Category: Free Speech

Is Speech Preserved by More Speech Alone?  Part II

Cat Sanding

Many years ago, I volunteered a few hours after work to help the wood shop teacher at my son’s school.  The children had carved various hardwood animals that all needed edges honed with a belt sander the kids were too young to use.  I was just supposed to smooth out the marks left by the gouges and create clean lines, but in a few instances, particularly with the smaller figures, I became a bit zealous and over-sanded some of the forms into rather vague, wooden blobs.  One moment the object in my hand was very clearly a cat, and the next moment, it was more like a Brancusi abstract.  At that time in my life, I was writing a new series of magazine articles and had shared a few drafts with my best friend, who referred to my ardent cat sanding as an apt metaphor for what I had done to one particular revision.  I had over-thought and over-edited the edges clean off the original, resulting in a less interesting experience for the reader. Fortunately, one can un-edit written work in a way that one cannot un-sand a wooden cat.

One of the essential, if not most essential, social habits required to preserve the right of free speech, at least as it is presently applied in the U.S., is a universal tolerance of all the uncomfortable, imperfect, even offensive edges that speech can produce. Not only does the right of speech depend on a culture that upholds this principle, but so does diversity of speech from a creative or intellectual perspective. And if we agree that this condition is ideal, then any form of collective intolerance of those edges will presumably have the opposite effect. For instance, we see some evidence of intellectual cat sanding in contemporary academia with efforts to improve upon tradition by, say, de-racializing the works of Mark Twain or demanding that college faculty provide some form of warning label prior to covering material that might “trigger” unpleasant emotions or thoughts among students.

In Part I of this topic, I used the term orthodoxy of tolerance, and it is these phenomena I had in mind. Because when this kind of intellectual cat sanding becomes collective, ideological, and militant enough, it produces a new orthodoxy that oddly enough claims tolerance as its foundation. In turn, this orthodoxy then demands policy that trims the barbs and smoothes the jagged edges from various forms of expression, and apparently this has happened in some institutions. Meanwhile, it is fascinating that these mewling sensitivities in academia have manifest coincident with evidence of “free speech fanaticism,” to quote Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Trudeau from his article The Abuse of Satire for The Atlantic.  In this Op-Ed largely focusing on Charlie Hebdo, Trudeau offers his own perspective on the difference between satire and rank provocativeness; and he criticizes the speech absolutist who is blind to such distinctions. “Indeed, one of the nicer things about youthful cluelessness is that it’s so frequently confused with courage,” writes Trudeau.

That’s an interesting way to put it. And for the sake of conversation, we could say we’re seeing the rise of the speech Wimps concurrent with the rise of the speech Bullies, neither of which has anything to do with speech courage.  The Wimps don’t want any unpleasantness, regardless of context, while the Bullies are such zealots about speech, that they act as though unpleasantness is the only thing keeping speech alive. “At some point free expression absolutism becomes childish and unserious. It becomes its own kind of fanaticism,” Trudeau writes, summing up, for me anyway, both the Wimp and the Bully in one sentence.

But does any of this answer even part of the thesis question, which is whether or not speech itself is best preserved by more speech alone?  When I began these essays, the hypothesis was that the mechanisms that either preserve or threaten free speech function entirely independent of the Internet as a mechanism for more speech. For instance, if a young person is never taught to think about the emotional paradox of embracing uncomfortable speech, it won’t necessarily matter if he and 100 million of his friends all have networked devices or, for that matter, never have them. But it is admittedly difficult to stick to that inquiry alone without considering the effect of the network itself. For instance, if the aforementioned Wimp perspective and Bully perspective become dominant points of view, and social media then provides the platform for each to attain mass and advance an orthodoxy, what happens to tolerance of all the great forms of expression that exist between a sanitized Huckleberry Finn and the mean-spiritedness of bad satire that “punches down?”

Do we fail to produce the next Doonesbury because it’s too edgy for the Wimps and too tame for the Bullies?  Not necessarily.  But I find these cultural shifts interesting because I suspect the increase in the raw tonnage of speech via social media has had something to do with fostering these views, which do not inherently promote a greater diversity of speech. As suggested in Part I, it is probably more valuable to pay attention to how speech might be changing in the digital age than it is to simply buy the premise that speech is “freer than ever” thanks to networked devices.

Is Speech Preserved by More Speech Alone? – Part I

“The more speech the merrier,” was the central argument made by Justice Scalia in writing the majority opinion on Citizens United, but that case suggests, at least to many of us, that the mechanism of the speech matters a great deal. Yes, in many ways, money can be speech; but at the same time, I think Scalia conjured an illusion of more, which obscures the practical reality that the SCOTUS ruling ultimately provides a bigger voice for a privileged minority.  So, what about speech delivered via the mechanisms of social media and other networked communications? Nobody can argue that there is more of it. But does placing too much emphasis on volume alone risk overlooking the complex, even occasionally painful, ways in which speech, as we define it in the U.S., is preserved?

“The value of intellectual freedom is far from self-evident,” writes George Packer in his New Yorker editorial Speech Crisis.  “It’s hardly natural to defend the rights of one person over the feelings of a group; to put up with all the trouble that comes with free minds and free expression; to stand beside the very people who repel you.” Even among free nations, the United States is unique in policy and in its sustained public support for the absoluteness of speech.  But as networked communications alter our relationship to speech, new social dynamics emerge that can produce as many new forms of censorship as new forms of expression.  Quoting Packer again, he cites Joel Simon thus:

“Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, argues in his book ‘The New Censorship’ that the explosion of data in digital media keeps us from seeing how extensively information is controlled. ‘Repression and violence against journalists is at record levels,’ he writes, ‘and press freedom is in decline.’”

Interestingly, Packer begins his article with the description of a brutal murder of a Bangladeshi blogger, but his main thesis is a warning against the pitfalls of self-censorship, even here in the tolerant United States. Quoting Packer again:

“But, in some ways, an even greater danger than violence or jail is the internal mute button known as self-censorship. Once it’s activated, governments and armed groups don’t have to bother with threats. Here self-censorship is on the rise out of people’s fear of being pilloried on social media. In Russia, Vladimir Putin has been masterful at creating an atmosphere in which there are no clear rules, so that intellectuals and artists stifle themselves in order not to run afoul of vague laws and even vaguer social pressure.”

Packer’s assertion that self-censorship is “on the rise out of people’s fear of being pilloried on social media” exemplifies why I would caution against overemphasizing volume of speech in order to insure its universality as a right.  Personally, I believe that only when we uphold the right of the minority speaker above the majority’s capacity to silence that speaker, is speech as a right actually sustained.  Yes, this means American Nazis were given permission to march through the Jewish Village of Skokie, and it means Fred Phelps repeatedly made a public performance out of disrespect for grieving military families.  But such examples, when filtered through populist media like Twitter, seem to confuse support of the minority voice with unwavering tolerance of the offensive; the two are not necessarily intertwined. The offensive can also be the silencing mob.

Take the chronic occurrence of rape and death themes that flare up like herpes on Twitter when a woman says something a particular group of men doesn’t like. Setting aside actual threats, which are already criminal, wishing for sexual assault upon someone is offensive yet protected speech.  We the majority of ordinary citizens must, in the name of speech, tolerate the minority of apes, who have nothing better to do than tweet “I hope somebody rapes you,” to Ashley Judd because she dissed their basketball team or Emma Watson because she commented on women’s rights. But while speech defendants rush to make this point clear in these instances, we don’t seem to pay much attention to the potential or actual self-censorship of the original speaker.   Naturally, if the speaker is a celebrity, she has resources that inoculate and empower her to speak back, but not every individual with something to say is so blessed; and one consequence of this round-the-clock, global speech-a-thon we call the Internet is that it can certainly make almost anyone famous or infamous for a day.  Thus, one of the pitfalls of placing too much faith in more speech as a preservative of speech istelf is that both the dynamics and the economics of social media foster new types of crowds and new types of minority speakers. And the only real difference between a crowd and a mob is whether you’re with it or against it.

Meanwhile, the notion of tolerance itself, the basic idea that the health of speech depends on allowing or even embracing unpalatable ideas, seems to be changing online and in our national dialogue.  Paradoxically, from quarters like academia, one hears the refrain of what sounds like a new orthodoxy of “tolerance,” which is of course a form of censorship.  More on that in Part II.

Je ne connais pas Charlie

I have so far refrained from saying anything about the Charlie Hebdo murders.  For starers, I don’t like bandwagons and don’t feel a strong urge to restate the obvious. Naturally, we abhor this kind of violence and stand in solidarity with any creator, who at this moment is considering his/her own position on controversial free expression in the wake of this attack.  At the same time, I cannot claim to have had any previous knowledge of the work of these cartoonists and commentators and so cannot honestly claim to be Charlie when I don’t even know Charlie.

The free-speech-a-thon was to be expected.  This is the age of the meme, and nothing is easier, or quite possibly less relevant, than changing one’s profile photo and/or sharing an image that affirms one’s position at a moment of crisis, tragedy, or conflict.  Of course, the contrasts between that which goes viral and that which is overlooked is always an interesting subject in this regard.  A man in Saudi Arabia named Raif Badawi was sentenced to ten years and a thousand lashes for starting a blog that discussed politics and religion. And though this story is actually a more acute example of the right of free expression being repressed, we haven’t seen any memes declaring I am Raif.

I assume the Charlie Hebdo attack scares us more than stories like Badawi’s or journalists jailed or killed in dangerous and radicalized parts of the world. Because all these cartoonists did was go to work in a major European city, where the right of free speech already exists; and then violent thugs silenced them in a brutal and terrifying manner. That will give anyone who writes or creates anything, even in a free and relatively safe society, a moment’s pause.  On that subject, this interview by Celia Farber of American ex-pat cartoonist Robert Crumb is worth a read. As one of America’s most unabashed cartoonists, and a resident of France for over 20 years, Crumb found himself in a situation that demanded he say something. So, clicking like and share and all that is fine, but what if you are the cartoonist everyone is turning to for an illustrated response, and you’re now considering your own safety?

I’ve read a number of stories drawing distinctions between Charlie Hebdo’s editors as martyrs to free speech and the content of their speech, which has been described by some as racist, jingoistic, phobic, and offensively facile without satirical value.  As I say, I don’t know Charlie, and I have to wonder how many of my fellow Americans who say they are Charlie know him either, but assuming some of these criticisms of the work are valid, I have to ask this:   If some nut had gunned down Fred Phelps, would we have bothered to create a meme in his name proclaiming his right to free speech?  Probably not. But the truth is that’s when standing by speech really counts — when it offends you. And to our credit, nobody did shoot Phelps, though he could not have been asking for it much more effectively.

One of the more interesting pieces I have read questioning the value of the content of Charlie Hebdo is by Arthur Chu, writing for The Daily Beast, who describes their work as exemplary of “chan culture.” By this, he’s referring to the kind of sophomoric, scatalogical humor one finds on sites like 4Chan. Chu writes:

“When the only thing you’re reverent of is irreverence, when the only thing you hold sacred is the idea that nothing is sacred, well, you eventually get chan culture, you get one long continuous blast of pure offensiveness and taboo-breaking for taboo-breaking’s sake until all taboos are broken and there’s nothing left to say.”

Chu, as does everyone who has written from his perspective, goes to great effort to make clear that he would never suggest these cartoonists brought violence upon themselves; and it is indicative of our reactionary, meme-based times that he must tread so carefully to make that clear.  But his central point is worth consideration.  In this fleeting (and everything on social media is fleeting) canonization of these cartoonists, do we elevate the work to something it never was?  Quoting Chu again:

“. . .  the Internet is already busy at work deifying Charlie Hebdo as the new Satanic Verses and Charb as the new Salman Rushdie. People are changing their profile photos to crude, racist caricatures of Middle Easterners in solidarity with the principle of “free speech” and the average person’s Twitter feed is one-half gleefully “irreverent” reposts of offensive cartoons and one-half cloyingly reverent tributes to said cartoons.”

Like I say, I don’t know Charlie. I do know that Chu is right in principle — that merely being shocking for the sake of being shocking is easy and is not necessarily socially relevant satire. I don’t personally believe any icon or idea is beyond ridicule, but that doesn’t mean I cannot make a distinction between social commentary and offending just to be offensive. It also doesn’t mean I would necessarily have Crumb’s courage to draw what he calls “The Hairy Ass of Muhammed” in a new cartoon and wonder whether or not I had instigated my own personal fatwa.

To be honest, the Charlie Hebdo story and the editorials it has spawned serve principally to remind me that speech is dangerous, complicated business and always has been.  Perhaps in our globalized, networked, interconnected utopia, speech is becoming more dangerous in places we have long considered safe — like a movie theater running a basically dumb comedy making fun of a dictator.  Regardless, it is the seriousness of speech that forms the basis of my own scorn at the pampered, corporate elite who presume to tell us that the right of free expression not only depends on their gadgets now, but worse, that even those who risk their lives to speak don’t deserve to own their words.