One habit, In particular common nowadays in public debates, is to treat freedom of speech as if it were a personality trait being willing to listen to things which may upset you, tolerating provocations, or being open to discussion. In this way, a person who is upset by certain speech or refuses to respond to an argument is accused of not really supporting free speech. The accusation is just a clever rhetorical move. Besides, it is absolutely incorrect.
Freedom of speech is a legal and political right. It is a limitation imposed on governments and sometimes on public institutions a ban on the use of state power to silence, punish, or force expression. It does not mention what any person should listen to, engage with, give a platform to, or tolerate personally. Mixing the two up is not the matter of a small detail in philosophy. It is a big mistake of fundamental categories. The misunderstanding is serious because it causes real damage to the idea it pretends to protect.
If someone says that refusing to share a platform is a violation of free speech, or that leaving a lecture is a form of censorship, they are not really protecting expression they are wanting audiences. They are turning a right which is meant to protect speakers from the state into a social obligation which forces the involvement of private individuals. Such transformation is not an increase of freedom. It is a request disguised in the language of liberty.
The origin of the right clearly shows that main point. If someone refers to the First Amendment in the United States Constitution, Article 10 in the European Convention on Human Rights, or even the long-standing tradition of liberal political philosophy from John Stuart Mill to John Rawls, they will find the driving concern has been the same: the power of authorities and their temptation to oppress by shutting up dissenters. The rights were used as a way of protecting the weak from the strong, the minority from the majority, the dissident from the sovereign. So, it is kind of absurd to think that rights were intended to shield any speaker from other citizens’ judgment, indifference, or counter-speech.
On the contrary, this is not a detail. It is the very purpose. Somebody who decided not to spread speech they consider dangerous has exercised their own freedom. A magazine that opts not to publish a certain article has made a creative decision. A university student who expresses their disapproval of a speaker is doing exactly the kind of speech that free speech laws are designed to protect. These actions do not equate to censorship by any stretch of imagination. The officials have not been involved since no laws have been referred to. Also, nobody has been detained, penalized, or forcibly silenced.
We can Definitely talk about the separate and truly fascinating topic of the culture of public discourse like whether different places of learning are creating more or less challenging environments for ideas, whether social pressure produces a silent and repressed effect on speech or if we, as a group, are becoming less and less able to engage with views we disagree with. These are fair questions. Still, they are questions that relate to the areas of social norms, institutional design, and civic virtue. They are not questions about rights. When people confuse these two languages, they come up with arguments that have the sound of principles but actually act as bullying: you must hear me out, or you are a hypocrite.
The conflation also tends to go one way. It is hardly ever called on symmetrically. A person complaining that another is not living up to free speech by not engaging hardly ever points the same finger at themselves — their own blocked accounts, muted conversations, or highly curated information environments. If this principle were implemented fully, everyone would be expected to engage with everything all the time. No one truly endorses such a stance. The argument is being used on occasions against those who choose disengagement, which is inconvenient to the speaker.
Deeply embracing freedom of speech is, in fact, a lot narrower and far more challenging than merely having a fearless, debate-loving character. It entails being against the enactment of statutes that make certain types of expressions offenses, standing up against the government’s use of force to silence speakers because of their opinions, and even protecting the right of those whose speech one finds disgusting — because rights that only protect popular speech essentially protect nothing of any value. That is a very serious civic commitment. Also, it is actually quite hard whereas it is very simple to accuse others of being closed-minded.
The difference between a right and a virtue is not merely a matter of academic debate. Rights are claims that one can rightfully exercise against the authorities. But, virtues are inner attributes of a person that are good, can be developed, but are not enforceable. For example, one can think of courage as a virtue since, legally speaking, nobody can be ordered to act bravely. Same here, generosity is a virtue that the law does not require. If the willingness to accept the freedom of speech of others is a virtue and there have been arguments that a certain kind of intellectual readiness is one then it is a virtue that each person may either develop or disregard at his or her own discretion, and it is a virtue that may be debated, invited, and set as an example. One Still cannot be simply ordered to be this way in the name of a constitutional right which is not relevant to the private side of things. Freedom of speech is a very important right in any liberal democracy. We should respect it totally well enough, at least, so that we do not misuse it.
This means that we have to be exact when we analyze what it actually defends, who has to follow it, and what it expects from us. It safeguards our speech from the authorities’ intervention. It is the government that lawmakers, executives, and judges are forbidden to go against. It demands that we, the citizens, protect these arrangements even in those cases that disappoint us most. It does not entail that someone has to be a willing listener of speech that he or she considers harmful. It does not, in fact, require one’s participation. It does not obligate one’s tolerance as a personal habit. What it needs, both legally and politically, is simply the limitation of the power not more, and not less.
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