Catching up, a bit

I have fallen behind in my posting. Overload is the only way to describe the past couple of months, not least because of health issues involving my husband. We persevere.

Another bit of overload was preparation for my talk at the New York Public Library, which actually went swimmingly. It took place at 1:30 of a Thursday afternoon, and there was a very large crowd. My aim was to demonstrate how current anxieties regarding speech have their origins in the 18th century. For instance, people worried back then not only about offending the feelings of what were considered the "disadvantaged," but there was also the tendency to categorize non-Europeans as large ethnic or racial groups, thus effacing the differences among individuals. This tendency, I would suggest, is part of the "universalizing" narrative of the Enlightenment, whereby we are all "humans," rather than individuals affected by history, tradition, custom, convention, etc. In fact, it is all those historical and traditional traces that one must jettison in order to be "enlightened."

Thus, even some of the most "advanced" thinkers of the Enlightenment, those men Jonathan Israel (a contributor to my book) has referred to as belonging to the "radical Enlightenment," had reservations about "public opinion." They argued for the freedom to publish and to voice their own opinions, of course, which they believed would lead to the discovery of what they called "truth." Truth, however, is not the standard of modern liberal societies, where the free flow of information and opinion drives material progress.

It is not their fault that they could not foresee the advent of a garrulous public square. Among the philosophes, I believe it was only Rousseau who saw this coming. He was very uncomfortable with dissent and disagreement. His solution was to suggest that we all give up our opinions to a "General Will," which we arrive at by avoiding the opinions of others and listening instead to "the voice of duty."

You can imagine that the subject of my talk could have been somewhat arcane for a non-academic crowd, but I livened it up with a remarkable visual presentation. The Mac has its own version of Power Point, which offers some really wonderful effects. I don't think a single person fell asleep.

Freedom of speech: its history

Well, it must be summer, because I have become lazy about posting. Here in Manhattan we are in "Hochsommer." I went out early this morning for a bike ride along the Hudson, trying to beat the heat. A nice river breeze. It's funny how the beginning of summer makes me think I have time to accomplish many things. One thing I have to do this summer is to give a talk, on August 4, on the history of freedom of speech at the New York Public Library. What I hope to get across in my talk is that the discomforts we are now experiencing in connection with speech -- especially the issue of "hate speech" -- were already present in the 18th century. Despite the claim that is attributed to Voltaire -- "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" -- I can't think of a single philosophe who imagined that freedom of speech should apply to ordinary citizens.

Thus, Condorcet was not saying anything controversial when, in 1776, he defined public opinion as "that of the stupidest and most miserable section of the population." Condorcet was one of the godfathers of the French Revolution. And though freedom of opinion and the communication of ideas were included in the National Assembly's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (articles 10 and 11), Condorcet became a victim of the revolution, dying in prison in 1794 after having been a fugitive from the revolutionary authorities.

Rousseau's "general will" is a problematic concept, but one thing it is not is majority opinion. In fact, Rousseau was against debate and dissent, which indicated "the ascendence of private interests and the decline of the state" (The Social Contract, 1762). In the general will citizens should surrender their private interests and opinions, a surrender that happens in silence. The general will, he wrote, can only emerge from a popular assembly, "provided its members do not have any communication among themselves."

Most philosophes thought the government, with their assistance, should guide the public's minds. In their demands for "progress," the philosophes failed to see the emergence of a society of individuals who would be free to pursue their own self-interest, regardless of the claims of truth, and in the process produce the plethora of competing claims and viewpoints that characterize the public square today -- all the while managing to live together amidst the clash of conflicting opinions, without the society descending into the Hobbesian chaos so many philosophes feared.

Ordinary people in the West, where notions of individual freedom are something like second nature, manage to live amid competing opinions, even if many opinions offend their sensibilities. It is one of the prices we pay for living in a society in which we can go about our own business without the meddling of authorities. Unfortunately, too much "enlightened" opinion today would like things to be more orderly. Like the 18th-century philosophes, our 21st century commentariat is uncomfortable when ordinary citizens have different priorities. Thus, the commentariat's claim, like Condorcet in the 18th century, that the public is "stupid."

Picture credit: BLU