File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1996/96-07-14.151, message 229


From: Malcolm Dunnachie Thompson <malcolmt-AT-sfu.ca>
Subject: free speech/silencing
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 09:58:56 -0700 (PDT)


everyone agrees that certain forms of action are intolerable and ought to 
be prevented (lynching, rape, cross-burning, for example). now, the 
problem with postulating "free speech" as a universal moral value, as 
something that needs to be defended at all costs, is that it seems to 
suppose that speech is always and mostly *about* action - rather than 
being itself a form of action. if an action has consequences, it is 
perfectly reasonable to evaluate those consequences and then decide 
whether it ought to be permitted or not, according to a given set of 
political principles. basically, Voltaire, that arch-liberal, was 
cracked. it seems to me to be politically suicidal (as well as a waste of 
time and energy) to defend, for example, Jesse Helms' neo-fascist goonery 
- or, for an example closer to my own experience, to support the Canadian 
Reform Party's right to spout homophobic bile.

the "principle" of free speech defers speech out of the field of social 
practices, into a kind of ideal realm in which words are about actions 
and only really effect other words (i.e. do *not* have real political 
effects within real social relations). but speech *is* an action, and as 
a form of action, we can evaluate whether it ought to be permitted or 
not, and then take action based on that evaluation. how controversial is 
this?

of course, i'm probably not convincing anyone - but i can't really expect 
too, since the doctrine of free speech serves so many people's 
ideological purposes.

bye, malcolm



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