Can free speech truly exist without good manners?
Yes. (Extra typing because Discourse.)
I’d say some of the most important free speech is ill mannered. Lots of rhetoric designed to evade the truth is based on precise manners. So sometimes it takes someone saying things in a blunt way. Not sure if this is what you mean.
On the other hand, I have a friend who insists that if everyone were armed we’d all be more polite. Seems to me that’s intimidation, not politeness.
In a good argument bluntness and directness should be rewarded. Lack of objectiveness should never be rewarded. Keep in mind that the original proposed argument would need to be presented in an objective manner.
I’m not sure what you mean by “good manners”.
There are circumstances where the need to grease the wheels of social interaction means we lie. We say things that are simply not true, or perhaps avoid saying things that we know to be true.
However, someone should be free to say those truths without any legal repercussions and without their life and livelihood being ruined because they choose to do so.
So to that extent, that free speech would be necessarily transcend good manners. I’m not sure how good manners can be accommodate people speaking the objective truth in all circumstances.
I’d say the opposite. Polite well mannered free speech rarely needs protection. To be meaningful the right to free speech must cover bad mannered, rude, and offensive free speech.
The case of George Floyd would be a good example of what you are talking about. People were given the impression that police killings were a common occurrence. It was highly exaggerated yet in this particular case it took just that to effect change. So I do see a positive side to that. But in most cases I see villainizing of those that have an alternate position on something before any basis to an argument is even presented. Both sides get closed off from listening to one another.
Crude language and extreme bluntness are not enemies of free speech. The heckler’s veto (and things related to it, like refusal to shut up and give others their turn to speak) is. I suppose you could classify that as rudeness.
Well that is true enough. Quoting the actual facts regarding police killings of unarmed black men would be certainly be seen as ill-mannered in many circumstances but it does no one any favours to ignore those facts.
There are times, there are situations, and there are dynamics in which I think the powerful and oppressive take deep umbrage to profanity and blunt speech, simply because … they’re not on the receiving end of grave and profound injustice.
[Put another way, it’s much easier for the abusive spouse to be ‘cool and collected’ than it might be for the spouse receiving the abuse]
I’ve often heard it said that if you’re overly-focused on the messenger (ie, the superficial aspects of how the message is delivered) instead of on the underlying message itself, you are inherently perpetuating the problem that the message seeks to illuminate.
Free speech often requires intensity, emotion, calls to action, and atypical diction in order to reach its target audience. Even when that isn’t effective, eliding those things doesn’t automatically mean that the speech will have any meaningful effect.
Sometimes, the overly genteel and polite other person … just ain’t listening, and hides behind no end of contrived reasons for why your point isn’t getting through to them.
Just wanted to add that “villainizing of those who have an alternate position” is not equal to rude speech. But correct, it often has the effect you describe, and isn’t a particularly effective tactic unless you’re trying to motivate a stark ‘us vs them’ movement - in which case you’re not trying to have a debate in the first place.
Rude speech can absolutely be a part of the tools you use there however.
But directly answering the OP, @Darren_Garrison has the correct answer. “Yes.”
To elaborate, in order to divide ‘rude’ speech from ‘polite’ speech, someone has to be the arbitrator. That person is in a position to define the terms of debate, thus the speech is already no longer free.
I think a better question would have been " Is it sustainable" . As one side gains power over another and friction develops the right to speak freely seems to be diminishing.
I think we’re having various distinctions that may or may not have meaning.
So, first, “Can free speech truly exist without good manners?”
Again yes. Have nothing to do with each other.
If you rephrased that “Can a meaningful debate exist without good manners?” then I’d have to weasel a bit. Then we’re getting to the circumstances wherein rude language, othering, and other tactics can impede finding common ground or can cause a debate to degenerate into name-calling.
For your latest point - is free speech sustainable, presumably without good manners [ feel free to correct me if I’m misinterpreting your question] - the answer is still a simple “Yes.” But with the exact same issue from above - speech is free, it’s nature isn’t compromised by how you say things, but your ability to convince other parties is also going to be affected by the way you try to persuade them.
Since we’re quickly approaching the point where the political discourse in the US is based entirely on ‘us vs them’ with at least one side refusing to give an inch if it allows their opponents to succeed on even the most basic issues, then we’re already pretty deep into the unsustainable levels - but that’s politics not speech or even debate.
After all, how can you have debate when you don’t share simple agreement on basic facts?
If speech truly is free then it necessarily includes speech that some people will consider ill-mannered. I don’t see how it could be any other way.
I’ll note that essentially all tyrants and dictators subscribe to the notion that free speech is a fine thing provided it’s well-mannered. The unsaid part is that the definition of good manners invariably falls within the purview of those in power.
IOW, the view that speech should be free so long as it’s not obnoxious / hateful / hurtful / provocative / dangerous exactly aligns with the opinions of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc.
Your speech will be free as long as you’re able to say {whatever} without censorship or fear of meaningful harm.
Your speech will be effective as long as you’re able to first attract an audience and then cause them to alter their actions or opinions even a little bit in response to your exhortations. The more alteration you cause, the more effective you are. That may be a matter of calling the like-minded to action, or inciting the not-like minded to adjust their opinions and perhaps, eventually, their actions too.
Ideally good manners helps those messages be both effective and without censure. Although as pointed out above, lots of people who hate the truth love to redefine “polite” (and “truth”) to be “what I agree with” or in the case of bullies & tyrants, “what serves my purposes.”
I saw an entire op-ed by a well-known op-edder a few weeks ago elaborating on exactly this point, but then I couldn’t find it again. I wish I could link to it here.
Absolutely, it can exist with out good manners. In fact I think a lot of rules of etiquette are established precisely to prevent free speech and to enforce rigid economic and racial barriers. Those on the other side off those barriers are often considered ill-mannered just because they declare their own humanity.
As is often the case with these free speech debates, it’s a loaded framing. Everywhere, including the US, has to have a concept of “non-protected” speech. Saying that X or Y should not necessarily be protected speech doesn’t immediately mean there is no free speech.
I think we can all agree that we should be able to state any opinion, and inform about any observations (i.e. a free press), as long as those observations don’t harm national security. These are the important things to preserve in a concept of “free speech”.
Beyond that, things get complicated. Where do we draw the line between stating an opinion that a particular ethnic group is inferior, say, and harassment, intimidation and incitement to commit crimes? I would put people waving swastikas, using racial epithets and holding banners saying “jews must die” or whatever firmly on the latter side.
And does the right to inform necessarily entail the right to knowingly lie? I have not heard a good reason why journalists should have that right.
Let alone shit like donations to politicians being “speech”.
Because who gets to decide what is a lie?