By Benedict Neff

Collective mental hygiene

When political views are banned or canceled, distrust of the state grows. The ruling elite exposes itself to suspicion of wanting to fend off critical individuals and opinions. The COVID-19 era is a lesson in this regard. In some countries, governments and the media have marginalized anti-vaccine activists and coronavirus deniers in the name of a single, true health policy. One can also imagine the social climate in Germany at the beginning of the refugee crisis, where a critical stance was quickly equated with racism.

Danish lawyer Jacob Mchangama points out that right-wing extremist violence is more prevalent in countries where right-wing extremist expression is particularly strongly suppressed in public. Conversely, this also means that freedom of speech does not necessarily lead to action. While restrictions on freedom of expression deepen mistrust of the authorities, a liberal climate of opinion creates trust. Freedom of expression is not a right-wing concern, as one might recently think, and it does not conflict with the equal rights of minorities. Freedom of expression, in particular, has allowed discriminated groups to draw attention to themselves and their legal rights. Consider the civil rights movement in the USA or the struggle for women’s suffrage in Switzerland.

Freedom of speech serves as a release valve. By allowing controversial ideas to be expressed freely, pressure is released. It’s a kind of collective mental hygiene. The dissemination of nonsense and tasteless remarks is explicitly part of this. However, depending on the democratic tradition, freedom of speech is subject to more or less strict limits. A generously interpreted freedom of speech has the advantage of creating transparency about the political ideas floating around. When political speech crosses the line into calls for violence, intervention is more likely. Because everything takes place in public.

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Jacob Mchangama is the Founder and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech. He is also a research professor at Vanderbilt University and a Senior Fellow at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).