Freedom of Speech and Speech for Freedom
The liberal theory of free speech can be viewed either in its narrower political ramifications or in the universal implications of the philosophical axioms from which it sprang. In the political field, British liberalism progressed rather through the gradual achievement of liberties than in the stout defense and rapid propagation of philosophical tenets; the philosophical aspects came to the fore only later, by way of support, confirmation, and advancement of political liberties. On the continent, French liberalism proceeded directly from the philosophical and only gradually, from lessons learned from British liberalism, reached out for the conservative stability of parliamentary procedure. In America, as was natural in view of its British origins, the beginnings of liberalism were primarily political rather than philosophical. Yet its geographical condition, military security, and the occasion of its birth made for less centralization and more local government; this, together with the absence of an aristocracy and of an established church, made America a fertile field for democratic experiments and the rationalistic doctrines of the French. Very early in the life of American liberalism, this fusion with the French became explicit, particularly through the efforts of Franklin and Jefferson, to the steadily increasing pre-eminence of the philosophical in and above the political.
It is the philosophical bases of this liberal theory in which we are particularly interested; for by reason of its philosophical foundations the liberal theory of free speech inevitably overflows the political and inundates every area of social living. The philosophical foundation of the liberal theory was the spiritual freedom of man; it postulated a free individual conscious of his capacity for unfettered development and self-expression, thus repudiating naturalistic or deterministic interpretations of human action and explicitly challenging authoritative limitations of this freedom. This led to the concept of the state's function as primarily one of noninterference and, secondarily, as one of arbitration for the preservation of individual and group liberties. In the matter of speech, it led to the resistance to restraint on speech, particularly political speech, as an impediment to justice and to political progress in defense of unwarranted privileges of a ruling class. This restraint was seen as a violence to the social nature of man and a damaging reflection on the capacities of the individual to discover truth. In this respect, the theory achieved a profound emotional appeal from the doctrine of equality and the implication drawn from it that no one had such firm possession of truth as to be capable of imposing his view or of restricting the opposing view of another.
While the issue of free speech was universal in the eighteenth century with the rise of the newspaper and the highly vocal champions, in America it had a rather narrow and thoroughly religious beginning. The first breaks in the armor of restraint of religious speech came in Rhode Island and Maryland. The religious issue soon took second place to the political one; and here there was no room for doubt as to the temper of America. The right of freedom of expression was written into state constitutions beginning with that of Virginia in 1776. It was stated on a federal scale in the First Amendment in 1791, and protection from state interference is laid down in the 14th Amendment. The Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798 ruined the Federalist Party during the short lives of those laws. The right of free speech was not challenged again legally until the Espionage Act of 1917, the Sedition Act of 19 18 (both severe acts that were accepted because of the tense atmosphere of war), and the Smith Act of our own day, supported by the well-founded fears of Communistic activity.
The range of restraint imposed by these latter acts became, and is at the moment, a question before the judiciary. The history of the theory of free speech in America has not, however, been one of increasing restraint. Rather it has gone steadily in the opposite direction to the modern climax of "academic freedom" that permits of no restraint whatever, not even that restraint, which could be taken for granted twenty-five years ago, in the name of "truth, good manners and good sense."
As will be readily seen from this brief sketch, the basic considerations of the liberal theory of free speech were both negative and positive. Negatively, it was denied that any authority had the power to limit intrinsically this right of free speech; the limitations were always allowed on grounds extrinsic and usually social. Positively, it was asserted as a truth beyond doubt that man's nature was spiritual and consequently free; with equal assurance, it was insisted that the individual human being's intellect was a valid instrument for the discovery of truth. On these three considerations the liberal theory of free speech was built; by them it stands or falls.
Modern Challenge
The modern challenges to the liberal theory of free speech are much more varied than it would seem at first glance. For a valid critique of these challenges, it is essential that they be sharply distinguished and the precise nature of the challenge in each case be clearly seen. In each case, the point at issue is quite entirely different; to lump the challenges together and attempt to meet these with one response is only to confuse both the theory and the challenges.
One fairly clear modern challenge to the liberal theory is a strictly political one, limiting political speech both by censorship and by legislation directed against speech specifically hostile to a government that is not obviously unjust government. Such a challenge is contained in our own Espionage Act of 1917, the Sedition Act of 1918, and the Smith Act of 1940. Similar, if more extensive, challenges are made by the authoritarian governments, as, for example, that of Spain and Argentina. The point to be made here is not that such challenges are defensible or indefensible, but simply that they are strictly and exclusively political gestures of defense by an existing government against imminent threats of violence.
The most obvious of the modern challenges against the theory of free speech is that made by the totalitarian governments: Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Russia. In sharp distinction from the first challenge noted above, all these are necessarily universal, in no sense exclusively political; and this from the very nature of these governments. In each case, an explicit philosophy was advanced as a defense, an explanation, and an enthusiastic championship of the absolute supremacy of the politically organized group over the individual himself and all of his activities and interests. This is, obviously, a radical, diametric opposition to the fundamental tenets of the liberal theory. Fascist Italy explicitly maintained that the State was absolutely supreme, the individuals existing only for the State; Nazi Germany, with equal explicitness, maintained that the Race was supreme, absolutely, completely; Soviet Russia, with no mincing of words, proceeds on the principle of the absolute supremacy of the Communist Party; and the Iron Curtain countries proceed, whether by choice or by violence, on the basic grounds of the absolute supremacy of the Kremlin. In all of these, there is no pretense of limiting the restraint of speech to the field of politics; nor is this a matter of a defensive gesture against an imminent threat of violence to a government not obviously unjust. Rather, it is an insistence on the absolute control of the individual, of all his activities, his words, his interests in the name of a humanly created Absolute which completely dwarfs the sovereign importance of the individual. All sources of information are rigidly controlled, every means of expression patterned, even the conclusions of a process of thought or of scientific investigation must hew to the determined line.
One peculiarity of the challenge made by Soviet Russia and its satellites must be singled out. Fascism and Nazism made some claim to a kind of infallibility, striving for a logical consistency in the dogmas that were deduced from their monstrous first principles. Their loyal adherents could go to bed at night with no fear that a change in doctrine would make them heretics while they slept. In the Russian challenge, there is the same claim to absolute control of speech, and an even greater claim to infallibility; but with no pretense at logical consistency. In fact, public confessions of error have been made again and again in the form of radical changes of doctrine; the changes have been made on the highest levels; and personages of greatest importance have fallen into tragic disfavor by holding what was of faith the day before. There is, then, no question of truth or error involved in the particular doctrines which must be held. The conformity of speech is not to a standard or a principle, but to the opinion held at the moment by those in possession of power.
A third challenge, almost as radical in its consequences as the Soviet challenge, has gone practically unnoticed by the champions of the liberal theory of free speech. It can most properly be called the philosophical challenge and has had the most flourishing growth in the United States, its most efficient promulgation through the processes of education, and its most fervent apostles in the champions of unlimited free speech. Though these facts stagger the mind, they are readily established. To explain how such contradictions find a peaceful home in the same mind is quite another matter; it is not readily made, if it can be made at all.
It will be remembered that among the fundamental principles of the liberal theory there were these: that man's nature is spiritual, and consequently free; and that man's intellect was a valid instrument for the discovery of truth. The universality of the rejection of these two fundamentals by modern philosophers and educators of the United States approaches unanimity. It is practically axiomatic that the only certain knowledge (i.e., grasped truth) which can be had is that which is presented by the senses, or the extension of the senses through scientific instruments; the process goes by the name of experimental observation. Rational argumentation does not give us truth; the intellect is not a valid instrument for the discovery of truth. There is the same axiomatic character to the denial of the spiritual nature of man. True, the word has often been preserved; but its meaning is carefully and explicitly distorted. When it has any meaning, it must be restricted to the psychological areas which man has in common with the animals; for there is no doubt in the modern philosopher's mind that man is just another animal, differing only in degrees from his more lowly, scaled, feathered and fur-bearing brothers. None of these, obviously, is spiritual. The denial of the spiritual nature of man should, logically, have resulted in the denial of man's freedom; to a great extent it has, but, at least in the practical living of life, this last denial has not been universally applied-though we are toying with the notion since it offers such pleasant relief from the burden of responsibility and moral restraints. The point here, however, is that this philosophical position constitutes a radical challenge to the liberal theory of free speech.
A fourth challenge, of much lesser moment in itself, might be called the interpretative challenge. Its concern is not so much with the principles at stake in the theory of free speech as with the extension of the right. This challenge finds its most vociferous expression in the defense of academic freedom and of freedom of the press. As one publisher puts it in a full-page editorial:
He (the publisher) may be constructive or destructive . . . a nasty, petty, mental pygmy who injects his personal prejudices into the columns of his newspaper . . . Since the days of the pamphleteer, no limitation upon absolute freedom of the press has been permitted under our Constitution . . . A code of ethics in journalism may serve as a guide, but in the final analysis every individual editor and publisher can observe it only to the extent that his conscience and rectitude of character permit.
Somewhat more restrained are the judicial pronouncements that have limited political restraints to defense against an "imminent, substantive danger" to the welfare of the state. Along the same lines are the constant court tests of the extent of limitation on speech imposed by the laws prohibiting obscenity, libel, slander; and, of course, the whole question of censorship. All of these move in the direction of less and less restraint upon speech, and may seem to be far removed from a challenge to the liberal theory of free speech; in actual fact, as we shall see later in this study, such unconditioned license may more effectively destroy freedom of speech than would a frontal attack upon that right.
In listing the challenges to the liberal theory of free speech, the Catholic challenge cannot be omitted even though it is a perennial rather than a modern challenge. While agreeing most completely with the fundamental propositions of liberalism in regard to the spiritual nature of man and the validity of his intellect to discover truth, the Church is in flat opposition to the liberal theory's rejection of authority in the matter of speech. This opposition finds its reason not only in the supernatural truths which man can know in no other way than by revelation, i.e., by accepting them on authority; but also in the divine guidance, divinely assured, protecting the Church from error in those comparatively few and strictly limited pronunciations on matters of faith and morals. Aside from these supernatural reasons and the insistence on authority, the Catholic position has always paid such homage to the character of truth and the capacity of the human mind to discover it as to insist that truths could be had with certitude and, consequently, their opposing errors restrained. In other words, the Church not only defends the supernatural, it insists upon the full dignity and validity of human nature, in opposition to the liberal theory, or at least its modern interpretations; for the denial of all restraints on speech is essentially an attack on human nature. To make this more clear, and to lay solid grounds for a critique of the modern challenge, it will be useful to make a philosophical analysis of the right of free speech at considerable length.
Analysis of Free Speech
The right to free speech flows directly from the very nature of man and thus takes its place, with no apologies offered, alongside his other fundamental rights such as his right to live, to work, to own. Paradoxically, this right has its roots in both the personal insufficiency and the personal superabundance of the individual man. On both counts he has obligations flowing from his very nature; and to fulfill those obligations, he must have free speech. This right, then, is his natural claim to opportunity to fulfill natural obligations. The thing is plain when put into concrete terms. To live, man must have truth, for he must direct his own steps to the goals that mean successful living and avert his steps from the goals that spell disaster for him; and the light by which his steps are directed can only be the light of truth, he must live his life in the light of what he knows. On the other hand, to live socially, he must share the truth he possesses with others who stagger under the same awesome responsibility of steering their lives to life's goals. He is not sufficient unto himself for the discovery of truth enough to live by before life has gone by; nor can he be happy in hoarding the truth he has come by through his own efforts and the kindness of others. He must learn and he must teach; for he is a man. For both, free speech is an essential.
While not immediately pertinent, it is worth noting here that no one of these fundamental rights of man stands absolutely unconditioned. There are lengths to which a man must go to preserve his life, times when that life must be seriously jeopardized, even hopelessly risked. His right to work is justly determined and limited by conditions laid down authoritatively by the society in which he lives; just as his acquisition of property, its transfer, and bequest. As will be seen later on in this study, the same thing is true of his right to free speech. It is sheer naïveté to argue, on the grounds of essential natural right, to complete unrestraint in speech.
For clarification of the points at issue in a discussion of free speech, it will be worth while delineating at some length the obvious implications of both terms: speech and freedom.
Proceeding from no more abstruse a definition than that given by a dictionary, we would describe speech as a means of communication through arbitrary signs by means of judgments and argumentation; or, as Webster has it, the faculty of expressing thoughts by words or articulate sounds. It is immediately clear that the use of arbitrary sounds, such as words, clearly implies the capacity to give meaning to otherwise meaningless things. It will be necessary, in view of the very nature of speech, to recognize the relation between subject and predicate (for judgment) and the relation between extremes and middle terms in argumentation. Both of these are intellectual operations, exceeding the capacities of sense knowledge and its extension through scientific instruments; for relations are only fundamentally in things, they are formally in the mind recognizing the fundaments. These are, in other words, spiritual activities with a proportionately immaterial source.
Since the ordinary material of communication is not fantasy, speech presupposes a measuring order in things, which order, being recognized by one man, is communicated to another by word. Speech, in other words, takes truth for granted in the world of things and communicates what of that truth is discovered. It thereby implies a source of that truth, a mind that measures the world of things as they are; for truth has an essential relation to mind so that if there is no mind behind the world of things as they are, there is no truth to be discovered there, no objective grounds for the communication which is speech. In the world of artificial things, the speaker can communicate to others the measuring order which he has imposed on things, as the architect can speak of his projected or completed building, the artist of his works. But whether the speech is of the world of natural things or the world of man-made products, it is necessarily the communication of an order and its relation to a mind. Again the implication of a spiritual principle of action is evident; for to preserve the words order, truth, mind, while ruling out the spiritual is a mutilation whose scar tissue must be disguised quickly under pain of sickening the listening mind to the extremes of nausea. On the basis of strict logic, a discussion of speech is closed to all those who deny order, truth, mind, or the spiritual soul of man.
An extremely skimpy notion of freedom is more than sufficient to bring out its crucial implications. It can be described as the capacity to choose between means to an end; in which sense, its abuse would consist in the refusal to act for the end, to use the means, or to accept either means or ends. The important distinction between freedom and its abuse need not be insisted on at this stage of this study; it will be enough to hold to the obvious fact that only beings capable of choosing rightly are capable of choosing evilly.
From just this much, freedom argues to the existence of ends to be achieved by human action and the capacity to discern the relation of a means to an end. Without that much, even evil choice is an impossibility. The fact of choice argues to our control of our actions, that we do in fact steer our own steps towards this or that end by the means we choose. Since the action proceeds under our control, or freely, we are obviously responsible for it. Both the perception of the relation of means to end and the control of action imply intellectual knowledge.
There is, then, a right and a wrong because there is an end to which action leads or from which it swerves; there is sin and virtue since the acts are controlled by us and are our responsibility. We have a spiritual appetite, or will, commensurate to the universality of intellectual knowledge and superior to the attraction of any particular means or indeed to particular ends; for the facts are that we do choose, which means we can take things or we can leave them alone. As the story of morality is the story of the things that perfect a man's nature, while the story of immorality is the account of the things that pervert and destroy that nature, the unchanging nature of man argues to a stable moral order, a fixed goal. To say that there are absolutes of good and evil, unchanging values which face a man at every step, is to say no more than that some things will perfect this unchanging nature of man and some things will destroy it.
On a strictly logical basis, the discussion of freedom should be closed to all those who deny these necessary implications of freedom. It would, however, be extremely difficult to exclude such as these; they are in fact the most vociferous of the modern champions of freedom of speech, particularly in the academic, moral, and political orders. Eventually they will exclude themselves from such discussions, for they go rapidly towards a denial of both freedom and speech in the world of the concrete; thus, for example, criminals are becoming sick men, words have no meaning-content, thoughts are visceral reverberations or sparks struck off by colliding associations, while men are children to be cared for by a paternal government.
With the terms and their necessary implications clear, it will be helpful to make clear, and to contrast, two rather similar sounding propositions: "Freedom of speech" and "Speech for freedom."
The first, "freedom of speech," has two current senses, both of which, strangely enough, were given expression in a full-page editorial in the Chicago Daily News of May 7, 1949. There is no doubt considerable significance in the fact that the editor was unconscious of refuting himself by giving expression to more than the first sense of this phrase; though this is not to our immediate interest here. The first sense argues to the absolute freedom of speech, insisting that the abuse of such a priceless privilege (freedom of the press in this absolute sense) is a thousand times less evil than "placing shackles upon the right of free speech." Taken literally, as it is taken in the defense of academic freedom, this means the right to say or to teach without limitation by any authority; the right, in other words, to say or teach anything. The second sense of "freedom of speech" is stated in the same place in a twenty-five-year-old quotation from the editor's father: "We ourselves are free, and our paper shall be free — free as the Constitution we enjoy — free to truth, good manners, and good sense." In other words, there are limits to free speech: limits of truth, good manners, and good sense. Freedom of speech is not totally unconditioned; but outside the absolute limits that must be placed on it, there must be no further, unjust limitations of this fundamental right of man. Freedom of speech is by no means the right to say or teach anything.
"Speech for freedom" expresses the fundamental use of speech, namely, the communication of truth, its investigation, and its stalwart defense. It remains strictly true that "the truth shall make you free." Speculative, or exclusively intellectual, truth frees a man's mind from the darkness of ignorance, floods it with the light of knowledge, makes for a deeper penetration of truths already known, and opens the way for discovery of further truth. Practical, or moral, truth gives sight to the blindness of man's appetites; since these are not made to see but to desire, unless truth gives them eyes they are blindly destructive rushes into chaos. This truth frees man's appetites from the ignorance that would lead him into detours or positive abandonment of the end which will perfect him, even though he proceed in such ignorance as to be without malice.
The thing is still more startling when stated negatively. Thus, speech against freedom finds its pre-eminent expression in philosophical denials and attacks on truths without which a man's thinking has no validity; for this eliminates the proper subject matter of speech, namely truth. Ordinarily this results in the philosopher's looking rather silly and being put gently to one side by the average man as just a little queer. Where, however, these things are taken seriously and imposed on immature minds, they deprive a man of the light of truth and impede or destroy his capacity for directing his actions humanly.
Speech against freedom is a fairly common thing for immediate practical purposes, such as winning an argument, winning an election, controlling a country. Here there is a deliberate deceit that makes it impossible for men to exercise freedom, for in the darkness of the deliberately inflicted ignorance it becomes impossible for a man to choose intelligently. The same is true in the deliberate perversion of truth by lying, whether the lie is on a small scale or in huge proportions. In the former case, the liar suffers an isolation from his fellows, condemning himself to solitary confinement by the perversion of the very instrument that was intended to bring him into intimate life with his fellows; he has drawn an impenetrable veil of darkness between himself and other men. The huge lie has been the constant technique of seduction of the totalitarian countries; and here there is no argument beyond the facts necessary to show that the opposite of truth leads to enslavement as truth itself leads to freedom. In this same class of speech against freedom we must also include the denial, or sneering neglect of moral truth. This, whatever the intention of the speaker, delivers man up to the service of what is beneath him, denying him the freedom of a lordly domination of things made for the use of man, the dominion of virtue as opposed to the enslavement of vice.
From what has been said, it is clear that "freedom of speech" is always spoken of in terms of a right, an inherent, habitual thing that cannot be destroyed by any degree of opposition. "Speech for freedom," on the other hand, introduces the question of the exercise of that right; and it is precisely this that is always in question in a challenge to the right to free speech, for it is only the exercise of the right that can be interfered with effectively. The denial of the right by no means abolishes that right; but the denial of the exercise of the right can very well make it impossible for a man to speak freely.
The fundamental truths of the philosophical analysis of free speech can be brought out by establishing the following three propositions: 1) there are limits to free speech; 2) it is dangerously tyrannous to impose unwarranted limits to free speech; 3) it is disastrously perverse to deny all limits to free speech. The general consequent of these three propositions will be that it is only by adhering strictly to the proper limits of free speech that men speak for freedom: in either of the other two cases, speech is against freedom and in favor of intellectual and moral slavery; and, ultimately, of political and industrial slavery.
1. There are limits to free speech.
The reason for this is to be found in the very nature of man. There are some truths which cannot be challenged under pain of destruction of men and the works of men; their denial or challenge obviously and immediately makes social life impossible to men. These truths, then, must be considered absolutes and mark the boundaries which freedom of speech cannot transgress without destroying itself. In the purely speculative, or exclusively intellectual order, such absolutes are the truths which cannot be denied without being affirmed, truths without which all thinking is invalidated; such, for example, as the principle of contradiction, the truth that absolute truths exist, and, generally, the principles immediately consequent on these: principles of causality, of sufficient reason, of finality. The moral absolutes of right and wrong will include such things as rape, arson, adultery, murder. To speak effectively against these truths is to get their opposites done; which is to destroy both men and society.
Not so immediately evident, but no less solidly absolute, will be such truths of the political order as the existence of the state for the good life of the citizens, the government as the delegate of the community's power, the adult character of the citizens and their consequent political rights. In the industrial order we must include such truths as the right to a living wage, to fair return of labor and investment, of humane working conditions, of justice in contracts and their maintenance, and so on.
Outside these absolutes, there is the wide field of opinion in which freedom of speech has its proper place; opinion, for example, as to one of several good means to an end, the proper use of this or that means, the effectiveness of this or that procedure, the probability of this or that hypothesis.
2. It is dangerously tyrannous to impose unwarranted limits on speech.
The reasons for this statement have been clearly seen by the champions of free speech, and have been forcibly stated by them. Here it will be necessary to do little more than summarize these arguments. The limitations are unwarranted when they extend to the field of opinion, for thus they canonize mere opinion, preventing examination of other opinions and effectively forbidding further search for truth. At best, this puts probabilities in the class of absolutes, and fixes men and society in a kind of rigor mortis which makes the flexibility of growth and progress an impossibility. At worst, this enthrones error and vice, using the full power of the state in their defense and promulgation; our own age is a witness to the nationwide effectiveness of such championship of error and vice. This unwarranted limitation of freedom of speech is a weapon of defense for weak men and for those entrenched in power and position. The inevitable evidence of the unwarranted character of such limitation is found in the fact that it never deals with the welfare of men as men; it is never to the advantage of the individual man and the community of which he is a part.
3. It is disastrously perverse to deny all limits to speech.
The reasons for this are really summarized in the editorial quotation cited above which placed the limits of truth, good manners, and good sense on the use of speech. From what has been said thus far, it is not hard to see that truth suffers badly from unrestrained speech. Among the sources that have dealt truth mortal wounds might be mentioned the philosophical license which destroys philosophy, the diet of lies which achieves propaganda's ends, and effective expression against moral truths which has made respectable the murder of unborn infants, the perversions of marriage, and is well on its way to approve the elimination of the helplessly ill. Restraints of speech in the name of truth are essential; yet plainly removal of the restraints good manners place on speech reduces human intercourse to the uncouth level of tavern brawls. Good sense places a limit on speech about things that are undoubtedly true, such as the physical facts of sex, details of crime, invasions of privacy in the name of realistic fiction, and so on. Beyond doubt, these barriers of good sense have been seriously weakened in the name of freedom of speech; perhaps the best argument against such a weakening is presented by the social consequences that have flowed from it.
It would seem fairly evident, then, that absolute freedom of speech which eliminates all limitation on speech is always speech against freedom, intellectual, moral, political and economic. It is hardly less evident that the unwarranted limitation of speech which pushes those restraints into the field of opinion, probability, partial truths, or downright errors is also speech against freedom. It is only a freedom of speech which is limited to exclude the absolutes from challenge, which respects good manners and good sense, that is speech for freedom. Even this freedom demands the careful direction of prudence to escape the delivery of men, particularly the young, into the slavery of vice. This, then, is the only freedom of speech which is defensible in the name of the very purposes of free speech.
The obvious objection to such a conclusion is the question of the determining authority of the limitations to be placed on speech. Who shall say what is outside of challenge? By what authority is any man's speech limited? The objection is bolstered by the disastrous results achieved by the totalitarian barriers to free speech; it would seem better to let everyone talk about everything than face such disasters.
It is fairly easy to name the alleged authorities who are certainly not competent to put restraints on the speech of men. Among these would be the individual interpreter of the word of God, the visionary's infallibility, the self-appointed reformer. With equal vehemence, we would have to reject the corrupt political machine and the government that openly flouts the individual goals of individual men. Nor is there any basis to such claims of restraint by ecclesiastical authority that makes no pretense of more than human competence; such authority may make some legitimate claims with the order of purely natural reason, but such claims must be vindicated not on an ecclesiastic but on a purely rational basis.
Such a negative statement, however, is little help in meeting the modern challenges to free speech; for it must always be remembered that total unrestraint is a challenge to the freedom of speech. The positive determination of competent authorities for the restraining of speech becomes difficult only when a complete distrust of man is joined to a complete enthronement of this distrusted creature above all guidance. Without any appeal to authority, the natural law itself imposes restraints on speech: on the individual level, this means that right, or sound, reason is the restraining power; on a social level, that force is the governmental authority basing its prohibitions clearly on natural law. Nor is this an appeal to a mythical "average man's mind." Just as a healthy eye is an adequate judge of color, a sound ear a proper judge of tone, an unspoiled appetite a good judge of food, so a healthy intellect is an adequate determinant of truth. Just as it is no refutation of these truths to adduce a diseased eye's mistakes, the errors of a faulty ear, or the disgust of a sick stomach, so neither is it an argument against the validity of the human mind to cite the mistakes of minds twisted by perverted education or gone to seed from sheer disuse. The natural law basis for positive law needs less argument today than ten years ago; indeed such argument can be had today in plenty from such an organ as the Journal of the American Bar Association.
Over and above this solid foundation in nature itself for restraint on speech, in Western countries which admit a divine origin of the world and a divine destiny for man, the clear prescriptions of Holy Scripture, at least of the Old Testament, should be an accepted authority. In Christian countries and among Christian peoples, certainly the clear prescriptions of Christ and of the New Testament should stand above challenge. It is hard for an intelligent man today to resort to the old dodge of dismissing Christ as a "noble man" while accusing Him of a felonious or ignorant claim to divinity. Among Catholics, proceeding on the infallibility of the Church and the preservation of natural as well as supernatural truth, the prescriptions of the Church have all the ring of authentic authority. There are, in a word, authorities for every man up to the point where he rejects his own humanity and so attempts to surrender humanity's fundamental rights.
Critique of the Challenges
These challenges have been exposed at some length earlier in this study. It will suffice here to point out the fundamental defects of these challenges, taking for granted the previous exposition.
1. The strictly political challenge violates no fundamental principle in its restraint of speech. As has been seen, no natural right is absolutely unconditioned; and the safety of the just government, with its consequent protection of the common good, is certainly sufficient reason for such a conditioning. In each particular case of such governmental restraint of political speech, the points at issue must be the justice of the government, the seriousness of the threat, and the effectiveness of restraint of speech against such a threat. These will all be questions of fact, reducing the discussion to the prudential level.
2. The universal challenge of the totalitarian countries is a blatant abuse of authority proceeding on a basic denial of the very nature of man, his freedom, and the validity of his intellect to discover truth. There is in this challenge a predictable destruction of the individuals in favor of the created divinity set up by tyrannous authority. It is not at all surprising then that both individual life and social life can subsist only on a subhuman level in these countries.
3. The philosophical challenge, though advanced in the name of fuller freedom of speech, actually makes freedom of speech impossible by making truth a relative thing, order a product of chance, and the mind of man impotent in its search for knowledge. Quite unintentionally, it has destroyed the basis of rights by eliminating basic obligations and the spiritual nature from which alone these obligations, and the consequent rights to opportunities for their fulfillment, flow. Advanced as a proud emancipation of man, it actually proceeds on the basis of a deep distrust of man's powers and an insulting degradation of his nature. In direct opposition to the liberal theory of free speech, it rejects two of the three fundamental principles of liberalism.
4. The interpretative challenge sounds a proper note of caution in its insistence on few and extremely careful limitations on speech. But it makes a fundamental error when it challenges, as it does in some of its expressions, any restraint whatever on speech. In this latter sense it is speech against freedom and operates as effectively to the destruction of men and society as the totalitarian prohibition of any liberty in speech. In fact two of the fundamental grounds for this complete unrestraint are themselves an insult to both truth and mind, namely, that no one is certain and that no truth is so vitally important.
5. The Catholic challenge is indeed a challenge to the liberal theory of freedom of speech, but it is by no means a challenge to the right of free speech, nor to the exercise of that right. Rather it is the solid defense of both the right of free speech and of speech for freedom by its insistence on the nature of truth, of the validity of the intellect, of the spiritual nature of man and his freedom, and of the absolutes whose rejection is a certain prelude to the rejection of the fundamental rights of man.
© Order of Preachers, Province of St. Joseph
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