Free Speech and Agreed Terms
While the USA has its centuries-old Constitution, British law (devolved into the nations as it is) has one essential Agreed Term, almost its First Amendment: not to impose your ideology on another
The majority of liberal-minded people in the West hold free speech as a sacred text, an Enlightenment value to rule them all. A central saying is 'I hate what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it', often attributed to the poet Voltaire but actually originating from his biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall, paraphrasing Voltaire's thinking.
There is an almost unassailable beauty in this phrase, and it reflects another central liberal democratic value – to do as thou wilt, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. In our 21st century however, the concept of harm has been expanded by many self-declared progressives to include harmful words, leading to hate speech laws, and compelled speech to enforce them.
This has already culminated in prison sentences for some (teachers) and a battalion of lost jobs for others (academics). Shola Mos-B, a television commentator in the UK, essentially celebrated the Queen's death in 2022, leading many to wonder what sort if speech it was they were trying to keep free, and why. Mos isn't alone in her almost daily incites to racial disharmony, bringing every subject on which she is asked back to her perceived evils of colonialism.
The terrorist attack by Hamas on southern Israel on 7th October 2023, and that State's subsequent response, led to something of a watershed in free speech thinking. When does freedom of speech become freedom to protest, are they the same thing; and what of the harm done by a hundreds-strong Palestinian crowd utterly intimidating a tiny Foreign Legion stall, selling poppies for Remembrance Day?
Home Secretary Suella Braverman termed a Palestine-supporting 'million man march' - called for Remembrance Sunday - a 'hate march', scandalizing the media Left. These marchers had already dubbed Israel's response to October 7th a 'genocide', echoing trans activist India Willoughby's claim to the label a few months earlier when s/he heard about various governments disallowing males to compete in women's sports.
Genocide and suicide are the two go-to words for signifying panic that things aren't going your own way, when every moral fibre in your body is vibrating with indignation that others may not entirely agree with your moral certitude. Genocide for what others are doing to 'us', and suicide for how what others are doing to us makes us feel. They are linguistic levers of power, easily trendable and increasingly signifying nothing.
South African billionaire Elon Musk and British writer/comedian Andrew Doyle are both 'free speech absolutists', and there is a tacit agreement that free speech involves having to hear things that might disgust you. Even these two influential brains must feel the crack of the mad sometimes, however, as this disgust is worked up on a constant basis by bots on social media. This has become the greatest test of free speech - much like the populist and culture war struggles of the early 21st century have been liberal democracy's greatest tests. Douglas Murray, a British hero of the libertarian right, was forthright in his calling for the deportation of anyone displaying blatant antisemitism in a Triggernometry interview, openly telling the government 'I don't want them here'.
So while there is the freedom to speak, and to protest, there is also an unwritten social code, which I call the doctrine of Agreed Terms. Since 2013 or thereabouts, the international left has been ramping up the pressure in intersectional grievance victimology, and changing language in law where they get the chance. From Occupy to #MeToo, Brexit to Black Lives Matter, Trump to Covid, no crisis has been wasted, with many suspected – and often proved - to have been thoroughly exploited to maximum advantage.
While the USA has its centuries-old Constitution, British law (devolved into the nations as it is) has one essential Agreed Term, almost its First Amendment: not to impose your ideology on another. For those growing up at the end of the 20th century, the social condition not to talk about religion or politics seemed staid and unnecessary, something holding progress back. The one way delivery of news and current affairs helped this status quo, and the then-establishment it all propped up.
With the advent of the 20th century, communication became multilateral, culminating in eight billion opinions expressible on X. Apparently much had been kept inside, and this was quickly weaponised by politicos of all interests, leading to huge profits due to algorithmically-inflamed posts and daily revelations of secrets kept. Liberal democracy's agreed terms were under assault by Mark Zuckerburg's 'move fast and break things' ethos; this Bolshevik/futurist/punk spirit expressing itself in a self-righteous 'let's make the world a better place' post-storm.
Politeness, reserve, stoicism, sensibleness, centrism and adulthood were again seen as boring, repressive and old. As the 'singularity' of the internet approached – i.e. all things in the world being controlled by it – the core of the culture war was in this frank progress vs genteel traditionalism divide. To that frank progress could be added political feminism, critical race theory, trans activism, the green movement and cancel culture. To genteel traditionalism could be added populism, nationalism, individualism, conservatism, genetic theory and heredity.
Liberal democracy had been able to accommodate all these in the past, but a quarter of a century of global migration, plus internal media criticism, has led to a lack of confidence in the core. While the countries of the far East and the Islamic states were able to celebrate their own ethnic integrity, those of Europe of North America were not; and if they did, to be labelled far right, alt.right etc. The culture wars of the 2010s were a bellwether for events such as October 7th, where the Agreed Term idea of tolerance was stretched to breaking point, and pro-Palestinian activists screamed at the White House gates, and draped flags around Trafalgar Square.
Free speech can only exist in a global world which holds onto its tribal loyalties with a set of agreed terms which apply in the physical world. Say whatever you like on X, within the realms of decency (another agreed term); but the moment you leave the house, you're obliged by the long-established culture in which you live to queue, comment or joke about whatever you want - and leave the flags at home.
Paintings 1998-2023 (video):
Compelling Speech - The Stammering Enigma available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Compelling-Speech-Stammering-Sean-Parker/dp/B0BW2QM7NY/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=