The desire to speak freely doesn’t always find fulfilment.
Connecting this desire with the ideas of freedom of speech or the right to one’s opinion is not always helpful. What we are at risk of doing in such a situation is to assume that the sense of limitation we experience is external and independent from us.
We forget that we are also pragmatic beings who adapt to a situation based on our own objectives. In any given situation, we evaluate what we want to achieve and how probable it is that speaking up serves us. That evaluation leads to us speaking up or not. Sometimes we’ll avoid speaking up because we don’t feel safe doing so, sometimes we’ll avoid speaking up because we don’t trust that it will have the desired impact.
In this context, I found it interesting to go back to the First Amendment of the US Constitution and Article 5 of the German Basic Constitutional Law.
The US Constitution addresses the idea of freedom of speech and how the government relates to it. It is the Congress that is not allowed to establish laws abridging freedom of speech. It holds Congress accountable, not the people. In Germany, it is the right of an individual to express his opinion that is being protected by the law, while stating that this right is contained by the law and thus contained by the limitations such laws provide. It’s a law that undertakes to protect the individual as much as the community.
Two cultures, two approaches.
It is an interesting reminder that laws cannot address every situation. Consequently, individuals and groups need to find their answers to what freedom of speech means to them in everyday situations.
A law provides guardrails, not the implementation.
Much can be done to demand that “freedom of speech” should feel like “free to speak”. However, looking at the facts, often it isn’t the freedom of speech that is the problem; it is the desire to have an impact that is not fulfilled.
But what is the impact one can hope for from freedom of speech? It’s as simple and as limited as the experience of being heard.
An experience that usually requires more than telling others “I hear you” and sometimes goes as far as needing to take the time to explain why one will not do what the other wants.
