Why Free Speech? (Malik Speaking)
		Comment		Source		MAIN PATH: Vera
					Vera	Malik

This is all too easy. John asks how we can justify a liberal policy on free speech and all of a sudden liberals like Ann and conservatives like Fred are agreeing with each other. There's something wrong here.

Don't you see what's happened? You're all throwing out bits and pieces of standard rhetoric. These are things we learned to say as kids. Everything you've said about the search for truth, democracy, social progress, and individuality - it's part of our political mythology.

I'm not saying that it's all wrong. I'm saying that these are things we aren't taught to criticize. But right now criticism is our job. We should scrutinize our own myths.

Let me ask you, Ann, how you know that free speech leads to social progress? That's an empirical claim. Can you support it with historical evidence? How do we know that there haven't been cases in which the suppression of speech has contributed to progress? Someone might argue that the world would be much better off if the Nazis had been suppressed. And, Fred, let me ask you how we know that free speech is the best policy for discovering knowledge? Someone might argue that free speech leads to intellectual chaos.

We shouldn't accept the rhetoric of our political culture so quickly. These are tough issues. We should examine them and question what is usually taken as obvious.

Political mythology in America is especially powerful when it comes to race. We need to rethink the role of race in America from top to bottom. That's why some scholars are developing what they call critical race theory. I think their work is fascinating, and it applies directly to the problem of hate speech on an off campus.

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