The People shall not be deprived ...

 

Book, book - GGE

I’m guessing that few Canadians watch what could be called the “talking heads” television on late night in the USA and Great Britain, or in the political-junkie cable/YouTube video-streaming world: Piers Morgan, Jon Stewart, Alex Jones, Brian Tyler Cohen, Jordan Peterson, etc., etc. Mostly their interviews air as podcasts and they are unabashedly conservative- or progressive-leaning. A favourite theme popping up regularly is that of free speech, and that’s not surprising as their podcasts are dependent on their right to speak with little restriction.

Free speech—in the USA,  the “first amendment” to the constitution—guarantees that:

 “The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed. The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good; nor from applying to the Legislature by petitions, or remonstrances, for redress of their grievances. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text)

Most often, these days, sentiments in the First Amendment is read as opinions, which easily interprets then as “you are allowed to say whatever you want.” Perhaps that’s covered by some form of an old joke:, “In Nazi Germany you could say anything … once!” but just as the Second Amendment is misused in defense of a gun-ownership-free-for-all, the misinterpretation of the First Amendment is making of “free speech” a socio-political moré, when that was never the intent. 

The amendments are guarantees that the federal government will not enact laws that prevent states from establishing “well-regulated [armed] militias,” and that the federal government will not pass a law that criminalizes public utterances, whatever the topic. This is demonstrated in the very grammar of the amendments; it’s not a politically-driven interpretation.

Often, conservative talking heads use examples of universities denying visiting speakers a platform on campus as an example of the breaking of the First Amendment. It’s not. If the federal government enacted a law which effectively denied the person in question any platform, period, that would break the intent of the First Amendment. This confusion has given rise to the “cancel culture” mentality as it applies to the right to refuse to hear speech we choose not to hear. 

University undergraduates should not leave university before gaining a grasp of the essentials of every governance model that’s been tried, but that doesn’t mean that they should under the rubric of “free speech,” be compelled to listen to advocacy for one political philosophy or another. Propaganda is attempted indoctrination, it’s not aimed at the development of sound judgment resting on reliable evidence.

In the same amendment, the federal government is prohibited from enacting a law curtailing religious belief: Christian churches aren’t obligated to give equal time to other religions; their right to hold to their opinion that theirs is the only true faith hasn’t been abridged. Likewise, a university, being a public institution bound to uphold the laws and the rights of the state and nation, has a right—indeed an obligation—to ensure that curriculum and public obligation, expressed through the ballot box, match. Students are free to choose their university; many choose a parochial university, most a public institution. They attend or skip classes and events as they wish. It’s at these levels that who will and who will not be heard is ultimately made.

BUT, both faiths and universities must tread thoughtfully. We are a multicultural, multifaith democracy in Canada: to deny a congregation (say) an education on other faiths, to deny university students accurate knowledge of political, social alternatives is likewise foolish when the role of the citizen in a democracy like Canada is as critical as it is. However institutions walk the free speech/tailored-influences continuum, a steady diet of single-minded propaganda is unhealthy in a democracy. But the law cannot uphold the standards; only a generosity of spirit and courteous dialogue can do that. That—in a democracy—is the core curriculum so badly neglected these days.

Free speech is, after all, not license. You can go back to James 3: 1-12, then on to libel, slander, fraud and coercion laws to learn that weaponized speech is as dangerous as an AK-15, maybe even more so; that it can be means for harming individuals or masses of others practically goes without saying. 

The wary among us will recognize a flaw in much of the “free speech propaganda,” namely that it seeks to reduce or eliminate the consequences of uttering false, coercive, biased speech, the promulgation of misinformation and slanted or incomplete information to gain a political end. That one should be able to say publicly that which is untrue without consequences (so clearly illustrated in the Donald-Trump-before-the-law saga unfolding right now) is a lot like donating blankets to indigenous tribes but lacing them with the variola (smallpox) virus first. There exists no cover for weaponized speech in the First Amendment, or in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Granted, Free Speech can become a slippery subject. Jordan Peterson has taken a stand against what he calls “compelled speech” in Bill C-16, which extends non-discrimination provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to trans-gender individuals. It’s an oddity of the English language that gives rise to an apparent need for changing pronouns so that neither biological maleness nor femaleness is implied. (“Davida is feeling sick, so {she? he? they? herm?} won’t be coming.”) The  vast majority of Canadians don’t care if—when others talk about them—the pronoun used gives away their biological sex; a minority are made uncomfortable by this and wish people would use non-gender-specific pronouns when speaking about them. Peterson is wrong when he says using “they” instead of “he” or “she” is compelled speech; it only becomes an infraction when it plays into a situation of discrimination—in employment, college admittance, etc. As I understand Peterson, if a client or student would personally ask him to use a gender-neutral pronoun like “they,” he would oblige them. So would I, even though the use of a traditionally-plural pronoun connecting to a singular antecedent rasps across my English teacher sensitivities. I’ve already almost gotten over it!

Speech and writing are thought-conveyances; a bus is a physical-transport conveyance. A bus can be used to run over people you don’t like; speech can be the vehicle for gifting your good thoughts to others, but can also be the tool for inflicting slanderous, libelous, hurtful, careless thoughts upon them.

Before we decide where the boundaries for “what you can say freely” are to be found, we ought to get a better grasp on speech itself as a subject. A shallow “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” understanding is not enough knowledge of speech and writing processes and effects for a successful democratic community to base an understanding of what “free speech” really ought to mean.

But then, it’s on the petty mounds that we choose to fight and die because the mountains are too formidable and high for us to challenge. Propaganda in the political and commercial spheres is a treacherous speech mountain; reflexive pronouns, bathrooms, and sports participation for trans-gender persons are mole hills by comparison and capable of being conquered. (Some starting suggestions, re- pronouns:  develop and teach a dozen or so new pronouns to replace the sex-specific ones and get used to them gradually through schools; bathrooms: remove urinals and replace them and the current cubicles with booths with real walls and doors, substitute TOILETS for the MEN and WOMEN signs; let sports administrations decide if in their case a restriction on male to female gender transitioners poses a threat to their sport’s integrity.)

Next to the bare basics of reading, writing, speaking fluently, listening with understanding, it strikes me that negotiating skill is the most important language learning there is, particularly for sustaining a functioning democracy. Climate change, for instance, is almost universally accepted as real and human-contributed, if not human-made. The news is filled with speech on the subject: the federal voice is telling us that a new directive to fossil fuel industries to reduce the carbon content of fuels will help. Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Maritime provinces are appealing for the repeal of this policy since it will have a negative economic effect. There are many options for reducing CO² emissions, but ranking them, choosing among them requires negotiation that is less partisan and arbitrary than what we’ve become used to.

HOW TO TEACH LANGUAGE INDIFFERENCE: Give your 25 Grade 11 students Catcher in the Rye; stand in front of the rows of desks, read portions to them and explain “what they mean.”

HOW TO TEACH LANGUAGE FLUENCY AND NEGOTIATION SKILLS: Replace the desks with round tables for four. Have the four at each table read aloud selected portions of the first chapter. Have each table come up with a three-point plan of things to do first if this classroom of people were to find themselves shipwrecked on an uninhabited, jungle island, while you go table to table coaching their discussions. They should be conscious that they’re practicing negotiation just as one would practice the keyboard if piano playing was the goal.

My hat is off to the great teachers and parents who are being deliberate mentors in the art of negotiation, since it’s in the exercise of that art that free speech finally makes absolute good sense!