rewriting of history, to the point where, in certain instances, "the persecuted become the persecutor." ^[8] In Animal Farm, the dictatorial pigs continuously changed and rewrote the seven commandments in order to maintain their power. They exploited the other animals' inability to read and changed the written constitution of the farm. The fable's concluding lesson is one that history is all too familiar with: people who once fought for the rights of the oppressed have now become the ones who oppress. This dynamic has existed for as long as there have been people, but it is frequently made worse by rhetoric that pits "us" against "them." 

To take an example from the end of the twentieth century, let’s consider the case of Rwanda. For a long time, Rwanda primarily consisted of two ethnic groups: the Hutus and the Tutsis. The Tutsis were frequently in charge and regarded as the privileged class. However, over time, a racially charged discourse that contrasted the "privileged" Tutsis against the "oppressed" Hutus emerged. ^[9] This led to the Rwandan Genocide of the Tutsis in 1994. The Hutus, who had previously been oppressed, started to oppress others. Once this idea of "oppressed" vs. "oppressors" becomes entrenched, it removes any possibility for nuance and makes it very difficult to rid people's minds of this adversarial worldview. You are sadly mistaken if you believe that this "us" vs. "them" mindset doesn't still exist today. Just take a look at how polarized our political parties are. Politicians are speaking over one another far too frequently and attempt to silence or ridicule those whom they have "othered," instead of engaging in genuine conversation.

Best-selling author and writer Chimamanda Ngozi urges us not to fall into totalitarian methods when it comes to speech that makes us uncomfortable.^[10] Instead of banning speech, even if we think it’s “harmful”, we should respond to these claims with counterspeech and, in turn, hopefully mitigate misinformation or disinformation. The idea that suppression is nearly always followed by dire effects for the "furtherance and development of knowledge, philosophy, and science" was something else I found to be convincing.^[11] This has been demonstrated by the spine-chilling consequences of the destruction and burning of religious buildings, holy texts, and literary works. When considering how contemporary research is conducted, developing a research question typically entails reading the literature that already exists on the subject and filling in any gaps or using the literature as a springboard to open new questions. But how can one effectively accomplish that if there is no foundation to work from or there’s a clear agenda being served by the act of restricting and banning particular types of work?

Legality Can Only do so Much—We Need a Cultural Shift

The idea of Parrhesia, or "uninhibited speech," which defined free speech outside of the assembly that Athenian citizens (with the exception of women and slaves) could use, intrigued me more than other aspects of Athenian free speech because it was evidently much more versatile in fostering a culture that encouraged the exchange of ideas.^[12] Not only do we need legal protections for free speech, we also need to create a culture of free speech. Pluralism engenders dissent and conflict—that is okay and to be expected. Instead of attempting to create this "ideal well-ordered society," we should safeguard the value of disagreement that naturally exists in diverse societies.

As Mchangama beautifully puts it at the end of his introductory chapter, "To impose silence and call it tolerance does not make it so. Real tolerance requires understanding. Understanding comes from listening. Listening presupposes speech.”^[13] But how can we have public discussions on social issues if we are silencing certain speech or imposing biased and strict “content-moderation” on social media platforms? It's clear that in an attempt to eliminate some of the ideas and epithets that are deemed potentially harmful to minoritized groups, we are consequently jeopardizing freedom of speech for all, which has historically been a powerful weapon in the fight against oppression. Defender of democracy, Amartya Sen, concurs: "trying to cure the defects of democratic practice through authoritarianism and the suppression of public reasoning, increases the vulnerability of a country…to sporadic disasters and also to the whittling away of previously secured gains through a lack of public vigilance.”^[14] Even strategies that aim to create ‘safe spaces’ by using one's language carefully, in my opinion, limit public discourse. One of the most obvious examples of this problem nowadays is the political correctness culture. The fear of being incorrect or offending someone frequently results in self-censorship, ultimately preventing any kind of interaction or discourse between various groups of people. Stasis prevails instead. No understanding can be reached because no real dialogue can be started. Such dialogue is made possible by freedom of expression, even if it is occasionally challenging and uncomfortable. “Mere civility” is needed to spark these conversations.^[15]

Enabling a culture of free speech would also remove the need for hate speech laws. The broad definitions of hate speech can and have been used against those they are meant to protect.^[16] Learning about the dangers of hate speech laws and how similar they are to blasphemy laws made me reconsider the language of harm that we use today to advocate for censorship in spaces of higher education.^[17] When we allow harm to be the driving force of censorship, especially in education, we are, as the saying goes, “condemned to repeat history.”

Inheriting Versus Adopting Ideas

If I lost you at any point in the middle with all the historical and scholarly references, I want you to at least take away something that is really important. Don’t let strict traditionalism drive your way of thinking. Tradition as we know it today hasn’t always been tradition. The rhetoric we tell ourselves, “That’s just the way things are” or “That’s how things have always been and therefore should stay” can and has limited our ability to reimagine beyond what is in front of us. And in a world that already keeps us so confined within our silos and busy with tedious and futile tasks, it’s important we question the status quo! You may believe that you already do this, but the fact that you were unaware of the serious political upheaval surrounding Ron Desantis in Florida and still came to the conclusion that trans and queer people are not subjected to oppression in American society spoke volumes. Even though you were unaware of the actual developments in Florida, you had already made up your mind. Regardless of where one is on the political spectrum, having such firm views with that much certainty—without any historical or contemporary evidence to support them—suggests to me that those opinions aren't based on a thorough understanding of the subject at hand. Rather, they are the result of being in an echo chamber for so long that certain buzzwords have already been assigned definitions and associations; assumptions are being made without consideration; and perhaps the most chilling effect is that no one dares to critically challenge the ideas that are a result of these epistemic bubbles and echo chambers.^[18] This hesitation to question is oftentimes driven by fear of being excluded. Fear of not being accepted by a group you’ve identified with for so long—fear of losing your community.

This should start to sound familiar to you. Whether you realize it or not, through this mindset of  “us” versus “them” you have ultimately entered the game of identity politics—something you’ve expressed immense aversion to, as you feel that is something the left is constantly weaponizing to garner state and social benefits. And that’s okay, humans are filled with contradictions, especially as we try our best to appear perfect. You once confided in me that you don't feel like you can find people who truly understand you; those who are closest to you don't know anything about you, and those who aren't make assumptions about who you are based on your political beliefs. You detest the judgment, real or imagined, that others would direct at you. Yet, you would engage in the same judgment when you had group projects in your class. It can be very difficult to avoid passing judgment on other people when we live in a society where our opinions are predetermined, based on our tribal affiliations. But this is precisely what keeps us isolated from one another and allows distrust to persist.

While I think it’s great that you're questioning ideas on the left, I think it’s just as important for you to question those on the right [or your own] as well if you truly want to grow intellectually. That would mean you’d have to be open to the idea of being wrong sometimes. Embrace change. And not only changes in those around you, but changes within yourself. Keep up with current events—domestically and internationally. Obviously, this is easier said than done. Even I get frustrated, perplexed, and defensive when I find myself sharing opinions with people whom I fundamentally disagree—ideologically, that is. However, now I am almost grateful to have engaged with someone who has opposing views because it helped me strengthen my arguments by countering opposing arguments, and I was only be able to do that because I opened room for dissent.^[19] How do you think you and I were able to start dating in the first place? In the past, I would have instantly blocked you once you revealed anything remotely conservative, but because of this course, I didn’t censor you and instead chose to truly engage in the practice of tolerance by asking you questions and getting a better understanding of your position.

Although I tried my best to show you what I think are the best arguments for free speech, it is ultimately up to you to do the work to truly engage with  these ideas. For me, taking a course like this was the first step to doing just that.

Sincerely,

 Audrey

Your fellow free-speech advocate.

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^[1] Mchangama, Jacob. Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media. United States: Basic Books, 2022, p. 258.

^[2] Ibid., p. 263.

^[3] Ibid., pp. 263-264.

^[4] Ibid., pp. 263-264.

^[5] Ibid., pp. 263-264.

^[6] Ibid., pp. 263-264.

^[7] Ibid., pp. 278-279.

^[8] Ibid., chapter 1.

^[9] Mayersen, Deborah, “A Political Monopoly Held by One Race: The Politicisation of Ethnicity in Colonial Rwanda,” (2011), pp. 167-180.

^[10] Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi., “Freedom of Speech,” BBC Reith Lecture -- podcast. 2022.

^[11] Mchangama, Free Speech, p. 32.

^[12] Ibid., p. 13.

^[13] Ibid., p. 8.

^[14] Sen, Amartya.,“Democracy and Its Global Roots,” The New Republic, October 4, 2003.

^[15] Bejan, Teresa M., Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration, introduction and chapter 1. Note: The majority of contemporary calls for civility follow Hobbes or Locke by advocating the exclusion of those who are judged "uncivil" or the suppression of debate in the sake of societal harmony. Williams' unapologetically mere civility—a modest, occasionally scornful adherence to culturally conditioned conventions of respectful behavior—is easily disregarded in comparison to his peers' more robust principles. Yet, Teresa Bejan contends that Williams offers a hopeful solution to our own civility dilemma, one that fundamentally refutes our presumptions about what a tolerant and civil society ought to entail.

^[16] Quann, Jack. “Donald Trump Jr Criticizes Ireland’s ‘Insane’ New Hate Speech Legislation,” Newstalk, May 2, 2023.

^[17] Khalid, Amna & Jeff Snyder, “Cancel Culture. It's real and on the rise, on the left and the right,” Banished, July 24, 2022.

^[18] Nguyen, C. Thi. “Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles.” Episteme 17, no. 2 (2020): 141–61. Note: An epistemic bubble is a social epistemic structure in which other relevant voices have been left out, perhaps accidentally. Members of epistemic bubbles lack exposure to relevant information and arguments. 

^[19] Stuart Mill, John. All Minus One: John Stuart Mill's Ideas on Free Speech Illustrated, Second Edition. United States: Heterodox Academy, 2021. Introduction. p. 3. Note: Even if our ideas are essentially accurate, according to Mill, being challenged makes us hold our ideas more firmly and rationally.  (“He who knows only his side of the case, knows little of that.”)