“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” – Teach Different with Evelyn Beatrice Hall – Freedom of Expression
Should there be limits to free speech?
Steve and Dan Fouts, founders of Teach Different and seasoned educators with over 50 years of experience, tackle the tension between free speech and social responsibility using a compelling quote from English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall (referring to the French philosopher Voltaire): “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Join them for a thought-provoking conversation that navigates the complexities of personal expression and justice in the context of free speech.
Teach Different serves educational institutions, families, corporate entities, and mental health communities. If you think the TD method could be effective in your setting, we’d love to hear from you! support@teachdifferent.com
Image source: 1896 Alfred-Pierre Agache | The Sword | Public Domain
Today’s Guest(s)
Transcript
Dan Fouts 00:02
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Teach Different podcast. We are really excited this week because we’re doing something for the first time. And that is we are doing our podcast live in our online community of practice, which we’re incredibly excited about. Because moving forward, we’re going to be doing these podcasts more and more inside our community, and allowing people in the community to participate in various forms or another, and adding their comments and so on. Now, we’re also going to have guests, of course, that we’ve had before, today is just going to be Steve and me. But we’re bringing the podcast inside our community and widening the participation of people in the experience.
Steve Fouts 00:57
So we’ll have a few more people as we go on, and we’ll definitely get them involved.
Dan Fouts 01:06
So, this week, we’re really excited to have a quote from Evelyn Beatrice Hall, who’s an English writer in the 1900s. And she did this famous biography on the French philosopher Voltaire, and the quote I’m going to share in a minute, she calls a Voltairian principle. So although it’s not directly attributed to Evelyn Beatrice Hall, she formulates the quote from Voltaire. So we can think of this quote as from the spirit of Voltaire. And the quote itself is really good. It’s self-expression. And we’re going to give it to you in a minute here. But real quick, with the Teach Different method, we’re going to start with that, quote, we’re going to Steve and I are going to work through a claim of the quote, what we think it means, and then a counterclaim to the quote, and then we’ll work on some questions as they organically arise. And there you have it. So let’s, let’s get right to it. Here’s the quote. And many of you might have heard of this before. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it.” “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it.” Again, this encapsulates Voltaire in a very profound way. And he was a philosopher, died in 1778. Very important in the Enlightenment period. Critical of religion and slavery, and a promoter of free speech and freedom of religion. So he’s one of those philosophers that had a lot to do with the founding of the United States in many ways. So I’ll read it one more time. “I disapprove of what you say. But I will defend to the death, your right to say it.” Steve, what would you say that the claim of this is this?
Steve Fouts 03:14 Claim
Well, this already feels like it’s from an alien. You know, someone who basically is saying, I don’t agree with you. And I might even get offended by some of the things you’re going to say. But I will lay my life on the line for your right to say it. So it’s someone who’s saying I disagree with you. But I’m going to make sure that you have the opportunity to continue to say things that I disagree with. That’s refreshing. It’s hard to believe it actually exists. The way that we talk to each other now in the struggles we’re going through with polarization in society, this is refreshing.
Dan Fouts 04:03
Agreed. I disapprove of what you say, I don’t agree with you. Which is again, in today, as you said, in today’s society that starts fights, right there. Usually from that point, people then start promoting their opinion and saying that this person is wrong and this and that, but then I will defend to the death, your right to say it is a more positive, affirming, counter, almost to the fact that you might disapprove of it, but I’m still okay with you saying it. And that sentiment has been lost in many ways in our society right now.
Steve Fouts 04:46
Right. Because we’re not listening. We’re just waiting to hear someone talk– the minute they start talking–we got them in a category. You know, you’re either for instance, pro Trump or you’re pro Biden or you you’re conservative or you’re liberal. And the minute we hear someone, we’re not really wanting to know what they say, We’re just waiting to talk. And this is slowing it down. This is like acknowledging, of course, we’re not going to agree with what someone else is saying. But where do we live that allows us to have the freedom to say what it is that we believe, and have others listen to us. We’ve taken this for granted in this country. For so long, we’ve had the right pretty much to have the freedom to say things. But we’re wanting to shut each other down. Now, it’s a different vibe. And this is kind of closer to the spirit, this quote, is closer to the spirit, I think of really what America was founded on, you know, the First Amendment is really political speech, right to freedom of expression. And this, there are people that died for that. Now, we don’t, we don’t think about the revolution anymore, because we’re losing that sense of, of like unity, and kind of a shared destiny. We’re wondering why we are together disagreeing so much. So this is refreshing.
Dan Fouts 06:16
Well, right. And maybe another angle on this is ” I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it.” There’s a disagreement going on here. But then there’s also a call for an agreement. The agreement being you have the right to say something, you have a political right to speak, that as Americans is a shared cultural value that we all must agree on. That’s what we’re losing. We’re getting the disapprove. I don’t like what you’re saying–that we are angrily embracing. But then we’re not acknowledging our common humanity. And Voltaire I think is by common humanity, I mean, the common right to speak that we all must embrace.
Steve Fouts 07:13
Like you said, it’s not just common humanity. These are choices that the founders of America made as to what society they wanted people to live in. The right to say things is not something that all societies buy into it, in fact, most societies don’t. But that’s the principles that we laid down. That’s the Bill of Rights. But again, an appreciation for that is not happening right now. People want to shut people down.
Dan Fouts 07:49
We have ideological differences. But we don’t acknowledge a common political culture that allows for disagreement. And that’s what I think Voltaire is getting at here. That common political culture, the right to speak to begin with is a founding value that we all have to buy into.
Steve Fouts 08:12
That’s it, the lack of political culture is a good way to say it. And this isn’t even getting into the benefits of actually listening to someone who disagrees with you. Okay, that’s another quote. But that’s also something that you’re obviously missing, when you disapprove of what someone’s trying to say and you forget that the reason that you’re there with them is so that you can hear them out, and they can hear you out. And the idea is, hey, maybe we can compromise, or at the very least, we’ll leave knowing where the other person is coming from. So that’s just not happening at all today
Dan Fouts 08:58
To mess with the words a little bit to try to capture the sentiment of what Evelyn Beatrice Hall speaking on behalf of Voltaire is saying in her biography– ” I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to your death, your to the death, your right to say it.” I disapprove of what you say but I support and appreciate your perspective. I’m twisting the words but I’m trying to preserve the sentiment. What that is saying is I will listen to you, even though I disagree with you, because we have a shared common value that we place on our right to speak.
Steve Fouts 09:44
Yeah, and you could also defend someone’s right and not even appreciate them per se. What you’re appreciating and what you’re following is the law. What you believe is right for both of you. So in a way that isn’t appreciation. It’s more of like a reference to a culture in a society you live in, and some responsibilities you have that go beyond your own little opinions. Right?
Dan Fouts 10:12
So higher, something higher. That goes above ideological differences.
Steve Fouts 10:21
So what the counterclaim?
Dan Fouts 10:22 Counterclaim
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it.” First thing that pops into my mind is okay, what type of speech are you talking about? If you’re talking about political speech in the public square, where you’re debating a policy issue, where each person coming to the discussion has a unique perspective to share on that discussion, that could lead to good public policy outcomes. Well, then,
Steve Fouts 11:01
But that didn’t happen that often. Usually you’re talking to someone at the bus stop, you’re talking to someone at work. You’re watching, you know, TV, and you’re seeing one of these political candidates say some things or come out of a courtroom, right? Think of Trump and the things that he wants to say when he comes out of a courtroom to argue for his side. Right?
Dan Fouts 11:27
What I’m trying there is that if you’re talking about political discussions and policy differences, then there’s no, there’s no problem. I don’t think the counterclaim lives there. I think the counterclaim lives when things are said that leads to something that might hurt a society or something that would lead to violence. I will not defend to the death someone’s saying something that causes another person physical harm. I disapprove of it. And I also think you have no right to say it.
Steve Fouts 12:10
Of course, I almost want to do a counterclaim of your counterclaim right there. Because a lot of people would say they get harmed if they get put down, let’s say on an post, a media post online, something was said, and someone feels hurt by that. And then they will go after that person and try to shut him down. Cancel culture. That’s what it is. Right? We’re being so careful with our pronouns and, and the things that we say we don’t want to offend people. But we actually do offend some people. And you know, sometimes, I don’t want to say that I want to defend someone’s right to say something that’s offensive to someone else. I never want to say it that way. But I think that there’s a line you crossed, like you’re saying, and I thought that is a good counterclaim. Think about setting up an anonymous social media account, and bullying somebody, threatening somebody by making posts and, you know, going after them in social media trolling them. I guess you could make the argument that they got a right to say it, you know, but do they have a right to do that?
Dan Fouts 13:30
Well, you’re feeding into what I was trying to say, which was when there’s physical harm, and violence that might result from the speech than I do not defend, necessarily, to the death, your right to say it. So you just provided I think a good example for where I was trying to go with this.
Steve Fouts 13:53 Essential Question
How do you draw the line? And there’s my essential question brewing there.
Dan Fouts 14:00
Where’s the line?
Steve Fouts 14:01
What’s the line? What’s the line? Where when someone says something, you should argue that they should have the right to say it, and you should adhere to that. It’s the first amendment of the Constitution. And where does what they say cross that line? You can’t yell fire in a movie theater. Okay, yeah. You can’t defend someone’s right to just yell fire in a movie theater and have that be okay. Okay, that’s on the other end, in my opinion. Why? Because, again, it’s going to cause harm potentially to people. But again, that’s an important thing to realize what you’re saying. You’re saying you don’t have the right to say everything. So what’s the line?
Dan Fouts 14:53
No, okay. Another question not only what is the line, who should draw it? Who should draw the line? Should it be the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court draws the lines in a lot of these issues, interpreting our Constitution, which, again, was created, in part by the thoughts of people like Voltaire and the founding fathers and so on. Who should draw the line? Should it be state governments? Should it be federal governments? Should it be presidents? Should it be?
Steve Fouts 15:26
Judiciary? Right?
Dan Fouts 15:29
Judges, that’s what I meant by the Supreme Court. Yes. Should it be judges on a state or federal level? Or should it be the people of the community deciding?
Steve Fouts 15:41
Well, look, you can make a really good argument that if the people in the community decide this, it’s going to have more lasting value to each person in the community, like no one wants to go to a third party arbiter to tell them that they can and can’t say things. I mean, in an ideal world, you would say something, someone might disapprove of it, you’d get in a contentious argument, but it would never go past that line. And you both would leave with a better understanding of where each is coming from. You might not agree, still better off. But we have to go to these other places, like think of the defamation cases, those are all decided by judges. Whether, for instance, Fox News has the ability to, you know, bring on people on their show, have them really say anything that is going to hurt companies that are making voting machines, if it’s shown that Fox News did it for a harmful intent, malice is the word right. And they had to pay up for that. So a judge decided that.
Dan Fouts 17:00
Right, so that, so that’s an example of speech that ended up hurting a company. A company’s livelihood was impacted by speech that was known to be false, that was promoted maliciously. So back to the quote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it”. Are we concluding here, in a counterclaim sense, well not in defamation cases, I will not defend to the death your right to defame a company that hurts their profits and hurts employees and so on. So I mean, that’s pushing back on this right.
Steve Fouts 17:49
It is pushing back, but you made me think that you could probably get around that. You can say, look, I defend people’s right to say anything they want. However, if you say certain things, there are going to be consequences to what you’re saying. If you can handle those consequences, like if Fox News can say, You know what the cost of doing business is 780 million, we’ll pay it, but we still want to push the envelope on this. We still want to bring out whoever we want to bring out and let them say whatever they want to say. I know I’m kind of getting around it here a little bit. It’s not fair to say it that way. But, you know, it’s one way to look at it.
Dan Fouts 18:37
So you’re saying you generically defend to the death, a news outlets, right? To say whatever they want, even if it’s completely false and malicious. But if you do it, you’re going to have to pay the consequences.
Steve Fouts 18:52
And it’s not jail. We’re not going to take away their liberty. What we’re going to do is take away some resources from them, which is important, but it’s different than taking away liberty. It’s like the difference between criminal and civil. So, again, I don’t want to think of it this way and Fox News probably wouldn’t appreciate this that much. But I want to say that they’re almost lucky in a way that they don’t live in a society that could have treated what they said differently
Dan Fouts 19:31
Or a federal government to shut down a news outlet, let’s say, a liberal president to say, You know what, Fox News you no longer exist.
Steve Fouts 19:45
You know, but think about how that is on another level. And there are societies. There are governments that would do this. That would never happen in China. You know, if you had a news outlet, say something against the current governor, it would be shut down. They wouldn’t be fining them. It would be shut down. You keep your context.
Dan Fouts 20:09
Take this to a school though, if a student bullies someone over social media, and the administration of a school finds out about it, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Let’s apply your reasoning here. No, I defend to the death, the right of this 14 year old to humiliate, bully and intimidate this person because of their gender or their race as long as you’re wanting to accept the consequences. Here’s where I would just be like, I don’t defend that..
Steve Fouts 20:53
But are you going to say to that kid– are you going to say– you don’t have a right to be at this school anymore?
Dan Fouts 21:03
I don’t know what– are you’re talking about what the punishment would be?
Steve Fouts 21:06
Are you going to expel them over something like that?
Dan Fouts 21:12
Depending on what it is, that could be a possible consequence?
Steve Fouts 21:16
Could be a bomb threat. In fact, yeah, get the authorities involved. That’s another thing that we don’t really have the right to do that, the right to to make bomb threats that expect that we’re people are going to be okay with that, and that they’re going to defend our right to do that.
Dan Fouts 21:37
Yet it’s free speech. It’s free speech, but we don’t defend the right for people to do that.
Steve Fouts 21:47
There are common sense things that I think you actually could get people to agree with. I’m angling toward the more subtle way to read this. And I’m going to throw out that phrase canceled culture again. Different people are offended by different things. Some people aren’t offended at all when someone might say something, and others could think that it was an affront to their character, or it puts them in a compromising position. And I really think that this gets interesting a quote like this, when we’re discussing someone who says something that hurts someone else’s feelings. It doesn’t physically hurt them. It doesn’t threaten them. But it suggests something or it overtly calls into question something that they think is important. What do you do in those cases? You know, and just think of someone from the LGBTQ community, being offended by something that a comedian would say. We’ve had situations like this. Chappelle has gotten in trouble for things like that. How do you deal with that in this quote? What do you think? I don’t know.
Dan Fouts 23:15
And what about in a school? Should there be a different way to deal with intimidating speech like that in a school? If a marginalized group is talked to that way? Because the school has a different expectation with young people than Dave Chappelle would at a concert or at a comedy show. That’s a tough one. What do you do?
Steve Fouts 23:54
And again, Chappelle is not being thrown into jail. No one is saying he should be going to jail. That’s not even in the mix here. His freedom is fine. But the thing with cancel culture is that it does affect income, money becomes something that you can take from someone – kind of in like in a defamation case– but in Chapelle’s case it would be you’re taking income from him, because he’s not able to go to certain comedy events, or maybe some people are banning him or, or going on strike against him or all the other negative things that might take place that would hurt his consumers. So I really feel that money is the way that American society deals with speech that hurts others.
Dan Fouts 24:54
It has consequences as a consequence for saying something that offends a group, or that is said maliciously, that hurts a company, money ends up being the consequences. We are a little bit tangential here? So “I disapprove of what you say. But I will defend to the death, your right to say it.” Are we agreeing with the claim or counterclaim? Or both?
Steve Fouts 25:28
Both
Dan Fouts 25:29
I think both.
Steve Fouts 25:31
I think that I agree with the claim. Yeah, I mean, this is a claim, because of the common culture and because I feel that I do have a good appreciation of American society, and how it’s constructed in the Constitution and the rights that it gives us. I think this is a really good claim. It’s refreshing. This claim compartmentalizes someone’s opinion about something. And the ability for all people to have opinions, and to believe in that ability for all people, even if they disagree with you, and to be willing to give your life to defend someone else that you disagree with. That’s refreshing to me.
Dan Fouts 26:21
Yeah, it shows, it begs us to consider accepting two things that might on the surface seem a little bit contradictory, but they’re really not. ” I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it.” And really a lot of this podcast has been how difficult it is to accept things that are said that might offend people. So I don’t know who said this. This is one of those quotes, where the author just seems to dissolve into history somewhere. One of the best parts of living in a country like the United States is that you get to say whatever you want. And one of the worst parts of being in a country like the United States is that you have the ability to say everything you want. It’s almost like to have the right to accept the limitations of it, or the difficult things that come from it. And it’s a living contradiction.
Steve Fouts 27:29
It’s a good point. It’s a good point. But think about this. Think of someone who’s been canceled. And think of the person you know, that was offended, or the group that was offended, that was the reason for the cancellation of, say, a comedian or someone just take your pick. It would be interesting to go to the person or the group that was offended and ask them this question. We already know you don’t like what they said. But do you defend their right to say it? Do you defend their right to say it? I would love to see what their reaction is? Because I think some of them, if pushed, would say, Yeah, I actually do.
Dan Fouts 28:29
Yes.
Steve Fouts 28:30
I disagree with them and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure they never do comedy anymore. Or they never hold this job anymore as a broadcaster or whatever. But they could also say, but I’m not going to. I don’t want them to go to jail. And I’ll defend their right to say it. You know what I’m saying?
Dan Fouts 28:54
I think it would be interesting to see how people would react to it. And maybe then they would launch into an explanation as to what their criteria is, as to when speech is acceptable, and when it’s not. And by doing that, it might help everyone reveal what their criteria is? And that could be a fruitful discussion to have with people with whom you disagree. Everyone has different criteria, and maybe when we realize that we can come together and say, You know what, maybe we are defending to the death our right to say whatever we want, but we need to have some reasonable restrictions on that.
Steve Fouts 29:48
That’s the positive way to look at it because, you know, people are not going to say well, I disapprove of what they say because It hurts me. They’re going to come up with more general criteria if you get in a conversation with them and help create some guardrails potentially, and they’re going to have to see it from other people’s perspective as well.
Dan Fouts 30:14
So back to what I mentioned earlier, one, the next question has to be — who should decide this? Because if you can think these things all you want, but unless there’s something or some one to enforce these restrictions, you’re going to have a society that is going to be very, very divided and not being able to reconcile them. And whenever you have an authority come in and have to make decisions and enforce them, that’s when it gets more acrimonious.
Steve Fouts 30:49
Which is exactly where we are now, this is exactly where we are. We’re going to get out of it. We just need to read more French philosophers.
Dan Fouts 30:56
Yes, we need to be talking about these things together in communities, and this is what Teach Different does. Steve, we’ve done these these discussions with state representatives in Illinois, we’re starting these, these constituent conversations where intergenerational events, people can get together and talk about these things and I’m not saying get on the same page, but at least discuss with good intentions, and learn some empathy, curiosity and listening. That’s the way to a better society with resolving this.
Steve Fouts 31:33
Nonpartisan– get people from all spectrums of the ideologies in the political spectrum.
Dan Fouts 31:40
Yes. And the schools, of course, is where this needs to happen as well. Teach Different by the way, we are broadening our approach to all parts of society, we’re realizing more and more that’s where we need to be. Well, any parting thoughts?
Steve Fouts 32:00
No, you got the essential question out of it. And I it was good.
Dan Fouts 32:07
Yeah, I appreciated this. This was great. All right, everybody, thanks for thanks for everything. And again, this is our first one inside our live online community of practice, which you’re encouraged to check out yourself.
Steve Fouts 32:23
We had some quiet ones on this one, just a few people, but I’m getting, you know, thumbs up. So we’re going to get people more involved next time. And you know, get some get some other brains on this.
Dan Fouts 32:37
Yep. Awesome. Take care everybody and between now and the next one, good luck with your conversations.