# Is free speech really essential for society? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 3, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102 "2015-07-03T02:09:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/1 "2015-07-03T02:09:53Z")
One could make the argument that a society could ban free speech and freedom of expression, yet still have a good health-care system, long life expectancy, a good economy, good infrastructure, a good transportation network, renewable energy, low crime, low poverty, low unemployment, a strong military, a clean environment, etc. So is free speech and freedom of expression really necessary for society, and can society ultimately still carry on without it? ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/2 "2015-07-03T02:28:49Z")
How would you know any of it was good if you couldn’t speak freely about it? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/3 "2015-07-03T02:36:45Z")
How do you ban free speech? You could ban certain\* kinds \*of speech, and thus you don’t really have “free” speech, but as far as I know no country on Earth has truly free speech (i.e. no laws at all about incitement, slander or libel), barring a few one-person micronations. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/4 "2015-07-03T02:39:11Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > How do you ban free speech? You could ban certain\* kinds \*of speech, and thus you don’t really have “free” speech, but as far as I know no country on Earth has truly free speech (i.e. no laws at all about incitement, slander or libel), barring a few one-person micronations. Banning free speech doesn’t necessarily mean banning everyone’s views, in fact, it would most likely take the form of shutting down one side’s views. (After all, in Nazi Germany, you were perfectly free to express pro-Nazi views, right?) So you could have a country in which right-wingers shut down all left-wing opinions but give right-wing opinions free expression, or conversely, a country in which left-wingers shut down all right-wing opinions but give left-wing opinions free expression. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/5 "2015-07-03T02:41:28Z")
Free speech is not essential for society. There are plenty of societies without free speech. It is kind of nice though. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/6 "2015-07-03T02:41:56Z")
Without free speech, you couldn’t express or evaluate new ideas. Ultimately, the society would stagnate, and all the wonderful things the OP listed would be unsustainable. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/7 "2015-07-03T02:44:42Z")
Well, such a country could certainly function for a few decades at least, but the real test in the modern era is going to be whether or not China can sustain economic growth while maintaining its heavily-monitored and limited internet. I’m guessing they can until mid-century at least. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/8 "2015-07-03T03:03:35Z")
I’d submit it’s essential for any long term democratic form of government. If the government of whatever structure can simply forbid expressing ideas or information which it dislikes democracy breaks down. Eventually some individual or organization has full control. There’ve been issues with those society’s providing all that stuff in the OP to most/all of their populations in the long run. They also tend to be marked by periods of revolt and insurgency which tends produce serious issues with providing most of the good stuff in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/9 "2015-07-03T03:04:18Z")
Free speech is essential for _democracy_. Democracy ins’t essential for having a decent standard of living, at least in the short term. The idea hasn’t really been around long enough to determine if it’s essential to maintaining a decent standard of living in the long term. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/10 "2015-07-03T03:06:31Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > So is free speech and freedom of expression really necessary for society, and can society ultimately still carry on without it? The vast majority of societies have carried on without any semblance of free speech. For most of history questioning the local gods or suggesting that maybe the peasants should have a say in who the ruler is would have resulted in you being killed in short order. So of course societies can carry on without freedom of speech. That’s not really the point though is is it? > [@](#): > > One could make the argument that a society could ban free speech and freedom of expression, yet still have a good health-care system, long life expectancy, a good economy, good infrastructure, a good transportation network, renewable energy, low crime, low poverty, low unemployment, a strong military, a clean environment, etc. You could make that _statement_, but you’d have a hell of time defending it with any rational argument. Try naming society low poverty, low corruption, a strong military and a clean environment that doesn’t also have low level of restriction on speech? And conversely, name a country with high levels of pollution, rampant corruption, a shitty military and poor life expectancy that has anything approaching freedom of speech? The problem is that all those things you listed are undergoing constant advancement. the state of the environment now is much better than it was 20 years ago, and that was better than it was 20 years elaier and so forth. the same with the military, crime, poverty and so forth. And that advancement comes out of new ideas. If a society makes it a crime to suggest that women should enjoy all the rights that men have, that Billionaire Bob should stop pumping shit into the river, that it isn’t acceptable for companies to kill their workers and so forth, then that society will be frozen in the 1930s. They won’t have any of the things that you listed because they won’t be advancing. And because it’s impossible to know which ideas will lead to advancement, you really need to let all of them fight it out, no matter how bizarre or dangerous yo might think them to be. The ideals of femisinism, form the right to vote, the right of women to work alongside men and to the right to birth control were all seen as crazy and dangerous in their day. Bu they have led to massive improvements in all the things you listed. Literally every one of them. But because they created those improvemnts ib largely unpredictable ways, if the ideas had been shut down simply because they were viewed as dangerous and offensive, our society woudn’t have the things you listed. So yeah, you can assert that society with massive restrictions on speech can advance just as fast as societies with freer speech. But I don’t think you can defend it with reasoned argument. If your point is that a society can reach some arbitrary level of advancement in those areas, then remain at that level despite massive restrictions on freedom of speech, well yeah. Of course they can. But that doesn’t mean they will continue to have a good level of those things. A society that imposed restrictions on freedom of expression in the 1950s has only been exposed to ideas popular in the 1950s and will have 1950s levels of health care, employment etc. That isn’t good compared to 2015 levels of those things. A society with restrictions on expression will be behind an identical society without those restrictions on expression. You can arbitrarily decide that those levels are “good enough”. But that doesn’t make them good. If your standards aren’t close best practice then they are not good. And if your society is exposed to only limited ideas, then you will not have best practice in all those areas. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/11 "2015-07-03T03:12:35Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > How do you ban free speech? You could ban certain\* kinds \*of speech, and thus you don’t really have “free” speech, but as far as I know no country on Earth has truly free speech (i.e. no laws at all about incitement, slander or libel), barring a few one-person micronations. :dubious: Really? You honestly don’t get this? And you also don’t believe that you can ban the right to bear arms, the right to vote, the right to choose you religions and the right to not get shot in the face. Because no country on Earth has unfettered access to those things either. Hence they can never be banned. I think you are trying to make some ort of point by being obtuse here, but I can’t work out hat hat point might be. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/12 "2015-07-03T03:30:50Z")
Nah, make people have to buy a license to talk. Leave ideology out of it. That’s the capitalist way. (A long time ago, I read a science fiction story to that effect.) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/13 "2015-07-03T03:33:26Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > :dubious: > > Really? You honestly don’t get this? Chill. I get what the OP was going for - his phrasing struck me as clumsy. > [@](#): > > And you also don’t believe that you can ban the right to bear arms And this appears clumsy to me as well. I don’t think one _bans_ a right. It sounds more accurate to me to _abrogate_ a right or _annul_ a right. You could _ban_ an action (i.e. the act of expressing certain concepts or possessing weapons). I’ve never heard it expressed as “banning free speech”. A country could ban _certain_ speech, and thus demonstrate that it does not recognize an absolute right to free speech. > [@](#): > > I think you are trying to make some ort of point by being obtuse here, but I can’t work out hat hat point might be. Well, don’t strip your gears with further effort; it was a minor quibble about phrasing, not some attempted masterpiece of disingenuity. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/14 "2015-07-03T03:42:27Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Nah, make people have to buy a license to talk. Leave ideology out of it. That’s the capitalist way. > > (A long time ago, I read a science fiction story to that effect.) Nah, the capitalist way is to have the biggest market share in The News and let your financers and the license provider have a say in what your speech consists of. I once read…uhmm no…I see that every day. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/15 "2015-07-03T03:46:41Z")
Incidentally, another suggestion is _repeal_, taken from the phrasing of the 21st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.” The 18th wasn’t “banned”, as such. If at some future date the U.S. decided it had had enough of this “free speech” stuff, I expect the 35th Amendment (or whatever) would have language along the lines of “The first article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.” Free speech wouldn’t be banned - it would just cease to exist as a right. Then there’d be follow-up legislation banning specific speech, and/or giving government broad powers to crack down on “unpatriotic speech”, i.e. whatever it didn’t like. Again, not a big deal. I’m not going to hassle anyone who prefers to say “ban free speech” or accuse them of deliberate obtuseness. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/16 "2015-07-03T04:49:34Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > One could make the argument that a society could ban free speech and freedom of expression, yet still have a good health-care system, long life expectancy, a good economy, good infrastructure, a good transportation network, renewable energy, low crime, low poverty, low unemployment, a strong military, a clean environment, etc. > So is free speech and freedom of expression really necessary for society, and can society ultimately still carry on without it? No, it isn’t necessary for society, and yes, society could carry on perfectly well without it. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/17 "2015-07-03T05:21:53Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > … society could carry on perfectly well without it. Can you name such a society? ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/18 "2015-07-03T05:47:26Z")
Different cultures have different ideas about free speech, so it depends on what you’re talking about exactly. Nowadays the straight crack down is a rather outdated concept in most places. It’s easier to control the range of acceptable thought through media and let the population self police. The most pernicious speech controls to an advanced society would probably be when it intrudes into science, like when the Soviet state embraced Lysenkoism, banned Mendelian genetics because it was bourgeois capitalist propaganda, and executed or exiled a bunch of geneticists. [We’ve moved beyond that sort of silliness, thankfully.](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/23/climate-change-florida-official) ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/19 "2015-07-03T06:18:26Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > The most pernicious speech controls to an advanced society would probably be when it intrudes into science, like when the Soviet state embraced Lysenkoism, banned Mendelian genetics because it was bourgeois capitalist propaganda, and executed or exiled a bunch of geneticists. [We’ve moved beyond that sort of silliness, thankfully.](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/23/climate-change-florida-official) Yes indeed. We can truly be thankful that no [Left wing political group in Europe would dream of engaging in such absurdity.](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-e-u-law-lets-nations-ban-gene-modified-crops/) ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102/20 "2015-07-03T14:30:46Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Try naming society low poverty, low corruption, a strong military and a clean environment that doesn’t also have low level of restriction on speech? Singapore? Not sure how you would rate the freedom of speech there, but it seems to me that criticizing too much the local policies there might have adverse results. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-free-speech-really-essential-for-society/724102.md?page=2)