The history of free expression

Throughout long periods of human history, rigid economic, political, and religious architecture relegated free (dissenting) public expression to only the highest classes of social hierarchy. Dissenting opinions were often met with gruesome punishment–in some cases fates arguably worse than immediate death.1 In almost all cases, however, these practices stemmed from monarchical–and often theocratic–governance that derived authority from places other than popular consent. As such, freedom of speech was not held as a safe–much less useful–tenet of political association.

Freedom of speech, however, cannot be described as a new political principle. In fact, this mechanism can be dated as far back as the democratic governments of ancient greece2. In turn, as the “first wave”3 of modern democracy emerged between the late 18th and early 19th centuries– the French and American revolutions, in specific–a resurgence of universal suffrage,4 and coinciding free speech protections materialized. This trend makes sense as the freedom to express one’s opinion without fear of retribution is a core principle of democracy and a direct treatment of the repression that spurred the revival of this now widespread regime type. Far from being just a symptom of humanist ideals, free speech is instrumental to the operation of a democratic government. The expression of individual needs, and the corresponding promises of political representatives to represent those interests, defines the modus operandi5 of representative democracy. 

While this regime type is commonly held to be the most liberal of all historic methods of rule, it is not without vulnerability.

Free speech as rhetoric

Rhetoric, as defined in the Socratic sense– an argument that is valid or convincing but not sound6–is perhaps the most potent weapon against democratic representation. Using a number of rhetorical tools–eloquent prose, disingenuous metaphors, or a number of logical fallacies–manipulative actors are able to leverage the appearance of genuine factual engagement to their own benefit, political or otherwise7. 

Take, for example, the arguments made by President George W. Bush in the prelude to America’s War on Terror. In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush spoke of “weapons of mass destruction”8 held by North Korea, a verified fact at that point. He continued: “states like these,” now referring to both North Korea and Iraq “constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”9 Here, the President is able to imply a greater Iraqi threat using the factual reality of the attacks on September 11th and the military capacity of a completely different country. He would go further in the address the following year that “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Again, a factual statement, but one that is used to imply Iraqi possession of nuclear devices. These arguments were used to justify an invasion of sovereign territory–one that may have held merrits on other grounds10, but definitely had world-shaping consequences. Just at a glance, the War on Terror is estimated to have cost the lives of 7,000 U.S. service members and over 250,000 civilians between Oct. 2001 to Oct. 201811. In the final report after the invasion had finished, the CIA concluded “ISG has not found evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD stocks in 2003.”12 The claims of military capability that lead to Operation Iraqi freedom were found to be completely false–not to mention the fact that Hussein’s link to the 9/11 attacks was also later disproven.13

While this is in no way a defense of Hussein’s brutal dictatorship, the manufacturing of consent that led to this invasion demonstrates a strict rhetorical manipulation of multiple democratic states.

Rhetorical manipulation, then and now

The use of free speech protections–an intended antidote to political corruption–to further corrupt ends is by no means a novel occurrence. Indeed, Socrates’ identification of rhetoric as a tool of manipulation comes from a work entitled Gorgias, a work that details the escapades of a successful rhetorician known for his ability to defend seemingly indefensible claims. It is important to note, however, that Gorgias’ success in rhetoric turned on his ability to fabricate seemingly logical arguments and his courage to speak those arguments face to face with an audience. In this situation, and for the majority of our history, that barrier to entry has prevented illogical claims from becoming widely accepted as truth.

In the modern information economy,  these barriers have been washed away, as participation in political discourse becomes defined by massive and largely anonymous opinions on the internet.. Firstly, the anonymity of social media accounts provides a risk-free avenue for any and all political opinions to be shared widely and repeatedly, en masse. The fact that a theoretically unlimited number of accounts feigning to be independent individuals can be held by the same person only exacerbates this issue. As a consequence of this overload of seemingly unified opinion, the second barrier to entry–that unsound argument must at least be valid, that is, supported by its evidentiary premises–is also waived. 

Fazio et al. identify the experience of “illusory truth”14 whereby statements that have been repeatedly read and internalized are easier to comprehend and are thus perceived to be more truthful. Further, the concepts of group-think and social conformity have been thoroughly studied for decades. These phenomena have been massively amplified by the popularization of social media. We read hundreds or thousands of “facts,” claims, and opinions each day; those that are especially alarming we internalize more deeply. Social media allows one to become familiar with arguments completely detached from evidence or trustworthy sources. Echo-chambers, another increasingly studied issue, lock a user into a recurring influx of similar ideas in order to maximise user-retention and thus profit margin. The soap-box of today bears little resemblance to its ancestor from when the liberal ideal of democratic participation emerged. Free speech is more and more often a tool of elite interest used to dilute good-natured disagreement with polarized culture-warring.

An impossible question

It seems there may be a need for increased legislation on the extent to which individuals alone, and actors at large, are allowed to use manipulative rhetoric aimed at damaging good-faith participation in political discourse. We must also remember that the facilitation of this manipulation is no unforeseen consequence of online connection. Those elite interests that own social media and the internet in general, the same ones who carry heavy political weight for their massive personal wealth, know of this issue. They created this issue. Unfortunately, there is a catch-2215 inherent in legalized restriction on free speech. 

If we refuse to outlaw certain types of rhetoric in an effort to cleanse politics of manipulation, we stand to lose much of the informed participation that defines our democratic association. Actors will continue to prey upon uninformed voters with underhanded arguments and remain insulated by constitutional protections.

If we decide to legislate on this matter, we forfeit a fundamental tool for the routing of institutional corruption. The same issues plaguing current political discourse may seem trivial in comparison to a regime that can use legal precedent to censor dissent.

Edited by Margaux Zani

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and they do not reflect the position of the McGill Journal of Political Science or the Political Science Students’ Association.

Screenshot obtained on Twitter

  1.  See records of tar-and-feathering from early American history ↩︎
  2.  Kurt A. Raaflaub, Josiah Ober, and Robert Wallace, Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 65. ↩︎
  3.  Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Washington, DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 1991), 12. ↩︎
  4.  Generally only white-male suffrage ↩︎
  5.  “Way of working” ↩︎
  6.  As in, an argument that follows logically from its premises to its conclusions but its conclusion is not true. See:https://iep.utm.edu/val-snd/#:~:text=A%20valid%20argument%20may%20still,is%20valid%2C%20but%20not%20sound for more context. ↩︎
  7.  Plato, Gorgias, trans. W. R. M. Lamb, (Perseus Digital Library), 455a ↩︎
  8.  George W. Bush, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union,” January 29, 2002, The White House Archives ↩︎
  9.  George W. Bush, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union,” January 29, 2002, The White House Archives ↩︎
  10.  The arguably necessary toppling of a brutal dictatorship ↩︎
  11.  Neta C. Crawford, Human Cost of the Post-9/11 Wars: Lethality and the Need for Transparency (Providence, RI: Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, November 8, 2018), 1, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs,%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf. ↩︎
  12.  Charles Duelfer, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2004), 64. ↩︎
  13.  National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), https://9-11commission.gov/report/. ↩︎
  14.  Lisa K. Fazio, Nadia M. Brashier, B. Keith Payne, and Elizabeth J. Marsh, “Knowledge Does Not Protect Against Illusory Truth,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 144, no. 5 (2015): 993-1002, https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/xge-0000098.pdf. ↩︎
  15.  A dilemma from which there is no escape due to mutually conflicting or or dependent conditions ↩︎