A few notes concerning the recent pair of Darkstreams on free speech:
A man can never be hindered from thinking whatever he chooses so long as he conceals what he thinks. The working of his mind is limited only by the bounds of his experience and the power of his imagination. But this natural liberty of private thinking is of little value. It is unsatisfactory and even painful to the thinker himself, if he is not permitted to communicate his thoughts to others, and it is obviously of no value to his neighbours. Moreover it is extremely difficult to hide thoughts that have any power over the mind. If a man’s thinking leads him to call in question ideas and customs which regulate the behaviour of those about him, to reject beliefs which they hold, to see better ways of life than those they follow, it is almost impossible for him, if he is convinced of the truth of his own reasoning, not to betray by silence, chance words, or general attitude that he is different from them and does not share their opinions. Some have preferred, like Socrates, some would prefer to-day, to face death rather than conceal their thoughts. Thus freedom of thought, in any valuable sense, includes freedom of speech.
In the case of Bury, his core argument in defense of freedom of speech is constructed as follows:
- Man’s thoughts are free because they cannot be known or hindered by other parties.
- Man cannot refrain from speaking his thoughts.
- Therefore, freedom of speech is an intrinsic right of Man.
I trust the two major flaws in this syllogism are obvious to the reader. First, if Man’s thoughts are free because they cannot be known or hindered, then Man’s speech cannot be for that same reason. Second, we have evidence every single day that Man is capable of concealing his thoughts, or at the very least, not converting them to speech. The conclusion simply does not follow logically from the premises.
The ineptitude of the Erasmusian case for the freedom of speech is even worse. His 1516 The Education of a Christian Prince is often cited by free speech advocates because it contains the phrase, “In a free state, tongues too should be free.”
But what did Erasmus actually write?
Even the emperor Hadrian, a pagan and not to be classed among the good princes, would never listen to a charge of lese-majeste; and not even that cruel monster Nero gave much heed to secret accusation on that charge. There was another one who paid no attention at all to charges of this sort and said, “In a free country, tongues likewise should be free.” Therefore, there are no crimes which a good prince will pardon more readily or more gladly than those which affect him alone.
– Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince
Now the punchline. Erasmus not defending free speech, he is encouraging the prince, like King Lune of Archenland, to be the most magnanimous man in the kingdom. And the phrase in question is not his own, as he is quoting “another one”. Who is this “another one” of whom Erasmus writes?
Why, it is none other than the Emperor Tiberius, as quoted by Suetonius, the Roman Emperor infamous for the Senatorial purges and treason trials conducted in his name by his chosen right-hand man, Sejanus. A less-convincing historical champion of free speech would be difficult to conjure!
Freedom of speech is manifestly not a right, and the observably inept attempts of its advocates to establish it as one should be more than sufficient to convince every rational observer of the inherently nonsensical nature of the claim.