The Power of Free Speech: A Societal Paradox
BY: MAXINE PARK
At Exeter, we are faced with a paradox: the power of free speech leads us to misuse it in ways that ultimately render freedom of speech powerless.
The administration has given us the power of free speech. Students can organize discussions, coordinate protests and express their opinions through student-run papers and magazines. Despite these liberties, it has become clear, especially with the recent costume controversy and Grill protest, that many on both sides still feel that their perspectives are oppressed or unheard. This begs the question: what are we missing?
When the Founding Fathers ratified the First Amendment in 1791, they were convinced that justice could be pursued through intellectual dialogue. They prioritized freedom of speech to facilitate such dialogue between people of all perspectives—not simply between those in the majority (to be sure, the Founding Fathers’ definition of “people” needed significant revision over the centuries). However, freedom of speech is simply one dimension of effective dialogue. While communicating our beliefs is important, dialogue relies just as much on our ability to listen. With freedom of speech, we are not only given the power to express our own perceptions of truth, but we are also given the responsibility to listen to the perspectives of others.
Today, it appears we have forgotten this responsibility: the responsibility to listen. Why?
One reason is that technology has significantly altered the way we discuss, share and interact with information. As a generation that has grown up with Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and the like, we have been conditioned to receive and provide instantaneous responses. While immediacy is convenient, it degrades the quality of our dialogue with each other. With a simple push of a button, we share and respond to information without thought or responsibility. Furthermore, instantaneous responses do not facilitate time for rational thought. Since it is difficult to make both instant and informed decisions, we often find ourselves expressing our beliefs more emotionally than rationally. While understanding emotion is critical in dialogue, purely emotional responses are less credible and make others more dismissive of our opinions.
This leads us to a second predicament: habitual impulsiveness, caused by technology, has made us less willing to listen to opposing views. We have no difficulty exercising freedom of speech to fight for our own opinions through tweets and posts, but when responses are simple likes or dislikes, it is easy to ignore dissenters. Seldom do we step back and consider issues from our opponents’ points of view. Our psychological biases make it even more difficult to empathize with those who disagree with us. However, by immediately refuting the perspectives of our opponents, we neglect our responsibility to listen in the quest for dialogue that leads to understanding. In a way, we now erode freedom of speech through a new sort of censorship: the censorship of opinions by our own psychology.
How can we resolve this paradox? The answers may lie in understanding the psychology and the technology that causes it.
First, we need to slow down. Exeter is a community of activists and intellectuals, and as such, it is a community of passionate controversy. Our natural—and very human—response to disagreement is often annoyance or anger. When we’re driven solely by emotion, however, psychological biases overcome rationality. Instead, we must decelerate and give ourselves time to diffuse emotions. No matter how unjust a perspective may seem, a rational response is much more difficult to dispute than an emotional one.
Second, we need to be comfortable with discomfort. More specifically, we must learn to confront opposing opinions, not with disregard, but through dialogue. At assembly, author and free speech advocate Greg Lukianoff advised us to “seek out smart people with whom you disagree.” Dialogue requires us to be respectful and rational in presenting our opinions and to be receptive to the ideas of others. While we cannot reach agreement on everything, effective dialogue teaches us to respect and actively try to understand the beliefs of those who differ from us.
And while we must be receptive, we should also remember to be actively perceptive. This requires the critical thought to accurately and empirically assess the information we are presented with every day. With the sheer volume of information we receive through technology, it is easy to fall prey to our own psychological biases. In particular, we succumb to the confirmation bias, where we readily accept information that confirms what we believe and reject information that does not. This flawed logic will often lead to belief in misinformation, which in turn leads to misunderstanding.
Through dialogue, we challenge others; through listening, we challenge ourselves. Before rendering information invalid, consider this: Are the origins of this information credible? What biases may be affecting my opinions? By developing the skills to critically assess information, we can overcome innate psychological biases and evaluate information more objectively.
As a community, we can begin to engage in these practices and develop a constructive, inclusive dialogue. By listening to others, we can learn something about other perspectives that we have not taken the time to understand before. In return, others will be more willing to listen to our own perspectives. Only then can we all truly benefit from the power of free speech.
After all, free speech is only as powerful as our willingness to listen to it.