Free Market Ideology Goes Off the Reservation

An Inadequate Defence of Free Speech

Correct Speech vs Free Speech.  There is a world of difference between these two.  Increasingly our society insists upon Correct Speech--which is also known as Politically Correct Speech, or PC for short.  

Correct Speech represents the ideas, opinions, or preferences which are endorsed by academia, women's journals, the media in general, and politicians on soap boxes.  Correct Speech rarely argues its positions: it pronounces them then moves rapidly to declaim opposing ideas as evil, hateful, disruptive, discriminatory, and so forth.  Argument against the opinions and views of Correct Speech amounts to little more than Correct Speechers shouting down contrary views, making the classic blunder that volume of speech witnesses its truth.

But the Correct Speech brigade has gone one step further.  It insists that the enunciation of contrary views in and of itself represents offensive behaviour.  And Correct Speechers are a thin skinned lot.  They take offence if a feather were to alight upon their little fingers.  How gross!  How Horrible! How Disgusting. How Offensive is that!

Once the "Offensive" button has been pushed, the non-existent "argument" is over.  Something has to be evil, wrong, harmful, and dangerous if it is offensive.  It's the QED moment.

The Correct Speech movement has got so smothering, so controlling that even an academic from Auckland University has ventured out into the public square to defend one of the most fundamental rights protecting human being against tyranny: the right of Free Speech.

A commercial law expert has hit out at political correctness, saying it is in danger of putting a dampener on free speech.  Mark Keating, senior lecturer in commercial law at the University of Auckland Business School, says an increasing trend in society to vilify those who make unpopular statements is "PC gone too far."

"To suppress dangerous ideas is to make them even more dangerous, "he says. "The mere fact people can express their views - even unpopular ones - is a kind of safety valve and releases pressure that could otherwise erupt into violence.  Critics of these kinds of statements have demonstrated a failure to properly understand the role unpopular speech plays in our liberal democracy," he says.  [NZ Herald]

All well and good.  It's pleasing to see someone from academia step up to the plate.  But, sadly, Mr Keating suddenly ventures into what amounts to an inane defence of Free Speech.

"The right to free speech is based upon the 'marketplace of ideas' and no opinion is inherently good or bad," he says. "The truth of any view is best determined by the competition between ideas in free and open public debate."

So, Mr Keating there is nothing "inherently good or bad" in the notion that "Jews should be killed".  Why does Mr Keating make that absurd claim?  Because he thinks that the worth, or veracity, or justice of the notion that "all Jews should be killed" will be demonstrated in the free competition of all ideas in the "marketplace" of thought or opinion.

In other words, Mr Keating implies that the truthfulness or justice or worthiness of an idea is demonstrated or "proved" by whether a majority of people adopt it, or approve it.  Take for example the idea that minority opinions should be censored and silenced--somewhat like the way the  Correct Speech brigade insists upon today--Mr Keating's "competition of ideas" approach would be forced to endorse the idea.  After all, the market place of ideas has spoken.  It is a neutral objective arbiter on what ideas are worthy or truthful.

We have heard a number of defences offered for the vital important of free speech to protect human freedom.  The "arbitration of competition operating in the marketplace of ideas" has to rate as one of the more inane and self-contradictory ever put forward.  And our criticism would be valid and true even if 99.99 percent of the population were, after intense competition and debate, to accept Mr Keating's argument.

Fortunately, Mr Keating moved on to more solid ground.  So, in the interests of publicly commending what is commendable, we offer the following section:

He says typically, criticism is less about attacking the merits of an idea, rather it is saying "how dare he or she say that".  But it is unnecessary and wrong to try to suppress even unacceptable views on the grounds they are offensive. While there is a legal right to free speech, there is no legal right not to be offended.

Much more on point.