Dare to Speak

Defending Truth in Our Times

Suzanne Nossel

• Publisher: Dey Street Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780062966063
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

"A must read."—Margaret Atwood

A vital, necessary playbook for navigating and defending free speech today by the CEO of PEN America, Dare To Speak provides a pathway for promoting free expression while also cultivating a more inclusive public culture. Online trolls and fascist chat groups. Controversies over campus lectures. Cancel culture versus censorship. The daily hazards and debates surrounding free speech dominate headlines and fuel social media storms. In an era where one tweet can launch—or end—your career, and where free speech is often invoked as a principle but rarely understood, learning to maneuver the fast-changing, treacherous landscape of public discourse has never been more urgent.

In Dare To Speak, Suzanne Nossel, a leading voice in support of free expression, delivers a vital, necessary guide to maintaining democratic debate that is open, free-wheeling but at the same time respectful of the rich diversity of backgrounds and opinions in a changing country. Centered on practical principles, Nossel's primer equips readers with the tools needed to speak one's mind in today's diverse, digitized, and highly-divided society without resorting to curbs on free expression.

At a time when free speech is often pitted against other progressive axioms—namely diversity and equality— Dare To Speak presents a clear-eyed argument that the drive to create a more inclusive society need not, and must not, compromise robust protections for free speech. Nossel provides concrete guidance on how to reconcile these two sets of core values within universities, on social media, and in daily life. She advises readers how to:

• Use language conscientiously without self-censoring ideas;
• Defend the right to express unpopular views;
• And protest without silencing speech.

Nossel warns against the increasingly fashionable embrace of expanded government and corporate controls over speech, warning that such strictures can reinforce the marginalization of lesser-heard voices. She argues that creating an open market of ideas demands aggressive steps to remedy exclusion and ensure equal participation.

Replete with insightful arguments, colorful examples, and salient advice, Dare To Speak brings much-needed clarity and guidance to this pressing—and often misunderstood—debate.

Part I

Principles for Speaking

1.

Be Conscientious with Language

THE OLD ADAGE WAS “WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE.” BECAUSE WORDS CAN sometimes do harm and we live among people of different views and backgrounds, we have long understood the wisdom of taking care with what we say and how we say it. In today’s fraught debates, mindfulness about speech can help us avoid unwanted controversy. Conscientiousness involves considering the range of people who may hear or read your speech and how it may strike them. Some conscientiousness is just commonsense thoughtfulness and decency. If you are speaking to a familiar audience—your family—you may be able to state sketchy opinions without thinking twice. If you know that everyone in the room loves the Red Sox, celebrates Christmas, or reveres the current president of the United States, you can reflect these beliefs without risk. But maybe your nephew has brought a college friend to Thanksgiving and she has a different religion, nationality, or political slant. She might appreciate being asked, “Do you have any plans for the winter holidays?” rather than “Where will you celebrate Christmas?” If you don’t know her politics, you might think twice before launching into an attack on a candidate for office. Simply taking into account her presence shouldn’t temper the humor or comfort level of the gathering, but it might influence how questions are asked or points are made.

Using language conscientiously avoids the assumption that your own interpretation of words is universal. When you discover that terms or turns of phrase that you thought innocuous—for example, the use of “mankind” to refer to the human race—are heard as sexist, the conscientious speaker and writer will hear out the concern, rather than responding defensively (for example, by insisting that you’ve used the phrase your whole life or just heard it on the news). Although not every protestation will be merited, conscientiousness abjures the default belief that just because you’ve always spoken a certain way and meant no harm, your choice of words is appropriate or ideal. It reflects a measure of concern to ensure that your language does not denigrate others, reinforce stereotypes, or trample on sensitivities. It does not mean stifling provocative or even offensive opinions, but calls for rendering them knowingly and prudently. Conscientiousness with language can also help to rectify imbalances of power by lowering the barriers that certain individuals may face when joining in conversation. By avoiding stereotypes and jargon that are particular to a certain group and can reinforce feelings of inferiority or intimidation among outsiders, the conscientious use of language can enable everyone to speak more freely.

Conscientiousness also means being mindful that, online, we lack control over how our words are forwarded, shared, quoted, cited, or transmitted to remote audiences. In 2013, a sixteen-year-old in Australia was on his way to a concert by the pop artist Pink when he tweeted: “@Pink I’m ready with my Bomb. Time to blow up #RodLaverArena.” On arrival at the show he was apprehended by security guards who trailed him from his Twitter profile and encouraged police to arrest him. The shaken teen was released after he explained that he was referring to Pink’s hit song “Timebomb” and was simply looking forward to the music and special effects. Experienced travelers know never to joke about hijacking before boarding a plane, no matter how obvious it may be that you are kidding. In an era of school shootings, attacks in public places, and religiously motivated violence, this sort of verbal restraint is well advised.

Unpredictable responses to speech, even if unfair, have become all too predictable, especially online. Trying to reinsert missing context and nuance after a tweet has traveled the world can be impossible. In 2014, the comedian Stephen Colbert joked on-air about Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder establishing a foundation to benefit Native Americans, even while refusing to change a team name that many found retrograde and offensive. Colbert ironically assumed the persona of the obtuse owner—with a follow-up tweet saying, “I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.” The satirical intent that was entirely obvious on-air was lost online where some who viewed the tweet in isolation didn’t realize Colbert was mocking Snyder and not Asians. Suey Park, an online activist who launched a campaign to “#CancelColbert,” said she did not care about the intent or context of the remark, as she was sick of seeing Asian Americans be the butt of jokes. Colbert weathered the attack, but Park’s avowed indifference to intent and context reflects a reality in the digital age: your words can land anywhere in ways you may not anticipate and may be powerless to correct. In turn, Park was targeted by a vicious call-out campaign for failing to get the joke.

Presumption of Heterodoxy

In a diverse society, those speaking publicly should assume their audience includes a full spectrum in terms of age, gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, religion, and ideology. During the 2005 BET Comedy Awards, comedian Paul Mooney joked about singer Diana Ross being caught drunk driving and about her ex-husband, who had recently died in a mountain-climbing accident. Mooney didn’t know that Ross’s daughter, Tracee Ellis Ross, was in the audience. Steve Harvey, the next act in the lineup, did, and he acknowledged Ellis Ross, leading a round of applause for her. But Mooney said afterward that knowing she was present would not have changed his routine. He said, “Her mama could’ve been in [the audience]; that’s not the point. . . . When you are a celebrity and you do crazy stuff, that’s the game.” Mooney concluded that celebrities, who prosper because of public exposure, are always fair game. Right or wrong, he made his remarks about Ross after having considered the risk of even an unlikely offense. Back in 2005, it was easy to imagine a joke reaching an unanticipated listener in a large theater. Now the same is true of anything transmitted digitally. Conscientiousness demands keeping this wide audience in the back of your mind as you decide what to say, even if your decision, ultimately, is to accept the risks of making a potentially offensive or hurtful remark.

A challenge of conscientiousness is that offense is in the eyes of the beholder. Certain well-known slurs and stereotypes are widely recognized as objectionable. But with other terms, it depends who you ask. In 2017, the New York Times asked its readers to identify the racially related terms they found most “cringe-worthy.” Answers were all over the map, including “racial tolerance” (“we don’t wish to be tolerated like petulant children”); Latinx (“I don’t think the term Latino or Latina need to be revised”), and “Native” (“borders on the word ‘primitive’”). By 2020, undoubtedly, such a list would have evolved, with some once-rankling terms having become widely accepted and other expressions having moved decisively into unacceptable territory. The bounds of what is considered offensive are subjective and shifting; it’s impossible to avoid ever offending anyone. Taking some care to consider what might be sensitive and how to word it is the best that most of us can be expected to do.

Be Your Own Editor

Conscientiousness with language requires keeping abreast of changing social mores, subtleties involving particular groups, and the evolution of language. This may seem like a hefty burden—there can be so much to consider before speaking up that it may feel safer to remain silent. With the ability to reach people anywhere at the click of a button comes the responsibility to be aware of that sprawling audience and its sensitivities.

As the Internet and social media have dismantled old hurdles to reaching an audience, their immediacy requires us to internalize some of the traditional functions of editors and publishers. Years ago, the only way to get a book or article into the public domain was to write a proposal or manuscript, maybe secure an agent, and get an editor to review it and a publisher to print it. If you couldn’t clear these hurdles, the public wouldn’t read your work. The corollary was that before regular readers saw your prose, the draft would have undergone multiple rounds of scrutiny for language, tone, argument, legal pitfalls, and likely audience response.

Today the most influential media platforms like the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as book publishers, still operate as gatekeepers. But in many venues individuals can express themselves with little or no vetting, and their ideas may win a substantial following. While this is a great boon for free speech, it carries dangers. Writers can’t rely on editors and publishers to flag things that could cause unwitting offense. Instead, they need to internalize the scrutiny and forethought of the old-fashioned editorial process. Responsibilities that editors and publishers shouldered alongside sharpening prose—following trends, understanding societal hot buttons, considering alternative viewpoints and the potential for offense—now fall to all who put their ideas out for consumption.

There is no equivalent of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style for the conscientious writer or speaker. No single source can tell us the nomenclature to use and avoid for various groups. On the plus side, though, the Internet puts at our fingertips pretty much everything we need to know to avoid blundering into inadvertent offense.

HOW TO BE YOUR OWN EDITOR

• Talk and listen to diverse groups of people
• Read widely
• Before describing them, consider how those with a given identity describe themselves
• If you think something might be offensive, find out if it is
• Use terminology tip sheets that spell out how to avoid stereotyping and offer more inclusive alternative language
• Reread before hitting “send” or “post”

SAMPLE ALTERNATIVE PHRASINGS TO AVOID OFFENSE

• Able-ist language (instead of “stand up for rights,” “defend your rights”)
• Sexist language (instead of “early man,” “prehistoric humans”)
• Racist language (instead of “a black professor,” “a professor” bringing up race only if relevant)
• Ageist language (instead of “feisty” or “spry,” “articulate” or “passionate”)
• LGBTQ-friendly language (instead of “sexual preference,” “sexual orientation”)

The Euphemism Treadmill

When I was growing up, the term “Oriental” was widely used to refer to people and products originating in East Asia. At a certain point, though, “Asian” and “Asian American” entered common parlance and “Oriental” came to be understood as conveying an outdated Western conception of Asia as exotic. When we told my mother that “Oriental” was no longer considered an acceptable term, she balked, demanding to know how a word that had been widely used as long as she could remember had suddenly become offensive. But she came around. Similarly, at PEN America, we sometimes used to refer to a series of programs aimed at fostering writing opportunities for the incarcerated, undocumented immigrants, and day laborers as amplifying “marginalized voices.” Though the phrase originated with the academic left, one prospective funder faulted our terminology, saying that the term “marginalization” failed to place the blame squarely enough on mainstream society for favoring the privileged. She urged us to talk about “excluded voices” instead. Chastened, we thought harder about how we could more accurately describe the individuals these programs aimed to elevate.

When people are confronted with an objection to language that others find offensive, they may defend themselves on the basis that no one complained before. With many slights, though, it is fair to assume that the groups most affected might have opposed strenuously years earlier had they believed they could effect change, and not feared reprisals from speaking up. Ignorance, prejudice, and subjugation have long protected certain norms and terms from scrutiny to the point where they are so firmly ingrained that people can find it hard to imagine that they are considered objectionable.

Social psychologist Steven Pinker is skeptical that retiring outmoded terms in favor of new ones that carry less baggage can reshape perceptions. He refers to the constant overhaul of problematic terms as the “euphemism treadmill,” whereby new words are embraced but then succumb to the very taint of those they were anointed to replace. For individuals with cognitive challenges, the term “imbecile” was once coined to be neutral sounding and not derisive. It eventually gave way to “retarded,” then to “mentally handicapped,” and later to “having intellectual disabilities.” Journalist Heather Kirn Lanier described the mother of a typically developing child admonishing her misbehaving son to “quit acting like you’re special needs” to illustrate how even terms that are adopted in an effort to foster respect can become contaminated by the very same associations they were intended to help erase.

While Pinker is right that neologisms can acquire the very stigma of the words they are intended to replace, that doesn’t mean language shouldn’t evolve. When a group of people believe that a particular word describing them is a hindrance, society should listen. Lanier has researched the campaign to banish the term “mentally retarded” (originally coined as a clinical-sounding, nonjudgmental label), recounting how it is sometimes referred to as the “r-word” to invoke the offensive punch of the n-word. The Special Olympics mounted a campaign captioned “Spread the Word to End the Word” and, in 2010, President Obama signed Rosa’s Law, a bill that excises the term “mentally retarded” from many federal documents. Four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit, substituting the phrase “intellectual disability.” The hope, of course, is that progressively evolving social norms can help to ensure that new terms do not simply get trampled on Pinker’s euphemism treadmill. For example, our aspiration should be to ensure that rising recognition of the dignity and worth of individuals with intellectual disabilities will mean that, decades hence, the Supreme Court doesn’t need to once again retire an outmoded term that has taken on negative connotations.

Sending Words Out to Pasture

That said, we should be slow to entirely banish words and phrases from usage. In a 2018 opinion piece, University of Connecticut professor Michael M. Ego argued that the phrase “chink in the armor” should be retired because “chink” is a derisive term for Chinese Americans. He asks, “Why should American society continue to use phrases that are hurtful and demeaning to anyone?” Ego draws an analogy with the word “faggot,” saying that it was used frequently by the New York Times only until 1981, replaced thereafter by the word “queer.” But there’s a difference between “chink” and “faggot.” The latter has been used over the last century pretty much exclusively as an epithet (although it does have another rarely used meaning: a bundle of wood). Those who heard it were right to be offended because there was no plausible use that did not involve some insult. “Chink,” on the other hand—as Ego acknowledges—has another meaning that dates back centuries and has remained in usage: a narrow opening in a wall or a weakness or flaw. It is worth recognizing that the phrase “chink in the armor” may bring to mind the slur and be jarring for people to hear; those reactions are genuine and shouldn’t be dismissed. A similar problem has arisen with the word “niggardly,” which means parsimonious and has an Old English etymology unrelated to the racial slur. But because the words sound similar, individuals who have used the word “niggardly”—often talking about budgets or economic growth—have sparked uproar since the phonetic similarity is so close. (One Washington, D.C., governm...