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 --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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