Andrew Doyle - Free Speech And Why It Matters | Modern Wisdom Podcast #283

It is the foundation of all of our freedoms. There can be no other freedoms. Any progress that has ever been made in terms of the advancement of personal liberty and, and social liberty has come through the exercise of free speech. (wind blows)

What is free speech? Is it the same as being able to say anything without repercussions?

Oh, it depends what you mean by repercussions. So, uh, if by repercussions you mean that the state can arrest you, uh, and lock you up or fine you, or you can be, uh, harassed, threatened, intimidated, uh, pushed out of your job, then no, those are not acceptable repercussions in a liberal society. But if you mean by repercussions criticism, ridicule, uh, that kind of thing, in other words, more speech in response to your speech, even protest in response to your speech, then, uh, y- of course you have absolutely no right. Because when people protest against your form of speech, th- they're exercising their own free speech. That is absolutely fine as well, yeah. I think it's qu- actually quite simple at this point, but this is a point that is missed all the time. It's really straightforward. Uh, in a, in a, in a, in a liberal system, liberal society, and this is something that, that has been completely overlooked, anyone should be able to say whatever they want, uh, and then people are able to say what they want in turn in response. And that's how, that's how it should work. So when you hear, um, particularly writers for The Guardian talking about how the thing is when people talk about free speech what they really mean is they want consequence free speech, for a start, no one has ever said that. I mean, literally no one has ever said that. So this is an incredible ... It's not even so much of a straw man. It's too insubstantial even to be made of straw. There's literally nobody-

(laughs)

... who comes close to saying that.

It's the invisible man, yeah. (laughs)

It's, it's the invisible man. Like, no one, no one has ever said that. (laughs)

(laughs)

That they want the right to say whatever they want without someone criticizing them back. No one's ever said that. And if they have, then they're deranged and they're, they're, it, we're talking about a fringe group of people. So that has to be put to rest, that, that, that overt lie. Um, so no, free, free speech is the right to say whatever you want and for people to say whatever they want back to you.

Why does it matter?

Because it is the bedrock of a liberal democracy. It is the, it is the, it is the, the foundation of all of our freedoms. There can be no other freedoms. Any, any progress that has ever been made in terms of the advancement of personal liberty and, and social liberty has come through the exercise of free speech, of saying what you want, expressing your thoughts. It is the root to personal autonomy. If you can't, uh, express what you, what you feel about something, then you cannot develop. We cannot innovate without free speech. There can be no innovation. There has never been innovation without, without the freedom to say what you want and particularly to say controversial things. That's how innovation happens. You can't reason without speech, because, uh, the very act of reason is typically a collaborative effort. The, the, the way that we evolve and learn is through, uh, uh, discussion with other people and expressing ideas and getting it wrong and making mistakes, and all of that is part of it. Um, so it, it is the linchpin of absolutely everything that we value if we value freedom. And that's why it is, it is alarming to me that people are so cavalier about it. I mean, you hear a lot of people online when they want ... Free speech skeptics, I call them, you know, when they, when they call it freeze peach, you know, that really original pun, and they sometimes have an image of a peach frozen in an ice cube. They say, "Oh, look at you with your freeze peach." For a start, it's the most unimaginative ... And I mean, th- you know, they should be banned just for criminal unoriginality, right? But they, they, they say this stuff. Um, but to be so cavalier about such a foundational principle is actually pretty damn disturbing. It's like they don't care and they don't realize that they're, they are themselves dependent on, on the r- on their right to free speech in order to, to behave like dickheads. They, they need to have that right too. Um, so, you know, it's, people shouldn't-