The virtue of free speech
To dismiss an argument as virtual signalling is a refusal to engage in democratic debate.
It’s a refusal to engage with the substance of the argument.
It’s an attempt to dismiss an opposing view out of hand.
The argument is essentially person X, or organisation Y, or political party Z only supports an argument because it makes them look good. Therefore, the position is illegitimate, it only serves as a means to demonstrate that the person presenting the argument is doing so because it’s seen as the right thing to do — Ben and Jerry’s shouldn’t support the rights of refugees, local cafes shouldn’t provide school meals for hungry children, TV presenters should tweet disparaging things about the government.
This is an affront to free speech. It fundamentally undermines the conditions that a democracy needs to debate and build consensus.
The purpose of freedom of speech isn’t simply to provide the right to say whatever you want; it’s more than that, it ensures that anyone has the right to present any argument.
There is a very important distinction between those definitions of freedom of speech. So much of the debate around freedom of speech concentrates around the right to offend or not. This misses the fundamental point — we should aspire to use our freedom to speak for more than just offending others.
In fact, we should do precisely the opposite. Our freedom of speech has the potential to build consensus around the best ideas.
As William Davis points out in Nervous States freedom of speech is a fundamental tenant of the scientific progress. Scientists can’t test hypotheses if there are limits on what can be said, or argued, or challenged. They could not prove the world was not flat if they could not say ‘the world is a sphere’.
Science, and the scientific process, embrace the responsibilities that come with their freedom to put forward an argument. Peer review of their work seeks out good hypotheses, promotes them and builds on them; it also dismisses the bad hypotheses. It works to agreed rules. 2+2=4, if your hypothesis challenges that it’s going to need some extraordinary evidence that overturns our fundamental understanding of the world.
These rules of engagement are free speech, but we don’t seem to apply them to democratic debate. Our debate would have a chance of bringing people together if we agreed everyone has a right to present an argument and those arguments have be reviewed against the fundamental things we know about the world.
We’ll still disagree, but at least we’ll have a better understanding of why we disagree and be empathetic to the other side.
However, if arguments are simply seen as virtue signals they are dismissed before that process takes place. We are all poorer in this situation — even if our side ‘wins’.
Imagine if there had actually been a debate about the best way to feed impoverished children, we might have got to better outcomes than the pantomime of good footballers, restaurants and local councils vs. bad government. Those arguing against the Rashford campaign didn’t want a substantive debate to happen so they simply refused to engage with an argument that could yield a better outcome.
I support the Rashford campaign, but I’m not naive enough to think it’s the perfect solution. If it were scrutinised, it would be improved. But, that would require some engagement from the side of the argument. Unfortunately that side of the debate think the campaign has nothing to do with the issue of food poverty, and is all about a celeb footballer trying to build his profile (which is clearly ridiculous).
Rashford recently tweeted in what was either a wonderful troll or, more likely, a genuine insight to his single-minded dedication: ‘what is virtue signalling?’
Is there any wonder that in this current context it’s science that will save us from this crisis, while politicians flounder around?
