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Freedom of Speech & Cultural Praxis
Freedom of speech as an abstract ideal does not exist. Freedom of speech can only occur within concrete power systems and social relations. The question is, “Whose freedom, and freedom for what?” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote: “I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.” Today, freedom of speech, formulated in the abstract, is precisely such a “dangerously structured dam that blocks the flow of social progress.” Instead of following an empty mantra, we must interrogate and radicalize this principle by situating it within the concreteness of sociopolitical realities and the struggle for establishing justice. The pretext of unrestricted freedom of speech is, de facto, a call to continue practices of unrestricted freedom for elites to espouse positions free from consequence or criticism in a program of preserving elites’ privilege and power.
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