Sticks And Stones
I had a very thoughtful moment on Friday. As usual, right-wing authoritarianism was clashing with left-wing liberalism on the concept of free speech. Of course, we all know that free speech is as much a legal fiction as 'reasonable man' or 'clear and present danger'. We all know, we do? Well, OK, some don't. But a moment's thought will show you that speech cannot be allowed to run free, untrammelled, irresponsible, unconfined, without consequences and without rules.
The fact is, it all boils down to the frailty of the human condition. Humans are flawed in so many ways, and fragile in so many ways, that we really can't trust to human idealism - it is too fragile a staff to lean upon. Free speech might as well be 'the right to defecate in public places' - words can poison, can spread memes, disseminate discontent, direct jihads and crusades, rename roses and claim they are the same. I mean, name a flower the 'enormous orange flatulent stinkwort that stuns insects with its pong' (or even 'greater rotstink plant') and not many would think of cherishing it. Name it 'Rafflesia' however, and it conjures up stately homes and mildly alcoholic drinks in the calm tropics.
And if one person has the right to free speech, should two men then be allowed to drown him out by speaking twice as much? Answering this question is how one might elucidate the essence of verbal democracy. But democracy is democracy - the power of the people - and it works best when ruthlessly applied. Should everyone have the vote? Immediately, it will become apparent that not all men are created equal where the functional apparatus of democracy is concerned. Who would be considered incompetent to vote? Should all votes be equal? Should we voluntarily handicap ourselves if we are better debators, better gladiators with verbs and nouns?
I've heard it said too many times that free speech ends where a man's face begins. I think it ends where a man's ears begin. For every man should be free to respond if every man is free to speak - and why should it end with words? What God made the Word more just, more fair than the Hand? Should we say that words are less powerful than muscles and therefore privileged over fists? No. A brutally fair world would allow parity between words and guns. If you want the right to speak, be prepared to bite a bullet, and I would be more prepared to listen to you.
Words are cheap. We all know this. It is easy to blog, to breathe, to berate and barrack. Why do we persist in elevating the rights of the oral and verbal? Either they are inherently so powerful that they don't need such exaltation, or they are so weak that we do ourselves a disservice by protecting them. The literature of the ages is in favour of the former.
Free speech is as much a dream as interminable carbon dioxide emanations without a cost. And it might as well be as gaseous, for all it's worth. Let speech be as free as it is prepared to be in the face of determined physical and numerical opposition, and then it will have true value. Free speech, don't bind it with the silly trappings of a liberal lie.
The fact is, it all boils down to the frailty of the human condition. Humans are flawed in so many ways, and fragile in so many ways, that we really can't trust to human idealism - it is too fragile a staff to lean upon. Free speech might as well be 'the right to defecate in public places' - words can poison, can spread memes, disseminate discontent, direct jihads and crusades, rename roses and claim they are the same. I mean, name a flower the 'enormous orange flatulent stinkwort that stuns insects with its pong' (or even 'greater rotstink plant') and not many would think of cherishing it. Name it 'Rafflesia' however, and it conjures up stately homes and mildly alcoholic drinks in the calm tropics.
And if one person has the right to free speech, should two men then be allowed to drown him out by speaking twice as much? Answering this question is how one might elucidate the essence of verbal democracy. But democracy is democracy - the power of the people - and it works best when ruthlessly applied. Should everyone have the vote? Immediately, it will become apparent that not all men are created equal where the functional apparatus of democracy is concerned. Who would be considered incompetent to vote? Should all votes be equal? Should we voluntarily handicap ourselves if we are better debators, better gladiators with verbs and nouns?
I've heard it said too many times that free speech ends where a man's face begins. I think it ends where a man's ears begin. For every man should be free to respond if every man is free to speak - and why should it end with words? What God made the Word more just, more fair than the Hand? Should we say that words are less powerful than muscles and therefore privileged over fists? No. A brutally fair world would allow parity between words and guns. If you want the right to speak, be prepared to bite a bullet, and I would be more prepared to listen to you.
Words are cheap. We all know this. It is easy to blog, to breathe, to berate and barrack. Why do we persist in elevating the rights of the oral and verbal? Either they are inherently so powerful that they don't need such exaltation, or they are so weak that we do ourselves a disservice by protecting them. The literature of the ages is in favour of the former.
Free speech is as much a dream as interminable carbon dioxide emanations without a cost. And it might as well be as gaseous, for all it's worth. Let speech be as free as it is prepared to be in the face of determined physical and numerical opposition, and then it will have true value. Free speech, don't bind it with the silly trappings of a liberal lie.
etched with acid at 6:18:00 am
2 Comments:
"Why do we persist in elevating the rights of the oral and verbal?" - Perhaps coz it is a mark of what we would like to think of as superiority of an advanced society? Compared to physical attributes, it is one of the few advantages we have over animals?
"...works best when ruthlessly applied" - hM when democracy is applied in its truest form, isn't it then utter chaos and carnage? a true democracy would not be able to come together as a resonable society due to the inherent nature whereby the majority oppresses and thus kills off the minority, starting along the lines of the largest differences, then along smaller issues until few are left...
Arthur C Clarke once said, "It has yet to be proven that intelligence has survival value." The fact is that because certain qualities distinguish us from the animals, we have elevated them to 'higher faculties'. But what else distinguishes these higher faculties? Nothing, except that we who have them deem them so.
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