Freedom of speech is a leftist value.
As a matter of self-protection, any movement against the most powerful forces in our society care about freedom of speech. And in principle, the goal cannot be separated authorize the Working class from the necessity of opposing those who think ordinary working-class people are too stupid to be trusted to listen to different points of view and make their own decisions.
So I’m always bothered to see some of my friends and teammates on the left let go of worries around the weakening of free speech norms merely a pointless preoccupation about elites don’t like to be criticized.
Our position is to fervently defend what few free speech protections existed in a late capitalist society where most employment was “discretionary” and most Political speech occurs on platform controlled by several corporations. And we should commit to fighting like hell to deepen and expand those rights for all the tens of millions of anonymous people who don’t enjoy meaningful protections against being fired or being unfit to speak their mind.
When The New York Times’ The editorial board recently stated that “America has a free speech problem.” the feedback to be than interesting than the essay correct. The Times tried to give its discussion an objectivity by offering a poll (with Siena College), but the wording of the questions is sometimes so sloppy that the results don’t make much sense.
Some of the questions focused on whether people hold their breath out of “fear of reprisal or harsh criticism” – but there is a world of difference between the two. I’ve been fired and harshly criticized, and of the two, I’ll receive some harsh criticism. You can reasonably understand that the incidents described in Jon Ronson’s book So you were publicly embarrassedfor example, moving beyond “criticism” and into a disturbing form of retaliation — but if this is the case Times/ The University of Siena poll questions aim to mention, the wording fails to make that clear.
The Times‘The writers also didn’t make it clear whether they were saying that free speech in the US is worse now than it has ever been, or just that it’s worse now than it was a few years ago. The first statement is clearly false. The latter is a lot more logical. But the question is or is right, missed the bigger point.
The fact that you think there is a “problem” with something is a question regarding value and not just facts.
Does America have a problem of lack of health insurance? I’m sure think so. But someone who wants to remove that can point out that tens of millions Many people who were uninsured before Congress passed Obamacare are now covered or, for that matter, hospitals have been prevented by law since the 1980s from denying emergency room access to patients who cannot afford it. ability to pay. Of course, doctors and hospitals can still refuse to save your life prevent care, and if you come back from the hospital alive you could go bankrupt because of the bills, but there’s no denying that the situation has improved. The question is, will it be improved? full.
The same argument can be applied to police brutality. For example, anyone who knows a little about the history of the civil rights movement knows that police violence has often been far more blatant and overt racist in the relatively recent past. But I won’t tell anyone offended how many unwarranted police shootings resulted in successful prosecution stop complaining because by historical standards it doesn’t that problems.
The New York Times The editorial addressed both efforts to shut down controversial speakers on campus and efforts by Republican legislatures to It is forbidden to discuss controversial ideas in the classroom and make it clear that the latter is worse — but they still widely criticized for “false equivalence” for mention both major and minor threats at the same time.
An awkward transformation of the phrase in New York Times The editorial on the “right” to speak one’s mind without fear of shame or avoidance has been widely attacked as a misrepresentation of legal freedom of speech. But the real question is whether we care about the corrosive effects of the widespread use of avoidance and shame tactics when it comes to avoiding debate on controversial issues.
“We shouldn’t shrug when someone famous is fired or removed. We should take the opportunity to talk about the lesser degree of protection afforded to ordinary people against such things happening to them. ”
Shooting people, destroying them on social media or canceling their lectures on campus are glaring issues of freedom of expression. But even slightly more fanciful concerns about shame and avoidance shouldn’t be dismissed so easily.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution (and various laws in other countries that protect free speech) are important because they provide protection against a particularly serious type of threat. important to the values of open debate and free flow of information — direct government retaliation. But to say that something is not a matter of free speech because no one has done anything violates the First Amendment is like saying that environmentalists who oppose corporate pollution must be wrong if people polluting does not violate any provision of the Environmental Protection Act.
I’m not surprised that some mainstream progressives use excuses to try to shut down events on college campuses that offend some students or even lobby corporations to change the rules to easier deplatform social media users.
As Thomas Frank argued in his book Listen, Liberal: Or, What happened to the People’s Party?The dominant ideology of the Democratic Party of the day is not left-wing populism rooted in organized labor, but a kind of techno-liberalism — in which ideological battles are understood. are “problems” that are best “solved” through the application of technocratic expertise.
This kind of liberalism reinterprets “social justice” not as raising the bar for the working-class majority but as removing all barriers for the best and brightest from each group to rise. rise in the ranks to join this class of benevolent professionals. In this framework, it makes perfect sense to spend your time worrying that stupid people will their minds are distorted by “misinformation” or other “dangerous” ideas.
What’s more disturbing is seeing people whose political background is basically my match reiterate the culture-war talking points of libertarian technocrats on issues of free speech.
I beg those who have learned to roll their eyes (or making jokes about frozen peaches) when they heard the phrase “free speech” to review the history of the Ida B. Wells newspaper Memphis Free Speechor “fight free speech” conducted by radical labor unions in the early 20th century, or the role of Free Speech Movement at UC-Berkeley in the birth of the New Left.
If you think that American society as it exists is fundamentally flawed and in need of radical more egalitarian transformation, your first instinct is to promote a broader defense of dissent. political opinions rather than narrower views. We should worry less about “bad” ideas being spread within the current confines of mainstream discourse, than about better ideas. Not be heard.
Like Noam Chomsky shown in an interview with my late friend Michael Brooks (just before Chomsky signed the contract 2020 “Harper’s Letter” about free speech and open debate), those who try to discourage speakers from speaking on campus because “just say more” should think a little more carefully about the long history of these speakers. Left-wing speeches are barred from speaking on campus — to cite the obvious, for example, during McCarthy’s day and shortly after.
There is also a profound question of principle here. Historically, the left has certainly had its share of hypocrites, who claimed to be interested in empowering the working class, while actually supporting the Stalinist regimes that trampled free speech and any other democratic ideal.
But what about the part on the left that is always serious about its stated values? If we share our beliefs about Great Marxist and Africanist writer of the 20th century CLR James that every chef can manageThat egalitarianism will shape how we respond to discussions about free speech.
When New York Times 2020 publication a truly disturbing editorial by Republican Senator Tom Cotton calling on then-President Donald Trump to send troops to quell post-George Floyd unrest in American cities, the left missed an opportunity. Instead of add our voices to the voices of mainstream libertarians scolding “Paper of Record” and pressuring the then opinionated editor to resign, we should ask why they didn’t publish it in parallel with the response of someone like a leftist academic Cornel West. Do we really not believe that the West will be more persuasive than Sen. Cotton?
Was “Harper’s Letter” not just signed by the likes of Noam Chomsky, who has long history defends the freedom of speech of even his most extreme enemies, but by different characters with a history of hypocrisy on the matter? Instead of use the latter to completely eliminate the concerns expressed in the letter ourselves, we should praise the letter’s simple message, and criticize some of its signers for not following its stated principles.
We shouldn’t shrug when someone famous is fired or removed. We should take the opportunity to talk about the lesser degree of protection afforded to ordinary people against such things happening to them. And we should promote rebuilding the labor movement in American workplacesas well as political action to change employment laws, so everybody are free to speak their mind.
The results of this are not always good. Ignorance and bigotry are very real.
But in a world ravaged by rising levels of economic inequality and a military-industrial complex really threatens the continued existence of human civilizationit’s hard to accept the idea that we should be more worried about too much Dissenting opinions are freely expressed or elite actors have too little power to shape the limits of public discourse. More than ever, the left needs to fight for freedom of expression.
