The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, this is Gad Saad for The Sad Truth.

00:00:05.700 About three months ago, I had headed off to a public library,

00:00:11.060 a very beautiful public library close to my house

00:00:13.080 to hang out with my daughter who had to study for her exams.

00:00:16.560 And as I was looking around in a section where some of my books are housed,

00:00:20.560 you know, we're all a bit egotistical.

00:00:22.960 We go to check whether a particular library is carrying our books.

00:00:25.840 Well, close to my book, The Parasitic Mind, this one, was this beauty right here.

00:00:33.740 Free Speech, A History from Socrates to Social Media by Jacob Mshangama.

00:00:40.100 And I started to read it there.

00:00:41.940 I got to, I think, page 22.

00:00:44.120 And as I got home that day, I wrote to Jacob.

00:00:47.180 And after a few months of going back and forth, I have him here.

00:00:50.720 Welcome, Jacob. How are you doing?

00:00:53.160 Thank you, Gad.

00:00:54.020 Thanks so much for having me.

00:00:56.100 I've really looked forward to this discussion.

00:00:58.460 And by the way, your pronunciation of my last name is the best I've heard.

00:01:02.980 So, thanks.

00:01:05.220 That's a high compliment. Thank you.

00:01:07.280 So, let me just mention to people who you are, and then we'll get going.

00:01:10.660 So, you're a lawyer, originally from Denmark, a lawyer and a human rights activist.

00:01:14.680 You are the CEO of the think tank Justitia.

00:01:18.400 Is that, how's that for the pronunciation? That's okay?

00:01:20.900 Okay. Research professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

00:01:26.380 Senior fellow at FIRE, the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression.

00:01:30.560 Greg Lukianyoff is someone that I know well.

00:01:35.200 I hung out with him at the Stanford University conference that was held last year on academic freedom.

00:01:42.840 And he was one of my early guests on the show, maybe seven, eight years ago.

00:01:47.000 And I recently met his co-author on the latest book.

00:01:51.040 I was speaking at an event in New York, and I got to meet her.

00:01:56.240 So, there are many intersections in our respective worlds.

00:01:59.880 Anything else we want to add?

00:02:01.260 Of course, this book right here, the Historical Treaties on Free Speech, which we'll get into quite extensively.

00:02:08.300 Anything else that I might have missed in your bio before we get going, Jacob?

00:02:11.500 Yeah. Well, I run the Future Free Speech Project, which is now housed at Vanderbilt University.

00:02:18.580 And I actually just got back from Philadelphia for the annual board and advisory council meeting of FIRE.

00:02:27.520 So, I was hanging out and having dinner with Greg Lukianov and other good free speech people.

00:02:32.160 So, it's a small world.

00:02:33.960 It is a small world.

00:02:35.000 So, maybe we could start with the, I guess, most fundamental question.

00:02:39.400 I'm often interested in what compels someone to be uniquely interested in a particular issue.

00:02:45.500 You know, we could all spend our time pursuing many valuable, you know, goals and objectives.

00:02:51.360 Of course, one could argue few are as important as freedom of speech.

00:02:54.600 So, I understand that.

00:02:55.700 But what uniquely titillated your fancy to say, okay, this is where I want to make my contribution?

00:03:02.980 Yeah, that's a great question, because I was born and raised in Denmark and Copenhagen, which is one of the most sort of secular, liberal countries in the world, where in my sort of youth, I took free speech for granted.

00:03:17.920 I didn't think much about it.

00:03:19.080 It was like breathing the air.

00:03:21.140 And then, as you probably remember, in 2005, there was a Danish newspaper that published a number of cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

00:03:29.020 And suddenly, Denmark became the epicenter of what I would call a global battle of values over the relationship between free speech and religion.

00:03:38.860 And what I saw was that a lot of the people who saw themselves as progressive, liberal, in favor of enlightenment values and so on, suddenly started saying, well, yes, we have free speech, but free speech should not be abused to punch down on minorities.

00:03:59.000 And we should show respect, but free speech is not a duty to speak.

00:04:06.740 All kinds of arguments that I found very, very unconvincing.

00:04:10.620 And where, to me, this was about, you know, really an age-old battle that had been absolutely essential to open liberal democracy, sort of the ability to criticize and even mock religion, and that religious feelings and doctrines should not have special privileges in an open society.

00:04:31.940 And I think, you know, the events of that led to, you know, journalists, editors living, some of them became friends with round-the-clock security.

00:04:51.440 There were terrorist attacks, and there were, you know, discussions around the globe about this.

00:04:56.140 People died around the globe due to, you know, the controversies over cartoons that for a very long time had been seen as a completely normal thing to do in newspapers.

00:05:10.460 So I think the cartoon affair is really what made me become obsessed and go down the rabbit hole of free speech.

00:05:20.100 Well, since you mentioned the cartoon affair, I briefly refer to it.

00:05:26.180 So in the parasitic mind, I talk about non-negotiable elements of a free society.

00:05:30.700 And, of course, freedom of speech is at the center of it.

00:05:33.640 And you might remember, well, you would certainly remember, but maybe some of our viewers and listeners,

00:05:37.740 that when the cartoon affair was going to be covered in a book, I think it was Yale University Press,

00:05:46.840 the book is about the cartoons.

00:05:48.760 They refused to publish the cartoons in that book.

00:05:52.300 I mean, it's insane.

00:05:54.120 Yeah, and I think one of the sad things about this is that most mainstream media outlets would not republish the cartoons.

00:06:06.140 One of the brave magazines that actually did show solidarity was Charlie Hebdo.

00:06:11.640 And that is one of the main reasons why they became the victims of a hideous terrorist attack that claimed the lives of a dozen people.

00:06:23.300 And, you know, it's incredible to me that mainstream media outlets would not initially show the cartoons.

00:06:31.980 I understand why some media outlets now in Denmark won't do it because, you know, it comes at a high price.

00:06:38.660 But then, you know, I prefer then media outlets to be honest saying rather than talking about respect and so on, you know,

00:06:49.660 admit that you're doing it out of fear, that there is a threat from violent extremists.

00:06:55.340 And that's why we're not publishing them, because otherwise, you know, we sugarcoat the existence of a lethal threat to free speech.

00:07:06.160 And, you know, I understand why it's sensitive to talk about, you know, in countries like Denmark, Muslims are a minority.

00:07:15.460 And it's very easy for these discussions to become sort of polarized and sort of to paint all Muslims as a threat to free speech, which is which, of course, is not the truth.

00:07:25.660 I mean, there's been a lot of Muslims who pay, you know, who are much braver than and pay a high price for speaking out against these kinds of laws.

00:07:37.160 But, you know, ultimately, you have to face the truth of the of the threat.

00:07:43.260 And that threat is there. And yeah, so those are the things that that keep me up at night.

00:07:49.280 And unfortunately, we can maybe can get into this. The Danish government now is introducing a renewed blasphemy ban because we have far right people who run around burning the Korans in the streets.

00:08:01.400 And, you know, you might say, well, that's not a very sophisticated way to express your contempt for religion.

00:08:07.480 But so what? You know, you can burn the Danish constitution and you can burn the Danish flag.

00:08:13.460 Why should there be special laws prohibiting the so-called improper treatment of religious objects?

00:08:21.540 Well, because OIC states like Iran and Saudi Arabia have put pressure on the Danish government because Al Qaeda have made threats against Danish society.

00:08:32.340 And so you set a terrible precedent when you say, yes, OK, we're going to cave to your demands because you're not going to get peace.

00:08:40.800 They're going to come back next time someone does something that has not yet been criminalized and say, hey, please, please ban more.

00:08:48.900 Yeah, well, that's I think that I mean, there's a long history, as you well know from your book of, you know, doing these kinds of things.

00:08:55.440 But in 1990, I think the Cairo Declaration is one that sort of tried to offer a framework for the fact that that's in Arabic, you say, dude, meaning like a line that you don't cross.

00:09:10.780 Right. There are. Of course, we believe in freedom of speech.

00:09:13.400 But now the second that you say, but you no longer believe in free speech.

00:09:19.200 And let me just mention a couple of things here. So in my own work, you know, defending freedom of speech, I often draw the distinction between two ethical systems, deontological ethics and consequentialist ethics.

00:09:31.660 Deontological ethics is an absolute statement. If I say it is never OK to lie, that would be a deontological statement.

00:09:37.620 If I say it is OK to lie, to spare someone's feelings, well, then that would be a consequentialist statement.

00:09:44.040 Now, for many, many things in life, we're all consequentialist. That's fine.

00:09:47.780 But for certain foundational values on which the West is built, those by definition have to be deontological.

00:09:55.400 There is no but. So that I am Jewish.

00:09:59.160 I escaped the Middle East where, you know, some pretty nasty folks wanted to separate my head from the rest of my body. 0.96

00:10:06.480 And yet I support the right of Holocaust deniers to spew their nonsense.

00:10:11.940 There is nothing more that could be more offensive than the denial of a historical reality where an entire people were being exterminated. 1.00

00:10:21.340 But if you are an absolutist defender of free speech, then you say, I have to put up with assholes. 1.00

00:10:26.960 I have to put up with imbeciles. 1.00

00:10:28.620 I have to put up with people who are anti-Semitic, who spread falsehoods. 0.99

00:10:32.800 Why is it that folks like you and I that come from many different, from very different backgrounds can see that, but many of our super smart, progressive friends can't see that?

00:10:47.120 So I think, well, first of all, I think.

00:10:50.860 Free speech is in many ways probably a counterintuitive principle to human beings.

00:10:58.940 So there are so many pressures to conform, for instance, for human beings.

00:11:09.720 Maybe free speech was not a particularly useful skill, you know, as we evolved.

00:11:22.320 Maybe there were strong pressures to conform for survival.

00:11:25.800 That's, you know, I'm not an expert on that.

00:11:29.780 You know more about that than me.

00:11:32.660 But then when you, when we've sort of evolved into living in open democracies, free speech became sort of one of the basic foundations of that.

00:11:43.740 But I also think that, well, yeah, so there's always this, you know, it's a counterintuitive principle, which is difficult to uphold.

00:11:52.920 And there's always this temptation for human beings to say, yes, free speech is important.

00:11:58.780 But these kinds of speech really threaten the underlying values of free speech.

00:12:05.920 And therefore, we have to make exceptions.

00:12:11.780 And I think today, a lot of the, you know, people who come out of a liberal progressive tradition, I think there's a tendency to say, well, free speech is being weaponized against minorities.

00:12:25.240 It entrenches unequal power relations, which I try to show in the book is a deeply ahistorical reading of the history of free speech.

00:12:34.180 In fact, there has been no, that I know of at least, marginalized, oppressed group that has achieved equality or recognition or tolerance without exercising speech, you know, and often at very great cost.

00:12:52.300 Now, think about, think about the rights of women, for instance, women, in order to obtain the right to vote and equality, women did not have guns, they did not have political offices, they did not have the power needed. 0.98

00:13:07.400 So if men had wanted to keep women down in Western, they could have done so ultimately by physical force and did so in many situations.

00:13:16.600 So why was it that the struggle for women's rights resonated? 0.99

00:13:21.400 Well, it was, you know, to a high degree because of arguments, right?

00:13:26.840 Because of protests, you know, shining a light on the absurdity of holding intelligent women down and sort of the inability of coming up with a coherent defense of systematic inequality between the sexes.

00:13:48.040 And you could say the same for, you know, the gay rights movement.

00:13:51.040 And of course, my favorite example is that of abolitionists in this country, in the United States, where someone like Frederick Douglass might be the person who has used the word and speech to the greatest and most devastating effect.

00:14:06.280 In order to fight for someone who saw accurately, in my opinion, that the values of freedom of speech and equality are mutually reinforcing, not mutually exclusive.

00:14:19.600 And I think, unfortunately, a number of people today see free speech and equality as mutually exclusive, or at least see a tension between these two values.

00:14:32.020 Very, very nice.

00:14:32.780 So now I want to get, I want to really get into a deep dive into this beauty right here.

00:14:38.740 And the reason why I was very excited, I mean, I must admit, I haven't got even close to finishing the book, but I certainly quickly went through some of the headlines.

00:14:48.860 So I love broad, synthetic approaches to a topic.

00:14:54.420 So I've had, so my last book, my most recent book was on happiness.

00:14:58.100 And so one of the people who endorsed my book is a historian who wrote a book on the history of happiness through many traditions, you know, the ancient Greeks and others that have studied happiness across time, across cultures.

00:15:12.300 I love the book by Siddharth Mukherjee, his first book, The Emperor of All Maladies.

00:15:20.300 He's an oncologist, a cancer physician, where he was studying the history of cancer.

00:15:25.740 So he was talking about, you know, it was a biography of how different cultures at different times have studied and have viewed cancer.

00:15:33.320 And now here you come along, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, you know, you're one of the first guys, I mean, many people have written about freedom of speech, including yours truly.

00:15:43.360 But you really, you know, you're trying to cover it across, you know, millennia in some cases, across cultures.

00:15:50.580 So what are some, you know, how did you decide of all possible, the buffet of possible stories, cultures, and so on to cover those?

00:16:01.500 I mean, some of them you can't avoid discussing, but yet, you know, I listed, for example, someone that I thought might be in your book, which we can talk about later, which I don't think is in your book.

00:16:11.320 So how did you come to that decision to decide which culture, which time period to cover?

00:16:17.060 Yeah, so the book is partly based on a podcast that I did previously called Clear and Present Danger, History of Free Speech, where it was my goal to cover the history of free speech as best as I could.

00:16:31.300 And I sort of, I, to me, at least sort of where I see the origins of freedom of speech, at least in its sort of systematic application, is in the Athenian democracy originating some 2,500 years ago.

00:16:53.000 And the Athenians had two overlapping concepts, one of them called isagoria, meaning equality of speech, so that means every free-born male citizen has a direct voice and vote in political affairs in the assembly in Athens.

00:17:06.640 But perhaps even more interestingly, they also had a concept called paresia, meaning something like uninhibited speech, which was a civic commitment to the tolerance of social dissent across society.

00:17:20.240 So even Florian or someone like Aristotle could set up shop in Athens and write things that were very critical of democracy.

00:17:32.100 And even though Socrates, it didn't end up well for him.

00:17:36.580 I was going to say, except for Socrates, yes.

00:17:39.320 But we have to remember that for decades, he was allowed to accost his citizens in the agora, in the marketplace.

00:17:46.780 And I think there were some very specific reasons for why ultimately the Athenians lost patience with him.

00:17:53.040 One of them being, you know, and this is something that is relevant to our times, that, you know, when we sense that our values are under threat, we tend to become much more intolerant.

00:18:02.940 And someone like Socrates had very close relations with oligarchs that had been involved with coups that had overthrown democracy.

00:18:12.420 And I think Socrates, for all his intellectual merits, was not a big fan of democracy, not necessarily even of egalitarian free speech.

00:18:25.000 So that might have contributed to why he ended up the way he did.

00:18:31.840 And I think he could have avoided the death penalty if, you know, if he had been willing to compromise, which obviously he did not.

00:18:40.500 But then you can compare the Athenian model with the Roman Republican model.

00:18:45.920 So Roman Republicanism also sees free speech as important, but they don't have a specific term for it.

00:18:54.100 So it's part of libertas, like the larger freedom to Roman citizens.

00:18:59.620 But it's a much more elitist, top-down form of free speech.

00:19:03.660 So essentially, unlike the Athenian assemblies, only magistrates can speak.

00:19:08.960 Ordinary citizens cannot speak. 0.97

00:19:10.520 They can only sort of ratify decisions.

00:19:12.320 And it's generally seen as something to be exercised by the wealthy, well-educated elite and not the rabble. 0.97

00:19:23.100 In fact, for many, sort of someone like Cicero, if you ask him, he admired Greek culture, but he saw Athenian democracy as the root of the demise of Greek culture.

00:19:37.560 Why would you let the unwashed mob, the uneducated citizen, allow them to have a decision and a voice in public affairs when clearly that would lead to disaster?

00:19:49.520 Now, it didn't turn out very well for Cicero and his generation, ultimately, but that's another story.

00:19:56.060 But those two conceptions, I think, are perennially in conflict throughout the history of free speech, because every time the public sphere is expanded to previously marginalized groups, there's what I call elite panic.

00:20:11.620 So the established gatekeepers of acceptable opinion will tend to fret and panic about the consequences of letting those who have been previously silenced have a voice in public affairs.

00:20:29.200 So you see that with the invention of the printing press.

00:20:32.780 You see that with new technological inventions.

00:20:35.560 And you see it very much today in our day of social media and now AI coming along.

00:20:42.040 But as you mentioned, you know, I try to not make this into an exclusively Western history.

00:20:49.400 So I think there are, interestingly, very important developments in the Islamic world.

00:20:54.760 So in the early part of the Middle Ages, you know, the Islamic world, the Abbasid Caliphate and surrounding areas, really the intellectual powerhouse of the world, that's where you have a translation movement that translates the vast majority of Greek works on science and philosophy.

00:21:16.680 You have very interesting debates and you have the most radical free thinkers of the time, someone like Al-Razi, a physician and sort of a polymath in many ways, but who writes strikingly about sort of, you know, the need to be able to criticize prophecy and holy books, who have open discussions rather than narrow mindedness.

00:21:42.880 So you have, you know, what I think you can justifiably call free thinkers, at least with a 21st century gaze in the Islamic world. 0.54

00:21:55.660 And of course, the Islamic world contributes to sort of the establishment of the rediscovery of classical works in the West that then takes it to another level with universities and so on.

00:22:13.000 So in that sense, the so-called dark ages are much less dark than we come to think of, even though, of course, you don't have a concept of such as free speech, even though you have later on the Inquisition and so on.

00:22:25.820 I'm glad you mentioned the Islamic element, because the person that I hinted at earlier that I said, oh, I don't think I saw him in your book, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, is actually in a, I mean, at least I think he was an atheist, although he was, I mean, of Islamic origin.

00:22:45.020 Are you familiar with the Al-Ma'ari?

00:22:47.040 No, I don't think he's in that we have, I haven't, there's another more extreme, even more extreme than Rossi, but it's very difficult to establish, you know, scholars, I think, differ on the degree of authenticity among, because some of the most radical free thinkers, their works only survive in the writings of others.

00:23:14.280 And so there's a discussion, you know, have they been made out to be more extreme by the enemies or not?

00:23:19.880 I see.

00:23:20.600 Well, I can't, I can't, I can't speak to that.

00:23:23.520 But anyways, you might want to check this guy.

00:23:25.020 I mean, the way it's written is M-A apostrophe for A-R-I.

00:23:29.580 He was a blind thinker.

00:23:33.120 I think, I can't remember if he was congenitally blind or, or, or he became blind a bit later in life.

00:23:38.640 But, but in the little that I've read of this guy, he was so outrageously caustic against all sort of religious thinking and the religious prophets.

00:23:49.800 And I was thinking to myself, as I was reading about him, again, I can't authenticate if they were his writings or not.

00:23:55.240 I couldn't believe that a thousand years ago, in the context of the Middle East, someone could be that outspoken.

00:24:02.020 So anyways, as a, maybe as something for fun, you might want to check him out, El Ma'ari.

00:24:07.820 Okay, so are there any things, so, you know, Stephen Pinker, and I know that he's endorsed, I think, your book.

00:24:17.240 Stephen Pinker, for example, wrote a book several years ago, looking at, you know, the kind of the decline of violence, you know, over the, over the centuries.

00:24:25.760 And so that we, you know, we should, we should feel grateful that we live in the contemporary period, things have gotten better, we're less cruel to women, we're less cruel to minorities, we're less cruel to, to, to animals.

00:24:37.240 Okay, is there an, an oscillation or a cycle or a longitudinal arc, as relating to free speech across time periods or across cultures?

00:24:49.400 And if so, what can explain these, you know, waxing and waning of how we respond to free speech?

00:24:56.640 Yeah, that's a very good question.

00:24:58.560 We definitely see ebbs and flows.

00:25:01.160 I would say free speech in its sort of modern contemporary understanding as an individual right functioning in a, in a democracy is a pretty novel thing, even though it obviously has roots in the Athenian democracy.

00:25:18.200 It's, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting that the Athenian democracy is really not seen as a model until maybe the, the very late 18th century.

00:25:29.080 And you have to get into the 19th century, where sort of British radicals who fight for the right of the lower, to British democracy, sort of revive Athenian thought.

00:25:48.060 But, but otherwise it's more, the, people are more comfortable with, with sort of more Roman presidents than, than, than Athenian ones.

00:25:56.360 But I would say that it's, it's, it's definitely the case that, you know, take the, we all, we all, we all, you know, very often if you talk about free speech, people will talk about the enlightenment.

00:26:06.220 Well, and of course, the enlightenment is where free speech really makes a breakthrough.

00:26:12.660 It's where, you know, you have the, the, the first codification of free speech into declarations of rights that at least purport to be universal.

00:26:25.140 But it's also true that after the French Revolution, free speech is rolled back, you know, across, especially in Europe, like you, you, free speech is suddenly seen as extremely dangerous because it, it spreads these insane French ideas that seek to upend all authority and lead to chaos, war and bloodshed.

00:26:49.540 And therefore, you have to reimpose, you know, royal and priestly control of the public sphere and never again allow these radical philosophers and others to, to, to attack the established order.

00:27:05.420 And so in Europe, in, in, in, in continental Europe, at least you, you really have to get into with, with, with few exceptions like Norway, you have to get into the second half of the 19th century before democracy really makes a breakthrough and free speech becomes a value that is one.

00:27:27.420 And then, and then of course, in many, many, many places is rolled back now and then again, you know, you have totalitarians and spreading out in, in, in, in, in Germany, in Italy, you know, fascism, in, in, in authoritarian rule in Spain.

00:27:45.640 And of course, fascism is a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, and long, um, stumbling block for free speech.

00:27:54.380 Um, and so, so, so it's certainly a principle that is never truly won or lost, I think.

00:28:01.480 Uh, and I think one of the problems for many living in established democracies today is that we tend to take it for granted that it's inconceivable to us that, you know, we, we wouldn't,

00:28:15.340 that we would be putting gulags for, for speaking out or that, uh, particular views that we hold should one day be criminalized or punished.

00:28:25.080 Uh, and therefore, when we see people exercise free speech in a way that we think is detrimental to values that we hold dear, we don't think it's dangerous to democracy as such to take a little bit, a little slice of free speech.

00:28:39.500 Um, we don't see, um, um, um, um, that as dangerous as such.

00:28:45.720 We might even see that free speech is, is dangerous to democracy, whereas I think it's, it's the other way around.

00:28:51.900 I, I don't, I really think that free speech is the most important human right, you know?

00:28:58.400 And that is not to say, you know, that you, you could, you, somewhat you could say, oh, so you think it's more, uh, important for Nazis to be allowed to march through Skokie than, uh, than, you know, stopping torture.

00:29:13.060 Um, and on the surface, that's a clever argument, but then, you know, in which societies are you more likely to prevent torture?

00:29:22.580 Those with or without free speech, you know, if you want to, if you want to campaign against torture, if you want to document torture, how do you do that without free speech?

00:29:32.180 And, you know, in the countries where people are tortured, why are they being tortured?

00:29:36.380 Well, they're being tortured because they say things that the rulers don't like.

00:29:41.320 If you had free speech, most of those who are being tortured would not be tortured in the first place because, uh, they would only be exercising, uh, their right.

00:29:49.460 Um, so, so, and, you know, and, and, and really, you know, if you, if your thing is LGBT rights, again, you're dependent on free speech, right? 0.92

00:30:00.460 You know, if you want to shine a light on discrimination of LGBT people around the world, how do you mobilize?

00:30:08.480 How do you ensure that, you know, you get supporters?

00:30:11.760 How do you, uh, get the media to cover your protest?

00:30:15.980 Uh, how do you, uh, organize a pride parade?

00:30:20.040 Uh, you do so by exercising your free speech and freedom of assembly or, and, you know, very good example.

00:30:27.560 Go, go to Turkey. 0.80

00:30:29.360 You know, they've been trying to hold pride parades in Istanbul for a long time.

00:30:33.780 And what happens?

00:30:34.760 The police shows up and they ban it.

00:30:37.280 Um, so, so that, and, and, and, and so that's the difference between societies where you have and don't have, uh, free speech.

00:30:45.480 There's, there's an echo in the background.

00:30:47.440 Is there some kind of noise happening in your house or something?

00:30:50.680 Yeah.

00:30:51.180 I'll, um, let me, um, can we pause it?

00:30:56.140 I'll try to find somewhere a bit more quiet.

00:30:58.080 Okay.

00:30:58.360 Sounds good.

00:31:03.220 Okay.

00:31:03.580 So I guess, uh, my next question is, what do you think about the current?

00:31:08.440 So if, you know, you go see your physician once a year, there's a bunch of metrics that they could look at, you know,

00:31:13.860 how's your blood sugar, how's your cholesterol, have you gained or lost weight?

00:31:18.440 Uh, you know, what's your blood pressure like?

00:31:20.640 So if I were going to you as a physician of the soul of our societies or the physician of freedom of speech,

00:31:28.300 I mean, my view would be, uh, perhaps you'll agree.

00:31:32.340 And of course there are surveys, some of which fire reports on that suggests that we're probably in the worst possible state of the,

00:31:39.960 certainly the past 40, 50 years in terms of the general ethos of free speech in the West.

00:31:45.280 Do you agree with that?

00:31:46.160 I mean, should we be pessimistic that this is the worst spell, certainly in the, in the last 30, 40, 50 years that we've had regarding free speech?

00:31:56.160 So I think there are two ways to look at it.

00:31:58.140 So one is sort of taking the long view.

00:32:02.980 So, and in that sense, you can be very positive, right?

00:32:06.060 Because, you know, compared to a hundred years ago, certainly we have more free speech and technology a lot.

00:32:12.100 You know, you and I can sit and have an uncensored conversation and you can put that out to, uh,

00:32:17.840 however many thousands of people follow you, uh, in ways that, that circumvent traditional gatekeepers.

00:32:24.040 So, so from that perspective, things are good.

00:32:27.220 Also the first amendment provides protections that are stronger than ever, you know, free speech is an individual human right.

00:32:33.800 But on the other hand, I think we are actually living through what I call a free speech recession.

00:32:40.900 So not only have we seen for more than a decade that free speech restrictions have been adopted,

00:32:47.320 not only in authoritarian states, but also in liberal democracies where laws against hate speech,

00:32:52.260 again, controlling social media, disinformation have become prevalent, but ultimately we also see an erosion.

00:33:01.000 You call it the ethos of free speech.

00:33:02.960 I like to call it the culture of free speech.

00:33:05.840 And ultimately I think the culture of free speech is the most important, um, element for free speech to thrive

00:33:15.360 because you can have the best legal protections in the world.

00:33:18.620 But if, if you don't have a critical mass of people who believe in free speech,

00:33:24.760 those, um, standards are likely to be interpreted in, in, in intolerant ways.

00:33:30.960 Um, so, um, and I think you're right in saying that there are, I still think that, you know,

00:33:37.940 free speech is still something that most people find is important,

00:33:41.680 but I also think that they are willing to compromise on a lot of important issues where,

00:33:49.580 where there was a stronger civil libertarian impulse, um, a decade or, uh, or two decades ago.

00:33:58.920 I think in many ways, the boomer generation were sort of, that's, that's the high watermark of civil libertarianism

00:34:07.020 when it comes to, to, uh, where younger generations tend to be maybe, uh, less convinced about the blessings

00:34:15.860 of a very robust principle of free speech protection.

00:34:18.940 Do you think that there are ways by which we can inculcate all of the necessary values

00:34:27.640 that would be supportive of free speech to young children?

00:34:31.620 I mean, certainly the activists and the, you know, the, the ideologues are well aware

00:34:38.240 that the best place to get at people is to get them when they're very young.

00:34:43.280 Right. And so, you know, as someone who studies consumer psychology, I'll teach my students that,

00:34:48.460 look, you know, uh, we, we say that it's illegal to target a child to sell them chewing gum

00:34:55.440 because they don't have yet the cognitive and emotional system to counter argue against advertisements

00:35:01.240 for chewing gum. And yet we bite from that's from one side of the mouth. And from the other side

00:35:05.900 of the mouth, we inculcate them with our religious beliefs or with the woke ideologies and so on.

00:35:10.600 So is there a way for us to build, if you'd like a mental hygiene that is supportive

00:35:17.860 of freedom of speech and our children?

00:35:21.420 I think so. You know, um, I see, for instance, in American universities and colleges, an increasing

00:35:30.060 number of institutions have started sort of free speech initiatives. This includes Vanderbilt where I'm at.

00:35:36.620 So the reason why we've opened up on campuses is because Vanderbilt University has seen free speech

00:35:43.780 as a crucial value. And you see this at a number of other universities. So I think there's a recognition

00:35:51.800 among research institutions, colleges, that the pendulum has won too far in an illiberal,

00:35:58.600 direction, and that the mission and function of a university risks being compromised and eroded if you allow

00:36:10.480 intolerance to reign on campus. And I'm also, you know, whenever I speak to students and so on, I think

00:36:20.060 that if you make a robust case for free speech, I think you can, you know, it's not, I don't view

00:36:26.020 them as, uh, these hopeless cases of social justice snowflakes, you know, they are intelligent

00:36:32.080 people. They have some concerns that, you know, that maybe their, that default position is that equality

00:36:40.400 and tolerance are more important than free speech and they don't see the link between free speech and, and, and, and the

00:36:50.440 thriving of minorities. But I think you can make that case to them and that will, um, it won't convince everyone. 1.00

00:36:57.940 But I think, I think it can be made. Um, and also I think, um, it, um, it requires that institutions and others

00:37:06.900 show courage because nothing is as corrosive to a principle, uh, as sort of how it is and unwillingness

00:37:16.400 to stand up for it. If professors and universities constantly speak of free speech as this, um, as white supremacy

00:37:26.900 or, you know, something that is harmful or hurtful, then people are going to view it as that. But if people

00:37:34.220 stand up for it, uh, and say, you know what, we're not going to back down. Um, we will allow, um, a speaker

00:37:42.280 that you might find controversial and you have every right to criticize that speaker. You can, you can also

00:37:48.360 peacefully protest that speaker. That is absolutely your right, but we will not allow you to, uh, disrupt, uh,

00:37:56.320 the meeting. We will not allow you to decide whether a student group can, uh, invite someone whose viewpoints

00:38:03.440 you find, uh, abhorrent.

00:38:05.760 Well, just before I, uh, started my chat with you, Jacob, I had a quick chat, only a 20-minute one, because I just

00:38:14.380 wanted to discuss his, the imminent case that just happened. I had, uh, Calvin Robinson on. I don't know if you

00:38:20.880 know, are you familiar? Do you know who that is? Calvin Robinson is a, is a deacon in the Free Church

00:38:27.400 of England, but, uh, he works for, uh, GB News, Great Britain News, and he was fired, uh, he, as a

00:38:35.440 political commentator, he was a political commentator. So Lawrence Fox, who was a, an actor, uh, in Britain,

00:38:42.080 I'm not sure if he's still acting much, who, who's very much of kind of an irreverent guy who doesn't

00:38:48.300 care about the orthodoxy. He speaks his mind. So, which is quite rare for an actor, uh, went on a show

00:38:54.260 where he was very angry at, at a feminist who was kind of belittling the plight of male suicide.

00:39:02.280 And, uh, you know, because from her perspective, it's only women who are victims. And so the minute 0.96

00:39:07.060 that you say that men might be victims too, well, that's, that's not good. And, you know,

00:39:10.700 who cares about men anyways. And so, and in her, uh, engagement in the public eye, she often says,

00:39:17.720 well, sorry, buddy, I'm not going to shag you, which is the British term for, I'm not going to

00:39:22.620 sleep with you. So he used the exact same terms. He went on a show where he said, well, who would

00:39:28.540 want to shag this woman? So he was just using the language that she's become famous for using

00:39:34.540 because he was basically intimating the fact that he finds her quite morally repugnant.

00:39:40.700 And so there was huge hysteria all over Britain. He was fired. His friend, Calvin Robinson,

00:39:47.440 who had nothing to do with the story, but simply defended his right to say that, even though it

00:39:53.120 might've been worded in a crass way, even though you shouldn't be talking about whether you want

00:39:58.020 to shag someone or not on a, on, on television and so on. Uh, he got fired by proxy. And so I think

00:40:05.240 freedom of speech to our earlier point, you know, you called it a culture of freedom of speech.

00:40:09.020 I call it ethos of freedom of speech. It's not just about the intrusion of governments,

00:40:15.020 right? I hate one. And I actually, I have a section in, in, in the parasitic mind where I say,

00:40:19.600 you know, stop saying, yeah, but Twitter is, is a, is a company. It's not, it's not the government

00:40:24.920 freedom of speech is an entire mechanism. It's an ecosystem, right? It's, am I allowed to walk into

00:40:32.080 class and say whatever I want without feeling that I need to self-censor. That's part of freedom of

00:40:38.220 speech. So in that sense, it's an ethos. Is there a way to convince people? Because that's probably

00:40:43.960 the number one thing that I get whenever I comment on something, someone will come in a smug manner

00:40:49.840 and say, but what are you complaining about? That's not the government stopping you. How do we get people

00:40:54.280 to understand that freedom of speech is more than simply government agents knocking at my door and

00:40:59.820 at the middle of the night? Yeah, I think you're, you're absolutely right in that though. I, I also,

00:41:07.960 the lawyer in me has to say that it, it, it often becomes sort of, um, a bit more difficult to establish

00:41:14.700 bright lines when it's, when, when it's, when it's in the, you know, private or cultural institutions and

00:41:20.640 not the government. Uh, because, um, so I try to, I try to sort of, when we talk about cancel culture,

00:41:27.720 I try to sort of distinguish between, you know, if, if someone finds our conversation today offensive

00:41:37.600 and they go on Twitter or X or whatever it's called, and they criticize us vehemently, call us

00:41:45.240 all kinds of names. That's fine. You know, I might not like it, but that's part of their free speech.

00:41:50.960 You know, I can't turn around and say, oh, you're trying to, uh, you, you, you know, what you're

00:41:56.820 saying is, is trying to, to, to silencing me. I, I participate in the public debate. So do you,

00:42:03.060 that comes with, with Hams and, and, and, and cost and not everyone is going to agree with you. Right.

00:42:08.220 But if someone instead says, Hey, um, you know, God said this, you know, went to your, uh, to, to, uh,

00:42:21.580 you know, your boss and said, you know, you should no longer be allowed to, to teach, uh, then you're

00:42:28.920 undermining the culture of free speech. So, so, so if you are, there's a huge difference between

00:42:35.400 criticizing someone, even vehemently and, uh, using satire or mockery, that's not always nice

00:42:44.380 to be on the receiving end of, but it's, it's an important element of, of, of social critique.

00:42:49.320 And on the other hand, trying to have someone punished through, through sanctions or being

00:42:56.000 fired, because that's not really engaging in free speech. That is, that is, that is not engaging

00:43:01.660 with the argument that is demanding that, that, that person suffers, uh, consequences. So that's

00:43:07.520 how I try to operationalize, um, cancel culture. It's not always possible to do so with as bright

00:43:15.600 lines as when, you know, this, the, the government comes knocking on your door, but I think it's

00:43:19.700 a helpful way to, uh, to think about it. Um, because you're absolutely right. You know, and that's,

00:43:26.460 that's what the Athenians understood that, you know, if you, uh, if you read Pericles' funeral

00:43:34.380 oration as recounted by Thacidides, he talks about, you know, the pride in the Athenian model

00:43:40.640 of saying, you know, we resolve our differences, differences through, uh, through, through dialogue

00:43:47.480 and debate, and we don't necessarily look down on someone just because they live their lives in a

00:43:53.420 different manner, uh, from us. So that's a civic commitment to tolerance of social, uh, dissent.

00:43:59.780 Now it had its limits in, in Athens as, as we discussed, but it's a very, it's a very useful

00:44:05.220 ideal. But your, your point about what I call it occupational harassment, where someone tries

00:44:11.480 to get you fired because you said something, it's actually happened to me on many occasions.

00:44:16.140 I probably say things that upset people by Monday morning that, that most people will say

00:44:20.620 in their eyes. I don't do it because I'm trying to be mean or whatever. It's because I'm a, I'm

00:44:24.480 committed to the principles of free speech. I don't go out of my way to hurt someone's feelings,

00:44:29.020 but truth is more important than anything in my view. And so, yes, uh, if you ask me,

00:44:34.960 do I look fat in those jeans as a polite person? I may say, no, no, you look wonderful, Jacob.

00:44:40.020 I've never seen you look so good because I'm also a kind person, but for big deontological

00:44:44.660 things, I don't care about your feelings. I'll, I'll take, I'll tell it the way, as a matter

00:44:48.880 fact, I would be inauthentic and a fraud as a professor, if I modulate the truth so that I

00:44:54.300 heard group, so I don't heard group A or group B, but in, in my public engagement, I've often

00:44:59.980 said something that, you know, upset someone. So they start writing to my university, but never

00:45:04.960 has it happened in a more massive manner, Jacob. And this may or may not surprise you. Uh, I'm not

00:45:11.760 sure if you were familiar with it, but, uh, a few months ago when my latest book came out, the day that

00:45:17.700 my book came out, I was, I appeared on Joe Rogan's show to, to chat. And in our conversation,

00:45:25.060 I jokingly, you know, I was making fun of several accents. I began by joking about the Portuguese 1.00

00:45:31.580 accent because my family and I had just returned from Portugal. And I was saying that it's not a

00:45:36.080 terribly of the romance languages. It's not a very attractive sound. You know, I speak fluent French.

00:45:41.300 Also Italian is beautiful. Portuguese is not, that was an aesthetic judgment that I was making.

00:45:45.940 And then I continued while Hebrew, which is a language that I speak, I said is violently ugly. 1.00

00:45:52.100 Well, okay. That that's not what got me in trouble. It's the next one that got me in trouble. And then

00:45:56.320 I said, but when it comes to the French Canadian accent, remember I live in Montreal, Quebec. So the

00:46:02.540 French Canadian accent, well, that's just an affront to human dignity. And now I said that in a 1.00

00:46:08.360 completely joking manner, as a matter of fact, it's become a, a gadism. So, you know, the Beatles are

00:46:14.160 an affront to human dignity. Anybody who doesn't love Lionel Messi is an affront to human dignity.

00:46:19.500 If my wife burns the meal, well, that's an affront to human decency. So you can just go and 1.00

00:46:25.500 you'll see me saying that about a million banal things. Well, I must have had hundreds of people

00:46:31.220 write to my university to get a 30 year professor, a chaired professor fired because he made a joke

00:46:39.900 about an accent. I think that that reflex comes about because regrettably our society is deathly

00:46:49.280 diseased when it comes to freedom of speech. Otherwise you wouldn't have that instinct to

00:46:53.360 get a professor fired because he joked. I mean, healthy people can say, oh, you don't like my accent.

00:46:59.740 Who cares? But the fact that you can weaponize your frustration at me by trying to get me fired.

00:47:06.420 I wonder if you as a lawyer can ever conceive of a time where trying to get someone fired becomes

00:47:13.540 a criminal offense. Could that be, or that's impossible?

00:47:18.540 No, I, well, I would be very wary of that too, of, of, of, of trying to, to, I mean, obviously that

00:47:26.580 could be sort of an abuse of procedure. But, but I would be wary of that. And that's also, you know,

00:47:33.620 you see people on the, on the, on the right in, in this country. So I, I live in Tennessee where,

00:47:40.500 for instance, um, people, um, the legislature here has, uh, trying to crack down on wokeism and drag

00:47:50.580 sort of, and, and then the, the, the defense is, well, we're just trying to, this is a countermeasure

00:47:57.920 against, um, progressive liberal overreach, but, you know, free speech is a principle. So

00:48:03.120 you're not justified in limiting the free speech of others, just because someone else wants to,

00:48:08.240 you know, if that was a valid argument, then you could say, you know, the Bolsheviks were, were

00:48:13.840 justified in, in censoring everyone because they had been suppressed during the, the Tsarist times,

00:48:18.960 you know, Stalin wasn't sent to Siberia seven times. So therefore it was okay for him to send 0.68

00:48:24.400 people to the gulags. Um, so, so, but, but I, uh, you know, I, I'm, I'm definitely, uh, I'm not

00:48:31.440 surprised, uh, that, you know, it, my, my knowledge of, um, of Tibet is limited, but even at the legal

00:48:40.000 level, like, it seems like, uh, French Canadians are very, very sensitive about, uh, linguistic issues.

00:48:46.080 By the way, Jacob, and I'm not, I'm not being facetious now. I'm being literal. I received more

00:48:54.400 hate for that incredibly banal passing joke than when I've criticized Islam. Now that's pretty 1.00

00:49:02.400 impressive. I mean, literally that's true. I mean, I've received death threats because of Islam, 1.00

00:49:07.400 but not this kind of three week tsunami of concerted hate. And, you know, it made it very difficult

00:49:14.440 because at the time we were in, uh, you know, we, then we, we left to Southern California for

00:49:18.520 several weeks. I was kind of doing my media tour. And so luckily I was in California when it was

00:49:23.000 really blowing over. And then when we returned to Quebec, I told my wife, I said, you know,

00:49:27.780 it's not so much that I'm afraid that someone in Quebec is going to come up to kill me,

00:49:31.500 but how about the daily mundane interactions? If the barista recognizes me and he's one of the ones

00:49:38.560 who was offended, what stops him now from spitting in my coffee? What about the sous chef? So, you

00:49:44.460 know, you're mobilizing. I don't know how many it was, 5,000, 50,000, 500,000. You you're, and by the

00:49:51.560 way, the justice minister of Quebec weighed in, not in support of me, against me. So that's not exactly

00:50:00.200 what you would think someone who lives in a free society. I mean, he could say, you know, I found it

00:50:05.900 annoying and insulting that he would, he would, you know, make fun of our accent. But the reality

00:50:11.340 is he's perfectly allowed to do that on the, on the, what he said was, it is unbecoming. It is

00:50:17.680 shameful that a professor would engage in such jokes. And so that's off limits. So we've got a lot

00:50:24.600 more work to do, don't we, Jacob? But, but that exactly shows the, you know, how many people are

00:50:31.460 willing to pay the social consequences of that? If you know, you say something, and people that you

00:50:39.020 depend on for your livelihood, your neighbors, your friends, your colleagues, the people in the

00:50:45.680 supermarket are going to look at you, that very few people are willing to pay that price. And that speaks

00:50:50.800 to sort of the, you know, the, the why conformity, social conformity can be a much more powerful

00:50:58.100 censor than often than legal restrictions. Exactly. Right. Two more questions, and then

00:51:04.800 we can wrap it up. Let me just put back this, please go out and get this book. What are some

00:51:10.200 things, it could be one or more things that while researching this incredibly rich book, right? Again,

00:51:15.660 it's across cultures, across time periods, a treatise of free speech, some things that really

00:51:21.160 shocked you and surprised you that you said, wow, did I not know this? What are some of the ones that

00:51:26.220 strike you the most? Well, one of the things what we talked about, like how many free enlightenment

00:51:36.080 developments that were crucial to free speech, and also that it was not just limited to the West was

00:51:41.520 something that I was not really aware of to the extent that I sort of talk about. Another thing is

00:51:49.420 what I call Milton's curse. So John Milton is famous for writing his Areopagitica, which is an attack on the re-institution

00:51:59.280 of pre-publication censorship in England. And it's beautiful. It's written in beautiful prose. It has

00:52:06.480 lots of arguments that are relevant today. But when you read it more carefully, you find out that John Milton

00:52:11.660 is in favor of free speech, but not for Catholic, not for radical Protestant sects, only mainline Protestant sects.

00:52:21.520 And the ultimate irony is that John Milton ends up working as a censor under Cromwell and his military dictatorship.

00:52:29.360 And unfortunately, you see that again and again, that many of the most prominent proponents of free speech

00:52:37.560 end up arguing for restrictions on free speech. Take Voltaire, you know, he never himself said that, you know, I disagree

00:52:47.420 with what you say, but I'll die for your right to say it. That was his biographer. But he is someone who is

00:52:55.420 very often seen as the champion of free speech. And, you know, for his time, he was very progressive

00:53:01.940 on free speech. But Voltaire was someone who also was, you know, who thought that free speech was for the

00:53:07.500 well-educated, learned elite. It was certainly not an egalitarian conception of free speech or a democratic

00:53:14.680 conception of free speech at all. And he sort of thought of nine-tenths of humanity as monkeys who

00:53:23.240 were sort of beyond reach. And you see it with, you know, some of the founding fathers, you know,

00:53:32.380 seven years after the ratification of the First Amendment in the United States,

00:53:36.600 John Adams, as president, signs the Sedition Act, which criminalizes criticism of the president

00:53:43.960 and government and both houses of Congress. And people are being put in jail in the U.S.

00:53:51.440 for criticizing John Adams. So this tendency, this military's curse is a recurring phenomenon,

00:54:01.080 even when it comes to sort of big and celebrated champions of free speech.

00:54:06.880 Very interesting. Okay, last question. Yes, you just came off the journey of writing

00:54:12.440 this beauty. What are some other projects that are causing you to wake up in the morning

00:54:18.980 with great excitement at the looming stuff that you have to do that day? If you'd like to share

00:54:23.600 any with us, please take it away now. Yeah. Apart from playing civilization with my son

00:54:31.200 and trying to gain world dominance, I think generative AI is a huge thing. And it's very difficult to wrap

00:54:41.500 my head around how free speech, existing free speech ideas for you to that. We're having

00:54:46.280 on the 12th and 13th of October at Vanderbilt University, a big conference on AI and free speech

00:54:52.180 with some great speakers. So I think that's the next frontier and will have huge consequences both

00:54:58.760 for the legal and practical exercise.

00:55:00.900 I'm assuming that it's on October 12th and 13th, because that's an indirect way to be celebrating

00:55:09.320 my birthday on October 13th, correct?

00:55:12.220 Of course. And, you know, we even have free speech week at Vanderbilt and we made sure we

00:55:17.660 looked in the calendar. So that's when God has his first day. We want to, you know, celebrate

00:55:22.220 him and honor him by ensuring that free speech week is the same week as his birthday.

00:55:27.020 I am humbled by that act of respect. Jacob, what a delight to talk to you. Stay on the

00:55:33.740 line so we could say goodbye. And again, for anybody who's listening, please be charitable

00:55:38.660 and don't start writing nasty comments about the audio quality. Sometimes these things happen.

00:55:44.800 It was still hopefully a worthy conversation. It's such a pleasure to meet you, Jacob. I hope

00:55:49.160 I get the chance to meet you in person and keep up with the great work. Thank you so much.

00:55:54.160 Thank you.

My Chat with Jacob Mchangama, Expert on Free Speech and Human Rights Activist (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_593)

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