Freedom of Speech

One of my the commenters on my last blog post brought up the point '[i]f someone wants to comment on someone else's body, who am I, or anyone else, or the State, to stop them [...]?'. Fair point. Good point, too.

It's indeed something that needs to be brought up when we're discussing gender equality or any other thing, because oppressing people's speech is just as bad, or perhaps even worse, than any form of discrimination and unfairness. Or at least I think so.

Freedom of speech is a great good - without it, we can't challenge existing paradigms, can't make a change, and can't progress. Without freedom of speech we can't ensure justice, for injustice cannot be challenged when freedom of speech is taken away. There's a reason sites like Twitter are blocked in a number of countries.

Who can decide what can and can't be said? I agree with my commenter, and I don't think my agreement makes me a hypocrite for simultaneously thinking we should challenge sexists and misogynists (misandrists too, btw, it's just as prejudiced a set of ideas as misogyny and just as harmful).

This is a confusion of meaning I see in lots of arguments - I'm also guilty of them. It's confusing the meaning of freedom from prosecution and freedom from consequence.

Freedom from prosecution means that you should not be punished for having one opinion or the other. This includes imprisonment, fines, corporal punishment, but also being socially outcast.

Freedom from consequence means that no one is allowed to challenge your opinion.

And by conflating consequence and prosecution, one essentially limits another's freedom of speech.

I should be able to say that I think monarchy is an outdated concept and that both the Netherlands and the UK should stop having a royal in charge. Should I be allowed to say this? Very much so - if either the Netherlands or the UK should decide to prosecute me for it, they'd be in the wrong.

Should my friends, some of whom are very much in favour of monarchies, be able to say that my opinion is wrong, that monarchy isn't outdated at all and that having a royal family is a great benefit to either nation? Also very much so.

And that was my intention with my Gender Equality post. I don't think sexists, misogynists and misandrists should be locked up or socially outcast, despite me thinking that their opinions are wrong and actually sort of evil. What I do think, however, is that their opinions should not go unchallenged - we (I was also called out on my use of 'we', I intended an inclusive we, i.e. those who agree with my line of reasoning versus those who don't, who are 'they') should instead call them out on their opinions, telling them "well, I think you're wrong to think like that, and here's why".

If there's no one to challenge an opinion, if everyone surrounds themselves only with people who agree with them (and I know many people do prefer doing that, including myself), you'll get those sort of amplification cycles where an opinion just gets more and more extreme.

I reiterate, freedom of speech is a great good; it may actually be our greatest good.
Lon Fuller writes, "If I were asked, then, to discern one central indisputable principle of what may be called substantive natural law - Natural Law with capital letters - I should find it in the injunction: Open up, maintain, and preserve the integrity of the channels of communication by which men [sic*] convey to one another what they perceive, feel, and desire." (The Morality of Law, 1969, p. 186 - one of my absolute favourite non-fiction books).

*It was the 1960s, I suppose I must forgive him for it.

In other words, we must communicate - and if we are going to communicate, we'd better make sure we can do it as well as possible by putting up as few barriers as possible. Freedom of speech is the ultimate way of taking away most, if not all, barriers. But we would do well to remember that not everything which is said and done, is right, and if it isn't, we must be able to challenge it.

In short: sexists should be able to express sexist thoughts. But we should also be able to call them out on it, and actually do call them out on it, and they should, in turn, be able to poke holes in our arguments, et cetera, until we reach a consensus. It's a bit like trying to reach an economic equilibrium.

Baruch de Spinoza (also a fan of Freedom of Speech) thought that revolution wasn't right, as it was an emotional thing; instead, he advocated social evolution by educating the public, which is a very rational approach (according to my SSC151 Introduction to Political Theory course notes).
I tend to agree - I too am a fan of education and I too think a rational approach is better. For this rational approach, freedom of speech is needed - it is the only way to reach a logically solid consensus.

Freedom of speech can be compared to a pressure vessel. Contain the pressure (i.e. disallow people from expressing their opinions), and the vessel will explode. Release the pressure, and the vessel will remain intact. Without freedom of speech, we might end up with a revolution. With freedom of speech, we can reach a consensual state of overall fairness without having to resort to more drastic, more destructive, means.

But freedom of speech does not just mean that everyone has the right to shout sexually explicit things to others in the street. It also means that those who are shouted at have the right to have their experiences of feeling intimidated be heard, too, and it also means that these victims have the right to ask the people doing the shouting to consider not doing it.
Can those advocating gender inequality be prosecuted for their views? No, and we shouldn't want to. But can they be asked to consider the consequences of their views, should their views be challenged? Very much so.