In this episode of The Sad Truth, I sit down with the founder of the think tank Justitia, Jacob M. Shavangama, to discuss the importance of free speech and the role of religion in the relationship between freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
00:02:55.700But what uniquely titillated your fancy to say, okay, this is where I want to make my contribution?
00:03:02.980Yeah, 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.
00:03:21.140And then, as you probably remember, in 2005, there was a Danish newspaper that published a number of cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
00:03:29.020And suddenly, Denmark became the epicenter of what I would call a global battle of values over the relationship between free speech and religion.
00:03:38.860And 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.
00:03:59.000And we should show respect, but free speech is not a duty to speak.
00:04:06.740All kinds of arguments that I found very, very unconvincing.
00:04:10.620And 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.
00:04:31.940And 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.
00:04:51.440There were terrorist attacks, and there were, you know, discussions around the globe about this.
00:04:56.140People 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.
00:05:10.460So I think the cartoon affair is really what made me become obsessed and go down the rabbit hole of free speech.
00:05:20.100Well, since you mentioned the cartoon affair, I briefly refer to it.
00:05:26.180So in the parasitic mind, I talk about non-negotiable elements of a free society.
00:05:30.700And, of course, freedom of speech is at the center of it.
00:05:33.640And you might remember, well, you would certainly remember, but maybe some of our viewers and listeners,
00:05:37.740that when the cartoon affair was going to be covered in a book, I think it was Yale University Press,
00:05:54.120Yeah, and I think one of the sad things about this is that most mainstream media outlets would not republish the cartoons.
00:06:06.140One of the brave magazines that actually did show solidarity was Charlie Hebdo.
00:06:11.640And 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.
00:06:23.300And, you know, it's incredible to me that mainstream media outlets would not initially show the cartoons.
00:06:31.980I understand why some media outlets now in Denmark won't do it because, you know, it comes at a high price.
00:06:38.660But then, you know, I prefer then media outlets to be honest saying rather than talking about respect and so on, you know,
00:06:49.660admit that you're doing it out of fear, that there is a threat from violent extremists.
00:06:55.340And that's why we're not publishing them, because otherwise, you know, we sugarcoat the existence of a lethal threat to free speech.
00:07:06.160And, you know, I understand why it's sensitive to talk about, you know, in countries like Denmark, Muslims are a minority.
00:07:15.460And 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.
00:07:25.660I 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.
00:07:37.160But, you know, ultimately, you have to face the truth of the of the threat.
00:07:43.260And that threat is there. And yeah, so those are the things that that keep me up at night.
00:07:49.280And 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.
00:08:01.400And, you know, you might say, well, that's not a very sophisticated way to express your contempt for religion.
00:08:07.480But so what? You know, you can burn the Danish constitution and you can burn the Danish flag.
00:08:13.460Why should there be special laws prohibiting the so-called improper treatment of religious objects?
00:08:21.540Well, because OIC states like Iran and Saudi Arabia have put pressure on the Danish government because Al Qaeda have made threats against Danish society.
00:08:32.340And 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.
00:08:40.800They're going to come back next time someone does something that has not yet been criminalized and say, hey, please, please ban more.
00:08:48.900Yeah, 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.
00:08:55.440But 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.
00:09:10.780Right. There are. Of course, we believe in freedom of speech.
00:09:13.400But now the second that you say, but you no longer believe in free speech.
00:09:19.200And 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.
00:09:31.660Deontological ethics is an absolute statement. If I say it is never OK to lie, that would be a deontological statement.
00:09:37.620If I say it is OK to lie, to spare someone's feelings, well, then that would be a consequentialist statement.
00:09:44.040Now, for many, many things in life, we're all consequentialist. That's fine.
00:09:47.780But for certain foundational values on which the West is built, those by definition have to be deontological.
00:10:28.620I have to put up with people who are anti-Semitic, who spread falsehoods.
00:10:32.800Why 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?
00:10:47.120So I think, well, first of all, I think.
00:10:50.860Free speech is in many ways probably a counterintuitive principle to human beings.
00:10:58.940So there are so many pressures to conform, for instance, for human beings.
00:11:09.720Maybe free speech was not a particularly useful skill, you know, as we evolved.
00:11:22.320Maybe there were strong pressures to conform for survival.
00:11:25.800That's, you know, I'm not an expert on that.
00:11:32.660But 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.
00:11:43.740But I also think that, well, yeah, so there's always this, you know, it's a counterintuitive principle, which is difficult to uphold.
00:11:52.920And there's always this temptation for human beings to say, yes, free speech is important.
00:11:58.780But these kinds of speech really threaten the underlying values of free speech.
00:12:05.920And therefore, we have to make exceptions.
00:12:11.780And 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.
00:12:25.240It entrenches unequal power relations, which I try to show in the book is a deeply ahistorical reading of the history of free speech.
00:12:34.180In 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.
00:12:52.300Now, 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.
00:13:07.400So 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.
00:13:16.600So why was it that the struggle for women's rights resonated?
00:13:21.400Well, it was, you know, to a high degree because of arguments, right?
00:13:26.840Because 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.
00:13:48.040And you could say the same for, you know, the gay rights movement.
00:13:51.040And 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.
00:14:06.280In 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.
00:14:19.600And 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.
00:14:32.780So now I want to get, I want to really get into a deep dive into this beauty right here.
00:14:38.740And 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.
00:14:48.860So I love broad, synthetic approaches to a topic.
00:14:54.420So I've had, so my last book, my most recent book was on happiness.
00:14:58.100And 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.
00:15:12.300I love the book by Siddharth Mukherjee, his first book, The Emperor of All Maladies.
00:15:20.300He's an oncologist, a cancer physician, where he was studying the history of cancer.
00:15:25.740So he was talking about, you know, it was a biography of how different cultures at different times have studied and have viewed cancer.
00:15:33.320And 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.
00:15:43.360But you really, you know, you're trying to cover it across, you know, millennia in some cases, across cultures.
00:15:50.580So what are some, you know, how did you decide of all possible, the buffet of possible stories, cultures, and so on to cover those?
00:16:01.500I 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.
00:16:11.320So how did you come to that decision to decide which culture, which time period to cover?
00:16:17.060Yeah, 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.
00:16:31.300And 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.
00:16:53.000And 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.
00:17:06.640But 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.
00:17:20.240So even Florian or someone like Aristotle could set up shop in Athens and write things that were very critical of democracy.
00:17:32.100And even though Socrates, it didn't end up well for him.
00:17:36.580I was going to say, except for Socrates, yes.
00:17:39.320But we have to remember that for decades, he was allowed to accost his citizens in the agora, in the marketplace.
00:17:46.780And I think there were some very specific reasons for why ultimately the Athenians lost patience with him.
00:17:53.040One 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.
00:18:02.940And someone like Socrates had very close relations with oligarchs that had been involved with coups that had overthrown democracy.
00:18:12.420And I think Socrates, for all his intellectual merits, was not a big fan of democracy, not necessarily even of egalitarian free speech.
00:18:25.000So that might have contributed to why he ended up the way he did.
00:18:31.840And I think he could have avoided the death penalty if, you know, if he had been willing to compromise, which obviously he did not.
00:18:40.500But then you can compare the Athenian model with the Roman Republican model.
00:18:45.920So Roman Republicanism also sees free speech as important, but they don't have a specific term for it.
00:18:54.100So it's part of libertas, like the larger freedom to Roman citizens.
00:18:59.620But it's a much more elitist, top-down form of free speech.
00:19:03.660So essentially, unlike the Athenian assemblies, only magistrates can speak.
00:19:10.520They can only sort of ratify decisions.
00:19:12.320And it's generally seen as something to be exercised by the wealthy, well-educated elite and not the rabble.
00:19:23.100In 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.
00:19:37.560Why 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?
00:19:49.520Now, it didn't turn out very well for Cicero and his generation, ultimately, but that's another story.
00:19:56.060But 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.
00:20:11.620So 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.
00:20:29.200So you see that with the invention of the printing press.
00:20:32.780You see that with new technological inventions.
00:20:35.560And you see it very much today in our day of social media and now AI coming along.
00:20:42.040But as you mentioned, you know, I try to not make this into an exclusively Western history.
00:20:49.400So I think there are, interestingly, very important developments in the Islamic world.
00:20:54.760So 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.
00:21:16.680You 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.
00:21:42.880So you have, you know, what I think you can justifiably call free thinkers, at least with a 21st century gaze in the Islamic world.
00:21:55.660And 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.
00:22:13.000So 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.
00:22:25.820I'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.
00:22:47.040No, 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.
00:23:14.280And so there's a discussion, you know, have they been made out to be more extreme by the enemies or not?
00:23:33.120I think, I can't remember if he was congenitally blind or, or, or he became blind a bit later in life.
00:23:38.640But, 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.
00:23:49.800And I was thinking to myself, as I was reading about him, again, I can't authenticate if they were his writings or not.
00:23:55.240I couldn't believe that a thousand years ago, in the context of the Middle East, someone could be that outspoken.
00:24:02.020So anyways, as a, maybe as something for fun, you might want to check him out, El Ma'ari.
00:24:07.820Okay, so are there any things, so, you know, Stephen Pinker, and I know that he's endorsed, I think, your book.
00:24:17.240Stephen 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.
00:24:25.760And 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.
00:24:37.240Okay, is there an, an oscillation or a cycle or a longitudinal arc, as relating to free speech across time periods or across cultures?
00:24:49.400And if so, what can explain these, you know, waxing and waning of how we respond to free speech?
00:25:01.160I 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.
00:25:18.200It'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.
00:25:29.080And 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.
00:25:48.060But, but otherwise it's more, the, people are more comfortable with, with sort of more Roman presidents than, than, than Athenian ones.
00:25:56.360But 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.
00:26:06.220Well, and of course, the enlightenment is where free speech really makes a breakthrough.
00:26:12.660It'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.
00:26:25.140But 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.
00:26:49.540And 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.
00:27:05.420And 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.
00:27:27.420And 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.
00:27:45.640And of course, fascism is a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, and long, um, stumbling block for free speech.
00:27:54.380Um, and so, so, so it's certainly a principle that is never truly won or lost, I think.
00:28:01.480Uh, 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,
00:28:15.340that we would be putting gulags for, for speaking out or that, uh, particular views that we hold should one day be criminalized or punished.
00:28:25.080Uh, 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.
00:28:39.500Um, we don't see, um, um, um, um, that as dangerous as such.
00:28:45.720We might even see that free speech is, is dangerous to democracy, whereas I think it's, it's the other way around.
00:28:51.900I, I don't, I really think that free speech is the most important human right, you know?
00:28:58.400And 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.
00:29:13.060Um, and on the surface, that's a clever argument, but then, you know, in which societies are you more likely to prevent torture?
00:29:22.580Those 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?
00:29:32.180And, you know, in the countries where people are tortured, why are they being tortured?
00:29:36.380Well, they're being tortured because they say things that the rulers don't like.
00:29:41.320If 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.
00:29:49.460Um, 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?
00:30:00.460You know, if you want to shine a light on discrimination of LGBT people around the world, how do you mobilize?
00:30:08.480How do you ensure that, you know, you get supporters?
00:30:11.760How do you, uh, get the media to cover your protest?
00:30:15.980Uh, how do you, uh, organize a pride parade?
00:30:20.040Uh, you do so by exercising your free speech and freedom of assembly or, and, you know, very good example.
00:31:46.160I 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?
00:31:56.160So I think there are two ways to look at it.
00:31:58.140So one is sort of taking the long view.
00:32:02.980So, and in that sense, you can be very positive, right?
00:32:06.060Because, you know, compared to a hundred years ago, certainly we have more free speech and technology a lot.
00:32:12.100You know, you and I can sit and have an uncensored conversation and you can put that out to, uh,
00:32:17.840however many thousands of people follow you, uh, in ways that, that circumvent traditional gatekeepers.
00:32:24.040So, so from that perspective, things are good.
00:32:27.220Also the first amendment provides protections that are stronger than ever, you know, free speech is an individual human right.
00:32:33.800But on the other hand, I think we are actually living through what I call a free speech recession.
00:32:40.900So not only have we seen for more than a decade that free speech restrictions have been adopted,
00:32:47.320not only in authoritarian states, but also in liberal democracies where laws against hate speech,
00:32:52.260again, controlling social media, disinformation have become prevalent, but ultimately we also see an erosion.