Every time I read a column by Ken White, I recognize his ability to say what I think. He finds ways to clarify my own thoughts, in ways that I often cannot.
Admirable clarity. It feels as if you really worked on this (that's a compliment). Please put it on all platforms. It would help discussion everywhere if people adopted these categories and, of course, could manage to distinguish them. Not a given.
Great article! Your comment on the core bargain of free speech is excellent. But it looks to me like many modern discussions are intentionally blurring the FSR/FSC/SD lines in quite a goal-oriented way.
Many people make clear that by "free speech," they mean: "I should be free to say whatever I want, and you should be free to write that down." And they aren't too fussed about whether it's a legal, utilitarian, or ethical argument that convinces others that this proposition is OK.
This is quite literally one of the best arguments I have ever encountered on behalf of anything. I’ve been obsessively thinking about this topic for decades and reading this short piece makes me feel like I was wasting my time that whole time.
It’s going to be tempting from now on to tell people “please don’t say one more fucking word about free speech before reading Ken White’s article”
A good discussion. An additional complication is where rights and culture interact in government owned spaces like public universities that can become really unclear.
Great insights, Ken. Thank you for distinguishing and providing examples, to provide perspective and call us to be accountable for our own behavior. We can forget, from day to day, that we’re not just applying principles bequeathed to us, we’re defining and redefining them for ourselves and future generations. That’s one consequence, I think, of clarifying values we debate, as we debate them. This paragraph nails it:
“Debates that clearly identify FSR, FSC, and SD are useful and sometimes even illuminating. They have the potential to teach people about their civil rights and about American government. They can persuade our fellow citizens about how to balance different interests, or at least clarify how we reach our personal outcomes on difficult social and cultural questions.“
Thanks for the interesting article. I enjoyed the thoughtful discussion of a subject which seems to be widely misunderstood. Too many folks have the attitude that if they don’t agree with something then you can’t say it.
I think this is great for clarification of the speech issue, and a lot of conservatives and libertarians will find it useful. Sadly, fewer on the left are likely to see its utility, which is a great pity.
Please forward to Adam Schiff, your regional neighbor. For changing 230, in a very serious voice. Due to Twitter boloney. Junior Dick Durbin. What a tool.
Thank you. This is excellent, even as someone outside the US where different laws apply, the same principles and distinctions seem useful.
I think the other category that it's worth considering is editorial rights and judgement.
It's not a breach of a writer's freedom of speech of any sort for their editor to insist on changes before an article or a book can be published, though I would regard it as being against a free speech culture for them to insist on contract clauses that would prevent the author from publishing elsewhere in the case of a complete breakdown of relations.
The question of to what degree the provision of a platform for speech is a matter of editorial judgement and to what degree it is a matter of a free speech culture (or, where it's a governmental authority providing the platform, a matter of free speech rights) is a tricky question. The extremes of this question are pretty clear - an editor at a newspaper spiking an column because the views it expresses are too far from the editorial line of the newspaper is clearly just a matter of judgment, at the other end a soap company trying to apply restrictions on what political speech can be made by speakers standing on their soapboxes is transparently an infringement of free speech culture (a very literal version of deplatforming).
There are lots of more difficult cases in between, like the college inviting someone to speak. There is clearly some judgement being applied in who gets offered an honorarium to make a speech to students, and some of that judgement is in the editorial category that does not infringe on free speech culture ("is the speaker any good at speaking?" etc), but the question of whether the speaker's speech is compatible with the values the college is trying to instil into the students is capable of being quite hostile to a free speech culture.
As an aside, I don't see a fundamental difference in values between offering a slot to speak and then withdrawing it and not offering a slot in the first place - and, obviously, colleges offer few speaking slots relative to the universe of possible speakers. I generally find patterns of speakers (e.g. no conservatives, no Jewish speakers, no LGBT+ speakers, etc) to be more enlightening than individual decisions.
Thank you for this article, Ken. You have made the areas of free speech much more understandable. I hope more people read this.
Every time I read a column by Ken White, I recognize his ability to say what I think. He finds ways to clarify my own thoughts, in ways that I often cannot.
Unfortunately, the people who most need to understand this can't.
Admirable clarity. It feels as if you really worked on this (that's a compliment). Please put it on all platforms. It would help discussion everywhere if people adopted these categories and, of course, could manage to distinguish them. Not a given.
Great article! Your comment on the core bargain of free speech is excellent. But it looks to me like many modern discussions are intentionally blurring the FSR/FSC/SD lines in quite a goal-oriented way.
Many people make clear that by "free speech," they mean: "I should be free to say whatever I want, and you should be free to write that down." And they aren't too fussed about whether it's a legal, utilitarian, or ethical argument that convinces others that this proposition is OK.
This is quite literally one of the best arguments I have ever encountered on behalf of anything. I’ve been obsessively thinking about this topic for decades and reading this short piece makes me feel like I was wasting my time that whole time.
It’s going to be tempting from now on to tell people “please don’t say one more fucking word about free speech before reading Ken White’s article”
I am always astounded at how well you write. I am linking to this on my social media. I encourage all to do the same.
A good discussion. An additional complication is where rights and culture interact in government owned spaces like public universities that can become really unclear.
Great insights, Ken. Thank you for distinguishing and providing examples, to provide perspective and call us to be accountable for our own behavior. We can forget, from day to day, that we’re not just applying principles bequeathed to us, we’re defining and redefining them for ourselves and future generations. That’s one consequence, I think, of clarifying values we debate, as we debate them. This paragraph nails it:
“Debates that clearly identify FSR, FSC, and SD are useful and sometimes even illuminating. They have the potential to teach people about their civil rights and about American government. They can persuade our fellow citizens about how to balance different interests, or at least clarify how we reach our personal outcomes on difficult social and cultural questions.“
Great article. So glad you try to educate the public. Wish your pieces were required in high school civics classes.
Ken, A model of clarity. Thank you for this. Hope you are posting promos for your newsletter to John Mastodon's website! :)
Thanks for the interesting article. I enjoyed the thoughtful discussion of a subject which seems to be widely misunderstood. Too many folks have the attitude that if they don’t agree with something then you can’t say it.
I think this is great for clarification of the speech issue, and a lot of conservatives and libertarians will find it useful. Sadly, fewer on the left are likely to see its utility, which is a great pity.
Thank you for this! It's helpful.
Please forward to Adam Schiff, your regional neighbor. For changing 230, in a very serious voice. Due to Twitter boloney. Junior Dick Durbin. What a tool.
Thank you. This is excellent, even as someone outside the US where different laws apply, the same principles and distinctions seem useful.
I think the other category that it's worth considering is editorial rights and judgement.
It's not a breach of a writer's freedom of speech of any sort for their editor to insist on changes before an article or a book can be published, though I would regard it as being against a free speech culture for them to insist on contract clauses that would prevent the author from publishing elsewhere in the case of a complete breakdown of relations.
The question of to what degree the provision of a platform for speech is a matter of editorial judgement and to what degree it is a matter of a free speech culture (or, where it's a governmental authority providing the platform, a matter of free speech rights) is a tricky question. The extremes of this question are pretty clear - an editor at a newspaper spiking an column because the views it expresses are too far from the editorial line of the newspaper is clearly just a matter of judgment, at the other end a soap company trying to apply restrictions on what political speech can be made by speakers standing on their soapboxes is transparently an infringement of free speech culture (a very literal version of deplatforming).
There are lots of more difficult cases in between, like the college inviting someone to speak. There is clearly some judgement being applied in who gets offered an honorarium to make a speech to students, and some of that judgement is in the editorial category that does not infringe on free speech culture ("is the speaker any good at speaking?" etc), but the question of whether the speaker's speech is compatible with the values the college is trying to instil into the students is capable of being quite hostile to a free speech culture.
As an aside, I don't see a fundamental difference in values between offering a slot to speak and then withdrawing it and not offering a slot in the first place - and, obviously, colleges offer few speaking slots relative to the universe of possible speakers. I generally find patterns of speakers (e.g. no conservatives, no Jewish speakers, no LGBT+ speakers, etc) to be more enlightening than individual decisions.