JANUARY 19, 2021 – This morning CNN online carried an article about a growing movement questioning unbridled free speech. The timing of the piece was triggered by Big Tech efforts to quell in the aftermath of the Storming of the Capitol, the propagation of nonsense by the master and his misguided followers. While I applaud Big Tech in this regard, I hasten to criticize the tech giants for having waited until the wrecking ball swings its last.
The most ardent defenders of “free speech” are way late to the scene. Until 2016, I considered myself to be among them. I fully subscribed to the adage attributed to Voltaire, “I vehemently disagree with what you say, but I’d fight to the death to defend your right to say it.” No longer. I wouldn’t fight at all for Trumpublicans’ “right” to bring down American democracy by vicious attacks on truth or, equally paradoxically, for their puppet-master’s right to debase, demean, and discredit the beacon of American democracy—the “free press.”
Let’s be clear. The Supreme Court has long imposed limits on “free speech.” You can’t yell “Fire!” inside a crowded theater just for kicks, and you can’t . . . um . . . incite people to riot, though “incite” and “riot” can be subject to case-specific interpretation. Moreover, the First Amendment pertains to government censorship, not private curtailments. The last I checked, Big Tech is not Big Government.
Ironically, the argument for limits has been prompted by an overabundance of “free speech.” With the internet comes the freedom to disseminate around the world and back at the speed of light, the nastiest forms of destructive falsehoods imaginable. Certainly, the nature and quantity of this “freedom” was far beyond the anticipation and imagination of our friend Voltaire and our dads, the Founders.
The larger problem here involves ignorance, impatience, myopia, stupidity, susceptibility to cultish appeals, incapacity for ambiguity, inability to analyze, and myriad other short-circuits inside human hearts and brains. If ever there were a need for artificial . . .
Oh boy. Really? Is the future of our species dependent upon relegation of human intelligence and emotion to . . . machines?
We should worry that we’ve reached the ultimate paradox of our existence: if by numerous gauges we have evolved exponentially beyond all other species, we haven’t evolved enough to avoid self-extinction.
All of which takes me back to “free speech.” Many reasons exist for its vigorous defense. Countless examples reveal its necessity for the collective good. But unless and until we accelerate our evolution out of ignorance, stupidity, etc., we must grapple with the rising necessity of restricting unbridled and dangerous nonsense. If we fail, just before our extinction we’ll experience a crowning paradox of American virtue: the loss of First Amendment rights because of our refusal to limit them.
Having exercised my First Amendment right to question the First Amendment, I’ll get on with my other quintessentially American business of the day: business. Whatever you think, don’t think that should be curtailed!
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
