It’s kind of interesting how we use or misuse the word “free” or “freedom”. My initial conclusion is that nothing is actually free – so take that. Freedom of Speech is an enormous so-called freedom that all man and woman-kind should be able to enjoy, but unfortunately we don’t. As with all freedoms, the one concerning speech does come with a few buts…
Historically I’m sure we can go far back (yes, even beyond my childhood; I heard that, thank you) and see specks of the idea here and there. Back in good old England in 1689, their Bill of Rights granted freedom of speech in Parliament; they have been screaming and shouting insults at each other ever since. In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights started with: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression…” and so forth. It’s pretty much allowing us to speak without censorship; and this is where the “buts” come in. Freedom of speech is not absolute in any country as it is subjected to limitations (read censorship?) You are a bad girl or boy if you speak in ways of libel, slander, obscenity, incitement to commit a crime, involve pornography (oh no!) and hate speeches, to name a few. So right there, all the fun in talking has been removed in one swell swoop – dang it. What we should read is that we must always speak with respect and consideration. When we don’t we’ll have a million special-interest groups and individuals on our case dragging us to court. For the most that thing is going way beyond the fundamentals of our freedom to speak freely – unfortunately.
Oops, I was wrong; we do have a freedom with no buts attached. The freedom of thought is closely linked to other freedoms as in religion, speech and expression. We are so totally free to think whatever we want to think and that we do – a lot. This is something we are taking full advantage of and in the same breath, we are so utterly grateful that nobody can mind-read any of those thoughts; but are we sure they can’t? You flinched a bit, didn’t you? Can you imagine what would happen if we all of a sudden thought what we were saying and said what we were thinking? (A bit too fast for you? Try again slowly.) We would be dead meat and friendless and probably in that order, but most certainly very fast. I get all sweaty just writing it; I better start censoring what I’m thinking – especially in public…
And finally we are on the level of how all this works in our everyday life. Declarations and laws and stuff can at times (often) go in one ear and hopefully out the other. It’s the hands-on situations we care more about. My simplification of this speech freedom thing is: If you don’t wanna pay, you don’t wanna say. Remember Frank from an earlier post, still 380 pounds, low on hygiene and high on beer? You stupidly feel protected by the freedoms of speech and expression, feeling safe telling Frank that he is fat and that he smells really bad. You have had your say and now it’s time to pay. What you, silly person, would really like to hear in return from Frank is: “I appreciate your concern and interest and I will slim down fast and take several of them shower things… even using soap and water…” But Frank’s response consist of a tight fist at approximately 52 pounds (for readers in Europe, that’s about 23.6 kilos) going 60 miles an hour (96 kilometers) at which speed it lands on your nose, pretty much flattening it… Ouch. You say you pay. Okay a bit extreme, but you get the idea.
Our speech is legally free within limitations, so it is all about how well we express ourselves. Just thinking about how we must constantly adjust what we are going to say in the situations we are in; how much of that freedom do you still feel? We constantly consider the reactions to what we are going to say before we say it – yes, we all do. We are so good at it that these decisions are made in nano-seconds (which is very fast, even for me) and it comes rather naturally, very fluently without interruptions. Okay, so we are a bit too quick once in a while and then we have to pay. But for the most we are good at it – really good.
Thinking about what we want to say and how we want to say is essential within our freedom of speech. For the most I think about what I’m going to say before I say it – but in some cases, unfortunately, I think about it several weeks later.
Remember: We learn from listening, not from talking
See you next Monday – really…
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