Print

“Across continents, cultures, religions, and schools of philosophy and law, freedom of expression is of the utmost importance,” said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker. He paused and glanced up at his audience of 150 aging New York intellectuals, journalists, and Columbia students, raising his eyebrows in a mock-serious gesture.

Remnick served as the moderator of an academic panel entitled “Freedom of Expression: The Controversy” last Tuesday, Jan. 26. Sponsored by the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LIRCA in French), the panel featured an impressive mix of intellectuals and activists, including Bernard-Henri Lévy, a French philosopher and writer. Lévy began by pointing out that words always convey some sense of power.

“Some words can commit atrocities on a huge scale,” he stated. “We cannot censor our speech in order to appease extremist Islamic communities and cater to their Fascist ideals. For the sake of democracy, we need to defend the value of free speech.”

Members of the audience broke into laudatory applause as he concluded by describing freedom of expression as an international battle “we” wage alongside “our brothers” in Iran and China against the forces of Fascism.

Peter Awn, professor of Islamic Religion and Comparative Religion at Columbia, claimed that the value of free speech does not necessarily conflict with religious values at large. Instead, he said, “Free speech is only at risk when religion and state combine.” He asked the audience to take note of the fact that secularism manifests itself very differently in the United States than it does in Europe. He reasoned that the U.S. is such a diverse and multifarious nation that its members simply cannot all ascribe to one political, religious, or social ideology, and that to be an “American is to be offended.”

Kent Greenawalt, a professor at Columbia Law School, waxed eloquent about the First Amendment, explaining to the audience the legal facets of hate speech, blasphemy, workplace harassment and the breach of peace statute. “The bottom line is that although America is one of the most tolerant nations when it comes to blasphemy, it is also one of the most protective of its citizens’ right to safety and security,” he explained.

Philippe Schmidt, LIRCA vice president, declared that France had a similar approach: “All nations agree that there should be a limit to the freedom of expression. But the question today is, what is that limit?”

Schmidt urged audience members to think critically about what can be done to limit hate speech, referring to specific cases in which free speech was taken too far in the cyber world and on the internet.

After such a colorful and diverse array of perspectives and opinions, Remnick took the podium once more, his wry smile still very much in place. Addressing Schmidt, he asked the obvious question: “If a panel of five people cannot even agree on whether or not blasphemy is a good thing, then how can we expect to put forth standards governing it?”

However insightful the panelists may have been, very little progress was made in advancing the discourse on free speech. To begin with, the topic itself was too broad and vague to allow the panelists to focus on one specific issue. As a result, the discourse diverged into a number of unrelated topics, which left panelists skimming the surface of their knowledge, and audience members struggling to connect the dots to form clear and coherent arguments about the place of free speech in our global community.

The question and answer session that followed the panel revealed what audience members did want to hear about: blasphemy. What is considered a violation of free speech? And what could be done about Holocaust deniers, internet bullies, Muhammad cartoons, and literary censorship?

Lévy attempted to answer these questions in his closing statement, an impassioned ordeal in which he sought to expound upon the power of words and free speech. His answer equated limiting free speech with refusing to criticize Fascist civilizations, thereby allowing them to reign free. Should this happen, he continued, the entire Democratic world would fall to pieces.

This Huntington-esque binary framed his comments, as he sought to assure audience members that, in refusing to limit free speech, “We will win this battle as we have won others before.” In a more optimistic tone, Lévy even offered the “forces of Fascism” suggestions on how to redeem themselves, encouraging them to allow for the fallibility of their beliefs and discard political symbols that represent their aversion to Western liberalism and democracy.

Again, one could not help but feel confused. Instead of a progressive, intellectually stimulating discussion on the topic of free speech, audience members were bombarded with fashionable rhetoric and disjointed personal opinions. In positing free speech as a vehicle which allows only one (Western) voice to emerge as dominant, Lévy overlooked the very aim of freedom of expression: to enhance the public’s ability to seek, receive, and impart information. And in presenting free speech as a weapon we can use to silence those who disagree with us, Lévy discounts its very aim, namely, that we should engage in a continuous dialogue with them. In doing so, we are respecting not only their human dignity, but also their status as fellow citizens. And maybe even enriching our own.