What is free speech?
A simple definition is that it gives everyone the freedom to say whatever they want, whenever they want.
For example, you could say to me, “You are the ugliest and most stupid person I have ever met.” Ignoring the accuracy of your statement, what is the benefit of you being free to say that?
Do you think that the people who wrote the different laws and constitutions of our planet’s remaining democracies planned to protect the right of one citizen to insult another?
Perhaps they did, but such freedom doesn’t seem to offer any great constructive benefit to society.
Clearly, it is essential that everyone who lives in a democracy is free to say what they believe. But does calling it free speech confuse us about what needs to be protected?
We should be free to say how we want to be governed. We should be free to criticize politicians and other citizens who do things that we don’t agree with. We should be free to protest against regulations, laws and actions that we believe are wrong.
These rights and protections, and many others too, are essential to ensure the freedom of every single person living in a democracy.
Telling strangers that they smell should have less importance. Though the right to say such a thing should exist and should continue to exist. If only because trying to manage what people can and can’t say is a much more complex task than we might imagine at first thought.
Arguably, there should be limits, but exactly where they should lie is no easy question to answer. Ideally, such limits would be self-policed by reasonable individuals, but that seems absurdly idealistic right now.
Most societies appear hugely divided. In the US, the wealthiest 10% have hoarded 68.3% of American wealth, leaving the poorest 50% with just 2.5%. Oddly, that bottom 50% seems particularly divided, rather than working together to claim a bigger share of the economy that their work powers. And free speech often seems to fuel that division.
Still, could we argue that the concept of free speech should be banned, without undermining the core aim of free speech? To ensure, regardless of any change made, all people remain free to speak out about how ther lives and societies are governed and regulated.
Should we, perhaps, ban the right to free speech and replace it with the right to free debate?
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