The Abuse of Free Speech

Is it an abuse of free speech to use harsh, stinging expressions in criticism of an act deemed pernicious or teaching deemed false? Is it wrong to use invective, call hard names, or indulge in bitter and fiery denunciation? In a recent issue of Liberty I asked Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick to justify her characterization of intemperate speech (on the part of prohibitionists and religious fanatics as an abuse of free speech, assuming that, as a believer in equal liberty, she advocates the perfect freedom of speech. In defence of her position, Mrs. Dietrick argues as follows in a private letter, from which she allows me to quote.

Abuse is literally wrong use. There is as much social necessity for the distinctive epithets right and wrong as there is for the epithets inch and ell. Of course, if one is entirely alone upon an island, no distinction between right use and wrong use of freedom in speech is needed. But in society such distinction serves as an oil to the wheels of thought-exchange.

The only object human beings can have in exchange of ideas is to obtain mutual profit or pleasure. The person who conceives that his ideas are superior (and this is every person) is naturally impelled to impart these ideas to others; and, when his conceptions are really superior to those of others, great profit ensues to society when these obtain a wide hearing and acceptance. But, as the human mind is exactly like an oyster in one respect, great tact is essential in establishing legitimate exercise of freedom of speech. Each person mentally separates himself from his business or occupation, probably as the oyster mentally distinguishes himself from his shell. If he be a moderately fair-minded and tolerably well-instructed person, he will often consent to listen while you point out to him the anti-social tendencies in his business or occupation, or even in his political and religious principles, though here you approach extremely sensitive ground.

Now, there seems to be no longer room to doubt that the use of strong intoxicants is a constant menace to the human brain. If people living in the physically-weakening and intellect-exciting environment of modern life are to use stimulants at all, it is manifest that these should be made milder in quality and be consumed more moderately. To point out these facts to both dealers in, and consumers of, strong liquors is a legitimate use of freedom of speech, because it conduces to the establishment of better ideas than now prevail among topers and liquor dealers. But a volley of vituperation directed against the liquor-dealer himself is like a blow on the shell of an oyster from a brother oyster. He merely retires into his shell, angry and resentful. You have misused, or abused, speech, because your use of speech has defeated your object in speaking, which was to gain an improvement in the liquor business. But not only does such abuse concentrated upon the liquor-dealer fail to leaven him with better ideas; it does still more harm by diverting public attention from the real culprits, — the topers, — and by turning it upon the innocent ministers to the topers’ appetite.

All education is a living proof that human beings can be persuaded to genuinely desire better things than mankind new in its rude, coarse estate. All attempt to force human beings into better things is a monumental failure of such effort at human improvement. Abuse of freedom of speech is force. A word often has the physical effect of a blow. The greatest libertarian would hardly intentionally advocate such a use of words as would simply so cut a person’s self-respect that physical suffering closed the mind to further desire to argue, or to listen to arguments, in behalf of reasonableness.

When a word causes the heart to beat quickly, the blood to rush to the head painfully, the throat to contract convulsively, and even has the power to wring tears from the eyes, we have clear and positive proof that there has been abuse of freedom of speech, for we talk, not to punish, but to convince each other. When fair words convince us that we have been in the wrong, our own minds punish us, and we are then justly punished. Abusive speech merely makes us suffer what we feel to be injustice.

It seems to me that this argument fails to draw the important distinction between abuses of freedom and offences against propriety or taste. Even if I could subscribe to everything that Mrs. Dietrick asseverates, I should not admit the conclusion that the pouring forth of a vituperative volume of hatred upon a given class of persons is an abuse of free speech; for in this phrase I use the term abuse as indicative of invasion. He alone is guilty of an abuse of freedom who oversteps the bounds fixed by the principle of equality of freedom and infringes the right of some other man. So long as one’s acts do not amount to breaches of equal liberty, they must be recognized and described as entirely legitimate exercises of his rightful powers. To abuse free speech is to use it illegitimately and invasively; and, as we are entitled to proscribe and punish all invasive acts, it follows that those against whom the charge of abusing free speech is preferred are liable to be declared transgressors of equal liberty. I do not think Mrs. Dietrick means to go to such lengths. I think she will agree with the statement I made in my previous article that we have a right to blame and condemn anything we deem pernicious, and no one may dictate to us the language to be used in our expressions of disapprobation or alarm. The right of criticism would be very shadowy indeed, if society could employ censors to regulate our modes of expression and prescribe or prepare legal forms for use in discussions. It would be absurd to say that, while a man ought to be allowed to call an opponent an ignoramus, he ought not to be allowed to call him a fool. Yet, if Mrs. Dietrick does not mean to advocate such arbitrary restriction of speech and criticism, what force and pertinence are there in her remark that abuse of freedom of speech is force (italics mine), and that a word often has the same physical effect as a blow? Force, a blow, we are agreed, can only be justified by the use of force in some form, and, if abuse of free speech is force, then it is to be interdicted and punished in all cases except those in which a prior use of force warranted it. If to call a man a fool, for example, is force, then the offender ought to be tried and punished, unless he can show that he used it in self-defence and as a matter of right.

No, words are not force, no matter what, in given cases, their effect may be. Boycotting often has the same effects as force, but it is not force. If effects are to be taken as the test, all distinctions between force and suasion, between coercion and passive resistance, are obliterated. There can be no abuse of free speech in the strict sense of the term, except, possibly, in case of libel or slander, on which differences of opinion still exist among libertarians. Mere criticism and denunciation, however harsh, cruel, biting, or undeserved, are not abuse, but legitimate exercise, of the freedom of speech.

Whether it is wise and profitable to indulge in intemperate and sweeping denunciation or volumes of vituperative hatred is another question,—a question which is as old as controversy and as far from settlement today as it ever was. In my opinion, it is useless to attempt to settle it on any general principle. So many factors enter into the problem, and so much allowance has to be made for the personal equation, that all generalizing must be dismissed as unsafe. Many have agreed in favor of moderate and mild methods, of the milk of human kindness, of self-restraint and charity, but few, I may say none, have ever been able to live up to these abstract propositions. There are times when argument is useless and invective appropriate and necessary. There are men who are impervious to logic and appeals, and who can be reached only by a word which has the effect of a blow. There are men with whom one’s self-respect forbids to enter into argument, but who need to be called down in some effective way. There are occasions for the exhibition of wrathful indignation or of scornful contempt. Each must judge for himself, and each does judge for himself, with the result that, on the whole, when the differences in our respective opportunities, temptations, and provocations are taken into account we are all equally prone to sin. Even those who have posed as meek and lowly moral non-resistants, like Tolstoi, have belied their professions by systematic and wholesale use of downright abuse and vituperation. It’s in human nature, and you cannot indict the human race.

As for Mrs. Dietrick’s contention that abuse inevitably defeats the very object of all human intellectual commerce, because it excites passion and prejudice, the obvious rejoinder is that very few disputants ever hope to produce any effect on their active opponents. Controversies hardly ever lead to agreement between those engaged in them, but the interested outsiders, the by-standers, frequently derive real instruction from the discussion, and are aided in arriving at settled opinions. It is chiefly, if not wholly, for the benefit of these listeners or readers that controversies are entered upon. Of course, if it could be shown that abuse alienates and disgusts impartial outsiders, Mrs. Dietrick’s case would be completely made out; but the evidence is against such a theory. For the most part, abuse is resented and frowned upon by thid persons only when it appears to them to be gratuitous and unjust, and what they resent in these instances is, not the abuse, but the injustice. Provided one feels thoroughly justified in employing the weapons of abuse and ridicule, there is no occasion to apprehend displeasure from the by-standers. Be just and fear not, is the safest rule; and certainly Mrs. Dietrick will not contend that abuse or contemptuous treatment is necessarily unjust.

Generosity in controversy, like generosity in other things, is not always a virtue. It is not always wise to avoid giving pain and to suppress wrath or impatience. There is, alas! a good deal of ignorance, hypocrisy, and mendacity in the world, and with these every self-respecting man must be at war.

V.Y.