Costly speech

Here’s a thought experiment. Which of the following statements would have the most powerful effect if spoken out loud?

“Ready, aim, fire!”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. …”

“Your nose looks like a potato.”

“Trump 2016!”

“This action is about a great deal more than just bathrooms. This is about the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens. …”

The answer: It depends. It depends on who is speaking and why; whether the “Fire” command is coming from an army captain or a boy with a stick, whether the potato comment is spoken in a comedy routine or in a junior-high gym class, or whether the bathroom theorizing comes from a faculty meeting or from the U.S. attorney general. It’s complicated, and yet most humans of average intelligence can sift the hundreds of statements they hear or read every day and determine which are actually potent and which are throwaways or metaphors.

It’s better to allow bruising slurs than to ban them, for, when words go on the chopping block, the ax doesn’t know where to stop.

It makes you wonder about the average intelligence on college campuses. The story about the Emory University students who were “traumatized” by seeing the words “Trump 2016” written in sidewalk chalk around campus received wide coverage, at least in conservative circles. To be fair, it was (probably) only a handful of students who were lacerated by the likelihood of a Trump supporter walking around loose. But a survey of college students earlier this year, evaluating their attitudes about free speech, is more troubling.

These young people appear to be struggling with where the lines should be drawn. While 72 percent agree that offensive political views should not be restricted, a sizable majority (69 percent) want to outlaw offensive Halloween costumes. Seventy percent say the press should be free to report on campus protests—but only, apparently, if the coverage is favorable, because nearly half saw reasons to restrict the press if coverage was likely to be unfair.

We sigh and tell them to grow up. A developing mind should be able to grapple with a dissenting view, even a hateful one, without exploding. Liberal gadfly Camille Paglia traces some of the hypersensitivity back to academic fads like poststructuralism, which taught that language shapes reality. Paglia scoffs at the notion, which universities take to ridiculous lengths, but in a way language does shape reality: Words need authority to back them up, but authority needs words to legitimatize itself or accomplish its aims. A declaration of independence once brought forth a nation. “Let there be light” produced an entire universe.

The kids are right: Words are powerful, and often harmful. But they’re wrong about the implication.

“Free speech” is a positive value with some negative effects. Censorship is a negative value with a negative effect. We can predict the good or harm that might result from provocative speech—such as shouting Fire! in a crowded theater—but censored speech, while preventing some of the bad, also prevents the good. That’s why First Amendment advocates say the best remedy for harmful speech is more speech, not less. In the marketplace of ideas, foolish, impractical, or evil propositions will eventually lose out.

The key word is eventually—bad ideas have their day; but if better ideas are free to compete, that day is limited. In the long run, it’s better to allow bruising slurs than to ban them, for, when words go on the chopping block, the ax doesn’t know where to stop. As I write, a municipal judge in Wyoming faces dismissal for saying, out loud, that she will not perform same-sex weddings. Those were potent words, costly to her and painful to certain members of her community—would they have been better left unsaid?

Once, in first-century Athens, the Apostle Paul proclaimed a radical idea that would reshape history. His audience was free to laugh at him but did not shut him down. For all their faults, the Athenians understood something about ideas and the words used to express them: They have hard, pointy distinctions. Sometimes they hurt. Often they have consequences. But shutting down speech reduces all ideas to spongy gray, with spongy minds to match.

Email jcheaney@wng.org