Power Theory of Free Speech

Description

Yascha Mounk:

"I have come to think of the tendency of both left and right to flip-flop on free speech depending on whether or not they feel that they have the upper hand in the nation’s culture war as the power theory of free speech.

This theory predicts that the left, no longer in control of any branch of the federal government, and seemingly on the back foot in the culture as a whole, will quickly rediscover the importance of the First Amendment. And it also predicts that Donald Trump and his allies, who have for a long time presented themselves as principled defenders of free speech, will in light of their newly acquired powers quickly find reasons why those protections shouldn’t hold when it comes to their political opponents.

If this theory is correct, there is a seemingly obvious conclusion to be drawn. If so few people are committed to free speech on principle, with most only defending free expression until they grow sufficiently powerful to trash it, then it is tempting to dismiss all fretting about the First Amendment as empty ideological cant. Talking up the importance of free speech, according to this story, is just a smart way for cynics to pull the wool over the eyes of those naïve idiots who still believe that anybody actually cherishes the concept.

But this is not the inference we draw in other political contexts where left and right often switch sides depending on the partisan interests of the moment. Yes, the partisans who talk about the importance of checks and balances are generally the ones who happen to find themselves in the minority at the time, but concluding that limits on the ability of the president to do whatever he wants at any given time are utterly unimportant—or that the American republic would somehow grow healthier if we dismissed all concerns about checks and balances as mere make-believe—would be ridiculous.

The same holds true in the case of free speech. Yes, defending free speech consistently can be difficult—it’s inherently easier to support the rights of those with whom you agree than the rights of those with whom you don’t. And yes, many of the people who have most insistently invoked the value of free speech in recent years—or have suddenly started to do so in recent weeks—have demonstrated no principled commitment to the underlying cause.

But the principles of free speech nevertheless remain an indispensable basis for any free society. It is precisely because the powerful will always be tempted to make it hard for their critics to speak freely that we need rules and norms that protect those who offend from retaliation. And it is precisely because there are many ways to chill speech that a robust notion of free speech must entail not only the knowledge that you won’t be jailed for “offending” others but also the confidence that you won’t lose your job or suffer social ostracism if you do so.

Thankfully, plenty of people recognize this point. Indeed, the brazen hypocrisy in which so many of our political leaders engage shouldn’t blind us to the fact that there are also many voices in our culture that do their best to live up to the demanding principle of free speech even when doing so is difficult. From nonprofits like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression to publications like The Dispatch and Persuasion to writers like Jacob Mchangama and Jonathan Rauch, there are plenty of individuals and institutions that, even in these viciously polarized times, have proven to be consistent defenders of open discourse.

Especially during dark times, it is important to be a realist about politics without succumbing to knee-jerk cynicism. A realistic view of free speech predicts that many people who invoke this principle when it serves their interests will abandon it as soon as it hampers their power. But the cynical conclusion that this makes it impossible for anybody to have a principled commitment to free speech is not nearly as clever as it seems."

(https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/the-power-theory-of-free-speech)