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Speech Imperialization? Situating American Parrhesia in an Isegoria World

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Abstract

This article explores the ideological origins of the American free-speech tradition. It analyzes the two principal categorizations of free speech in classical antiquity: isegoria, the right to voice one’s opinion, and parrhesia, the license to say what one pleases often through provocative discourse, thus grounding modern free-speech epistemology and jurisprudential philosophy in a sociohistorical context. Part 1 reviews the First Amendment corpus juris. A progression of incrementally absolute judicial holdings promotes parrhesia, highlighting democratic utility over individual self-actualization; thus, Americans no longer view freedom of speech as an end ipso facto. While Athenian democracy recognized the need for provocative speech, certain institutional and social constraints, such as dokimasia, established standards of truth and accountability. Part 2 frames the historical developments of isegoria and parrhesia for modern analysis. The author begins by discussing isegoria’s principal aims, namely, promoting individual self-actualization and effective democratic governance. The European free-speech tradition, which views the individual as the locus of power, favors the former. The American tradition, which ‘depersonizes’ civil liberties such that the collective becomes the locus of control, favors the latter. Part 3 identifies the colonial developments in Anglo-American history that account for present-day U.S. free-speech permissiveness. It shows that the American preference for parrhesia-based absolutism was born from British imperialism and censorship. Part 4 suggests a need to reexamine free speech-understandings in the context of new-media proliferation and digital content regulation. The dominance of U.S.-based social media companies injects the American speech tradition into cultures with disparate free-speech philosophies and practices.

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Notes

  1. See also John Rawls in [5, p. 21], noting that “[i]t is a serious error not to distinguish between the idea of a democratic political society and the idea of community.” Instead, Rawls argues for “reasonable pluralism” within public debates [5, p. 33].

  2. In Kleindienst v. Mandel [14, p. 775], Justice Marshall dissents, explaining that “[t]he freedom to speak and the freedom to hear are inseparable; they are two sides of the same coin.”.

  3. See also [16]. American Journalist William Allen White, in this Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial, writes, “You tell me that law is above freedom of utterance. And I reply that you can have no wise laws nor free entertainment of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people—and, alas, their folly with it…. So, dear friend, put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold—by voice, by posted card, by letter, or by press. Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.”.

  4. In [26], for example, James Madison describes the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 as denying “the people” the ability to deliberate.

  5. Council of Europe, European Convention on Human Rights art. 10, Nov. 4, 1950, 213 U.N.T.S. 221. “1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”.

  6. § 86a. StGB. Dissemination of Means of Propaganda of Unconstitutional Organizations. “(1) Whoever 1. disseminates the symbols of one of the political parties or organizations designated in Section 86 (1) nos. 1, 2 and 4 in Germany or uses them publicly, in a meeting or in material [Section 11 (3)] disseminated by themselves or 2. produces, stocks, imports or exports objects which depict or contain such symbols for dissemination or use in Germany or abroad in a manner referred to in no. 1 incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or a fine. (2) Symbols within the meaning of subsection (1) are, in particular, flags, insignia, uniforms and their parts, slogans and forms of greeting. Symbols which are so similar as to be mistaken for those referred to in sentence 1 are deemed to be equivalent to them. (3) Section 86 (3) and (4) applies accordingly.”.

  7. Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz [NetzDG] [Network Enforcement Act], July 12, 2017, available at https://www.bmjv.de/SharedDocs/Gesetzgebungsverfahren/Dokumente/NetzDG_engl.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2 [https://perma.cc/D8MY-5ASG].

  8. See [46, p. 173] (discussing how Justice Holmes’s laissez-faire approach to speech regulation could be summarized in the following statement: “‘There is no truth—but only a competition of ideas. The only thing we call truth is that one idea is more accepted by the public than another.’”.

  9. See [49, p. 254] (discussing the history of free-speech jurisprudence in post-Holocaust, post-communist Hungary). “In the United States, although the Holmes and Brandeis dissenting and concurring opinions reflected the minority view on the Supreme Court at the time, they inaugurated the modern understanding of the First Amendment.”.

  10. Thomas Jefferson, The First Inaugural Address, cited in [1, p. 375, n. 2].

  11. For the original Greek quotation, see To Antipater in [56, p. 416]: “εἰκὸς γὰρ διὰ μὲν τοὺς ἀεὶ πρὸς ἡδονὴν λέγειν προαιρουμένους οὐχ ὅπως τὰς μοναρχίας δύνασθαι διαμένειν, αἳ πολλοὺς τοὺς ἀναγκαίους ἐφέλκονται κινδύνους, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ τὰς πολιτείας, αἳ μετὰ πλείονος ἀσφαλείας εἰσί, διὰ δὲ τοὺς ἐπὶ τῷ βελτίστῳ παρρησιαζομένους πολλὰ σῴζεσθαι καὶ τῶν ἐπιδόξων διαφθαρήσεσθαι πραγμάτων.”.

  12. See To Nicocles in [57, p. 43] (suggesting that because king’s counsel “consort with them to gain their favour,” monarchs are not exposed to parrhesia-based critiques and unlikely to engage in processes of cognitive dissonance): “τοῖς δὲ τυράννοις οὐδὲν ὑπάρχει τοιοῦτον, ἀλλ᾿ οὓς ἔδει παιδεύεσθαι μᾶλλον τῶν ἄλλων, ἐπειδὰν εἰς τὴν ἀρχὴν καταστῶσιν, ἀνουθέτητοι διατελοῦσιν· οἱ μὲν γὰρ πλεῖστοι τῶν ἀνθρώπων αὐτοῖς οὐ πλησιάζουσιν, οἱ δὲ συνόντες πρὸς χάριν ὁμιλοῦσι” [57, p. 42].

  13. See To Nicocles in [57, p. 56]: “δίδου παρρησίαν τοῖς εὖ φρονοῦσιν, ἵνα περὶ ὧν ἂν ἀμφιγνοῇς, ἔχῃς τοὺς συνδοκιμάσοντας.” See also [58].

  14. In [60], Plato identifies five regimes of government ordered from best to worst: (1) aristocracy—where a philosopher king motivated by reason and moral judgment rules to pursue social and political happiness; (2) timocracy—where the philosopher king’s immediate subordinates become corrupted by way of cultivating personal wealth alongside ethical virtues; (3) oligarchy—where timocracy devolves into a classist system of rich and poor people, where the former govern the latter; (4) democracy—where oligarchy further deteriorates by empowering lower classes of poor people to become autonomous and free such that they pursue unnecessary desires void of higher-level principles; and (5) tyranny—where democratic governors loose sociopolitical control by empowering the body politic with excess freedom.

  15. See On the Peace in [61, p. 14]: “Ἐγὼ δ᾿ οἶδα μὲν ὅτι πρόσαντές ἐστιν ἐναντιοῦσθαι ταῖς ὑμετέραις διανοίαις, καὶ ὅτι δημοκρατίας οὔσης οὐκ ἔστι παρρησία, πλὴν ἐνθάδε μὲν τοῖς ἀφρονεστάτοις καὶ μηδὲν ὑμῶν φροντίζουσιν, ἐν δὲ τῷ θεάτρῳ τοῖς κωμῳδοδιδασκάλοις· ὃ καὶ πάντων ἐστὶ δεινότατον, ὅτι τοῖς μὲν ἐκφέρουσιν εἰς τοὺς ἄλλους Ἕλληνας τὰ τῆς πόλεως ἁμαρτήματα τοσαύτην ἔχετε χάριν ὅσην οὐδὲ τοῖς εὖ ποιοῦσι, πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ἐπιπλήττοντας καὶ νουθετοῦντας ὑμᾶς οὕτω διατίθεσθε δυσκόλως ὥσπερ πρὸς τοὺς κακόν τι τὴν πόλιν ἐργαζομένους.”.

  16. For additional evidence of acculturative practices related to content moderation, see also Areopagiticus in [61, pp. 115, 117], where Isocrates argues for returning to the restricted democracy of Athenian lawmakers Solon and Cleisthenes as a means of holding elected leaders to account: “For those who directed the state in the time of Solon and Cleisthenes did not establish a polity which in name merely was hailed as the most impartial and the mildest of governments, while in practice showing itself the opposite to those who lived under it, nor one which trained the citizens in such fashion that they looked upon insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality [τὴν δὲ παρρησίαν ἰσονομίαν] and licence [sic] to do what they pleased as happiness [τὴν δ᾿ ἐξουσίαν τοῦ πάντα ποιεῖν εὐδαιμονίαν], but rather a polity which detested and punished such men and by so doing made all the citizens better and wiser.”.

  17. But see Book X in [60, p. 330], where Plato bans all poets from his Republic. Socrates condemns the oral “spell” that poets weave because it bewitches listeners.

  18. Saxonhouse suggests that the paradigmatic example is the trial and death of Socrates. Plato, who recounts the narrative in Apología Sokrátous (Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους) characterizes Socrates as the free-speech savior of Athenian democracy. Through his “bold affirmation and shameless articulation” of what he held to be true, Socrates embodies the archetypal parrhesiast culminating in his famous axiom about the unexamined life as not worth living [62, p. 212].

  19. Mary R. McHugh discusses key cases of Roman political censorship and creates a chronological table listing key defendants, alleged offenses, punishments, and historical sources in [66, pp. 406–407].

  20. Within the table of contents in [34], see “1. The Word Parrhesia/The Meaning of the Word/Frankness/Truth/Danger/Criticism/Duty.”.

  21. In [34, p. 14], Foucault outlines the limits of parrhesia: “Parrheriazesthai means ‘to tell the truth.’ But does the parrhesiastes say what he thinks is true, or does he say what is really true? To my mind, the parrhesiastes says what is true because he knows that it is true; and he knows that it is true because it is really true. The parrhesiastes is not only sincere and says what is his opinion, but his opinion is also the truth. He says what he knows to be true. The second characteristic of parrhesia, then, is that there is always an exact coincidence between belief and truth.”

  22. See also On the Peace in [61, pp. 51, 53]: “I may give the impression to some of you of having chosen to denounce our city….[T]hose who admonish and those who denounce cannot avoid using similar words, although their purposes are as opposite as they can be….[Y]ou ought to commend those who admonish you for your good and to esteem them as the best of your fellow-citizens….”

  23. This approaches Plato’s idea, in Phaedrus [68], of limiting rhetoric to philosophers who have ascertained absolute truth.

  24. See also Euripides in [71, p. 209]: “Next there stood up a man with no shutters on his mouth, strong on audacity, an Argive but not a true one—pressurized—reliant on hectoring and ignorant outspokenness [παρρησία], plausible enough to pitch them on some disaster yet; for when a man attractive in speech but wrong-headed is persuasive to the majority, it is a calamity for the city.”

  25. In 2012, Tony Wang, general manager at Twitter UK, called Twitter “the free speech wing of the free speech party” [86]. Although Twitter has since walked back its First Amendment absolutist stance, the public uses social networks with expectations of free expression.

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Acknowledgements

Brian N. Larson, Associate Professor of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, for assisting with this paper’s theoretical explication and organization. Lisa McLendon, Bremner Editing Center Coordinator, University of Kansas, for her copyediting and friendship. Genelle I. Belmas, Associate Professor, William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Kansas, for her years of tutelage. Special thanks to Associate Dean Charles W. Marsh, Jr., Oscar Stauffer Professor of Journalism, William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Kansas. One would be hard-pressed to find a more caring or selfless mentor. And to my parents—who taught me that repairing the world is possible through meaningful practices of speech and law.

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Rosenthal, H.M. Speech Imperialization? Situating American Parrhesia in an Isegoria World. Int J Semiot Law 35, 583–603 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-020-09801-x

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