A little while ago, I was invited to a small private dinner at a well-known academic institution in London. During the course of the evening, a prominent political journalist said: “The problem democracy faces is finding ways to make the working classes like better things.” I often hear variations on this theme and it’s worth identifying the presuppositions behind it.
The principal one is that “the working classes” shouldn’t be left to judge for themselves… they choose the wrong things! The route from here to a belief in limiting free speech is straightforward: “we” must carefully curate the information available to the incompetent classes; we must protect them both from lies and from the complex stuff that’s too difficult for them. You’ll find versions of this argument in the media every day.
However, the argument relies upon a further presupposition, namely that the speaker is qualified to judge the good from the bad; to reliably differentiate information from misinformation. A moment’s thought will expose this for the absurdity that it is. Regardless of any expertise we may possess in our own tiny field, with regard to the vast majority of issues each of us is a mere ingénu: no more qualified to separate right from wrong than anyone else.
I sense the objection: “But when I’m not qualified to judge for myself, I know who I should listen to.” All that does is disguise the problem in a quagmire of evasion. On what basis do you decide whose opinion you should accept? It’s standard practice to choose the experts that confirm our existing prejudices.
Remember, information is not misinformation simply because you don’t happen to agree with it.
Of course, we tend to rely on our intuition, upon what strikes us as obviously correct. But this is simply a manifestation of our unreflective attitudes – a mere excrescence of the place, time, and social milieu in which we happen to have lived, and that is no guide to truth. As John Stuart Mill warns us: “…ages are no more infallible than individuals; every age… held many opinions which subsequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd… many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages.” However, this is routinely overlooked, which is why most political discourse could be paraphrased by: “My prejudices are better than yours.”
Most political discourse could be paraphrased by: “My prejudices are better than yours”
Recognising, or being made to recognise, which of our beliefs are prejudices is extraordinarily difficult and, as Plato so elegantly pointed out, usually produces anger. However, the separation of prejudice from rationality was the essential prerequisite for the development of modern science. But prejudices are like the children of the Hydra’s teeth: cut down one and two new ones spring up in its place. For this reason, absolute openness to questions from all sources is a necessary precondition for the continuance of science.
Prejudice inculcates certainty, and certainty leads to the belief that anyone who disagrees with you must be misinformed, stupid or lying. But in reality, certainty is the enemy of thought. In the words of the greatest logician since Aristotle, Gottlob Frege: “The first prerequisite for learning is missing… the knowledge that we do not know.”
This is why certainty has no place in science; science has no truck with absolute truths. An established scientific hypothesis is simply the best we can do in our current circumstances. In the words of the brilliant Oxford philosopher of science, Bill Newton-Smith: “We have good inductive grounds for concluding that current theories – even our most favourite ones – will come to be seen to be false.” The moment a scientist loses sight of this, he or she ceases to be a scientist.
The free-speech debate is often muddled. Even in the areas where you may not be qualified to make judgements, you’re always qualified to seek clarification; you’re always qualified to ask questions: How does that work? How do you know? What do you mean? Indeed, as anyone who has ever tried to explain anything to a teenager will know, the most difficult and searching questions often come from those who are new to a subject. Of course, questions are always going to provoke pushback from the powerful and the prejudiced. But such pushback must be resisted. It is the enemy of freedom, the enemy of thought, and the enemy of progress.
Economic policy disasters usually emerge from a policy-making process where questions aren’t asked, or are actively discouraged. It’s so much easier to hear what you want to hear isn’t it? A question is never misinformation; a question is never fake news, and the right to ask questions must be protected at all costs. This is what matters in free speech. The problem democracy faces isn’t finding ways to make the working classes like better things, it’s finding ways to encourage people to ask better questions.
Peter Lawlor was the Chief Economist at the German Stock Exchange and continues to advise senior politicians and Wall St institutions. These are strictly his own views
