Freedom of speech and freedom of association can be contradictory
Consider last night: my father said we will no longer go to X restaurant, as they not only hiked the prices, but also got rid of included free sides without warning. A deceptive form of shrinkflation. Does our freedom to no longer visit that establishment, contradict the restauranteur’s freedom to set prices as they wish? Of course not! Most of us, even the less liberty inclined, will agree that this freedom to set prices yields consequences in terms of consumer demand. Basic Econ 101 here.
More subtly, a similar principle applies to the Spotify vs Joe Rogan controversy, and many online “cancel culture” battles more generally. No one is, or should be forced to, listen to X or use platform Y. Yet if a large number of people do that in a boycott, that hampers the free flow of expression, and also means statements that would have been said go unsaid. Yes, freedom of speech means the freedom to bear the consequences of that speech, as is the case for any act. Yet if the consequences of saying x are sufficiently high, that can yield a curtailing effect on what gets said. People will be overly cautious in their statements, in order not to offend. Given the polarising nature of our culture wars today, the threshold of what constitutes “offensive” speech is not only much lower than in the past, but differs drastically depending on who you talk to. Self-censorship is not state enforced, but no less a salient force. Freedom of association can hence contradict with freedom of speech.
Naturally, it is imperative to define what free speech is exactly. Is it the freedom to say what you wish (so long as it is not libellous or defamatory, or harms others in the archetypal shouting “fire” in a group, or inciting a violent mob of pitchforks examples) without legal consequence, as is the case in the US first amendment? Or is it a more broader definition that considers how civil society operates? Censorship in the USSR, or the Warsaw Pact regimes, after all, was not enforced by the state per se. It relied on informants from those you interacted with: colleagues, neighbours, even family members. It would simply have been impossible for those stagnant, dysfunctional governments, where even many Communist apparatchiks were never true believers in communism (Putin certainly has not governed as a diehard Marxist today!), to suppress dissenting speech. In the pre-Enlightenment era, and when the Reformation occurred, censorship of those against Catholicism occurred via book-burning, ostracisation (via excommunication) of heretics, and so on.
This is why I prefer the broader definition of free speech that incorporates civil society. A less precise definition, one that invites more nuance hence compromises on objective standards, but at the tradeoff of encompassing a broader range of acts. Yet this broader definition naturally lends itself to contract another important freedom, freedom of association. Which one should us liberty-minded folk prioritise?
Every society has parameters of “acceptable” norms; a Nazi’s position at a university or a job would be untenable in most Western democracies after all. Yet these norms are established when there is a substantial positive probability of physical harm to a colleague or student, as a result of the Nazi’s racial views. At the very least, can we expect a Nazi to work effectively with co-workers or students he deems ‘racially inferior’? Societies sometimes have to enforce social norms of “acceptable” conduct to facilitate transactions, exchanges, and yes free speech and civil discourse itself.
Yet the Nazi example is an extreme case – a classic case of Godwin’s law. These ‘civil’ restrictions on speech should be the exception not the rule. Society can be overly intrusive on curtailing free expression by enforcing norms or consequences on speech, even when these risks of physical harm or lack of cooperation cease to apply. Almost all contemporary items of the culture war fall into this category today.
In any case, such conditions or restrictions would almost certainly be stipulated in an employment contract – the contract accepted by both parties on a voluntary basis. As far as we are aware, no such stipulation was specified in the Spotify deal. Hence Spotify is acting in an overtly intrusive manner by deleting Joe Rogan podcast episodes from public view. In fact, in general, whenever someone is fired, or at least faces professional consequences, for expressing their perspective on the latest culture war fad, the employee has never violated the terms of their contract. Ex post, their liberty is violated by an implicit reneging of the contract by the employer.
Ultimately, the freedom to fire an employee for their views, or deplatform, is freedom of association. Yet this limits free speech, so again the two concepts of freedom are in conflict. However, do these contradictions pose a dilemma for how we think about freedom as a philosophical concept. A closer look at how contracts are negotiated reveal a solution. Why not allow employers, or online platforms, to specify the political views they would tolerate ex ante in an employment contract? Why not allow them to specify what speech constitutes “offence”, hence a violation of the contract? As long as such restrictions are specified ex ante, the two parties can then enter a voluntary agreement with full information beforehand. If you despise the onerous restrictions on your speech one employer or platform sets? Do not accept the contract, search for another job. For social media, specify those in the terms and conditions. That is the most liberty-inclined solution to our contradiction. Think, non-disclosure agreements, but for political views. Indeed, British civil servants are already effectively barred from expressing political sentiment on social media.
Nonetheless, this is necessary to safeguard ex-post intrusions on free speech, yet is insufficient. Whilst in the past, the American religious right was at the forefront of pressurising books of insufficient piety to be removed from bookshelves, they are a very diminished force today. McCarthyism is all but dead. In general, almost all restrictions on speech today are enforced by the “woke” [1]; a small subset of society (despite their noise). Indeed, this is the phenomenon popularised as “cancel culture”. Only once the silent majority (a disjointed coalition of liberals, conservatives, nationalists, and libertarians) pushes back can we establish a healthier framework for free expression.
The term “woke” is as useful as the term “team transitory”, yet it is a familiar term for a broad audience. I define “woke” as a movement heavily inspired by postmodernism, or the critical theory variant of Marxism, that was first established in the obscure rungs of sociology departments. Michel Foucault is a crucial figure for introductory reading into this terrifying, totalitarian mindset.