Free expression is valuable and important, both on a personal and public level.
On an up close and personal level, free expression allows individuals to live freely as who they are. As everyone is unique, this will look and sound different for everyone. Free expression can be as simple as rocking a buzzcut because that’s how you feel best or calling sports as a whole “trash” when they are brought up in discussion – it can be as complex as society and our inner lives.
People tend to express themselves from their word choice to their sense of fashion sense. Free expression allows anyone to dress any way and address what is on their mind at any given moment. Nevertheless, free expression comes with the responsibility to accept consequences for one’s actions and words.
Expression has its limits. It is perfectly acceptable to wear wings for a Halloween party. However, it is not as advisable to wear wings to a business event while claiming oneself to be a fairy, under the guise of freedom of expression. On a more serious note, free expression is needed to run a democracy in a public sense. Within a democracy, citizens need to speak up to disclose concerns. In theory, this disclosure should also help prevent corruption.
This concept contributes by quite literally creating identity, allowing people to express who they are – verbally and physically. It is vital for one to shape an identity that is separate from society. People can only begin to think for themselves once they can start conceptualizing on their own, separate from their community.
Free expression is worth protecting as it is a human right. Article 10 already protects these rights. There is no feasible or realistic way to completely prevent people from sharing their opinions anyway, and that type of society and environment would be unjust.
The concept of parrhesia, or fearless speech that offends those in power, is relevant here: I do not believe all free expression is equal. For example, unnecessary and cruel hate towards individuals is personally intolerable. The law unfortunately does not agree with this stance in all circumstances.
According to the American Library Association under an article about hate speech it is disclosed that, “Under current First Amendment jurisprudence, hate speech can only be criminalized when it directly incites imminent criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group.”
Referencing Plato, Michel Foucault’s lecture includes the passage, “..the problem of the freedom of speech becomes increasingly related to the choice of existence, to the choice of one’s way of life.” While there can be many problems involving freedom of speech, I found it interesting that existence is described as being a choice. There also exists the choice to use our words to not spread hate.
Balliace 