Free Speech and Identity Politics

I thinkArnold Kling is one of the most insightful bloggers around so I am pleased that he likes my latest Cato policy analysis. He remarks:My worry is that American culture no longer supports free speech …But hurting someone’s feelings should not count as direct harm. Racist remarks or Holocaust denial may be uncouth, but in a culture of free speech they should be permitted.I agree with Kling about extreme speech. I am not sure that the culture for free speech has changed all that much.We first learned in the 1950s that while Americans overwhelmingly supported the First Amendment in the abstract, majorities or significant minorities often opposed freedom of speech in concrete cases (like letting unpopular minorities speak). But beyond America ’s general culture of free speech, things have changed.In the past elites supported free speech. Now I wonder if they do.Some attribute the problems of free speech (especially among elites) to the rise of identity politics. In his excellent bookIdentity, Francis Fukuyama sees identity politics as the demand for public recognition of the dignity of each person ’s inner self. That inner self should be authentic rather than imposed by society. Authenticity in turn implies connections to a group and to history. Speech that offends this dignity of the inner self contravenes identity politics.
But need identity and free speech be at odds?  Free speech is, itself, vital to the realization and expression of authentic identity. It is pos...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 3, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: John Samples Source Type: blogs