a cultural norm of free speech

In their Substack newsletters, Freddie DeBoer and Parker Milloy recently had a 6-part back-and-forth exchange of letters about free speech, cancel culture, college campuses, the media, and a bunch of other things. It was a fascinating exchange, and you should read it in full if you share any of these obsessions with them and me. I come down more on the Freddie side of the debate overall, but I thought they both made a bunch of good points, and more than anything else, it was nice to see these ideas being discussed, rather than just one voice railing against them. As Andrew Sullivan observed, it was almost a return to the good ole’ blogging days of yore!

I’ve got a couple of posts planned here in response to some points they both made, starting here with just a quick observation on free speech and the First Amendment. In Letter #2, Freddie wrote,

Culture war is like being locked in a closet with your dark mirror image. For every bit of overreaction to cancel culture, there’s an attendant dismissal of the lurking problem of our technological and governmental overlords gradually eroding our basic ability to say what we want to say. Yes, platforms like Twitter have the right to establish the rules that they want. But I think society flourishes best under a norm of free speech, not just the limited legal rights as dictated by the First Amendment but from a broader cultural commitment to the belief that we best determine the truth through the constant adversarial trading of ideas.

I used to be a person who saw a platform like Twitter or a corporation like Starbucks or a media entity like MSNBC punish someone for something they said – whether it was a bad tweet or an unpopular political position or whatever – and say, “Well, that’s how it goes. Free speech only means the government can’t restrict your speech, but private companies can do what they want.” Which is technically a legally true position to take, but is also a very pro-capitalist way to approach employment, and also, as Freddie points out here, not a very good way to cultivate a culture of free speech and the free exchange of ideas. I think he is right, that we need a consistent culture of free speech, and that means one where people are allowed to say noxious or annoying or even racist things, and where we overcome those attitudes not through forbidding their utterance, but through showing their ridiculousness.

Can Twitter ban you for saying racist things? Yep. Should they? I have concerns. Not because I like racist speech. I very much don’t. But I also don’t like private companies – all of them helmed by some of the worst people in the world – making decisions about what is good or not good to say. Do you want to give that kind of power to tech capitalists?

More broadly, I think Freddie does a good job in the exchange of addressing the critique of so-called “free speech bros”, and the bad rap they (we) get from others on the left. As he writes later,

I have this great old document, a copy of a speech that was given in honor of my paternal grandmother receiving the Illinois ACLU’s lifetime achievement award. What strikes me reading it, some 50 years after the speech was given, is that her work in both civil rights and civil liberties are represented as one and the same – that her fighting against segregation and racism was not seen as in tension with her defense of free speech and association, but that they were the same fight, that they were permanently entwined. Academic freedom was particularly dear to her because her husband, my grandfather, had been targeted by McCarthyite attacks in the Illinois state legislature. In the speech her efforts against restaurants that would not serve Black diners are not represented as a contradiction with her free speech efforts but as a natural match with them. Now, I fear most people would counterpose anti-racism and civil liberties against each other.

Free speech is not in tension or opposition to social justice, and it shouldn’t be portrayed that way. Free speech, free expression, and free association are the bedrocks upon which the victories of social justice and civil rights are built. We have to foster a broad culture that encourages people to say what they think, and when we disagree – even vehemently – the instinct shouldn’t be to silence, but to provide an example of better speech. To quote Freddie one last time, “as I have argued at length, the history we have of attempts to shut down right-wing extremism through censorship are not inspiring, with countries like France and Germany having watched for 75 years as harsh anti-extremism laws have failed to meaningfully prevent the spread of those ideologies.” Banning speech doesn’t reduce hate or extremism. It just adds another grievance to those who are inclined to hate. Let them say their bullshit. And let the rest of us look on and laugh at their foolishness. That’s how we push it out.