Michael McGuire: We’re living in a golden age of free speech
LOOK at social media, talking heads on television, or listen to radio and our pollies. The rarest thing is unexpressed opinion, yet we’ve become intolerant of other viewpoints, writes Michael McGuire.
HAS there ever been a time when as a society we have enjoyed so much freedom of speech?
So many people getting to say exactly what they want as often as they want. It really is a golden age of self expression.
Look at Twitter on any given day. Facebook. Instagram. Look at the comments at the bottom of this column.
Listen to talkback radio. Watch the multitude of talking heads on television. Or even in newspapers. Look at me, I’m doing it right now. The rarest thing in the world these days is an unexpressed opinion.
Here’s a few opinions that have been expressed in a public forum.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott: “Climate change itself is probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm.”
Prime ministerial candidate Peter Dutton: “The reality is people are scared to go out to restaurants of a night time because they’re followed home by these gangs, home invasion and cars are stolen.”
Union boss John Setka on Father’s Day tweeted a picture of his children holding a sign which said “Go get f****d”.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson about a nine-year-old girl sitting for the national anthem: “I’d give her a kick up the backside. This kid is headed down the wrong path and I blame the parents for it, for encouraging this. No. Take her out of school.”
You have to wonder what more people want to say? But, still so many people apparently feel constrained. Just yearning to express another nugget of wisdom. But it’s never quite clear what it is they feel they are being held back from saying. It must be an inarticulate kind of rage.
The outcome is that people are being forced deeper and deeper into whatever corner they have chosen, which means there is much less room for sensible debate or even the opportunity to change opinions as facts are known.
The problem is not really one of freedom of speech. The problem is everyone else’s freedom of speech. What we don’t like is when people disagree with us.
We are becoming increasingly intolerant of other people’s opinions.
Perhaps that’s because in the last few decades there are sections of our society that are expressing their own right to freedom of speech more than ever before.
Whether that’s women, various ethnic and religious groups, indigenous people or the broader gay community. There are more voices, louder voices being heard in a way that just wasn’t the case 10, 20 or 30 years ago. And there is some resentment that comes with that.
And with that comes the idea that political correctness has taken over or that anyone who raises their voice against, say a cartoon that may be perceived as being racist, is engaging in “virtue signalling”, that most inane of terms. Both political correctness and virtue signalling are phrases designed to limit freedom of speech. To denigrate an idea, not debate it. And what we need is more debate, not less.
Of course, there are threats to freedom of speech and we need to be aware of them. Former High Court chief justice Robert French in a speech at Darwin Uni this week said universities needed to be more open to accepting different points of view.
“The better approach is to encourage and maintain a robust culture of open speech and discussion even though it may involve people hearing views that they find offensive or hurtful,’’ he said.
Universities need to be cultivating debate, not restricting it.
Anyway, there are far bigger threats to freedom of speech than whatever you believe political correctness to be. Defamation laws for one that can be employed for trivial purposes by the powerful.
That champion of free speech, and kicking the backsides of nine-year-olds, Pauline Hanson, once sued for a song she didn’t like.
Can’t be much more precious than that. And she is not alone to use the courts to prove a fundamental lack of a sense of humour.
We need to hang on to our right to free expression, but distorting what freedom of speech is actually only damages the argument.
Michael McGuire is a journalist for The Adelaide Advertiser.