The right to provoke, offend, and shock lies at the core of the First Amendment. This is particularly so on college campuses. Intellectual advancement has traditionally progressed through discord and dissent, as a diversity of views ensures that ideas survive because they are correct, not because they are popular.
Judge Alex Kozinski
Nobody objects to the idea of teaching critical thinking in schools. Nobody aims to be less of a critical thinker. The problem arises when we try to design a method for teaching critical thinking that actually works. It’s not as easy it sounds. You will hear many people express that the most important thing they learned in college was critical thinking skills but when you ask them to break down what that actually means few people can. The legendary liberal thinker John Stuart Mill argued that the most important element of critical thinking and its proliferation is the critic themself. By being exposed to each other’s criticisms and diverse opinions we have our confirmation biases challenged. And the more we begin to censor each other’s opinions, the less critical our thinking becomes, no matter what “skills” or how many logical fallacies we have been taught. The key to critical thinking therefore, is freedom of speech, even and especially for those with whom we disagree.
Mill wrote about the importance of allowing other and even opposite opinions to be heard because a) that opinion might be correct and therefore worth hearing, b) knowing other sides of an argument will strengthen your argument and/or c) both sides contain truth and are needed. “Conflicting doctrines share the truth between them.” So whether it’s MAGA or CRT we should not seek to censor ideas with which we disagree. Bad ideas should be heard and defeated by better ideas. Quite often you don’t even need to come up with a better idea, you just need to ask questions and let the other person’s freedom of speech expose the holes in their own argument. Most people haven’t thought through their opinions beyond memes and slogans so with a few key questions and a listening ear they will run into their intellectual wall or hear their own idiocy all on their own. You didn’t need to censor them or even debate them to get them there.
Being around diverse opinions that challenge you will either strengthen your original position as it passes through scrutiny or you will find yourself convinced of the other new opinion; which in either case is a victory in reason. Trends in today’s public square lean more towards valuing safe spaces over the pursuit of knowledge. Cultures will always have values that dominate over others and so there isn’t anything inherently destructive about placing kindness and safety at the top of the value hierarchy, but we can objectively observe how the focus on kindness plays out when it is pitted against other values of a liberal society.
I value kindness but I place truth above it. When I see a public debate and one side is getting censored, even if for virtuous reasons, my usual assumption is that this is the side where the truth is more likely residing. Generally when a bad idea is expressed publicly it is refuted with logic and reason. But if an apologist has no logic or reason on his side he resorts to shutting down the conversation entirely. Charging an ideological opponent with blasphemy instead of meeting them with a convincing argument indicates that you’re probably wrong or at least unequipped to substantiate your claim.
Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of freedom because it is through speech that every other freedom is afforded and advocated. That being said, for freedom to work we also need to be informed. We don’t throw children into the wilderness and give them the freedom to figure it out on their own. We teach, coach, demonstrate and scaffold until they are ready to go camping on their own. This is why a pure libertarian ethic doesn't work for me. Certainly we should be allowed to behave, create, and consume in the market with relative freedom but if that market is full of deception and exploitation then we aren’t truly free in it anyways. So as important as free speech is, we also need to remind ourselves of the responsibility we have to one another to participate critically in our society, knowing that with freedom of expression comes the proliferation of false and dangerous ideas.
Not everyone handles freedom equally, which is one of the reasons why public institutions play a key role in managing our impulsive behaviours. We should enjoy our freedoms responsibly. While we can essentially say anything we want it doesn’t mean we should. To keep your head during the culture war you must be a critical thinker which means you should advocate for everyone’s right to say mean, stupid things but be wise enough not to say them yourself.