Free Speech Is More Important Than Whataboutism
Hypocrisy arguments are the bane of intelligent discourse
The following scenario seems to play out on a weekly basis. Some left wing person or organization will be punished or threatened, or some action will be taken against a lefty or liberal whose views offend conservatives. And then, like clockwork a whole bunch of people who have spent the rest of every week saying cancel culture doesn’t exist or that conservatives’ concerns about free speech are overblown will say “see, this is the REAL cancel culture”. You can almost imagine them in their state of arousal as they type this.
Yep, you really got the conservatives. You showed them!
Let’s grant that almost everyone tends to favor stronger protection of speech on their own side and weaker protection of opponents’ speech. Some of this is, of course, cynical- when you have power you want to use it. But some of this is unavoidable and completely sincere- part of believing in things is the feeling that what you believe in is good and the ideas of people who disagree with you are dangerous. And there always are some extremists out there you can point to in support of your argument that the other guys’ speech is dangerous, whether it’s the people who stormed the Capitol or people who used Black Lives Matter protests as a pretext for looting and property destruction.
But still, pointing out this hypocrisy is the least interesting thing you can possibly say about free speech. We all know it exists, most of us know where it comes from, and many of us partake in it. Indeed, hypocrisy arguments are really pernicious, because they allow people to criticize stuff they don’t actually think is wrong. Case in point- when Phyllis Schlafly died, many liberals wrote or tweeted about what a hypocrite she was because she had a career while inveighing against women having careers. But this was ridiculous- does any liberal actually believe that conservative women shouldn’t have careers? Indeed, in any other context, criticizing a woman for having a career would be rightly condemned by liberals. But the concept of hypocrisy makes it seem OK to argue stuff you don’t actually believe in.
If you believe in free speech, you should be extremely troubled by conservative attempts to suppress it. E.g., right now, the Minnesota and Florida legislatures are considering bills to punish people for engaging in anti-police protests. Those bills are a threat to free speech. (Note as well that “a threat to free speech” is different from “violates the First Amendment”. Even if these bills were to become law and were to be upheld in court, they would still pose a threat to free speech because they seek to punish people for their political viewpoints.) I specifically wrote about conservatives who threaten academic freedom. Conservatives have often looked for ways to go after people who say things they don’t like.
But, of course, so have liberals. The Everything Oppresses cancel culture thread is a good running tally of cancel culture incidents. You can cavil with some of their specific examples, but there are hundreds of them, and we are way beyond the point where anyone can really say that cancel culture doesn’t exist or that the “real” cancel culture is only on the right.
There is enough material here that we need to have real conversations about free speech. For example, people should be getting fired for stuff they say, unless there’s some very narrowly defined and very specific harm that is caused by it. We also have to talk about what legislatures are doing, colleges, school boards, and yes, police departments as well. And I think the purpose of the Whataboutism and the constant hypocrisy arguments is not to defend cancel culture on the merits, but to simply prevent that discussion from taking place. Because if the only people who can ever comment on an issue are the folks who are completely pure and totally consistent, then that excludes most humans.
Free speech is tough. There’s always going to be expression that is very dangerous. But there’s also always going to be the temptation to define whatever someone doesn’t like or worries might persuade people as dangerous and unprotected. The only way to muddle through is to keep talking to each other. Which was exactly why we have free speech in the first place.