Stop killing society with cancel culture - call for freedom of speech #StopKillingSocietyWithCancelCulture #CallForFreedomOfSpeech

From Dave Chappelle to J.K. Rowling, from Dr. Suess to Chris Harrison, the Cult of Abolition is unceremoniously destroying celebrities and ordinary Americans alike. In their book, "Undoing the American Mind: The Cult of Undoing Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All, But There's a Solution" (Simon & Schuster, out October 17), Washington Post columnist Ricky Schlott and Greg Lukianoff, president of the First Amendment watchdog group FIRE, offer a look at the workings of the culture of undoing, as well as possible ways to combat it. In this exclusive excerpt, they argue that revitalizing a culture of free speech is an antidote to the culture of undoing that is destroying our society:

Which is more important to maintaining a free society: the laws that support free speech or the culture that supports it?

To answer this question, let's consider three protections of freedom of speech that are legally granted to citizens by different countries:

• All of this sounds like relatively principled, reliable guarantees... until you find out that these are the promises of Russia, North Korea, and Turkey respectively - three countries with terrible records in human rights protection.
• There is a long list of countries with decent freedom of speech laws that are actually undermined in practice. Therefore, good freedom of speech laws + a poor culture of free speech ≠ freedom of speech in practice.
• The Enlightenment thrived in the 18th century in France, giving rise to great works by figures like Voltaire and Rousseau, despite the constant attempts by the French government and the Catholic Church to stifle and even imprison many Enlightenment thinkers. In short, a culture of free speech + poor laws on free speech = can still contribute to the French Enlightenment.

These contrasting examples demonstrate how important a culture of free speech is for society. In fact, we go further and assert that it is even more important than laws on paper. But what is a culture of free speech?

Historically, it has been embodied in popular sayings that many of us have heard since childhood, but which, unfortunately, have lost their relevance today. Think of classics like "It's a free country," "To each his own," "Sticks and stones," "Everyone has the right to their opinion," "Discuss the argument, not the person," "Different people - different views," and "Who am I to judge?" All these expressions share the idea that our culture should be highly tolerant of differences. It is a belief that we can live and allow coexistence with those who have differing views - a sense that in our everyday lives, our beliefs should not divide us.

Humanity has an innate desire to understand the world as it is. This thirst is the driving force behind our millennia-long project of understanding humanity. A healthy culture of free speech recognizes that understanding the world as it is requires knowing people as they are and what they truly think. It is very important to be aware of even the bad ideas in your society. If you do not want to join the herd, you need to know what the herd really thinks. This is the value of free speech in all its forms:

All manifestations of human speech (even unreliable or offensive statements) contain information about the world as it is and about human beliefs as they are. Censorship and burying unpleasant ideas will not make them disappear. A culture of free speech ensures the maximum expression of speech and, consequently, our knowledge of the world and our fellow citizens as well. It allows us to learn about ourselves in a profound and sometimes uncomfortable way. After all, isn't it better to know if a portion of the population holds some absurd idea?

The culture of free speech must be protected at all costs, otherwise we will lose touch with the true landscape of ideas. Federal Appeals Judge Learned Hand perhaps described this best in his 1944 speech: "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it."

In any society, freedom of speech is constantly under threat from several forces, including "censorship gravity," a force that pulls all societies toward censorship. You can think of this process in terms of posture. Like most people, you probably tend to slouch more than you'd like, relaxing under the influence of gravity.

Although we may consider ourselves internally enlightened, the principles underlying a free society emerged in relatively recent history and are incredibly rare in the context of human history. A culture of free speech allows people to make their own decisions and gives them the freedom to challenge norms and even make mistakes in the process. This makes a society with a strong culture of free speech and ideological diversity somewhat chaotic. It is natural to desire conformity instead of chaos, which raises doubts about the possibility that people can truly make their own decisions when many believe that lizards control the levers of society. The only path to this conformity is through the censorship of differing or "dangerous" viewpoints. And this is where the gravitational pull of censorship begins to operate - a collective force of psychological, cultural, and political influences pulling society down towards conformity, away from freedom. Censorship is a natural inclination of humanity.

Therefore, we have spent such a small part of human history not pursuing heretics. And, like those with good posture, free societies diligently strive to resist the forces of gravity that constantly pull them down towards conformity. Inevitably, the decline of our society in knowledge and reverence for a free and tolerant society will lead to the destruction of laws regarding freedom of speech. How can our culture uphold freedom of speech when the next generations doubt its value?

At the moment, we are very fortunate that the Supreme Court is made up of lawyers who were trained or reached high positions in the 1970s, arguably the best decade for both free speech laws and the culture of free speech on campus. However, the gradual undermining of the culture of free speech in our higher education institutions is particularly dangerous. If the schools we trust to educate our future voters and leaders instill a disdain for free speech, how can we expect our legal freedoms to withstand this cultural attack in the long term?

We are beginning to see the consequences of our break with the culture of free speech in the utterly childish ways of debate that we use today. For at least the last decade, Americans have been arguing with each other like children on a playground. Americans need to resume debates, to act and think like adults. As citizens, we call for a revival of the culture of free speech—a maturation of the American mind—by returning to old-fashioned rules of quality argumentation. If we want a society that can create, rather than just destroy, institutions, people, and ideas, we must encourage a mode of argumentation that rejects childishness and helps the best ideas rise. This means truly speaking to one another as adults and taking seriously the possibility that we might be wrong. We must also accept the fact that understanding the world is a difficult, endless process. We should take seriously forbidden ideas and tabooed counterfactuals that challenge our biases. Thought experiments and the devil's advocacy must be exalted again, not condemned. As John Stuart Mill said in his famous book "On Liberty": "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that." Right opinions, false ideas, true understandings, conspiracy theories—all of these are worth exploring. The maturation of the American mind is a cultural state in which we do not shy away from difficult discussions, in which we do not censor uncomfortable facts, and in which we do not sugarcoat harsh truths. It is a place where we trust ourselves to arrive at the right conclusions without saving ourselves from ourselves.