Andrew Doyle on Free Speech
Andrew Doyle on Free Speech
Review of Free Speech and Why It Matters
A: At first I thought it was a superficial book.
Q: Well, it’s only 98 pages long, and the author’s Wikipedia headline labels him a “comedian.” You shouldn’t expect Aristotle.
A: Doyle actually has a doctorate in Renaissance poetry from Oxford University, and I liked the book better the further I got in.
Q: Okay then, so why does free speech matter, according to Andrew Doyle?
A: There’s some grandiose stuff: “I start from the proposition that free speech is nothing less than the keystone of our civilization.” “Free speech is the marrow of democracy. Without it, no other liberties exist.”
Q: Do you agree?
A: Those statements are too vague and/or metaphorical to really evaluate. But Doyle’s more concrete assertions are plausible: “free speech is the only way to ensure that marginalised people are heard. To set limits on speech in order to improve tolerance is like attempting to extinguish a fire with gasoline.” This is, I think, vindicated by history: when free speech rights in the US were weaker, the government jailed, for example, feminists and union activists, using its then-greater authority to punish “dangerous” speech. But I do worry that the book doesn’t go into the history in enough detail to convince the doubters.
Q: Doyle opposes attempts to limit the expression of even quite horrible views. Why does he think it is okay, in fact a good idea, to, for example, let racists speak in defense of racism?
A: First is a standard worry about the abuse of power. If some authority is empowered to suppress racist speech, it will end up suppressing lots of good speech too: “the state is not to be trusted with the authority to impede speech.”
Q: But all power can and will be abused. Most agree, nevertheless, that the state is to be trusted with the authority to impede, for example, theft, or murder. What’s different about the power to punish “bad” speech?
A: That power is more open to abuse. Doyle gives examples from history where the power to punish speech was abused.
Q: Why should the power to punish speech be more open to abuse? The power to punish theft and battery have been abused throughout history as well.
A: The standard argument, to which Doyle subscribes, is that “hate speech” (or “racist speech”) is a much more vague and contested category than theft or battery. And that vagueness makes it easier to abuse: “When it comes to defining what constitutes unacceptable speech, the notion of true objectivity is a mirage.”
Q: You said “first.”
A: Doyle’s second argument against censoring “bad” speech is that, even if the power to censor were not abused, censorship still would not “necessarily diminish the spread of [false and dangerous] ideas”:
censorship usually has the unintended effect of accelerating the dissemination of the material in question. Many purveyors of “fake news” rely on the narrative that they are brave truth-tellers fighting back against oppressive forces who would see them silenced. It is therefore far better to discredit false testimony than to suppress it and thereby re-enforce disingenuous claims to victimhood.
He could have gone farther. Those purveyors also rely on the narrative that, if their ideas were false, the authorities would simply explain why; since the authorities are trying to suppress them, their ideas must be irrefutable. We would do well to deprive them of this defense.
Q: Isn’t posting a few “fact checks” just throwing pebbles at a tsunami of misinformation?
A: The argument is that trying to suppress misinformation (or other bad speech) will make things worse, not that speaking against it will necessarily make things much better.
Q: If Jones finds compromising photos of Smith, and says “It would be a shame if these photos got out, but lucky for you, a nice fee is all it takes to keep them locked up,” and then is arrested for blackmail, Doyle would not object. But if Doyle is okay with some speech restrictions, who is he to oppose others?
A: No one thinks there should be no restrictions on speech. The first amendment does not protect, for example, speech that incites imminent violence.
Q: Yeah, but once you also allow the punishment of speech that constitutes blackmail, what’s wrong with punishing racist speech? What’s the difference?
A: Laws against blackmail
are examples of where speech has operated as the mechanism of criminal activity, but is not the crime itself. Speech is to perjury [another example] what fire is to arson. Certainly we can use words to commit crime—the same could be said of almost anything: water, bricks, gold clubs, even stuffed halibuts—but in a murder case we punish the killer, not the weapon.
Q: So Jones performed two separate acts: (i) saying to Smith that it would be a shame if these photos got out, and (ii) blackmailing Smith? And the law criminalizes (ii), but not (i)? And only criminalizing (i) is a restriction on free speech? Even if doing (i) was the means Jones used to commit (ii)?
A: Why all the question marks? Those are indeed two different acts. I could perform (i), I could say the same thing to Smith, without blackmailing him, and so without performing (ii). I could, for example, just be offering him advice about how to respond to Jones. Then I wouldn’t have done anything illegal. Since act (i) by itself isn’t punishable, this is not a speech restriction.
Q: This sounds like a bunch of philosophical hair-splitting.
A: You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Q: You have to admit that “we punish the killer, not the weapon” sounds a bit like “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Could Doyle’s defense of the first amendment and free speech be used to defend the second amendment’s right to bear arms?
A: He doesn’t say.
Q: Let’s talk about cancel culture.
A: Okay!
Q: Doyle is against cancel culture.
A: Correct.
Q: He’s against it on free speech grounds.
A: Correct.
Q: Can you spell out the connection?
A: Cancel culture has a chilling effect; people self-censor out of fear of getting canceled. But if people fear to speak their mind, speech isn’t free—or, as free as it should be.
Q: If you say something horrible and stupid, and I tell you that what you said was horrible and stupid, and that makes other people afraid to say it, haven’t I just used my right to free speech to speak the truth? How can a free speech defender be against that?
A: If one person does it, it’s not cancel culture.
Q: But if it’s okay for one person to do it, why isn’t it okay for a very large number of people to do it?
A: Well also criticism, even criticism that uses heated words like “stupid” or worse, is not cancel culture.
Q: I’m waiting to hear what Doyle thinks cancel culture is.
A: “Public shaming and boycotting, often for relatively minor mistakes...typically driven by social media...targets are denounced rather than criticized, and the consequences are hugely disproportionate to the perceived slight.” So if Jones expresses an opinion people think is false and harmful and dangerous, and a large number of people try to get him fired, and stop having anything to do with him, now he’s being canceled.
Q: So Doyle thinks I cannot tweet out “Jones said such-and-such. BigCo.com shouldn’t employ someone like that”? I shouldn’t express opinions about the kind of person BigCo should employ?
A: Hmmm, well I doubt Doyle really thinks that. Ah yes, here, page 28: “It is only when speech is met with threats, censorship, defamation, harassment, intimidation, violence or police investigation that freedom becomes compromised. These are the tools of cancel culture.”
Q: Suppose a well-known children’s book author says some stuff about transgender people that many people find offensive and dangerous. Those people stop buying the author’s books, and urge others to do so; they call for the author’s publisher not to offer the author any new book contracts. They fill social media with denunciation of the author and the author’s ideas. So far, none of the stuff on Doyle’s list has happened. But now I think he’s cheating. The people who denounce cancel culture, surely they think this is an example?
A: ...
Q: And what exactly is the objection to all this behavior? Can’t I buy, or refrain from buying, whatever books I want? Can’t I denounce ideas I think are offensive and dangerous? Can’t I suggest that businesses should avoid employing people who express those ideas? Can’t employers (other than the government, in the US anyway) decide they don’t want to employ such people? If a bunch of people exercise their freedom to speak their mind, and their freedom to choose whom to associate with and whom to employ (within legitimate limits), and the result is that people are afraid to say certain things—well, isn’t that a case where speech has been chilled but no one’s “right to free speech” has been violated?
A: For society, for any community, to function well, people need to be willing to cooperate with each other, in some ways at least, even in the face of serious moral and political disagreement. We have to be okay with buying a wrench, or a really nice hat, or whatever, from someone we know or suspect will vote for—or even donate money to!—the Other Candidate, whom we regard as horrible. Maybe an extreme fragmented tribalism, where each group has its own institutions (book publishers, coffee shops, gas stations); where each person refuses to patronize outgroup institutions; where outgroups are regularly denounced for holding offensive and dangerous ideas; where suspicion of being an outgrouper will get you fired; where each is afraid in mixed company to express their opinions on the topics of the day—maybe we could get there, without “violating anyone’s rights.” I hope we all still think that it would be a very bad place to end up.
Also relevant: my review of Speak Freely by Keith Whittington.