The great Richard Feynman once said (Caltech commencement address in 1974): “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool”. What Feynman is speaking to here is the tendency toward self-deceit – to think, even implicitly, that one knows absolutely, and for one to believe might be thinking critically when actually they arguing toward, importing bias for, or seeking confirmation in, some pre-determined conclusion. In the language of reason and scientific thinking, we might also call this bad faith. A person who acts in bad faith, or in self-deceit, may like to think that they are a critical thinker, when, actually, they are an ideologue acting in negation of critical reason. Acknowledging this is, in my opinion, one component of the scientific mindset of which all good scientists are or should be cognisant; it is the principle realisation that critical thought necessarily must also turn on itself, to question unrelentingly ones own inclination toward certain conclusions and to unrelentingly survey the possible creeping of one’s own biases (whatever those may be). And I think, even or especially in the public domain, a lot of people don’t seem to understand these subtleties when they speak of being a “critical thinker” as those that merely equates asking questions or being unreasonably sceptical.
As Feynman also reflected, some roots of modern science reside in the soils where “freedom to doubt was born of a struggle against authority”. It is really easy to slip into self-deceit where, “[i]n the impetuous youth of humanity […] we say we have the answers now, so young and ignorant”, but “if we suppress all discussion, all criticism,” we will once again “doom man for a long time to the chains of authority”. His point is one that speaks directly to the foundations modernity – indeed, modern science – and to the cherished values of Western society. When Feynman speaks, in his own way, of “knowing the great progress and great value of a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress that is the fruit of freedom of thought”, he is pointing directly to the non-negotiable and fundamental right of this freedom in two forms, thought and speech; because, if we strip science of all of its the nuts and bolts, technical details and mathematical machinery, it exists fundamentally because of, and teaches important lessons about, this freedom. In my words, the principle notion of scientific thought – epistemologically, and also in terms of actual analytic and critical thinking – requires unconditional freedom of mind and hence of speech.
***
Amidst the chaos of the contemporary social world, I think there are roughly two opposing movements today just as there were probably since the Enlightenment [for further reading, also see select references below]: those that directly or indirectly (sometimes with good intention and without knowing it) undermine historically important and deeply rooted Western values and those that actively champion such values as axiomatic in the pursuit of a scientific, rational, democratic, and just world. What is often mistaken of the latter, I think, is that this also implies – in fact, it ensures by its very formulation – freedom of normative critique, even or especially of social institutions and systems that ought (italised to denote the moral imperative we can debate another time) to reflect the advances of the Enlightenment project for the better health of that continued project. I think this has always been fundamentally the point since at least the 17th and 18th centuries (again, see my past writings on the history): critical thinking, normative critique, requires the freedom to pursue ideas and to speak critically or affirmatively of those ideas. But when freedom of speech gets shut down, under whatever moral superiority one might presuppose to possess (because as I see it one indeed presupposes a moral superiority in doing so) in order to shut down another’s fundamental right to speech, the logical basis for all normativity erodes.
It doesn’t matter whether one agrees or disagrees with another’s speech, whether one thinks of them a lunatic or a bad faith actor spewing utter drivel or misinformation; freedom of speech is an unconditional, inalienable right.
Today, if I were to survey a hundred people at random, either here in the UK or in the US, I would be surprised if more than 20% knew of the Enlightenment projects and its important historical advances. Free speech, individual liberty, along with notions of constitutional government, normative critique of the abuses of church and state, as well as popular scepticism of traditional authority, can all be traced to the Enlightenment. America was founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment by people who read Kant, Locke, Paine, Rousseu, and Voltaire, as well as Newton, Boyle, Wren, and many others both of the moderate and the radical. The UK – the home of the Magna Carta and so many other historically significant contributions – and its many institutions have similarly deep roots in the Enlightenment. One is the root of the modern principle of free speech as an unconditional, universal, and inalienable right, despite the ambiguity in how this is codified in British law compared with the US first amendment.
On the other hand, I would not be surprised if 80% or more considered basic values that came about through the advances of the Enlightenment, like freedom of speech, important to health of democracy. I would also not be surprised if the same percentage of people thought that those same values were being systematically eroded in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons.
***
I suppose with these reflections, and with the awareness that this autumn marks 380 years since John Milton published Areopagitica, which presented an important defence at the time of unlicensed pamphleteering, and which ultimately served to support the end of restrictions on political printing, I am mindful of celebrating free expressing in Britain and America, and in Europe. It makes me think not just of those great thinkers already mentioned above, but of John Stuart Mill’s seminal essay On Liberty in particular.
But I suppose it also serves as a reminder that, what I am witnessing in the UK, and in other parts of the Western world, is fundamentally appalling given the weight of importance of this freedom to speak unapologetically. That restrictions to free speech, and censorship of information, has been justified in any capacity goes directly against the roots of modern democracy and what our democratic institutions once stood for. That people are being arrested for comments made online, or that the opinions of entire groups are being throttled or completely suppressed, is neither in spirit of the Enlightenment project, science, nor our basic democratic ideals. Instead, it speaks of error – it speaks of the self-deceit of moral superiority and righteousness in the service of something I fear sinister. To invoke the words of Galileo, speaking pre-emptively of the basis of Enlightenment universalism, “In my opinion no one […] should close the road to free philosophizing about mundane and physical things, as if everything had already been discovered and revealed with certainty. Nor should it be considered rash not to be satisfied with those opinions which have become common. No one should be scorned in physical disputes for not holding to the opinions which happen to please other people best.”
On the noninstrumental grounds, free speech is necessary in order to even establish any normative grounds to ensure respect to people as democratic citizens [1-6]. Any restriction to freedom of speech is equivalent to disrespecting the status of an individual as a free and equal moral agent – that is, a fresh flourishing democratic subject – who has a moral right to debate and decide the law for themselves [7]. The entire notion of the system of democracy is undermined. In this sense, free speech is literally constitutive of democracy [2]. There is no debate. And, I would even be inclined to argue that participatory democracy is entirely predicated on the democracy of language and thus speech. In the face of creeping censorship, this basic and fundamental right should be guarded [8].
As someone who is at his deepest nonpartisan, and who prefers science, logical argument, critical and evidenced based thinking over political ideology, I find it impossible to argue for censorship and for restriction to anyone’s inalienable rights. If one takes freedom of speech as an axiom for the system of democracy, I find it almost impossible to formulate any argument, to conceive of any universe, for the restriction of free speech. Freedom of speech should be non-negotiable; just as it was realised in the Enlightenment, especially of the radical Enlightenment thinkers, as a very literal and direct response to norms that would otherwise undermine individual liberties. I think, for example, of Marquis de Condorcet, who, in his famous work titled Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, wrote on the interrelation between the progress of the sciences and enlightened social behaviour [9-11]: ‘all errors in politics and morals are based on philosophical errors and these in turn are connected with scientific errors’. If there is no logical and scientific basis for, and rational argument toward, a philosophical or political viewpoint, then that viewpoint maybe deemed erroneous. Henceforth, in contemporary terms, to defeat misinformation or racism or whatever else, is not to restrict information but to provide all the information and to argue on the basis of the facts.
That some people on the gentle left and far left (maybe it is just the new left, I don’t know) have even expressed criticism of such an idea, and have even promoted censorship, is quite revealing to me. Historically, there were significant movements of the left that used to be about championing freedom of speech and reduction of state control. Again, I think the historical irony is somewhat comical. Yes, the world faces many issues with disinformation and racial hate and whatever else. But one does not beat disinformation by restricting information; one beats disinformation by providing more information. One does not defeat racial hate by censoring language; one defeats racism and hate through open and reasoned channels of debate. My hope is the UK wakes from its slumber of unreason and restores the principles of its important and historically great traditions.
***
Although I don’t have the time nor the energy to synthesise all of these thoughts in a well formulated essay – as I have many calculations and research demands pressing on my time and on my mind this week – and thus I run the risk rambling, please allow me to share another reflection this morning.
I remember when I was growing up Liberal arts education used to be about learning to recognise and challenge assumptions. It used to be celebrated for these reason and, I, myself, was one of those people as a young a grade school student. My first science teacher promoted comfort in doubt, and in challenging ideas, whilst, as a good scientist, operatively acting in doubt and in question and in search to disprove! It’s like Feynman once said (again, what a brilliant human being he was), “Our freedom to doubt was born of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle. Permit us to question — to doubt, that’s all — not to be sure”.
Whilst acknowledging my bias in the privilege I had to attend such a school at such a time, and to experience learning with good teachers (as I know there are many bad schools with bad teachers), I am speaking objectively to the once celebrated vision of Liberal education to foster openness and comfort in freely challenging new and different ideas, to understand the merits of good arguments based on sound logic, evidence, and reason. How I learned it, or, I should say, how I taught myself in later years given those early foundations: history and culture were complex – the systems governing society, much like natural systems, were ubiquitous in complexity, and to view them through an ideological lens was to go against science and the rational project. The human temptation toward confirmation bias, toward simplicity, and thus to shut down unfamiliar modes of inquiry, to seek echo chambers and restrict the synthesise of different perspectives for the benefits of the comforts of some totalising worldview, should been seen as antithesis of the Enlightenment project. Fundamental to such a classical Liberal philosophy were the pillars on top of which modern Britain and the United States, and much of western Europe, were built: freedom of speech, open discourse, rigorous argument, the freedom to challenge any or all views that may be contrary to established consensus. These pillars were once the great pillars of modernity.
I am left to ask, in this moment, to what irony that “progressiveness” would erode these pillars?
***
To conclude, I have to say one more thing whilst reflecting on current events. There are a few policies that have been announced since Trump was elected that I think are well reasoned, can be argued logically, and appear generally sound. There are some others that I think are completely ridiculous and lack logical basis, which I find difficult to derive from any sample of evidence. We can talk about these latter ones another time. But one example of a policy that I really appreciate the sound of (though, whether it is actually realised as such is a completely different matter), is this free speech policy initiative:
References and further reading
[1] Joshua Cohen, 1993, Freedom of Expression, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 22(3): 207–263.
[2] Heinze, Eric, 2016, Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198759027.001.0001.
[3] Steven J. Heyman, 2009, Hate Speech, Public Discourse, and the First Amendment, in Hare and Weinstein 2009: 158–181 (ch. 9). doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199548781.003.0010.
[4] Cass R., Sunstein, 1993, Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech, New York: The Free Press.
[5] James, Weinstein, 2011, Participatory Democracy as the Central Value of American Free Speech Doctrine, Virginia Law Review, 97(3): 491–514.
[6] Post, Robert C., 1991, “Racist Speech, Democracy, and the First Amendment Free Speech and Religious, Racial, and Sexual Harassment”, William and Mary Law Review, 32(2): 267–328.
–––2011, Participatory Democracy as a Theory of Free Speech: A Reply Replies, Virginia Law Review, 97(3): 617–632.
[7] John, Rawls, 2005, Political Liberalism, Columbia Classics in Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press.
[8] Stephen, Bronner, 1995, The Great Divide: The Enlightenment and its Critics. In New Politics, Vol. 5, no. 3. Retrieved from http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue19/bronne19.htm
—– (2004). Reclaiming the Enlightenment: Toward a Politics of Radical Engagement. New York: Columbia University Press.
—– (2014). Moments of Decision: Political History and the Crises of Radicalism. New York: Bloomsbury.
[9] Mary Efrosini, Gregory, 2010. Freedom in French Enlightenment Thought. Peter Lang.
[10] William, Leiss, 1972/1994, The Domination of Nature. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
[11] Anthony, Pagden, 2013, The Enlightenment: And Why It Still Matters. London and New York: Random House.
[12] Israel, J. (2002). Radical Enlightenment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[13] Kenan, Malik, 1996, The Meaning of Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
*Cover image: Cicero Denounces Catiline in the Roman Senate by Cesare Maccari via Wiki.
