Learning to Love the Shit-Stirrer

By London Stereoscopic Company - Hulton Archive, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30913285

The liberty to speak one’s mind is not absolute, nor is it necessarily the highest priority when it conflicts with other values. John Stuart Mill believes that free speech is valuable in creating a dynamic, creative and progressive society, even as he acknowledges the need for limits in situations such as when a society is under threat from enemies[1] or when speech can lead to harmful actions.[2] While we may seem to be able to speak more freely today than in Mill’s time, there remain threats to free speech, with the decline of the mainstream media, attacks on and detention of journalists[3], the rise of echo-chambers on social media platforms reducing the access to alternative views, and the prevalence of fake news. There are potentially also chilling effects[4] from laws putatively put in place to prevent harm but may stifle free speech, such as hate speech laws in Europe and Singapore’s Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act.

The need for such laws demonstrates the tension between the needs of society and the needs of individuals, but as Mill points out, it is not just rules of conduct imposed by law that restrain actions but more perniciously, the mores of a society, which cannot even be appealed against.[5] The desire to conform to societal expectations can cause an individual to self-censor his speech and thought. When such behaviour is widespread in a society, it harms truth and leads to societal dysfunction. This paper will consider Mill’s classic argument in On Liberty for the value of free thought and speech, and contrast it with self-censorship. It will examine whistleblowing as the paradigmatic example of breaking the silence of self-censorship and articulate why we need to foster a society where people are free to think, speak and write. This may seem obvious in theory but is not the case in practice, which is why it is timely to revisit the arguments for free speech.




Mill’s Defence of Free Thought and Speech


Why does Mill regard the suppressing of opinions as “robbing the human race?”[6] While the veracity of an opinion may be unknown or uncertain when first expressed, it ultimately can only be true, false or be neither entirely true nor false but contains elements of truth. Mill argues that if an opinion is true but silenced, mankind is deprived of truth. Even if an opinion is wrong, its falsehood still does not justify silencing it, since we will lose “the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”[7] In other words, truths become stronger because they overcome the challenges posed to their veracity.

Mill argues that “all silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility,”[8] which is not justified because we cannot be certain, in advance of an opinion being expressed, of its truth or falsehood. Hence, to stifle it would be wrong. In addition, what is regarded as true changes over time and across communities. To Mill, “complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinions, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth.”[9] As for partially true opinions, Mill thinks they are particularly “precious”[10] because they contain what the prevailing consensus in knowledge omits. We might learn something from it.

Two important ideas stand in the background for Mill’s argument for liberty of speech. While the threat of rule by a tyrannical Leviathan may have passed, with parliamentary democracy firmly established in Mill’s Britain, Mill understands that even in democratic republics, there exist other forms of tyranny such as the domination of the majority over minorities or a social tyranny. This social tyranny is the prevailing opinion and feelings of society as a collective, manifested in a “tendency of society to impose […] its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct,”[11] to the detriment of the individuality of its members. He considers social tyranny to be “more formidable than many kinds of political oppression,” because there are fewer ways to escape it – it is more intrusive and is capable of “enslaving the soul.”[12]

Because of such ‘bad democracy,’ Mill proposes the Harm Principle: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”[13] He clarifies that even if it is for that person’s own good, that is still not a sufficient reason for social coercion. Indeed, that person may be reasoned with or persuaded, but never forced. Unless there is harm to others, the individual is sovereign over himself. As Mill eloquently puts it: “The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”[14]

Self-censorship

In Mill’s ideal society, a dissenter will speak out and be valued for contributing to the social discourse. The paradigmatic dissenter is a whistle-blower. In the real world, whistle-blowers may face unfair sanctions, such as loss of employment, threats, physical violence or even criminal prosecution. Knowing this, a potential dissenter may choose to self-censor. Pliskin et. al. presents the dilemma behind self-censoring as how an individual is aware of possessing information that is relevant to society and should be revealed, but at the same time is aware that revealing the information violates another principle, norm, dogma, ideology, or value, and may cause harm.[15]

Freedom of thought is a prerequisite to freedom of speech, for what is the use of being able to speak when there is nothing worthwhile to say? Hence, threats to the freedom of thought threatens freedom of speech. The converse also holds true. For fear of retribution or being ostracised, individuals may disguise their thought. They may choose to be silent, become sycophants or self-censor their minds, afraid even to think about controversial though important matters or to think in an original way, a kind of mental enslavement that Mill warns us of.[16] According to Mill, “the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.”[17]

Pliskin studies why dissenters choose to “break the silence,”[18] overcoming such socio-psychological barriers to speak truth to power. As social animals, there is an innate desire for individuals to want to belong to a group, leading to a conformity in behaviour and thinking. Members of the group will also desire to perceive the group positively.[19] These forces can motivate one to self-censor to preserve the positive image of the group. Conversely, it can lead one to break the silence, since that act may set the group on a better course subsequently.[20] He writes:

Those who break the silence facilitate an analysis of measures to prevent similar events in the future, a discussion of corrective measures and compensation, public discussions about the event, and accountability for the individuals responsible, among other desirable outcomes.[21]

These all benefit society. Hence, “the cost of silence for society very often exceed the costs of breaking it. The costs for the individual, however, may be higher in the case of breaking self-censorship.”[22]

Dr. Li Wenliang is an example of the high personal cost involved in whistleblowing. He is the doctor who sounded the alarm on the coronavirus infections now gripping the world. For his efforts, he was “summoned for a middle-of-the-night reprimand” from the authorities and later made to sign a statement to the effect that he had spread an “unfounded and illegal rumour.”[23] He has since passed away, becoming a hero for speaking the truth. Meanwhile the virus has turned into a global pandemic, becoming the crisis his early warning was attempting to alleviate. Echoing Mill, Li says: “I think a healthy society should not have just one voice,”[24] referring to the Chinese government which initially tried to hush up the matter.

Li is one of a long line of martyrs for truth, following in the footsteps of Socrates, Galileo and Bruno. Even after 2400 years, we clearly have not learnt the lesson that diversity of opinion is a strength and not a weakness. Some countries have legal protection in place for whistle-blowers. However, more fundamentally, societies need to establish a culture friendly to free thinking, new ideas, and voices that challenge the status quo and authority. The people need to have the courage to ‘do the right thing,’ to know when and how, through the kind of habituation or training that Aristotle was thinking of in his Nicomachean Ethics, where one is neither too brash nor too cowardly.[25] If people are encouraged or become used to suppressing their conscience and thoughts just to keep the peace, mankind will have been harmed irrevocably. Instead, society needs to embrace the shit-stirrer, to recognise him as the canary in the coal-mine and a pressure-release-valve. Inconvenient as it may be when the pressure is released, it beats a catastrophic destruction of a society.

Conclusion

As Mill has made clear, no one is infallible. Opinions that challenge prevailing thought should be welcomed, not punished, because differing opinions enrich the discourse. Right opinions help truth emerge and wrong opinions strengthen truth through contestation. Hence, society needs to foster a culture of deliberation and open discussion, leading to a more tolerant and dynamic society. People should not have to self-censor their thoughts or speech out of fear of retribution. Serbian writer and Holocaust survivor, Danilo Kis, writes: “The fight against censorship is open and dangerous, therefore heroic, while the battle against self-censorship is anonymous, lonely and unwitnessed, and it makes its subject feel humiliated.”[26] Society must not enslave its members’ minds, instead it should seek to liberate them, so that through the flourishing of its members, society can likewise flourish.

Bibliography

Aristoteles. Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Buckley, Chris. “Chinese Doctor, Silenced After Warning of Outbreak, Dies From Coronavirus.” The New York Times, February 7, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/world/asia/chinese-doctor-Li-Wenliang-coronavirus.html.

Kis, Danilo. “Censorship/Self Censorship.” Index on Censorship 15, no. 1 (1986): 43–45.

Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

Pliskin, Ruthie, Amit Goldenberg, Efrat Ambar, and Daniel Bar-Tal. “Speaking Out and Breaking the Silence.” In Self-Censorship in Contexts of Conflict, edited by Daniel Bar-Tal, Rafi Nets-Zehngut, and Keren Sharvit, 243–68. Peace Psychology Book Series. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-63378-7.

Reporters Without Borders. “Worldwide Round-Up of Journalists Killed, Detained, Held Hostage or Missing in 2019,” 2019. https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/rsf_2019_en.pdf.

Youn, Monica. “The Chilling Effect and the Problem of Private Action.” Vanderbilt Law Review 66 (2013): 1505–39.

[1] John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 83.

[2] Ibid., 121.

[3] Reporters Without Borders, “Worldwide Round-Up of Journalists Killed, Detained, Held Hostage or Missing in 2019,” 2019, https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/rsf_2019_en.pdf.

[4] See for example Monica Youn, “The Chilling Effect and the Problem of Private Action,” Vanderbilt Law Review 66 (2013): 1505–39.

[5] Mill, On Liberty, 76–77.

[6] Ibid., 87.

[7] Ibid., 87.

[8] Ibid., 88.

[9] Ibid., 89. Popper will echo this sentiment later when he puts forward falsifiability as the key criterion for what makes a theory scientific.

[10] Ibid., 112.

[11] Ibid., 76.

[12] Ibid., 76.

[13] Ibid., 80.

[14] Ibid., 83.

[15] Ruthie Pliskin et al., “Speaking Out and Breaking the Silence,” in Self-Censorship in Contexts of Conflict, ed. Daniel Bar-Tal, Rafi Nets-Zehngut, and Keren Sharvit, Peace Psychology Book Series (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017), 246, doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-63378-7.

[16] Mill, On Liberty, 101.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Pliskin et al., “Speak and Break Silence,” 243.

[19] Ibid. See 250-52 for an overview of the literature.

[20] Ibid., 253.

[21] Ibid., 262–63.

[22] Ibid., 263.

[23] Chris Buckley, “Chinese Doctor, Silenced After Warning of Outbreak, Dies From Coronavirus,” The New York Times, February 7, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/world/asia/chinese-doctor-Li-Wenliang-coronavirus.html.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Aristoteles, Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 32.

[26] Danilo Kis, “Censorship/Self Censorship,” Index on Censorship 15, no. 1 (1986): 44.