I'm going to leave it to Twitter, my previous post on the treatment of female politicians, and the glorious Ben Pobjie to respond to the swordfight (I MEAN THE KIND WITH PENISES) masquerading as television, and respond instead to the relentless confusion over the right to free speech.
The overarching issue here is that, contrary to popular belief, in Australia the right to free speech is a moral one, that has been enshrined in law. So when Paul-Ten-Middle-Initials-Hyphenated-Surname-the-Fifth from the Young Libs (mis)uses cliched quotes from Voltaire what he is doing is being a total ass with no moral imagination or understanding of the ethical lineage of Australia as a liberal democratic state. (Especially ironic as the "defend to my death" quote attributed to Voltaire was actually written by a woman so suck on that, Fictional Paul).
This delineation between the moral foundation and the legal manifestation of free speech is important because when we publicly discuss free speech rights, we put the cart before the horse and then the horse is all bumping repeatedly into the cart and everything is pointless and the horse is upset and then my brain explodes.
That is to say that, when we defend controversial speech as an indivisible legal right we miss the whole point of having free speech as a moral right, which provides a far greater opportunity to have an intelligent discussion about public discourse.
Legal defences of free speech sound like this:
I think what x said was particularly naughty but we have free speech so stop shutting down x's free speech by exercising your free speech.A moral defence is much more complex and, in being so, much more effective and compelling. Of course I believe in the right to free speech; but because I believe in it, I insist that we understand it morally so that we, as individuals and as a society, can place value on the quality of that speech.
When someone who enjoys the privilege of an amplified voice that has any influence on our social politics says something particularly daft or offensive, those who imagine free speech in a purely legal sense would say it starts and ends there. They would be wrong. Further, they would be stifling my right to a reciprocal mode of speech where I can say "Alan Jones you fucking nonce, you've done nothing worthwhile since you brought Jeannie Little into my home during first year uni, wait, that was Stan Zemanek? Oh, well...I like your little pink hankies then I guess".
A lot of this was covered really nicely over at the Conversation by Patrick Stokes, but I will disagree with Stokes on one count. I have a philosophy that obnoxious commentary is much like a noxious fart: it's better out than in. I believe there are social benefits to people saying shitty things, so that we might better understand the gaps in our collective knowledge and collective conscience, and so that the less shitty among us may join the discussion and shed light on how people can better understand the problem at hand, so that we might henceforth have a sensible discussion about it and stop being quite so shitty.
As a social scientist, I am fascinated with the phlegm that the likes of Jones and Akerman hack up - it is revealing of the ways in which people process and understand that which is outside their range of experience. It's important to remember here that the most valuable aspect of free speech isn't the opinions groundlessly asserted by shock jocks and opinion columnists - the most important aspect of free speech is narrative.
Like or no, Jones and his ilk and their audiences are a part of our narrative, and expertise and peer-reviewed knowledge should not be the only prerequisite to participation. People should be allowed to experience and perceive the world and report it back to each other. This is, of course, free speech but if it exists in a vacuum with no right-to-respond then it has very little value for any of us.
A living narrative like a national social-polity is complicated and messy and the value of each thread of this narrative must be taken on balance. Of course Alan Jones shouldn't be forbidden from ever opening the open sewer he calls a mouth again, but how is it not free speech - indeed, how is it not a legitimate moral obligation - to tell him he can keep on going but we won't be listening?
The so-called bullying of Alan Jones has been a great exercise in free speech as a moral and reciprocal right. It's testament to Australians as decent people and intelligent consumers, and I cannot fathom how that could not be perceived as a greater exercise in free speech than Jones continuing to spew forth baseless and damaging nonsense while giving airtime only to those who furiously agree with him.
So as I see it, we have a choice. We can begin to imagine free speech as a moral right that comes with responsibility, and in doing so, improve the ways in which we understand ourselves and each other. Or we can continue to understand it as a legal right, and keep on shouting at each other.
