SELF-REALIZATION

The locus classicus of the self-realization defense of free speech is a passage from the work of Thomas Emerson which begins ‘[the right to freedom of expression] derives from the widely accepted premise of Western thought

that the proper end of man is the realization of his character and poten-tialities as a human being’ (Emerson 1963: 879). The take-home message is not simply that free speech is an indispensable means to self-realization but that self-realization is exactly the sort of value upon which a constitu-tional guarantee of free speech can, and should, be based. ¹⁹ What is more, Samuel P. Nelson is not atypical in thinking that the self-realization defense of free speech is particularly relevant to domains in which the realization of self is most conspicuous, such as in the domains of artistic or dramatic speech (e.g., Nelson 2005: 62). This is contrasted with commercial speech, for instance, where there is ‘no self to realize or to develop’ (84). The case of political speech is more complex. ‘Everyday political speech motivated by self-interest [. . .] may not contribute to self-realization’ (ibid.). In contrast,

‘political expression is important to the self-realization of those for whom politics takes the form of active engagement in public life’ (85). ²⁰

Now it might be thought that focusing on artistic or dramatic speech has the effect of turning hate speech into an outlier category as far as the self-realization defense of free speech is concerned. But this is not necessarily true. For, as Marjorie Heins has argued, ‘[h]ate-filled or degrading epithets can be a powerful part of artistic or dramatic expression’ (Heins 1983: 590).

If satirical speech ought to be protected for the sake of self-realization, for example, surely the same applies to satirical hate speech or hate-satire. The point being that anti-Semitic or Islamophobic satire (e.g., Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s book Trifles for a Massacre , Kurt Westergaard’s cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, Geert Wilders’ short film Fitna , Sacha Baron Cohen’s feature film The Dictator , Dieudonné’s comic performances) contains no less realization of creative capacities than any form of satire. Even puta-tively scientific forms of hate speech (e.g., Fred A. Leuchter’s The Leuchter Report ) involve the realization of at least some distinctively human capaci-ties, if only the capacity for pseudoscience. Indeed, Post argues that ‘[a]ny communication can potentially express the racist self’, and thus a law that sought to ‘suppress racist manifestations of racist personality’ would leave no category of speech untouched (Post 1991: 270). So, according to what I shall call the Principle of Self-Realization, legalistic constrains on speech or other expressive acts, including constraints on uses of hate speech, are (N-) unwarranted if they significantly impede self-realization.

The purpose of this section is not to undermine this principle directly.

Rather, I wish to defend its supplementation with a second principle. The rationale for the second principle can be captured with a simple question.

Assuming that self-realization is a fundamental human value, why should constitutional essentials guarantee even speech that has no value vis-à-vis self-realization or that embodies the self-realization of some people at the expense of the self-realization of others? According to the Nuanced Prin-ciple of Self-Realization, as I shall label it, legalistic constraints on uses of hate speech are (N-)warranted if the hate speech in question fails to embody values of self-realization or if the imposition of constraints is necessary for

the sake of protecting or promoting real access to self-realization for all. In order to fully explain the Nuanced Principle of Self-Realization, however, I need to distinguish between three distinct dimensions or aspects of self-realization, albeit interconnected in practice. ²¹ I contend that each dimen-sion puts pressure on the simplistic notion that permitting hate speech is good for self-realization.

Self-Fulfillment

The first aspect of self-realization is self-fulfillment, which is nothing less than the fulsome development of our potential capacities as human beings.

To say that freedom of expression is indispensible to self-realization in this sense is to say that the development and exercise of a range of distinctively human capacities, such as thinking, feeling, communicating, imagining, culture building, and so on, would be practically impossible, if not incon-ceivable, without freedom of expression given the expressive nature of the human capacities in question. Even ostensibly internal capacities, such as thinking, feeling, and imagining, require freedom of expression. For starters, we often think, feel, and imagine via the external articulation of thoughts, feelings, and ideas (e.g., Gilmore 2011: 531–533). What is more, few com-plex thoughts, feelings, and ideas originate entirely in our own minds. Typi-cally, we learn about their constituent parts through dialogue with others (e.g., Nelson 2005: 65). ²²

At first glance, the claim that free speech is necessary for the development of distinctively human capacities would appear to have a wide scope, as wide as the range of capacities that can be distinctively human. Yet on closer inspection it is not clear that respecting the value of self-fulfillment requires granting a privileged status to all capacities. Consider Emerson’s assertion that the proper end of man is the realization of his character and potentiali-ties as a human being. The term ‘character’ can be understood in different ways. Alan Gewirth, for example, has recently portrayed self-fulfillment as a matter of ‘carrying to fruition one’s deepest desires or one’s worthiest capacities’ (Gewirth 2009: 3). The inclusion of one’s deepest desires within the account of self-fulfillment would certainly shed light on Heins’ intriguing statement that ‘even within Emerson’s framework, gutter language, includ-ing racially-charged gutter language, is not wholly unrelated to “individual self-fulfillment”’ (Heins 1983: 590). But the mere fact that it is possible to make sense of Heins’ statement does not make it any less controver-sial. For, as Delgado argues, even if it is possible that ‘she means that some persons derive pleasure from browbeating blacks and other minorities’, ‘it seems unlikely that this is self-fulfillment envisioned by Emerson and other first amendment theoreticians’ (Delgado 1983: 594). After all, the strong desire of hate speakers to browbeat their targets soon butts up against the equally strong desire of their targets not to be browbeaten. Moreover, it is not clear that achieving self-fulfillment, or semipermanent potentialities of

the self, is intended to be a matter of satisfying transient, perhaps pathologi-cal pleasures.

Indeed, it might be argued that true self-realization rests upon the deve-lopment of not just any distinctively human capacities but instead the develop-ment of virtuous qualities. I shall say much more about personal development through the cultivation of virtues in the final section of this chapter [4.4]. But to briefly anticipate the nature of that argument, I would rephrase Delgado’s argument using the following question. What aspects of good character or which ethical virtues could be promoted by allowing people to publicly express their hatred of other races through the use of racist insults, slurs, or derogatory epithets or through the dissemination of ideas based on the inferiority of other races? If the answer to that question is “none” or “far fewer then would be promoted by not allowing it”, then this may lend support to laws/regulations/

codes that disallow this sort of public expression of hatred.

Self-Definition

A second aspect of self-realization—call it self-definition—has to do with

‘the affirmation of self’, as Emerson puts it, a matter of someone finding

‘his meaning and his place in the world’ (Emerson 1963: 879). The capacity for self-definition is itself a distinctive human capacity, of course, but it is also a capacity with special functions. Among other things, self-definition helps us to make sense of why we develop, possess, and exercise the distinc-tive human capacities we do. For, it is partly as a result of thinking, feeling, communicating, imagining, culture building, and so on, that we come to make it clear to ourselves and to others who we really are. No doubt the relationship also works in the other direction, so that an individual’s emerg-ing self-definition can shape his or her decisions to concentrate on some capacities rather than others. Self-definition depends on free speech both directly and indirectly. Without free speech the development and exercise of the human capacities upon which self-definition is predicated would be practically impossible. Freedom of expression is also important for explicit acts of self-definition, such as when we tell other people who we are by tell-ing them about what we can do. ²³

But consider forms of self-definition that attack the self-definition of oth-ers. Take the hate speaker who denies the personhood of others with such statements as, “Think about 9/11, think about what they did, and you will see that Muslims are not like us, they are animals, not human.” Does this denial constitute a violation of the right to self-definition of Muslims? Hey-man argues that it does (drawing on the work of Hegel). When confronted by other human beings (so Heyman’s reading of Hegel goes), we suffer a crisis of personhood and we look for ways of asserting ourselves to others . We find property wanting in this regard and so we turn to language (Hey-man 2008: 54, 172). We might, for example, declare to others, “I am a per-son.” On Heyman’s analysis, when people assert themselves by denying the

personhood of others, this amounts to the non-recognition of personhood (54). He cites the case of hate speakers who deny the humanity or affirm the subhuman status of certain groups of persons (274n.33). For Heyman, the mere fact that such speakers might be simultaneously affirming their own personhood or self-definition as white supremacists or anti-Semites, for example, would not be sufficient to excuse the fact that they are violating the rights of others to their personhood or self-definition (172).

In response to Heyman, it might be argued that the right to self-definition extends only as far as the right to express one’s identity; it does not extend so far as to disallow other people the right to make public statements the prop-ositional content of which denies core aspects of one’s identity (e.g., that one is human). That is taking the right too far. I find this response to Heyman marginally persuasive. Nonetheless, I also think that there are other sorts of cases in which hate speakers do impede other people from exercising their own right to expressive self-definition. Suppose some university students are members of an on-campus, conservative religious group and claim an entitlement to condemn, criticize, and admonish whichever students they perceive to be gay or lesbian, whenever they see fit, and whether or not the university authorities classify this as discriminatory harassment. They argue that they are simply using speech to work through a self-conception based on their religious beliefs, where being a true believer (as they conceive it) means partaking in vehement face-to-face condemnation of suspected gays and lesbians and attempting to teach such people the error of their ways through the recitation of scripture. It seems to me that if their speech disables, discourages, or hinders members of targeted groups from asserting their own self-definition, perhaps by silencing such locutions as “I am gay and proud of it”, this would constitute a failure to achieve real access to self-realization for all. As such, university authorities would be N-warranted in intervening (cf. Heyman 2008: 182).

To say that the Nuanced Principle of Self-Realization N-warrants restric-tions on hate speech for the sake of the victims of hate speech is not to say that it unfairly discriminates against hate speakers. On the contrary, the Principle is concerned with achieving real access to self-realization for all.

The working assumption is that hate speakers do not strictly need to engage in hate speech in order to achieve access to self-definition, since they are free to use a range of other words to similar effect. But when hate speech rises to the level of silencing its victims—and I do not mean to suggest that everything that could be called “hate speech” will be capable of doing this—

then characteristically this has an all-embracing effect, blocking several means and avenues of expressive self-definition. In this event, intervention is N-warranted to restore real access to self-definition for all (i.e., for hate speakers and their victims alike). Therefore, rather than pitting the value of self-realization against other constitutional values, the present argument is internal to the value of self-realization unless, of course, real access for all is deemed to constitute an independent value. It is a matter of guaranteeing

each student’s access to self-realization compatible with similar access for all (e.g., Lange 1990: 128; Gale 1991: 164).

Self-Respect

If self-definition has to do with a generalized practice of finding one’s mean-ing and one’s place in the world, a third aspect of self-realization—call it self-respect—involves attempts to affirm the self as something good or worthy of approval. The relationship between self-respect and free speech is once again multidimensional. Attitudes that individuals form about their own capacities and persona will depend partly on what approval they receive from other people. If those other people are not permitted to speak, this removes one potential source of self-respect. What is more, the very fact that other people are prepared to listen to what individuals have to say, including what they have to say using their capacities, and about their capacities, can bolster their sense of themselves as being valuable.

Suppression of speech would also undercut these processes. Indeed, Meir Dan-Cohen argues that our self-respect may depend on our thinking of ourselves, and having others think of ourselves, as the types of beings who are strong enough and self-aware enough to be able to listen to “home truths” about who we are, even if critical and uncomfortable to listen to.

That hate speech can be hurtful is part of the reason why it should not be banned, for the simple fact that the willingness to listen to hate speech that contains useful, albeit critical, information about ourselves bespeaks or indicates a certain sort of self-respect (Dan-Cohen 2002: 189). Nev-ertheless, it seems reasonable to suppose that not all hate speech can deliver useful information or “home truths.” Consider hate speech that comprises false statements of fact or blunt expressions of revilement or enmity and, therefore, no useful information to speak of. What is more, as discussed in Ch. 3 , even hate speech that does contain “home truths”

may, in the case of prolonged or cumulative exposure, tend to under-mine the self-respect of its intended targets. In these cases exposure to hate speech does not evince a feeling of self-respect that one is the sort of person who can hear bad things about oneself without falling apart, but instead produces emotions of self-hatred, especially when the victim internalizes the negative perception of who he or she is. For some theo-rists, these effects are a powerful reason to defend hate speech law (e.g., Delgado 1982: 137; Lawrence 1987: 351; Anderson 1995: 201). What we have, then, is a scorecard on which hate speech scores plusses and minuses for self-respect.

Interestingly, Thompson (2012) argues that banning incitement to hatred can be a justified way of safeguarding a positive attitude toward self on the part of those people against whom hatred is being stirred up. Drawing on Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition, ²⁴ Thompson affirms that one of the prerequisites for developing a positive attitude toward self is the recognition

by others that the capacities one has developed or is in the process of real-izing are valued by the rest of society. According to Honneth, social esteem has to do with ‘the degree of recognition the individual earns for his or her form of self-realization by thus contributing, to a certain extent, to the practical realization of society’s abstract goals’ (Honneth 1995: 126). ‘Once confronted with an evaluation that downgrades certain patterns of self-realization, those who have opted for these patterns cannot relate to their mode of fulfillment as something invested with positive significance within their community’ (1992: 191). Thompson concludes from this that ‘for Honneth, being esteemed should be understood negatively: it is the oppor-tunity to be valued which exists when one’s identity is not ridiculed or one’s achievements scorned’ (Thompson 2012: 225–226). Based on the premises that everyone’s self-realization matters equally, that being esteemed is a precondition of adequate realization, and that the protection of self-realization may therefore N-warrant limitations on free speech, Thompson concludes that the UK government was justified in extending law banning incitement to racial hatred to include incitement to religious hatred. As he puts it, one ‘reason for criminalizing incitement to religious hatred would be to combat the collective denigration of particular religious groups, since such denigration undermines the opportunities for their members to be esteemed for their contributions to society’s collective goals, and this in turn undermines their opportunities for self-realization’ (228).

There is much to commend in Thompson’s argument, but I would also argue that it contains two important omissions. First, Thompson is vague about the exact nature of the barriers to individual self-realization created by hate speech. It seems to me that the barriers could be internal and exter-nal . If, as a result of being exposed to hate speech, someone has a low opin-ion of the capacities that partly define his personality, it may be natural for him to be less inclined to devote the requisite time and effort to developing those capacities to their fullest extent. Doing so may seem pointless, and its seeming so constitutes an internal or psychological barrier to self-realization.

On the other hand, when a society has a low opinion of the capacities that partly define the personality of an entire group or class of persons, then society may inevitably deny the space, time, and money that such people need in order to develop their capacities to the fullest extent. This might include denying them platforms to communicate their beliefs, opinions, and ideas through the media; removing sources of funding to build their culture;

and/or limiting the moments in which they can express their affective states in important contexts such as schools, workplaces, and parliaments. This is an external or social barrier to self-realization. Suppose it were possible to break down the internal or psychological barriers with the help of special cognitive therapy or counseling. Would this innovation render law banning incitement to hatred redundant on Thompson’s view?

Second, Thompson’s exclusive focus on law banning incitement to hatred,

Second, Thompson’s exclusive focus on law banning incitement to hatred,