The recent resignation of The New York Times Editorial Page editor was one of the events that triggered a discussion of free expression and allowing conflicting ideas to compete in an open marketplace of ideas.
Opposition to the concept of a free-flowing marketplace of ideas tend to come from a vocal cadre of mostly left-leaning and mostly young (under 50) people who seem to want to censor, shut down or cancel what they considered to be hate speech (articles or social media posts), speech they consider racist, speech that promotes right-wing conspiracy theories or speech that favors the use of violence, such as The New York Times Op-Ed piece titled “Tom Cotton: Send in the Troops.”
At a time in our country’s history when people are typically sequestered at home and lonely, a time when a majority of Americans (especially sports fans) support the Black Lives Matter movement against police violence against Black people, a time when outrageous misinformation and hateful opinions are shared on social media and a time when our country’s leadership has failed to lead during a lethal pandemic, it is understandable that people are frustrated and enraged and want to cancel conflicting conversations and diss dissenting dialogues.
When enraged, people often abandon rationality and yearn to purge from sight and consciousness any contrary opinions or ideas, particularly if those ideas are complex, as explained by George Will of the Washington Post in his column titled “Authoritarianism and the politics of emotion.” Also, on social media, where a majority of Americans get their news, confirmation bias and the titillation of the simplistic and outrageous allows people not only to ignore or cancel opposing views but also to actively promote positions they support, no matter how irrational.
On the other hand, although it is extremely difficult to discard emotion in a time of great national stress, if we are able to approach the issue of freedom of expression rationally, it is my view that we have to adhere to the liberal principle of encouraging dialogue, debate and discussion of opposing views, as articulated by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, in which he argues that opinions should never be suppressed.
I first encountered Mills’ ideas on liberty when I earned my master’s degree in Journalism, and also was able to debate these ideas with thoughtful students when I taught a graduate class on Media Ethics at The New School. What I learned was that suppressing or canceling a dialogue about important issues often comes from a defensive sense of insecurity or, even more likely, from a personalization of the issues. The faulty, emotion-driven, personalizing thinking seems to be “I hate this awful person; therefore, I have to hate all of their ideas.”
If you support, as I do, the notion that there should be a free and open exchange of opposing views in the marketplace of ideas, does this mean the free, open exchange of all ideas? Are there some ideas or positions that should be excluded? My answer is “yes.”
OK, the logical next question is what ideas should be excluded. I don’t think you can produce a list of ideas that should be excluded because any such specific list would be so contentious that the argument over each item on the list would be interminable and, thus, unresolvable. Instead of a list of ideas that should be excluded from a free-expression dialogue, I believe a broad concept should be applied – decency.
Decent people respect others’ viewpoints, decent people listen to their opponents and are open to ideas and to learning, decent people are not bullies, decent people are not racist, decent people are not going to shout “fire” in a crowded theater and decent people will try to follow Congressman and civil rights leader, John Lewis’ advice as expressed in The New York Times Op-Ed piece he wrote to be published on the day of his funeral: “So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”
