3.2.1 Context

What I would like to emphasise is that the difference of context or background among different groups of people causes the confrontation in a society. When it comes to the debates around the topic of freedom of expression, I do believe that the context of expression is what should be paid attention to more. In order to progress the debates in this domain, I make my argument on the context of expression. That is because what people perceive from an expression differs, if they have different backgrounds. In other words, if context differs, even if the expression is the same, what people perceive from the expression could differ. Besides, even if both persons claim the same argument, if what each experienced in their life is different, it could be different. This is a complex aspect of expression, but it is worth being taken into account provided that this aspect of expression causes tension among different groups of people in a society.

In a society of large population, there is a variety of people with different background. Of the limited time one has spent, they are not likely to imagine all the patterns of situation which persons in the same community face. Even the number of people crossing boundary of nation-states is enormous. In that situation, regarding the interpretation of an object, it could vary by each person. The community of larger scale is difficult to maintain compared with the smaller one as in the larger community it is more likely that what each person believes could differ and they often organise their own group that they share the same purpose, and others organise their own groups that the purposes are different.

Those groups could in some extreme cases are going to be a divide in a national scale. One of the particularly important differences among people is what happiness means to each member of the community. Some would seek the wealth of capital that maximises their happiness with abundant materials in their life, others would not feel happiness from that type of wealth and they rather feel happy when they spend their time in calmer way such as being surrounded by nature. In addition, when community is larger, there are different groups of people with different background emerges, these are represented by educational, geographical background. The latter geographical background means that the difference of geography has different culture in one’s background. Some culture is tied with the geographical factors such as abundance of nature or what has happened in a particular place and how it affected in the region over time and how the effect remains today. Where one was raised and spent his life so far, and that is sort of time and place matter affects the context in which one lives. Plus, the different living standards, that is different living conditions, such as the income would little by little differentiate the interests of people living in the same nation-state. There are different units as a globe, a continent, a nation-state, a province, etc. It depends on to what extent they would like to govern the region, but if it gets larger the more difficult to implement a kind of law which has legal and illegal distinction given the differences in each scale of community.

It would be much easier to refrain from having conflicts if the community is small and homogenous as it is with the people seeking the similar interests. However as the world is globalised in a sense that development of transportation system and information became available to huge number of people living on the earth and securing the freedom to choose the way they want to live, at least some in the world moves to the direction that the flow of persons into other communities and diversity in a community needs to be tolerated rather than enclosing the communities.

In the complex world where a vast number of persons look at the same expression, it is viewed by those who have different contexts. When controversy occurs, the different contexts have been claimed by different peoples. Even if different context among people may cause conflict, the difference doesn’t justify the restriction on freedom. It is because in ultimate sense every individual has different context of their own, and nobody is able to express if that restriction is put in place.

Around dispute on freedom of expression, it often seems that there’s group of people who feels uncomfortable by the expressions of another group. The latter group claims that they have their right or freedom to express it. These disputes are often seen in the topic of belief. There’s a different degree of importance in one’s life that some may have deeply been rooted in person’s identity and others are less related. If an emperor of a country is who has been receiving beliefs from the public over the decades, it is more likely to cause anger when some expression hurts the feelings of the public.

Even if the publisher claims the freedom of expression on the one hand, the perception or opinion of another is different, and it often seems that each side has the different context. Fundamentally, the contexts of persons are different depending on them as each has different experience in their life linked with when and how one has spent their life so far. It has inevitably to do with the physical world in which one has lived. The geographic and timely factors are tied to oneself. This is what is related to the idea of the reality, people are in the different positions, that is why different views arise.

Paving the context is seen in art and museum. The curation of art in a museum is an important element in the exhibition as it is how the works are presented towards the audience. It is how they provide the context to the audience.

On sensitive issues such as the ones related to their history, the same opinion uttered by a person of one nationality is perceived differently if that is uttered by another person of different nationality.

3.1 Expression

People express their emotion, views, opinions, and so forth with their friends, parents, and others. Expressing at least in some cases removes the complexity of the world in human recognition. It emphasises some parts of the world, which are included in the expression, and others are not. It is key for the receiver how to perceive the expression whether they also think of the unexpressed parts to what extent.

Communication can tell another more than what one supposed to tell if another has more knowledge or imagination in it. When one talks about a certain thing, another could interpret the meaning different from what one had intended.

One of the important propositions in thinking about communication is the “notion of holistic proto-language” — the alarm calls of vervet monkeys, according to Alison Wray, “should be compared with complete messages rather than with individual words in human language”, and “holistic” means “no internal structure” and “never combined with any other vocalization to form a multi-component message”(1). Voice changes based on the sentiment that speaker feels(2).

Experience, or what people sensed in their life, fulfils words. It is often said that as people get older people get sympathetic. That is presumably because of the accumulation of experience in their life. Even if they watch a part of a film they can see their closer experience in it or can feel that situation more realistically.

People come to have the ability to use language. It is a matter of how people use their ability to distinguish. It is to tell the difference. Adding words in a publication is to limit the context in general, however using abstract words sometimes opens up the context.

When it comes to languages such as English, they tend to precisely specify the objects that it refers to and a sentence can be divided into further smaller parts.

Letters such as A of alphabet have generality(3). The letter A “of the Phoenician alphabet” “plausibly” comes from “a head of ox”, later it became generalised to “represent” the widest reach of the sound(4). This generality makes possible that different persons communicate via letters. At the standpoint of using the medium, it is possible to communicate, however in more profound sense, what persons interpret from them can differ.

The information also tries to be borderless by translation. The threshold became lower but previously it was chosen by those who engage in translation and who speak different languages by which information cross border.

To write a larger volume of texts takes time, compared with the short text of 200 words, for instance. A long text, which is a book of 200 pages, is presumably written by an author who was at their desk for many hours to write a book, before publishing as a book it in addition goes through the publishing company and its editor. In contrast, a shorter text can be written without careful consideration and it may be spent just a few minutes to be published, or it may be written by spending a few hours during which the author spent their time in choosing the words carefully. By having the Internet available, barriers to send/receive a writing became removed.

Being unable to use metaphor makes expression poor. And where they cannot make their expression in long length, they would have to shorten their expression though they may be aware that it could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

Nuance of an expression is delicate. Manipulate it to spread in a negative way or it was spread by accident in a negative way happens. In the age where rapid spread of information is possible by for example social media, the spread of the sort described above is instantly possible.

If words they encounter are difficult to understand, they don’t try to care about the order of words unless they are intellectual or enthusiastic. The use of words, how it is constructed sometimes are looked with attention unconsciously or consciously.

In typical cases, most people cannot endure the moment that one talks to another person, but the latter in conversation doesn’t respond to them. The conversation from another triggers one to respond to. In case of writing, this binding is weaker as it can be remote or distant.

There is a variety of aspects which arise from speech and expression, it includes historical revisionism. In the pandemic started worldwide around 2020, a negative phenomenon of information called infodemic took place, and the years around then more particularly in US context, how to deal with conspiracy was in dispute as well. Dating back further, in 2016, the word post-truth was in trend, and Oxford Dictionaries recognised it “as its 2016 international word of the year”(5).

As regards the privacy of persons, there are magazines which publish the photos or articles on the private life of those who are well known to the public. Apart from the misconducts, and the similar sort of wrongdoings, revealing the private aspect of persons even if their professions are publicly visible ones undermine the privacy of those targeted people.

With regard to the ethics of persons, even if one put in emphasis one’s freedom, how to speak and present needs to be taken into consideration with one’s ethics. If works supposed to be presented is likely to have inflammatory aspect, whether it will really work for the public good needs to be discussed in advance.

Verbal attack on dignity of others by expression causes a conflict among peoples. Enemy of dignity is, as literally means, perceived by recipient as what they express offends their dignity. When receiver of the expression felt their dignity is offended, unless they are convinced by the explanation of expressor that it is not intended so, it has the risk of dividing groups of people, and it would be better for the expressor to think about what kind of public benefit it has. In other cases, for example, media often publish the information which is not favourable to authorities. However, it endeavours to have the public benefits in it and it is perceived often as an opponent of argument.

By expression, people can damage the dignity. As a supplementary framework, offending dignity is judged as negative as people of different contexts collide. In this sense, despots should not oppress the citizens as it offends the dignity. Racial discrimination that causes unfair judgement on certain groups of people is not tolerable.

Footnotes

(1) Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body, first Harvard University Press paperback ed. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007), p.109. Steven Mithen mentioned the concept of holistic proto-language by Alison Wray.

(2) This sentence is written by being influenced by p.102 of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Essai sur l’origine des langues (Paris: GF Flammarion, 1993).

(3) Henri Bergson, Histoire de l’idée de temps: Cours au Collège de France 1902-1903 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2016). Particularly p.38.

(4) Henri Bergson, Histoire de l’idée de temps: Cours au Collège de France 1902-1903 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2016). Particularly p.38.

(5) ”Post-truth’ declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries’, BBC, published 16 November 2016, accessed May 15, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600. The original text is bold, which is removed in this writing.

2.3 Freedom of expression

The importance of freedom of expression stands out as persons express their opinions or thoughts via expression to try to convey them from one to another. It also plays the role of expressing oneself towards their society. Giving utterance of certain opinions in public space sometimes makes others feel uncomfortable, especially in sensitive topics such as beliefs. Even when others feel this uncomfortableness, whether freedom of expression needs to be exercised to what extent is questionable. Of course, freedom of expression and speech is one of the indispensables, but should it truly be said that since everyone has the freedom of expression and it has to be protected, one can say anything one wants?

In order to protect the public interest, one can think that speech is subject to restriction. There’s been a discussion on the legal restriction of harmful kind such as hate speech. This is to implement regulation in society, which is what I consider as environmental perspective in the respect that policies regulating hate speech is placed outside human beings and try to secure safer environment for all groups of people in a community.

The world has been moving towards protecting the right to speech and express one’s opinion. On the protection of human rights, it often refers to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among the descriptions, freedom of expression is mentioned in the article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”(1). Among the articles of the Declaration which are devoted to protect the rights in universal scale, it is written as above that each one has the right to express their opinion.

From constitutional and conventional point of view, rights and freedom are not allowed unconditionally to be exercised. Some “constitutions acknowledge that basic rights, including freedom of expression, are legitimately subject to restriction”(2). Also, the article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights has the description that it “may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety”(3), and the article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that “Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law”(4).

While looking at the topic of free speech, in the US context, it is mentioned that “the First Amendment has a large cultural presence”(5). Among the amendments of the US constitution, the First Amendment is known as being related to freedom of speech: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”(6). The US has unique free speech culture which is defined in one of their constitutional amendments.

Freedom is one of the most important spheres that needs to be protected. In a society where diverse peoples live in, their different customs and preferences are not tolerated in the narrower sphere. Society cannot help but to see incidents and events happening in it, where people of different interests live together. Even if some people claim the importance of freedom of expression when an incident happens in their society, it is not regarded in the same way by other group of people. In this sense, the difference of context is what should be paid attention to more, or shared concept in communication among people. Shared sense can at least partly achieved by education or other means of communication.

Discourse wasn’t open before as we had some barrier of for example language and distance. After the emergence of the Internet, as regards language barrier, it can be easily translated by using some application on computer. The distance between persons is now virtually able to be close even if they are physically distant which causes conflict between persons. People living in far distant area face each other on the Internet causes conflict in some issues, if not facing that isn’t caused. Freedom and its characteristics of being contingent with others necessitate the feeling for others, but to what extent it is possible to presuppose those who see, from the standpoint of those who express is a further point of discussion.

Freedom one owns is the number and the width of the paths in which one acts. In the perspective of the architecture in which the access to expression is ensured among the citizenry, “Access to means of expression is in many cases a necessary condition for participation in the political process of the country”(7).

While noting the importance of securing the access to political participation, whether the restriction on the expression of citizens in the case of harmful speech should be tolerated is a matter which needs to be taken into consideration. Regarding hate speech, some promote the restriction on it, others do not welcome restriction.

From the perspective of the legitimacy of political decisions and the restriction on expression, one of the arguments is the legitimacy argument. Dworkin claimed that “if we intervene too soon in the process through which collective opinion is formed, we spoil the only democratic justification we have for insisting that everyone obey these laws, even those who hate and resent them”(8). On this argument, it is explained that “legislation that forbids one side from expressing its opinion to the public—its opinion, for instance, that blacks are inferior creatures who should be sent back to Africa—destroys that fairness. It deprives us of our right to enforce laws against those who have been denied a fair opportunity to make a case against their enactment”(9).

On the restriction of speech, what’s been in dispute is whether speech which is affecting negatively others should be tolerated or not. That is the case of hate speech or discriminating speech against certain groups of people. There are people on the side that any restriction on speech damages the legitimacy of democracy, on the other hand, restriction on the hate speech is inevitable given the negative effect on their community.

Even if the ways through which some can utter their discriminating speech to other racial group are prohibited by law, as far as other ways in which the access to express is secured for the citizens — citizens don’t have to use aggressive words towards others to claim their opinions —, it differs from the situation of the oppression of speech imposed on them. One is able to choose the way in which they speak of what they want to tell to another. It can be an offensive words or softened words depending on the way in which they speak. It is problematic that one intentionally chooses the offensive words to insult others, it has the cases that some unintentionally used words which the listener felt offensive. Given the harm that discriminating speech causes, the blockage of the path of that sort of speech can often be tolerated by those who advocate restriction on hate speech. However, it needs the consideration of the impact which restricting the expression of hate speech causes in relation to others before putting it in place. The problem of hate speech in society damages the dignity of people such as certain racial group. On dignity, while Waldron said that his use of the word “is not just a philosophical conception of immeasurable worth in (say) the Kantian sense of würde”(10), he views that “It is a matter of status—one’s status as a member of society in good standing—and it generates demands for recognition and for treatment that accords with that status”(11).

The argument of ensuring assurance in community has positive effect to some extent while the matter of how one perceives the symbols remains. In terms of “assurance”(12) which hate speech “aims to dispel the sense of assurance that we attempt to provide for one another, a sense of assurance that constitutes the social upholding of individual dignity”(13), the speech of the kind unstabilise the society. The “dignity-based assurance is a public good provided to all by all, and that unlike the benefit of street lighting it cannot be provided by a central utility”(14). The cooperation by each member in a community to create the environment in which their dignity is assured is an ideal democratic atmosphere it promotes. Apart from legal restriction, not always one has to exercise one’s right to express. People can choose not to say by having the freedom at their hand based on their rational decision.

To create the space that is secure for freedom of expression is the accumulation of efforts and could be accomplished, gradually expanding it.

Freedom of expression and art is what should be discussed. For example, for arts audience can interpret works in many ways. It enables people to take time in thinking about the contexts and the concepts. It is one of the interesting aspects of art that viewer enjoy thinking about the works profoundly and they may notice the different opinions from their first impressions. At the time of first glimpse, the information on the work that one has is limited, thinking of the background in the work, the viewer can expand the imagination on it and they may change their opinion. Also, at the beginning, what audience feel from the work is influenced by their previous life experience. It could be uncomfortable for some groups of people who visited to see it. Especially art works sometimes send their message sharply towards the world.

Having said above, it is agreed that freedom of expression should be protected. Securing places that artists can share their works and audience can get the opportunity to see them would enrich the experiences they can get in community. However, always claiming that it is one’s right to express sometimes deepens the confrontation with the groups of people who have different opinions.

The oppression on the speech of people have been historically what we have been caring for. It still is an important topic, but in liberal democratic societies where higher percentage of people share the common recognition that freedom of speech and expression should be protected, it may become a different level that one would be better to care about others as well.

In addition to the environmental perspective that, is located outside oneself, one implement and revise the policies put in practice in society, the inner part of oneself is what should be paid attention to.

Footnotes

(1) ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, United Nations, accessed 25 January 2023, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.

(2) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 13.

(3) ‘European Convention on Human Rights’, European Court of Human Rights, accessed 4 February 2023, https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf. François Héran refers to the same article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights in pp.12-13 of his book François Héran, Lettre aux professeurs sur la liberté d’expression, (Paris: La Découverte, 2021).

(4) ‘International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’, OHCHR, accessed 9 February 2023, https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights. Jeremy Waldron (2014) refers to the same article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in p.29 of his book Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014).

(5) Cass R. Sunstein, #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media, paperback ed. (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018), p. 196.

(6) ‘Constitution of the United States’, Library of Congress, accessed December 9, 2023, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/.

(7) T. M. Scanlon, The Difficulty of Tolerance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 22.

(8) Ronald Dworkin, ‘Foreword’, in Extreme Speech and Democracy, edited by Ivan Hare and James Weinstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p.viii.

(9) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), pp. 177-178. Waldron describes the legitimacy argument by Ronald Dworkin.

(10) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 60.

(11) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p.60.

(12) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014).

(13) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 166.

(14) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 97.

2.2 Freedom

The reason for protecting freedom is partly that it is related to the autonomy of citizens. Citizens have to be more autonomously thinking of their communities, for instance coronavirus pandemic questioned democracy as the world got more centralized without citizens’ autonomy. For example, not denying their request to public funding, it is not so much desirable to be dependent on government. Provided independency from government in domain of art should be maintained for some artists in the long run. Or when crisis comes, it is not the case that all the assistance is provided by government, instead autonomous cooperation of citizens should be cultivated. Asking for the government to provide support can take time and it is not sure if that is truly done, the alliance of the citizenry can be one of the polars that helps them. Having said that, making demands against government is also one option. When it comes to pandemic, the communities should think about governance, autonomy, and the like. This is not to waste a period of history in which the earliers have faced difficulty. On autonomy, it doesn’t make sense if people do not make action unless authorities give orders to them. The community they create which for example supports the businesses which is at stake when crisis comes, or provides, even if it is somewhat, support from the citizens of the same community helps the community to get through the difficult period. What is supposed here is that some businesses may not get affected than others, they help others. This kind of support among the citizenry can generate resilience and robustness.

Autonomy is essential to create the democratic culture. Citizens should think by themselves to accomplish the desirable society. Though some would be reluctant to make action, at least enough people need to participate in politics if society makes their politics participatory. While putting importance in the autonomy of citizens, some would feel more comfortable to be obedient towards their society, that means that they would not much prefer to make actions. And it is not always necessary to make it participatory or active as far as the ways through which some who are eager to claim their political opinions can have access to their politics are ensured. To put it different way, people who do not prefer to be active in politics are not denied access to politics, they just choose not to actively make action at the moment, but having their access in their hands. Securing the sphere in which one is autonomously live in their lives would counter against the moments at which authority excessively attempt to exercise their power into the lives of people. In order to prevent the abuse of power among the few, autonomous groups with their freedom protected need to freely act so that a few groups of power which want to hold their interests don’t abuse their powers for their private interests. As for the authority given to those who are in power, they have responsibility to the decisions they make, on social institutions, “even if rights and powers giving some people a measure of control over others must be a feature of any plausible system of social institutions, the way in which these rights and powers are distributed is one of the features of social institutions that is most subject to criticism and most in need of justification”(1). Benefit of freedom is not to impose coercive pressure on its citizens, and let them have space to practically behave in their wishful way. The sphere of free is wider, the sphere in which persons can act is secured.

While many believe that freedom is one of the fundamental domains that should be protected, we need to be aware of the aspect of freedom that it is not absolute. It is not what can always be prioritised over others.

Here, we take into consideration the contingent nature of freedom. This nature of contingency upon others is what I shed light on. This contingency of freedom upon others is closely tied with the fact that we live in society where other people also live. This fact of living together with other people have certain effect on the exercise of one’s freedom. Just because people recognise the importance of protection of freedom doesn’t mean that each of us can exercise their own rights and freedom in whatever manner they want. There are cases that one should care about others when they exercise their freedom, that is to say, freedom needs to be taken consideration in the relationship with others.

The following example concisely describes this type of situation. The contingency of freedom is described by Lawrence Lessing in the following example: “I may have a house on a farm. Imagine that every year, I have a large and loud birthday party. But imagine that, partly to pay for those parties, every year I sell off plots of land on my farm. And imagine that eventually all I have is my house, surrounded by lots of other houses”(2). He continues that “That change may have restricted the freedom that I formerly had”(3). Since selling off the parts of land makes closer the distance with neighbours, the landowner mentioned above needs more likely to care about neighbours in exercising one’s freedom. This example represents the contingent aspect of freedom.

This nature of freedom that it is contingent upon others is what triggers to look at the importance of thinking about others in society. The argument above informs us of the fact that our society is interrelated and the concept of freedom is no exception. And freedom is not what is absolutely prioritised over others. This leads to look at the development of sentiment within oneself in the later section where I focus on the concept.

There are different principles to think about freedom. One of them is the “principle of non-nuisance” which was in discussion(4). It has the element of the care about others when exercising their rights.

The harm principle includes the standard whether it causes harm to others or not and it cares the relationship of one’s act with others. It is described that “the principle of harm: I am at liberty to move my hands until I hit my neighbour’s nose, at which point I cause her harm and therefore am not at liberty to proceed”(5).

The more civilised, the rules are piled up in the societies which narrows the actions of the people. Although human beings don’t have to try to forget the lessons that they learned from the past history, we don’t have to comply with all the rules that are continuously established, beyond necessity. It could lose flexibility, agility, and capacity of innovation from ourselves.

A progress originates in the sphere in which one can expand the conventional norms and cultures, and one should focus on the progress which brings about the happiness of persons, rather than the one which brings, for example, wealth to certain groups of people in the same community.

Besides, to preserve the free sphere in which the rigid conformity doesn’t affect, it lets people to develop individuality. It contributes in the way that “In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others”(6).

It is when one accomplishes their target, they gain freedom, by which they can decide what they are going to do. In that case, they have a variety of possible choices. Trying to be free is still not being free, as it is bound by the forces of desire to get free. In this respect, being free gives one a hope. Freedom would be realized at least partly, when society as a whole provides diverse range of options. Not putting the same societal structure over the world, but coexisting multiple styles of society in the world.

(1) T. M. Scanlon, The Difficulty of Tolerance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 43.

(2) Lawrence Lessig, Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 97-98.

(3) Lawrence Lessig, Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 98.

(4) François Héran, Lettre aux professeurs sur la liberté d’expression (Paris: La Découverte, 2021), pp. 102-103.

(5) Amnon Reichman, ‘Criminalizing Religiously Offensive Satire: Free Speech, Human Dignity, and Comparative Law’, in Extreme Speech and Democracy, edited by Ivan Hare and James Weinstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 331-354. This is explained by Amnon Reichman in p.333.

(6) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and The Subjection of Women (London: Penguin, 2006), p. 72.

2.1 Freedom

Published on 10 July 2024, last updated on 13 July 2024

With regard to freedom, there’s a variety of subjects to think about as such that freedom should be secured from government so that citizens can act freely without oppression. Another is the exercise of one’s freedom and its relationship with other people in the same community. Government has their authority to coordinate different interests among different people, which could be interpreted to resolve the conflict of the citizenry.

It is often seen that discussions on freedom go to the extreme edge. When someone was asked not to do a certain behaviour or action, they may claim that it is their right to take the action, but it sometimes feels that saying it one’s own right doesn’t always justify the act. Assume that most people claim their behaviours as their rights even if that harms others, it can be, in other words, regarded that it is one’s right to harm others. Also, one sometimes asks, if it is free, whether one can do everything we want.

One can argue that just because freedom should be preserved doesn’t mean that people should be freely behave whatever they want. The debates around regulation are complicated ones. Some people in a society, those who are more liberal and human rights activists in particular, argue the importance of freedom, that is what I agree with, but in some cases it is dubious that we can prioritise freedom held by people to be exercised in all the cases. People often think of extreme cases that are extremely free or not free at all, but it is a matter that to what degree freedom is ensured. To what extent freedom is tolerated depends on how people create their own culture. The benefit of freedom is to be able to choose the ways in which one acts. If not allowed, one is not able to choose their preferrable way of behaving. It is likely to cause anxiety in the minds of people and distortion in society. It is basically a balance between to what degree we prioritise the freedom of people and to what degree we restrict the freedom of people due to the effect that one’s exercise of freedom causes. Although many support the deployment of human rights concept in societies, to what degree freedom should be exercised among citizens needs to be discussed since the exercise of one’s right can influence others in the same community.

If one is in power, it may be harder for them to allow others to have freedom as it may affect negatively the advantages of those who are powerful. Contrarily, the importance of freedom is easier to understand by imagining the situation that one is not able to behave freely. While learning lesson from the past history of oppression on freedom, people with liberal thoughts has been expanding the human rights culture with some countries moving towards democracy. The culture of human rights and respecting freedom are a progress which has been cultivated from the previous generations.

In talking about freedom, the topic of the rights of individuals are often associated in discussion. Claiming the rights is to claim being able to choose the exercise of power, that is to say that they can choose if they exercise it or not at the moment. The empowered individual has power to some degree. Regarding the rights of people, the United States is known for the unique history. Historically saying, it is described that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”(1). The United States has been focusing on the rights and its protection. They have the famous Bill of rights, to explain it concisely, “The Bill of Rights, drafted by Madison, was passed by the new Congress in 1789 and ratified in December 1791. Its ten articles, incorporated as the first ten amendments to the Constitution, explicitly protect a range of fundamental individual freedoms”(2). The history of these rights-related background in the US contributed to their current culture of the emphasis on the rights.

Footnotes

(1) Lawrence Lessig, Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), p.13. This is what Thomas Jefferson wrote.

(2) Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. 2008. The Federalist Papers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. xxiii.