Freedom of speech needed, but the reality is little understood

John Stuart Mill.

Free speech has been touted as something to be explored in the lead up to Australia’s September federal election.

Many long dead thinkers and philosophers, along with those who still expound their views, would be amused.

Freedom of speech is the essence of community, but it seems to have fallen foul of gentility, toleration, correctness and a misplaced sense of reasonableness and decency leaving us with a modern world loaded with half-truths and a strange distortion of reality.

The question is whether or not the community really wants free speech or beyond that, understands what the true unvarnished exercise of opinion actually means.

Contemporary society appears to be yet intellectually immature and so not ready, or consequently, to hear opinions with which many, or a minority, may vehemently disagree.

Disagreement is not the difficulty, rather it is how people react and respond to an opinion that offends personal morals or jars with deeply held beliefs.

Examples abound of people who are unhappy with another’s views or behaviour and their response to that, either intellectually or physically, is equal, or worse, than that of the people they damn.

Writing in “The Defence of Freedom of Speech: from Ancient Greece to Andrew Bolt” author Chris Berg said: “Freedom a speech has been, and still is, one of our most vital liberties. If we discard it, we critically undermine the moral foundations of liberal democracy, and lose our basic human individuality”.

Eighteenth century Swiss-born French politician, Benjamin Constant, who often spoke about freedom of speech, argued that a society able to share opinions freely was a stable one.

The idea that we should engage with life, embed ourselves in our communities and voice our views was common in the writing of British philosopher, John Stuart Mill.

As an advocate of free speech, he said: “He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself employs all his faculties.”

Berg has pointed out that free expression helps society obtain truths, but, he argues, society may not want to prioritise truth discovery.

Personal experience reinforces Berg’s view for the truth does not always bring personal comfort as reality is frequently contrary to the ease, imagined or otherwise, that many seek.

Alcohol has a damning impact on society and yet it is so ingrained in lifestyles that most, from the decision makers down, overlook and seemingly ignore its societal implications.

Similarly, and with even more unfavourable implications for humanity, is the damage we have done to the atmosphere; an injury that threatens all species and yet it is a truth we don’t seem to want.