Why We Need to Re-Teach the Importance of Free Speech to Each Generation

Jonathan Rauch, author of The Constitution of Knowledge, discussing free speech with Andrew Sullivan:

Books like mine, I hope, and work like yours [Sullivan's], will sound the alarm and show the way out, show that our arguments are strong, that pluralism is really the only path to a peaceful, productive and knowledgeable society. What the purists have to argue is only eternal warfare, in which arguments are not resolved. And the casualties are either physical human bodies, or ostracism, or ignorance, or chilling.

Even if we don't win that argument right now, I keep pointing out to people: Remember the notions of free speech and free thought and all the rigors of science? These things are profoundly counterintuitive. The idea that speech is blasphemous, heretical, wrongheaded, offensive--add your adjectives--that speech is like that? That ideas like that should not only be allowed, but affirmatively protected, is the strangest and weirdest, and probably the craziest social idea that was ever invented. And it's only rescued by the fact that it's also the most successful social idea that was ever invented by a country mile. I would argue that it put an end to the creed wars. It gave us knowledge. It gave us finally some peace. And the result of that counter-intuitiveness is that you and I and our children, metaphorically, and our grandchildren and their grandchildren, will have to get up every morning and defend these ideas from scratch against a new generation that, for whatever new reason, emotional safety-ism or critical race theory or something else, that they don't get it. And we just have to be cheerful about that because, historically speaking, we've done incredibly well for about two and a half centuries. This is a template in the history of the human species.

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Carl Sagan’s 1997 Prediction

In 1997, Carl Sagan wrote the following in "The Demon Haunted World":

Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren's time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number-one videocassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. “Beavis and Butthead” remain popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning—not just of science, but of anything—are avoidable, even undesirable.

We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements—transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting—profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

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Proposed New National Holiday: “I Don’t Know Day”

Let's create a new national holiday to facilitate communication. It should be called "I Don't Know Day." Two purposes: To encourage people to say they don't know something when they don't know it, and B) Remind them that they look smarter when they admit that they don't know something that they don't know. We could also create a separate holiday called "Don't Make Shit Up Day."

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Tonight’s Music

I'm going to start a new thing. Every so often, I'm going to share some music I'm enjoying that day.

Tonight's music as I work at home is one of my favorite albums: "Raising our Voices" by the Yellow Jackets (2018). This sweet cut is called "Solitude." Every one of these musicians is world class.

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A Band that Played Close to the Edge

As I work tonight, I'm listening to "Close to the Edge" by Yes. I have cranked up the volume and I find myself surrounded by uninhibited on-fire genius. This song by Yes is so well crafted that I'm listening for the third time in a row, and it deserves these replays. Are there any bands out there today who are willing to experiment like this? Is there a modern version of ELP? Are there any modern versions of "Stairway to Heaven"? My sad gut feeling is that far too much of today's music is crammed into pre-determined tropes. I know there has been crappy music in every decade and that I'm listening to something extraordinary tonight. But does anyone have recommendations of any bands today that are thoughtful, complex, unrelentingly excellent and experimental? Self-consciously uninhibited and not primarily driven to satisfy a mass-market?

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