Dark free speech & the public interest

Exuma Island Iguana

Legal Context: “But it cannot be the duty, because it is not the right, of the state to protect the public against false doctrine. The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech, and religion. In this field, every person must be his own watchman for truth, because the forefathers did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.” U.S. Supreme Court, Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 1945.

Cultural context: “The age of neutral journalism has passed. It is impossible because what you select from the huge sea of information is already subjective.” Dmitry Kiselyov, Russian propagandist, 2016.

The scope of free speech: With few exceptions, the US Constitution legally equates truth and even handed honesty (honest free speech) with lies, deceit, misinformation and unwarranted character assassination (dark free speech). The rare exceptions include illegal speech, mostly libel, slander, incitement to violence and false advertising. In politics, those exceptions are almost irrelevant, e.g., ‘Hillary is a crook and I’ll put her in jail.’ In other words, lies and deceit are just as legal as honesty. The constitution is simply neutral about it.

Post truth politics: With this election, America has arguably entered an era of post truth politics. For many Americans (~33-45% ?), truth is secondary or completely irrelevant. For that highly vocal group, politics is much more a matter of feeling good, vilifying the opposition and/or advancing personal or ideological agendas than trying to see the truth and apply reasonably unbiased conscious reason. In essence, American politics is more a matter of entertainment and/or self-interest than any serious attempt at objectivity. The US Constitution and courts have nothing to say about this either.

Social and cognitive science convincingly argue that politics for almost everyone is as much or more based on emotion, personal morals and beliefs in false information than reality and reasonably unbiased conscious reason. The evidence on that point seems to be solid. The reason for that flows from how the human mind processes information about reality and facts and then applies conscious reason. Both perceptions of reality and reason are heavily biased and distorted by personal ideology, morals, social identity and an array of powerful unconscious reality- and reason-distorting biases. That’s not a criticism of the human condition. It's a statement of fact.

Reason and the public interest: Given the self-deceived nature of politics, essentially everyone knows they base their politics on unbiased reality and unbiased reason. Of course, that knowledge isn’t knowledge. It’s personal opinion. And it’s usually wrong. Everyone knows that their personal politics would best serve the public interest. Just ask any conservative or liberal to compare their conception of the public interest with the other side’s concept and the contradictions are instantly obvious.

What’s the value of dark free speech?: If dark free speech is defined to as any form of speech or expression that’s intentionally or unintentionally false, misleading and/or deceptive, what is the value of dark free speech to the public interest compared to honest speech? One answer is there’s no way to weigh the effect of dark free speech because (i) the public interest is a personal meaningless concept, and/or (ii) truth in politics is subjective and personal. Another is to say it’s bad, but in a general, ill-defined sort of way. Another is to say it’s good if it serves a noble cause, e.g., liberalism or conservatism, but bad if it harms the cause.

Social and cognitive science make it clear that the point of people discussing politics is to convince others to accept their own opinions and beliefs. Conscious human reason isn’t applied to critically analyze personal beliefs. It’s usually (>95% of the time?) used to convince others, even when we are wrong about what we believe. Social scientists have documented the personal, moralistic, intolerant nature of belief and judgment in politics. One puts it this way: “Morality binds and blinds. . . . . We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct why we ourselves came to a judgment; we reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment. . . . . We make our first judgments rapidly, and we are dreadful at seeking out evidence that might disconfirm those initial judgments.”

If one accepts that as a reasonably accurate description of personal politics, the purpose of dark free speech is obvious. It serves to convince others, regardless of how well or badly our own beliefs affect the ‘true’ public interest.

Dark free speech arguably is insidious, difficult to see and a major threat to the long term survival of modern human civilization, if not the species. Nonetheless, that’s part of the human evolutionary legacy. Whether it better serves (i) human survival and peace or (ii) human misery or destruction is an open question. From this observer’s point of view, it’s more a force for human misery or destruction than survival and peace.

Questions: When someone uses dark free speech, intentional or not, should that person be accorded the same respect and opportunity to speak as a person who tries to be even handed and honest? Does it matter if dark speech is used to advance a good cause? If so, who defines a cause as good? Should the analysis be based on how objective facts are treated? If so, who defines what a fact is? In this era of (i) sophisticated propaganda, (ii) public disengagement from and distrust in politics and political institutions, and (iii) rampant lying and deceit, why should liars and deceivers and dark free speech be accorded equal respect and opportunity to speak? Does honest free speech deserve just as much deference and respect than dark free speech, even if dark speech arguably increases the odds of war or other catastrophes? Or, is what’s being asked here simply hopeless?

B&B orig: 11/29/16