Thank you for this excellent essay. Now, you need to get it in front of people on "both sides" who prefer censorship to dialogue. I'm not hopeful this will be achieved in my lifetime.
An excellent essay. Impressively, it adopts an even-handed perspective on problems on right and left. Notwithstanding issues on the left, many right-wingers are in denial about the problem on their side. Political psychologists agree that conservative attitudes are associated with fear and desire for psychological closure; this isn’t a promising basis for defence of free speech!
But of course, there’s a big problem on the left. Given the liberal-left’s historic defence of free speech, this is surprising. In my opinion, this reflects the changing balance of political values. In recent decades, liberal values have achieved hegemony. As postmaterial values have spread among populations, associated with better economic conditions, several liberal causes have become more popular. Reflecting liberal history, many of these causes concern the rights of ethnic and sexual minorities. Crucially, support for these rights has attained reverse polarity, entailing social pressure to adopt these stances.
Now this doesn’t mean that the left will give up on free speech. This has long been a core principle, meaning that it is embedded within left-liberal traditions. But despite this caveat, left-liberal commitment to free speech appears to be waning; this is bad news for liberal democracy!
Thank you for this essay and for including references to the historical words of Frederick Douglas and John Stuart Mills. My question concerns what to do when free speech cross over into the realm of hate speech and causes first psychological harm, then physical violence. As one example from my work as a physician, I saw intimately the damage done to people who were shamed by family and society at large, over their identity as gay or as an HIV+ person.
As a self-identified left-leaning liberal, I cringe when I'm reminded that some of the efforts to restrict free speech come from the "left". It is ineffective and ultimately counterproductive to suppress views that are racist, anti-Semitic or prejudicial in other ways, but it is also a mistake to allow the Ku Klux Klan to march down Broadway. We need is a culture that teaches critical thinking and has better guard rails around expressions of hate. But that is an ideal goal, and we need to protect one another now.
Of course, freedom of speech doesn't exist (and is not constitutionally protected) on (public) college campuses. Consider the case of Law Professor Kilborn at University of Illinois. Not exactly a lot of free speech to found there. I would also mention the appalling case of Sandra Sellers at Georgetown. Of Georgetown is not a public university.
Ok, fine. But what exactly does this mean to a parent whose child is being taught the U.S. is an historical pariah? And that they are complicit. French condemns right-wing reaction, but what is the practical alternative? If you say presenting different points of view, again, fine. But what views?Where is the reasonable counter narrative to hard left ideas? Not just to their illiberal tactics, but their ideas. After all, if society really is systemically unjust, then they might be excused for countering it with bully-boy tactics. But they're not right. Tell that story.
David French is a Christian conservative. I'm a liberal who finds the God of the Bible despicable. Yet how much common ground we have!
Thank you for this excellent essay. Now, you need to get it in front of people on "both sides" who prefer censorship to dialogue. I'm not hopeful this will be achieved in my lifetime.
An excellent essay. Impressively, it adopts an even-handed perspective on problems on right and left. Notwithstanding issues on the left, many right-wingers are in denial about the problem on their side. Political psychologists agree that conservative attitudes are associated with fear and desire for psychological closure; this isn’t a promising basis for defence of free speech!
But of course, there’s a big problem on the left. Given the liberal-left’s historic defence of free speech, this is surprising. In my opinion, this reflects the changing balance of political values. In recent decades, liberal values have achieved hegemony. As postmaterial values have spread among populations, associated with better economic conditions, several liberal causes have become more popular. Reflecting liberal history, many of these causes concern the rights of ethnic and sexual minorities. Crucially, support for these rights has attained reverse polarity, entailing social pressure to adopt these stances.
Now this doesn’t mean that the left will give up on free speech. This has long been a core principle, meaning that it is embedded within left-liberal traditions. But despite this caveat, left-liberal commitment to free speech appears to be waning; this is bad news for liberal democracy!
I wrote more about this here, if people are interested: https://thomasprosser.substack.com/p/why-dont-liberals-support-free-speech
Thank you for this essay and for including references to the historical words of Frederick Douglas and John Stuart Mills. My question concerns what to do when free speech cross over into the realm of hate speech and causes first psychological harm, then physical violence. As one example from my work as a physician, I saw intimately the damage done to people who were shamed by family and society at large, over their identity as gay or as an HIV+ person.
As a self-identified left-leaning liberal, I cringe when I'm reminded that some of the efforts to restrict free speech come from the "left". It is ineffective and ultimately counterproductive to suppress views that are racist, anti-Semitic or prejudicial in other ways, but it is also a mistake to allow the Ku Klux Klan to march down Broadway. We need is a culture that teaches critical thinking and has better guard rails around expressions of hate. But that is an ideal goal, and we need to protect one another now.
Of course, freedom of speech doesn't exist (and is not constitutionally protected) on (public) college campuses. Consider the case of Law Professor Kilborn at University of Illinois. Not exactly a lot of free speech to found there. I would also mention the appalling case of Sandra Sellers at Georgetown. Of Georgetown is not a public university.
Ok, fine. But what exactly does this mean to a parent whose child is being taught the U.S. is an historical pariah? And that they are complicit. French condemns right-wing reaction, but what is the practical alternative? If you say presenting different points of view, again, fine. But what views?Where is the reasonable counter narrative to hard left ideas? Not just to their illiberal tactics, but their ideas. After all, if society really is systemically unjust, then they might be excused for countering it with bully-boy tactics. But they're not right. Tell that story.