"Canceling" Speech

Today on BBC News Hour there was a piece about a letter that was published in Harper's Magazine.  The substance of the letter was that we, as a society, had gone too far in "canceling" the speech of people with whose views we disagreed.  The example that was given was a person who simply re-tweeted some research that was pertinent to their job without comment and lost his job because of it.  There was a campaign to "cancel" his "freedom" of speech.

The two people interviewed were a co-signer of the letter and someone supposedly opposing him.

Freedom of speech is the freedom to say almost anything one wants to say without government interference.  It is without government interference.  It is not without any interference.

It has nothing to do with private people's responses to one's speech.  Private people are, and always have been, free to do or say whatever they want in response to one's speech, as long as it's not illegal.  They are free to turn away.  They are free to speak up in response.  They are free to shout the speaker down.  They are free to refuse to buy the speaker's product, regardless of whether the speech is about that product.  They are free to try to get others not to buy the speaker's product.

The fact that this has become easier because of organizing tactics (on line or otherwise) does not diminish the hearer's right to respond to the speaker's rhetoric.

That is not to say that I agree with every campaign to "cancel" the speech of anyone with whom I disagree.  Some campaigns are, in my opinion, ill-advised and some are just wrong.  Many.  Maybe most.  But, it is to say that everyone has the right to try to "cancel" any speech.  Any at all.

Take, for example, if someone used the "n" word.  Many, if not most, of us would shun that person.  If that person persisted, we would turn away, or speak up in opposition, or shout the speaker down, or refuse to buy their product, or attempt to get others to refuse to buy their product.  That would be considered by many, if not most, of us as proper and within our rights.

The fact that we happen to agree with the speaker's rhetoric does not matter.  It doesn't even matter if we think that the speaker's rhetoric is minor and not very hurtful or not worthy of the efforts to which others are going to "cancel" his speech.  Others still have the right to try to "cancel" that speech if they can.  It is their right.

Freedom of speech as guaranteed in the United States Constitution is freedom from government interference with our speech.  It is not freedom from any, even private, especially private, interference with our speech.

That said, none of this is going to matter soon if we don't solve climate change.