Critical Thinking and Freedom of Speech

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED TO FREED SPEECH

Here are some concepts that are worth to understand

YOU OFFEND ME
WHAT IS FREEDOM OF SPEECH?
HAS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE AMOK?
THE CULTURE OF APPOLOGY

1. YOU OFFEND ME

It seems that claiming offence has become the new fashion for avoidance of rational argument. The new culture of victimisation, is no more than an attempt to block freedom of speech. It seems that people are confusing offense with harm. Perhaps one of the best explanations for these two concepts is expressed by the philosopher Lou Marinoff in his book, The Big Questions.

IF YOU ARE OFFENDED ARE YOU HARMED?

In: Lou Marinoff (2004)-The Big Questions. How philosophy can change your life.Chapter 4: If you are offended are harmed? (page 83-110). Bloomsbury

Too many people experience needless dis-ease due to a handful of fundamental confusions.

With increasing frequency in recent times, people have confused privileges with rights, objectivity with subjectivity, wishing with willing, wanting with needing, price with worth; affluence with fulfilment, reality with appearance, and sameness with equality. Not to mention disease with dis-ease!

In this vein, people cause themselves and others a lot of unnecessary suffering by ignoring the distinction between offense and harm. The costs of this ignorance, both personal and societal, have been monumental. Before we get to the troubles this mistaken equivalency causes us, we must first clarify just what "harm" and "offense" are, and thus make clear the difference between them. If you can learn not to confuse the two, and learn how not to take offense, you might just spare yourself a lot of dis-ease, and maybe even harm. I am very serious about this: the confusion of offense with harm is itself a potentially harmful mistake, with dire consequences awaiting those who persist in making the error.

WHAT IS HARM?

Suppose you're riding the subway and somebody big and heavy accidentally steps on your foot. Suppose your foot is actually injured in the process - perhaps some small bones are broken. This is a harm; namely, a physical injury to your person.

Now, further suppose that you need healthy feet to do your work; perhaps you are a letter carrier, or a dancer. With a broken foot, you are temporarily prevented from earning your living. This is a collateral harm; namely, an obstacle to the fulfilment of your normal duties or interests, which disappears only when your injury disappears.

If the person who stepped on your foot says, "I'm sorry," you certainly have the power to accept the apology. However, the apology and your acceptance of it do not reverse the harm to your foot, or the
collateral harm to your career.

In America, the person who stepped on your foot might be liable for your medical costs as well as your loss of income, at least in a civil court. If they had planned to step on your foot, or had been hired by someone else to step on your foot, then (although the harms done to you are just the same as if it had been an accident) the perpetrator could be charged with a crime - some kind of assault, most likely.

So there is a difference between intentional versus unintentional harm. Either way, your foot is still injured. But whether it occurred by accident or on purpose makes a moral difference to you, as well as a legal difference to the system. A friend may harm you unintentionally, and you'd probably remain friends. A friend who harms you intentionally - well, that person is not really your friend at all.

Not all harms are caused by other people. Your foot could be injured by a dog, or a shark, or if you are struck by lightning, for example. You can't sue or press charges against a thunderstorm, of course, even though it may have harmed you. Forces of nature act impartially.

In any event, harm is done actively to an unwilling victim who does not have a chance to accept or reject the act, and who does not condone it. That is, victims of harm do not seek to be harmed. If someone tries to harm you, you may or may not be able to defend yourself. If someone apologizes for stepping on your foot, you can forgive them - but your foot will still hurt. The physical harm is done, and apologizing doesn't undo it.

WHAT IS OFFENSE?

Now suppose you're on the subway - with healthy feet - and you notice one of your fellow travellers staring at your toes protruding from your sandals. This seems a bit odd or threatening to you (a stare is a threat among adult primates), or at the very least rude, so you ask

--- "What are you staring at?"
--- "Your feet," comes the answer. "They are the ugliest feet I've ever seen; I can hardly believe my eyes!"
----You feel provoked, angry, and upset; you are experiencing dis-ease. You've been offended.

You have not, however, been harmed. Your feet are just fine, and upset; you are experiencing dis-ease. You've been offended. You have not, however, been harmed. Your feet are just fine, and there isn't any collateral harm either. You can still walk or dance, go about your daily life, perform your work unimpeded.

Now I have some news for you: Those who are offended play an active role in being offended. Offense is merely offered to someone, who must then decide whether to accept the insult or not. If someone tries to offend you, you always have the option to refuse to take offense, provided you know how to exercise it.

You cannot be offended without your own consent. (But you can be harmed without your consent. See the difference?) Thus, in a civil society, if we say something that unintentionally offends someone, we can always apologize by saying, "No offense intended" - and the other person can answer, "None taken." If someone apologizes for staring at your feet, you can forgive them and feel no insult. And if an offense is offered but not accepted, there is no offense, no harm, and, furthermore, no dis-ease.

AND NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET

Then there's the possibility of someone first stepping on your foot and then saying your feet are ugly. We would say they are "adding insult to injury." The very phrase indicates there is a significant difference between the two. To sum up: harm is a one-way street, while offense runs both ways.

The Roman Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius knew this very well. He had learned it from his teacher, the freed slave and great philosopher Epictetus: "We are not disturbed by things, but by the views we take of them."

Take away your opinion, and there is taken away the complaint "I have been offended."
Take away the complaint "I have been offended" and the offense is gone.
-Marcus Aurelius

AND NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET

To sum up: harm is a one-way street, while offense runs both ways.

You can be harmed against your will, but never offended against your will. That is a powerful distinction. And I urge you to consider the benefits of drawing it as often as necessary. You can maximize your ease by refusing to take offense, or maximize your dis-ease by seeking it at every possible turn. The Roman Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius knew this very well. He had learned it from his teacher, the freed slave and great philosopher Epictetus: "We are not disturbed by things, but by the views we take of them."

THE COSTS OF CONFUSION

As Americans and others have collectively lost sight of the distinction between offense and harm, taking every proffered offense as a definite harm, the costs are mounting. The courts are clogged with frivolous but lucrative lawsuits, rewarding people for perpetuating this confusion. Schoolchildren stage murderous attacks on their classmates and teachers in response to perceived slights.

Society has muzzled, and even prosecuted, artists, scholars, political activists, and scientists simply because their work wasn't to everyone's taste, infringing the civil liberties our nation is predicated upon and depriving the culture of everything from scholarly advances to entertainment to insight into our national character.

The rise of "political correctness" in the universities, which has now spread to corporations, governments, the justice system, and the military, has robbed us of our common sense and ability to seek and speak truths for fear of stepping on someone else's metaphorical toes. What may have begun as an exercise in instilling civic virtues such as politeness, which creates ease, has mutated into a totalitarian regime of thought control, which creates dis-ease. We're banning books, inflating grades, censoring scholars, refusing to make vital moral distinctions. Just as with personal issues, social and political dis-eases cannot begin to be eased until they are correctly identified. And they can never be correctly identified if people are afraid to know or speak the truth about their causes.

..…..

John Stuart Mill is just as clear about offense. While he believes you have a right not to be harmed, you have absolutely no right not to be offended. He upholds each person's liberty "of tastes and pursuits, of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character, of doing as we like, without impediment from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong." The initial idea here is to prevent' a majority - moral or otherwise-from dictating their tastes to a minority. And that includes everybody, because we are all minorities of one.

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Mill also offers a deeper reason why it's vital for us to tolerate offense but not harm. And that has to do with truth. Why is truth so important? Because if you had to choose between dis-ease and disease, or between feeling offended and being harmed, which choice would you make? Consistently, Mill would say that's also up to you. But as long as you'd rather prevent disease and avert harm, then Mill would also say you're better off knowing "offensive" truths and being safe rather than believing "inoffensive" falsehoods and being at risk.

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WHEN OFFENSE BECOMES HARM

It is important to note that under certain conditions, offense can become harmful. If you take offense on a daily basis, you may not beable to mobilize sufficient moral self-defense, and eventually therepeated offenses can have a cumulative harmful effect. That's especiallytrue to the emotionally vulnerable, such as children. Take, forexample, a child whose parents continually call him "stupid." To call a child stupid once is offensive; to repeat that on a daily basis isharmful. Why? The child needs to believe (for a time) that his parentsknow best, so he will probably behave in accord with their descriptionand expectations of him, at least until he grows up and accepts responsibility for describing himself. (Some people never do, and usually need psychological help.) The. child who is repeatedly told he is stupid may then behave as though he were stupid. Such deliberate underachievement, caused by the acceptance of repeated offense by one who is unable to defend himself, is obviously harmful to the child's better interests.

Adults can be verbally abused too, and "anger management" programs are not enough to prevent such abuse. Men and women alike could benefit from instruction in moral self-defense, learning how not to provoke, and how not to be provoked in the first place. Then there would be less anger to manage, all around. Both sexes need to understand each other's triggers much better than they do if they wish to prevent offense from escalating into harm.

Fortunately, with some philosophical help, adults at least can develop a greater capacity for moral self-defense, and learn how not to take offense even when offense is insistently or forcefully offered. Children need this too. Yet there has hardly been any demand for moral self-defense instruction in schools or corporations. That's a pity; it is desperately needed. An hour of MSD is worth a planeload of grief counselors. We must be able to tolerate a certain amount of offensiveness in our daily lives, but the emotionally vulnerable need to be able to remove themselves from the offender or the offending stimulus if too frequent or intense, lest it becomes harmful.

REFUSING TO TAKE OFFENSE

It is one's very sense of dignity and integrity as a human being that is at risk from perpetual offense, more so than one's ego, image, security, or identity. At the biological level, where emotions are primal, we are programmed to react strongly to offense via the ancient and powerful mechanism of "fight or flight." At the psychological level, where emotions manifest as feelings and interact with primitive thoughts, it is the psyche itself that can be metaphorically wounded by offenses to
infantile attachments (insulting your mother), egocentric perspective (insulting you), group identity (insulting your race or tribe), or deepest insecurities (insulting your religion or relationship with God). Here the conditioned response is retaliation or revenge.

At the philosophical level, however, reason and interpretation combine with will and imagination to rule over both biology and psychology, and neither genetic programming nor behavioral conditioning need hold sway. The higher powers of the mind encounter offense - and deflect it, make light of it, or keep it at bay with humor or principle. This is where you need to be able to discover the good in the bad and transcend both. Those who have fought their way through to this domain find little to their distaste. Whatever offends them never harms them. It is this free and open mind that forms the foundation of human dignity.

The good news is that, at least once we're past our formative years, we can refuse most of life's offenses with relative ease. In the civilized world, if you don't like a book, you can stop reading it. If you don't like a TV program, you can change the channel. If you don't like your professor, you can take a different course. In the civilized world, if you really dislike your spouse, neighbors, job, political party, country, or religion, you can change them too. We have fought long and hard to gain and preserve that much personal liberty. There's an argument to be made (though not right here) that we may even have too much liberty for our own good - but that's another story. In any event, with so much liberty, there is not really much excuse for taking offense - unless you prefer dis-ease to ease.

REFLECTIVE QUESTION: Is the current tendency to take offence at everything hampering free speech?