Free Speech and Insults

The Guardian has a passably interesting article up about the use of the word "retard" - arguing that it is effectively on a par with using the word "nigger". I'm not going to get into the substance of the article, although I'll note in passing that it might be a good thing if the word retard was used a little less by people as an insult or as a cheap joke - myself included.

What I want to comment on, though, is this passage here:

Hiding behind the right to free speech is not a defence. People gave their lives in the battle for free speech. I doubt they did so in order to give some hipster – claiming to be correcting myths and errors around disability through satire – the right to disabuse who they see fit.

To be really pedantic for a moment, I'd just like to point out that we don't know exactly what those who died for free speech were dying for; if nothing else, it is very difficult to ask them. It is probably safe to assume, though, that hipsters (what a wonderfully anachronistic word!) were not at the top of their agenda.

However, I do think that this paragraph represents a fundamental misunderstanding when it comes to the nature of free speech. The whole point of free speech means that it has to be free - and that includes allowing people to be free to attack others, to insult others and to use words and language in general in such a way that others may - and probably will - find offensive. Otherwise we are not talking about free speech at all - rather, the ability of a moral majority to dominate minorities with their own personal prejudices.

In the case of the word retard, it is difficult to argue that the word is more often than not used in a way that is insulting and demeaning to those with disabilities - probably to such an extent that the word's real meaning these days is purely as an insult. But that doesn't mean that people should be stripped of the right to use that word, or that free speech does not allow people the right to "disabuse others". There can be no conditions attached to free speech if it is to remain a meaningful concept.

But even as we acknowledge what could be considered to be a downside to free speech, there is a potential upside as well. Because just as people are free to insult, demean and bully others, so people are are free to argue back, to defend those being attacked, and to explain why certain words and certain behaviours are offensive to them and the wider community.

The people who died defending free speech did so to defend the idea that people should be able to speak freely, and to say what they feel. This includes the right to debate and argue over what is appropriate and what is offensive. If you don't like the word "retard" then you are free to say so, and to make you case to others who do use the word as to why it is so unpleasant. But there is nothing inconsistent in people arguing that free speech allows them to use any words or terms that they see fit; indeed, any other formulations of free speech would, fundamentally and crucially, not be free at all.