October 1, 2002

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  Freedom of Speech

  
  

  Analyzing ideas that are foundational to my life has been an exercise in unearthing the unspoken rules of behavior I grew up with, saying them outloud and hearing the contradictions.  Freedom to speak is a powerful thing.  Poet Muriel Rukeyser writes, "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?  The world would split open."

  
  

  I grew up in the 70's (and it was nothing like that television show as I remember it.)  My parents weren't hip, they were southern school teachers.  They weren't  politically active although they did vote.  At home they didn't practice traditional roles so much, my Mom worked and she certainly didn't "obey" my Dad.  But, I saw in their relationship an inequality of speech.  When Daddy spoke, we were expected to stop what we were doing and listen.  When Mom spoke it was with an edge to her voice that said she didn't expect us to listen and she was already halfway from here to mad about it.    

  
  

  In school, women were to be listened to and respected.  There was a female principle at my first elementary school, and a woman assistant principle at the Junior High.  So it wasn't until I was in high school that the segregation of men in positions of authority was clearly delineated.  Most of the men who became principal had begun as football coaches.  (I never saw an English teacher move into administration, why is that?)  I learned that men who are agressive and "manly" are to be respected, they have authority.  I learned that women are only allowed authority over small children.  As children grow authority over them shifts from women to men.

  
  

  I like this series of paintings that Norman Rockwell called the Four Freedoms.  One of the things I like so much about Norman Rockwell is that in imaging the idealized American life, he captured many of the unspoken rules as well.  In the painting above we see the young man standing to speak.  The men around him look up and listen with interest and eye contact, signs of respect.  We don't know the content, it almost doesn't matter.  He is free to speak it.  But, do you notice the solitary female figure in the painting?  She's seated behind the older man, and looking in the general direction of the speaker.  She hasn't turned her head in his direction just her eyes, and her mouth is hidden behind the shoulder of the man's suit.  She has no voice.  The men may be very interested in the speaker's ideas, but she isn't sold on them and she has no way to speak her own ideas or objections.

  
  

  My husband isn't a saint (at least not all the time) and there have been times I've been angry with him.  Most of the issues I've been angriest about have been those times when I thought that he wasn't listening to me.  Free speech isn't about men versus women or Terri versus Tim, it's an issue of human with human.  The unspoken rule I grew up with was that men get to pick and choose when they will listen to women.  If we are to be a society that promotes free speech, we must also promote clear channels.  Any barrier between a voice and the marketplace of ideas must be removed.  You may have noticed that I jumped from marriage to society at large in this free speech thing.  Talking about what happens inside a marriage crosses into intimate (scary) territory, but the applicable truth is the same.  A marriage that follows a pattern in which one partner has more voice than the other is a weaker marriage than one in which both partners contribute their ideas.

  
  

  Listening doesn't mean agreeing.  Listening doesn't mean giving up any part of who we are.  It means that we attend to the other person's message.  Some ideas offend.  Hateful, rascist, sexist, and obscene speech are all offensive to me, but if I have a commitment to freedom of speech then I must not silence that voice that speaks these ideas.  I may hear the idea and reject it as illogical, unethical, or harmful.  Listeners in a free society have the obligation to consider speech and to evaluate the ideas we hear.  Passive adoption of any and every idea is silly.  Either passive adoption or dismissal without consideration, robs the listener and dehumanizes the speaker.

  
  

  No matter what gains we think we've made, barriers remain.  Glass ceilings in corporate America prevent women from speaking in economic life.  Political action committees create a screen with their dollars in order to insulate legislators from hearing any ideas but their own.  Anyone can make noise.  For speech to be influential it must be heard and considered.  The more ideas that make it to the table the better the outcome of consideration will be. 

  
  

   

  • 5:33 pm
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