Why is Freedom of Speech Important Essay
In the work “Why is Freedom of Speech Important Essay” we will research the relevant topic - human rights. ‘The freedom of speech’ is the freedom to speak your mind without any censorship. We consider the freedom to speak as a necessity in our well-developed society. But what if people say something that we disagree with? Something we find offensive? However, today’s society is influenced by the freedom of speech and expression and it is widely discussed all over the world, whether it is all right to offend. In Brendan O’Neill’s speech performed at Oxford University on March 5th, 2015, it is explained how certain subjects that are considered offensive are monitored and policed by leaders at university campuses in the UK, and why that should be a problem.
Brandon O’Neill debates the freedom of speech, with the proposition that the right to free speech always includes the right to offend. Brendan O’Neill persuades the audience of the necessity of preserving the right to offend as an important part of free speech. He criticizes recent developments in universities that tend to hinder freedom of speech and the right to offend. He wants to convince the audience of the necessity of the right to offend, in which he describes as being the basis of social evolution: “Humans have long had the urge to offend against the natural order, the religious order, the moral order – and in the process, they have pushed humanity forward.”He believes that offensiveness is the motor of human progress and the freedom we are fortunate to experience today, is in fact a product of individuals having dared to give offense. He believes that the problem lies with the intolerance of other people’s ideas. Ideas that bring mankind forward. He also discusses how it is paternalistic to say that women are super-fragile and very neo-colonialist to say that black students need to be protected from ‘harmful ideas’. The issue is the idea of human vulnerability and the notion that humans are fragile and therefore our speech and our relations must be monitored and policed.
Along comes the question, does freedom of speech entail a right to offend? If you mean, ‘should offensive speech be excepted from the right to free speech?’ I believe the answer should be no. The whole point of the right to free speech, it is to protect the right of an individual to say things that are controversial or that someone else might find offensive. In Brendan O’Neill’s speech, he mentions John Wycliffe, who got expelled from Oxford for translating the Bible into English, along with Percy Bysshe Shelley for witting a pamphlet supporting atheism. And it made me a question, when has it become our duty to determine what should be right and wrong for others? Offensiveness is by definition, subjective. So, who gets to decide what is offensive speech? Because anybody can potentially be offended by anything. The people who say, ‘I support free speech, but just do not offend anyone’, show irony and hypocrisy at its finest. If you find something offensive or anger-inducing, it should never be used as an excuse for shutting down somebody’s speech. Because that is exactly how millions of people are silenced the world over.
Throughout centuries, many have sacrificed much to protect the free exchange of ideas and criticism in our society. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s saw the importance of free speech.
Martin Luther King used the freedom of speech on behalf of minorities. Through his activism and inspirational speeches, he played an essential role in ending the legal segregation of African American citizens in the United States. Or the women’s rights activist Malala Yousafzai, known for her commitment to campaigning for women's access to education around the world. Malala fought for women's education in Pakistan and was shot by a Taliban fighter, for using her freedom of speech. These activists shaped the world we live in today, thanks to their use of free speech and demanding change. Therefore, I believe freedom of speech is one of the most precious and important human rights. In relation to O’Neil, I believe offensiveness is not only a right but also a duty that helps humanity move forward.
Ideas and views are not meant to be protected, they are meant to be challenged, and only good ideas survive without protection. If you have to protect your idea from a challenge, it is probably not a good idea to begin with. Measures like ‘no-platforming’ are meant to reduce discrimination and avoid students feeling offended and criticized because of who they are as individuals. However, such initiatives have also come to be regarded as limiting free speech in universities because they exclude people’s right to offend for fear that they might hurt people’s feelings through their opinions. Free speech has always been important throughout history because it has been used to fight for change. When we talk about rights today, they would not have been achieved without free speech. Without the right to offend freedom of speech does not exist. This is why the topic 'the importance of freedom of speech essay' is very important in our time.
