Stories of Senduro Flower: When the People Speak Up (1)

"A distraught investor called his financial advisor.

'Is my money really all gone?' he wailed.

'No, no,' the advisor answered calmly. 'It’s just with somebody else!''

"Democracy gives voice to 'the people', include 'all' the people and provides a basis for 'the people' thinking about the issues they decide, but these presumptions about democracy are often unstated," said Senduro Flower while looking at the painting La Liberté guidant le peuple by Eugène Delacroix—the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X—after greeting with Basmalah and Salaam. Senduro flower, Anaphalis javanica, or the Javanese edelweiss, known as bunga abadi (eternal flower) in Indonesian, senduro in Javanese, or tanalayu (never wilts) among the Tenggerese, popular among tourists and her dried flowers often sold as souvenirs. The plant has been protected under Indonesian law since 1990.

"People have the right to influence the political and social structures," Senduro went on. "When people speak up, they can shift power and find new pathways for achieving a more just and sustainable future. Deliberative and public consultation will usually lead to the best option being considered. To attain this, a knowledgeable citizenry whose access to information enables them to participate as fully as possible in the public life of their society and to criticize unfair government policies is needed. Democracy depends upon the widest possible access to unblocked ideas, data, and opinions. People must be allowed to express themselves, openly, publicly, and repeatedly; in writing and speech.

Freedom of speech—though is not absolute because it cannot be used to, for example, justify violence, slander, libel, subversion, or obscenity—is a fundamental right. A civil society allows for spirited debate among those in deep disagreement over some issues. Protests serve as a testing ground for any democracy, thus the right to peaceful assembly is essential and plays an integral part in facilitating the use of free speech.

According to Vincent Blasi, as ideals, free thought and free speech have roots in accounts by the historians Herodotus and Thucydides explaining the distinctiveness of fifth-century Athens, in the Socratic search for philosophic clarity and appreciation of the limits of understanding, in Euripides’ celebration of political participation and Aristotle’s recognition of the power of public opinion, in the efforts of Renaissance humanists such as Petrarch and Erasmus to liberate moral reasoning from scholastic formalism, in Machiavelli’s counsels of prudential rule, in notions of free conscience and inquisitive duty introduced by the Protestant Reformation, and in the scientific method’s systematization of open-ended knowledge seeking. However, for conceiving of the freedoms of speech and press as fundamental limiting principles of governance, the earliest argument that continues to be read today is John Milton’s Areopagitica of 1644. In that polemic, the great poet of Paradise Lost marshals a dizzying array of reasons and characterizations extolling bold individual inquiry and dynamic collective understanding.

Chapter two of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty—‘On the Liberty of Thought and Discussion’—is the best-known defense of free speech in the philosophical canon. Mill’s argument for freedom of discussion draws on his conception of human beings and their place in the world. Human beings are, Mill claims, wholly part of the natural order—as such, the human mind, as well as body, is entirely governed according to the laws uncovered by scientific investigation. This vision of the mind as operating according to natural laws leads to a view under which our only means of interaction with the world is causal interaction. Insofar as we are able to come to know the world, Mill claims, we can do so only by being receptive to the world causally. As such, the possibility of substantive a priori knowledge is precluded, for all receptivity to the world takes place via the senses.

Our engagement with the world, to put this another way, is sensible. We can perhaps imagine beings capable of knowing elements of the world by direct and unmediated insight. Such creatures would know how things are without being affected. But we are not them. We could know the world by acts of pure reflection only ‘if we could know a priori that we must have been created capable of conceiving whatever is capable of existing: that the universe of thought and that of reality, the Microcosm and the Macrocosm (as they once were called) must have been framed in complete correspondence’. ‘[A]n assumption more destitute of evidence could scarcely be made’, however. There is, for us, ‘no knowledge cognizable by the mind’s inward light’. As natural beings, our knowledge of how things are has at its foundation modes of interaction with the world which are themselves wholly natural.

Mill claims, that there should be no interference with the discussion of any opinion. Mill’s concern is not merely with interference by the state, but also by society at large. According to Mill, 'Society can and does execute its own mandates. [...] Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them.'

Mill is clear that we are entitled to form opinions about others on the basis of their conduct and views, and to act on those opinions—this is not interference with their liberty, but merely a legitimate exercise of our own liberty, ‘Though doing no wrong to any one, a person may so act as to compel us to judge him, and feel to him, as a fool, or as a being of an inferior order. [...] We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours’. Indeed, we are entitled to attempt to persuade a person, that is, not to express certain views—‘remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him’—or simply to avoid someone if we see fit: ‘We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it [...] for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates.’

Mill examines the value of free thought and discussion under three different assumptions: (1) that the received opinions which are being challenged by the speech at issue are false; (2) that the received opinions are true; and (3) that ‘the conflicting doctrines, instead of one being true and the other false, share the truth between them; and the non-conforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth, of which the received doctrine embodies only a part’. He offers powerful reasons why unregulated thought and discussion is of great value under each of the three assumptions.

According to Frederick Schauer, what we now think of as freedom of speech can be identified as early as the sixth-century bc Athens, the English-language origins of the phrase ‘freedom of speech’ date to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, and then became crystallized in the English Bill of Rights of 1689. In this bill of rights, however, the phrase ‘freedom of speech’ referred narrowly and specifically to the immunity of members of parliament from sanctions for what they said—spoke—on the floor of parliament and not to anything more comprehensive. Only thereafter did the phrase take on anything resembling its more modern meaning. This shift can be traced roughly to the early eighteenth century, and from then on the phrase appears to have departed from its original parliamentary-immunity moorings, with ‘freedom of speech’ becoming more commonly understood as referring to a right of citizens and not just to an immunity of members of parliament.

Importantly, this broader conception of the right of (some) citizens to speak freely (on some topics, in some places) without fear of some sanctions came into wide usage throughout the British Empire, and thus the phrase ‘freedom of speech’ found its way into common parlance, judicial decisions, political discourse, and the constitutions of some of the North American colonies, as with the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776, which provided in its Article XII that ‘the people have a right to freedom of speech, and of writing, and publishing their sentiments; therefore the freedom of the press ought not to be restrained’. By the time we get to 1791, the phrase had become widely used, and it was this phrase that was enshrined into the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Importantly, this broader conception of the right of (some) citizens to speak freely (on some topics, in some places) without fear of some sanctions came into wide usage throughout the British Empire, and thus the phrase ‘freedom of speech’ found its way into common parlance, judicial decisions, political discourse, and the constitutions of some of the North American colonies, as with the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776, which provided in its Article XII that ‘the people have a right to freedom of speech, and of writing, and publishing their sentiments; therefore the freedom of the press ought not to be restrained’. By the time we get to 1791, the phrase had become widely used, and it was this phrase that was enshrined into the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Why then protect freedom of speech? Some contend that freedom of speech is essential to self-government (government of a country by its own people, especially after having been a colony). The citizenry must have access to information in order to exercise the franchise intelligently and hold their elected representatives accountable. Others argue that freedom of speech must be defended because it is a central aspect of personal autonomy and self-realization. Some, particularly in the international community, defend freedom of speech as an essential aspect of individual dignity.

The oldest rationale offered in support of freedom of speech, however, is the ‘search for truth’ justification. According to this rationale, protecting freedom of speech creates a marketplace of ideas in which truth ultimately prevails over falsity. Speech therefore must not be restricted, because to do so would inhibit this search for truth.

Despite its long-standing pedigree, however, the truth justification has been under sustained attack from a number of directions, so much so that at least one commentator has described it as being ‘on the wane’. Further, and perhaps relatedly, the idea of truth itself also seems to have become a concept with less and less currency in an increasingly polarized world. That some would still consider the search for truth to be a primary justification for freedom of expression might be considered by others as hopelessly misguided and naïve. The truth justification, however, has its defenders. The concept of truth has long held sway over the human imagination, and the explanatory power of truth as a guide for human conduct continues to resonate.

Although the phrase ‘freedom of speech’ is now widespread, especially in countries with an English heritage, there has developed a concern that tying the freedom to the word ‘speech’ is too narrow. Even if we understand ‘speech’ to include the written (and printed) word as well as words that are spoken, perhaps contrary to eighteenth-century usage, it is still the case that limiting the freedom of speech to words or language, whether spoken or written or printed, remains seriously under-inclusive. Most liberal democracies, after all, now understand the right to include a wide range of symbolic and communicative but non-linguistic forms of public speaking and public protest, including marching, picketing, parading, sign-carrying, armband-wearing, flag-waving, flag-burning, effigy-burning, and much more of this non-linguistic character, none of which activities would be described as ‘speech’ in the ordinary English-language sense of that word.

In response to the potential narrowness of the word ‘speech’, the drafters of many modern constitutions and human rights documents have replaced it with ‘expression’—a word that appears capacious enough to include various forms of non-linguistic communication. And thus we see the ‘freedom of expression’ protected in article 5 of the German Basic Law, in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), in section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in many other legal instruments and human rights documents, and in most of the contemporary international and philosophical literature on the topic.

What is the essential connection between Freedom of Expression and Democracy? Ashutosh Bhagwat and James Weinstein refer to Freedom of Expression including free speech, freedom of the press, the right to petition the government, and freedom of political association. Contemporary democracies come in many varieties, each coloured by its particular culture and history. Despite these differences, a common denominator of all contemporary democracies is a practical, if not always formal, commitment to popular sovereignty—a state of affairs in which the people exercise ultimate control over their government. Another basic precept of every contemporary democracy is formal political equality of every citizen. A necessary component of each of these two basic democratic norms is freedom of political expression. Though largely overlapping, the expression inherent in these two basic democratic norms have some distinct features.

Political expression is a necessary component of popular sovereignty. It requires that ‘ultimate political power resides in the population at large, that the people as a body are sovereign, and that they, either directly or through their elected representatives in a significant sense actually control the operation of government’. The most obvious and direct way that the people exercise control over their government is through voting, either by electing representatives, or by directly voting on laws or policies through ballot measures such as referenda, initiatives, and recall. Because the right to vote is so crucial to popular control of government, a society entirely lacking the franchise is plainly not a democracy. The directness of this control, however, tends to obscure a less direct, yet equally essential, prerequisite of modern democracy: the right of the people to speak freely about collective decisions within the purview of the people’s ultimate sovereignty, that is, on matters of public concern.

The primary mechanism through which freedom of expression in a democracy controls government is public opinion. In a representative democracy, public opinion not only influences who is elected to govern, but also influences the decisions made by these representatives between elections. For while elections are ‘an intermittent mechanism’, public opinion is ‘constantly active’. When the people directly make laws or policy through ballot measures rather than indirectly through their representatives, public opinion will tend to have a correspondingly greater direct effect on the outcome.

The right of the people to speak freely on matters of public concern is, in turn, essential to the formation of the public opinion by which the people control the government. Why? It's because government propaganda and statements by government officials also affect public opinion. If the people cannot freely express their views on public matters, then public opinion will largely reflect the views of government officials and thus be an ineffective means of popular control of government.

Political expression is a necessary component of formal political equality. A basic precept of Enlightenment philosophy is that each person is of equal moral worth. There is a clear consensus among contemporary democracies that respect for the equal moral worth of each individual requires at least formal political equality. This commitment includes a formal (or procedural) right to equal participation in the political process. As Robert Dahl has explained, ‘The democratic process is generally believed to be justified on the ground that people are entitled to participate as political equals in making binding decisions, enforced by the state, on matters that have important consequences for their individual and collective interest’.

As with popular sovereignty, the most apparent manifestation of this commitment to political equality is voting. Formal political equality also includes the right of every person to contribute to public opinion by freely expressing their views on matters of public concern. For this reason, the expression protected by this right is vitally connected to the formation of public opinion and as such overlaps to a considerable extent with the freedom of expression derived from popular sovereignty.

In every contemporary democracy freedom of expression promotes two key democratic purposes reflecting the shared commitment to popular sovereignty and formal political equality: an informed citizenry and political legitimacy. The importance of the informing function of freedom of expression to contemporary democracy is underscored by Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), which provides that freedom of expression shall include freedom ‘to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority’. This crucial democratic free speech function can usefully be divided into three categories: (1) expression that informs the electorate so that the people can ‘vote wise decisions’; (2) expression that informs speakers so that they can knowledgably participate in public discourse; and (3) expression that informs representatives of the views of the electorate.

The necessity of freedom of expression for an informed electorate is among the most often invoked justifications for freedom of expression, democratic or otherwise. It is the central theme.

Another core democratic function performed by freedom of expression is the promotion of political legitimacy. Although not as frequently emphasized, this function is arguably as important to democracy as is the informing function.

After we know a brief background about Freedom of Expression, in the following session we will discuss issues regarding it. Bi 'idznillah."

Before entering the next session, Senduro sang,

Life indeed can be fun

if you really want to

Sometimes living out your dreams

ain't as easy as it seems

You wanna fly around the world

in a beautiful balloon

Life, oh life *)

Citations & References:

- Adrienne Stone & Frederick Schauer (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Freedom of Speech, 2021, Oxford University Press

- David Bromwich & George Kateb (Eds.), On Liberty John Stuart Mill, 2003, Yale University Press

*) "Life" written by Des'ree Weekes & Prince Sampson

[Episode 2]

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