“Freedom is always, and exclusively, freedom for the one who thinks differently” – Rosa Luxemburg.
It’s my hope that some of you may have heard of the 1919 case Schenck v. United States, in which the Supreme Court voted unanimously to send to jail for 30 years a man by the name of Charles Schenck, an immigrant who fled from Europe prior to the beginning of the Russian revolution of 1917. Shortly after being in the United States he was convicted and sent to jail due to his violation of the Espionage Act of 1917.
But what did Mr. Schenck do to violate such a law?
The Espionage Act of 1917 was instituted by President Woodrow Wilson to prevent people from speaking out against the compulsory military draft for the first world war. Mr. Schneck, being a socialist and someone who fled from Europe due to that war, distributed 15,000 leaflets protesting the United States’ participation in that predominantly European conflict.
His use of free speech and his moral and intellectual views cost him the remainder of his life, because he spoke out against what the US Government wanted.
Following the end of the case, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote his majority opinion to explain his decision to send Mr. Schenck to jail. In this opinion he stated that freedom of speech should not extend to those that are complicit by inciting panic. Holmes offered an example of when it would be okay to violate someone’s freedom of speech, using the famous case of someone “shouting fire in a crowded theater,” to provide clarity to the ruling.
Now, although I don’t agree with Mr. Schneck’s political or economic views, I think it’s equally plausible to argue that he was the one who really was shouting “fire” in a very crowded and bloody theater indeed, the European theater where close to 16 million people lost their lives. Therefore, his freedom of speech should not have been violated whatsoever, for it was being used in an attempt to limit the bloodshed being forced on young American men during the early 20th century, albeit against what the government deemed proper.
I bring up the above case as a reminder that just because what you have to say may be viewed unpopular by either the state or the masses, they nevertheless have no right to shut you up just because they disagree with what you have to say. Oftentimes, if they do they are deliberately engaging in obscurantism. That being said, every time you violate or propose to violate someone else’s freedom of speech you are making a whip that can and will be used against you.
Consider a fact from renowned historian Paul Johnson. He stated that the United States did little to nothing to help prevent the final solution from coming to fruition in Germany during WWII.
Consider a hypothetical situation where the majority in America thought it they should compensate by teaching holocaust awareness to every child in a state sponsored school.
What were to happen if there was a single student stood up following a lecture and stated “I don’t believe any of this, indeed, if anything it seems to me that the Jews might have brought some violence upon themselves!”
That student doesn’t just have the right to speak, that student’s right to speak must be given EXTRA protection. The reasoning is this, his appalling view might contain a molecule of truth, and it also may have taken him quite a lot of time and effort to come up with, making his opinion at least worthy of being heard before derided. It may also give people an opportunity to establish first principals: “How do I know what I already know other than I have never heard anything else?” or “I know I’ve been taught that the holocaust happened, what evidence do I have to affirm my own views?”
These questions are incredibly important and should be provoked, especially if the provoker has something unpopular to say.
The battle of ideas cannot take place unless speech deemed unpopular has the ability to become popular via a free market of ideas.
To make a mild digression, I would contend that over 99% of the members of my readership are okay with homosexual marriage. The interesting thing is that being pro same-sex marriage was not always a popular opinion, indeed there was a time in the not so recent past where homosexuals were burned at the stake in our society for their proclivities. What then is the cause of the drastic change of heart?
The cause is the ability for freedom of speech to prosper and allow unpopular opinions to rise to the top in our society. That being said, this is the case with most opinions; almost all opinions were unpopular at one time. There was of course a time only a few centuries ago when it was thought of as okay to enslave people based on their race, this is even still popular in many cultures to this day, especially in the Middle East and Africa.
What I mean to say is this, allowing people who have different opinions than yours to speak and allowing yourself to hear what they have to say works out to your benefit in the end. There is a very high possibility that something you think today is deeply unpopular, but if you allow freedom of speech and disputation for yourself and others than you have the ability to make your unpopular opinions heard and perhaps over time they can become mainstream.