How free should speech be?

Isn’t it wonderful to be able to blog? Whether or not the blog gets read, or featured, what a sign of the times it is (no pun intended), that any old person can write their thoughts, without being a qualified member of the writing elite, and stand the chance of these thoughts being shared with the poor, naive public. I say poor, naive because there is nothing to protect them from what might be biased or conspiratorial musings. And yet, it’s okay, because they, in turn, get to freely share their aquiescence or dissent, publicly and freely.

But how far does or should this right to free expression, reach?

And this has become the question of conscience of the day to free speech platforms. Because the bad guys are now taking advantage. (Who am I, you ask, to decide who the bad guys are? Well. Actually, I’m no one to decide that. But I get to say it, because that’s the whole point. All I need is an opinion and a pen, or in this case, a blog.)

But to be fair, I think it’s okay to call the people who are calling for the death of Jews, Israel, America and the West, the bad guys. If you disagree, then there’s a strong chance you are on the wrong blog.

So back to the bad guys (in my opinion, that is.) Should they be allowed to say whatever they want, up to the point of inciting violence? Let’s think this through. What if we say no? What if we say, their speech should be banned, barred or filtered?

It would make life much more comfortable for those who are currently made very uncomfortable by their rantings and chantings. But what would happen if we really shut them up? (or is it down) Well, we’d actually enter into very dangerous territory. If we start playing around with their right to speech, ultimately, we endanger ours. Once you start deciding who can or can’t say things, the other side can play the same game.

In fact, this notion of anybody having the right to shut someone else down (or is it up , is what gave rise to cancel culture. Today I’m canceling you. But that means tomorrow, you get to cancel me.

When I wrote my book on anxiety, “The Moderately Anxious Everybody” (which, to be honest, is more about meaning than anxiety, but is based on the simple premise that a life without meaning is a life of anxiety) I was toying with the idea of writing a chapter on cancel culture. For this decision, I consulted with my best social media advisors, my kids. They advised me to omit said chapter. They wisely argued that talking about cancel, can get you cancelled. So the chapter was omitted. Really, all I wanted to say about it, was that my biggest cancel culture gripe is not that I run the risk of getting cancelled, but rather, that I run the risk of not hearing the other side and therefore not having my mind expanded to the argument of the other side. If every one agrees with me, how will I change my mind should I be wrong? To quote Shai Davidai, you don’t learn critical thinking by one person teaching you about it, or by sitting in a lecture about critical thinking. You learn critical thinking when two people teach you two opposing arguments and, after hearing both sides of the argument, you find yourself thinking about what you think. You don’t learn critical thinking, you have to experience it.

Well there we go. I hear the rumble of applause from the free speech advocates. In our society, for us to be truly free, we have to protect free speech at all costs. Even when we don’t love what we’re hearing. And it is a very solid and compelling argument.

Except I have not quite finished.

Because while it’s true that freedom of speech and critical thinking are two great signs of a free society, therein lies the problem.

They are exactly that. Two great signs of a free society. So what would happen if our society was no longer free?

If this was a speech, I would pause now. For about 10 seconds. Long enough to help the penny drop and the audience begin to squirm in the awkwardness of the silence.

What would happen, if our society was no longer free? (…8,9, 10) If all our rights were no longer available? As Douglas Murray says, many of our human rights are not intrinsic. They are man made. And if the wrong kind of man takes over governance, those rights we have come to take for granted, might also disappear.

In a non free society, there might be no free speech, no right to rights, no permitted critical thinking. Those beautiful man made perogatives only exist when the men who make them are themselves, beautiful. It’s a terrible mistake to think they exist on their own. They exist, because our beautiful, democratic, respectful, humanity loving empire, allows them to. Change the empire, you change the rules.

Free speech is not a stand alone. It didn’t create itself. It doesn’t live in a vacuumI. It was born in democracy and only survives in democracy. It’s dependence on democracy also means that if democracy is threatened, free speech is threatened.

So why are we allowing people to use free speech and the free speech argument to topple democracy? Isn’t a threat to the very context in which free speech can survive, an even greater danger than the incitement of violence? Is there not a point at which we say, if you’re using free speech to endanger the very possibility of free speech, then you forego the privilege?

We find this concept in Jewish law. You can speak your mind, you can ask any question. You can use speech, that wondrous gift that Gd reserved for man to help build a society, as long as you’re using it for that intended purpose. Once you use it to destroy the human fabric of society (that would be lashon hora) or to destroy the ethical fabric (that would be lying) or the philosophical fabric (that would be idolatrous speech) it is no longer free.

You have the right to use it, as long as you are using it well.

If free speech is there as a symbol of a free society and only when we have a free society, perhaps, just perhaps, we would be wise to consider not sharing it so generously and unconditionally with those among us who seek to use it to destroy the free society in which we are lucky enough to live.