Week+5+-+Meikeljohn+II

__**Week 5 - Meikeljohn II.**__    [[C**O**     **Cody Witko.** “The true boundary line of the Fist Amendment, can be fixed only [when balancing] two very important social interests, in public safety and in the search for truth. Every reasonable attempt should be made to maintain both interests unimpaired and the great interest in free speech should be sacrificed only when the interest in public safety is really imperiled, and not, as most men believe, when it is barely conceivable that it may be slightly affected.” (Chafee, 64). Meiklejohn retorts by saying “we Americans… have decided to be self-governed. We have measured the dangers and the values of the suppression of the freedom of public inquiry and debate… and… having regard for the public safety… have decided that the destruction of freedom is always unwise, that freedom is always expedient… We, the People, as we plan for the general welfare, do not choose to be “protected” from the “search for truth.” Meiklejohn entertains the idea that “public safety” and “the search for truth” exist as separate entities, but eventually concludes, and states that Chafee does also, that they are one in the same. He goes on to say that the First Amendment “does not balance intellectual freedom against public safety. On the contrary, its great declaration is that intellectual freedom is the necessary bulwark of the public safety. That declaration admits of no exceptions. If, by suppression, we attempt to avoid lesser evils, we create greater evils” (68). I really like what is being said here, that our ultimate freedoms allow and are necessary for our safety—safety entails these freedoms. Essentially under no circumstances should we consent to the suspension of free thought. Yet I am mildly confused, I thought that at the end of previous chapter it was concluded that when emergency was so prevalent that public discussion could not take place, it was then time to suspend that liberty until order could be restored. Is this not the same principal as balancing freedom/search for truth with public safety? At some point, imminent inescapable peril must allow for at least some stunting of the freedom to public speech. It should not ever permanent, nor an entire elimination of freedom of thought and search for truth, but at least some amount of limitation to allow restoration of law and order. I find it troublesome to say in absolute that there can be no exceptions whatsoever to these freedoms. CC

//**Brendan O'Donnell**// Redish and Mollen state, on pages 1318-19, “In Meiklejohn’s world, a speaker who refuses to believe in the value of community and instead seeks solely to further his own personal interests through expression is to be constitutionally shunned” and they go on to say that Meiklejohn “restrict(s) expressive rights on the basis of the very type of ideological disdain and epistemological arrogance that his theory was explicitly designed to avoid”. I don't think their understanding of Meiklejohn is very charitable to his view. Meiklejohn wasn’t trying to restrict private speech, he was just trying to understand how some speech can be restricted (under the Fifth Amendment) and correct the Holmes ruling that public speech is able to be restricted by bringing it solely under the heading of The First Amendment. Meiklejohn’s argument is to try and put public speech back in the realm of protection under the First Amendment, which it had fallen out of with Holmes ‘clear and present danger’ ruling. He states, on page 61, “The First Amendment had been swallowed up by the Fifth. The freedom of public discussion is therefore, no longer safe from abridgment. It is safe only from undue abridgment”. This highlights Meiklejohn’s purpose, which is fully protecting something under the First Amendment instead of subjecting all speech to the clear and present danger condition. After careful consideration of the purpose of free speech, which he concludes in self-government, it makes sense that the speech which is absolutely protected by the First Amendment is that which deals with the public interest. It is an open question how much falls under the umbrella of public speech, and perhaps Meiklejohn was wrong to say that profit and individual motives guiding speech mean that it is not public speech. However, that does mean that Meiklejohn was wrong about what is protected by the First Amendment, and Redish and Mollen don’t address the inherent problem raised by the contradiction of the First and Fifth Amendments and their relation to speech. Some speech can be restricted or prosecuted, and some cannot, Meiklejohn’s argument was a solution to the problem. If Meiklejohn is right to include all public speech, excepting that from which lawless action is imminent, where public discourse does not have time to show the falsity of whatever belief, under the protection of the First Amendment, what all fits under public speech? Is Meiklejohn right to say that seditious speech is protected under the First Amendment (pg. 83)? Is his private vs. public speech criterion applicable to the types of speech we seem to want to be able to restrict or make laws against, such as slander and libel and military plans? If speaking out about upcoming military plans is done in the interest of public discussion, should that be protected?


 * Susan Thomas** Meiklejohn, pages 68 & 69 states, "Free men need the truth as they need nothing else." and "When men decide to be self-governed, to take control of their behavior, the search for truth is not merely one of a number of interests which may be 'balanced,' on equal terms, against one another. In I that enterprise, the attempt to know and to understand has a unique status, a unique authority, to which all other activities are subordinatied." I have also been reading Linda Zagzebski's "On Epistemology" (2008), in which she states, "And like other desirable goods, there is no reason to think that knowledge is good absolutely; both knowledge and true belief are only prima facie desirable. The desirability of knowledge in a particular case can be defeated or outweighed by other desirable goods such as freedom from suffering and a satisfying life." Reading further in Meiklejohn (pgs 99-100): "We have assumed that the studies of the 'scholar' must have, in all respects, the absolute protection of the First Amendment. But with the devising of 'atomic' and 'bacteriological' knowledge for the use of, and under the direction of, miliary forces, we can now see how loose and inaccurate, at this point, our thinking has been.... It may be, therefore, that the time has come when the guarding of human welfare requires that we shall abridge the private desire of the scholar..." These statements, taken as a whole, seem to be saying very different things. However, they all have a sort of common sense. In Meiklejohn's first quote, is he merely talking about prima facie desirability? Or, is he saying something stronger--that the search for truth and knowledge, regardless of its nature (whether dangerous or trivial) is truly above everything else? Or, perhaps, he is speaking of our freedom to pursue truth and knowledge, rather than the quality of the product itself. If so, does this pertain to the individual or to society or both? Later, he seems to say that there knowledge that is not worth having; however, his reason there has nothing to do with protecting our own welfare, as is a duty of a self-governed people, but for 'human welfare'--which includes the global population. Is he now stepping outside the scope of his topic with this consideration? Basically, I'm trying to figure out how these statements square with one another, if they do at all.

**Bryce Blankenship:** On page 85 Meiklejohn writes, “we must accept and applaud the assertion that the Constitution is an experiment, in the sense in which all life is an experiment. Our plan of government, being based on imperfect knowledge, must be forever open to amendment, forever on trial.” The notion of being ‘forever on trial’ is a nice glimpse as to what ought to be the flexibility of the Constitution. Often it is the case, in the political sphere and beyond, that the Constitution, ‘Law,’ and ‘Bill of Rights’ are these ‘holier-than-thou’ documents that are unchanging, eternal, and perfect. Perhaps a parallel to Plato’s real of being. Everything in the realm of the physical—the perceivable reality in which we live our every day life, with the laws that we follow, recognize, and question—have some perfect //form// of them existing as these documents in the perfect realm of being. Although the parallel may be a bit unreasonable, it illustrates my point. Due to the widely held notion that these various integral and important documents, which our democracy hinges upon, are perfect, and unchanging does not allow for flexibility and congruence with current zeitgeist. However, as Meiklejohn notes, fallible men, with imperfect knowledge, created these imperfect documents. Ought it be the case that we revere such documents with reverence and a stance of infallibility? Or, ought we recognize that these documents are imperfect (which I think is a more common view) and consequently proceed with an ever-present open eye to the possibility of change? And if the answer is yes to the proceeding question, then what does that say about the reverence that is currently given to these documents today?—that they can, and maybe ought to be changed. More so, is the initial reverence even warranted?
 * Ben Gearheard** The first amendment says nothing about distinguishing between public and private speech- it says that Congress may not abridge the freedom of speech—an //unqualified//statement—forbidding the suppression of speech. The amendment doesn’t say //whose// speech, and it doesn’t require any judgment deciding the //purpose// of speech, but does it allow that kind of judgment? AM seems to think so on page 18-19, when he says “All these necessities that speech be limited are recognized and provided for under the Constitution.” I think Meiklejohn is trying to reconcile Rousseau’s distinction of particular wills and the general will with the absolute language of the first amendment to our constitution. In his response to Holmes, he says "Second, the theory fails to keep clear the distinction between the constitutional status of discussions of public policy and the corresponding status of discussions of private policy." (90) He seems to be taking the side that the first amendment is designed to protect the general will, but not particular wills. But does he get away with making the public/private distinction do so much work here? Redish and Mollen put forward the example of a self-interested manufacturer to show the absurdity of suppressing the speech of the individual, qualified by purpose: “The motivation for the manufacturer’s expression is obviously grounded in the desire to make a profit. Does that fact make its speech any less relevant to its audience’s self-governing decisions about whether government should reequip its military forces? Presumably not.” (1317) My main concern is this: does a public/private-purpose distinction of free speech contain a contradiction? As both rulers and subjects of our own rule, can we forbid our own speech? Is it legitimate for the general will to silence its component parts?


 * Tim Johnson** : My criticism is leveled at the piece by Redish and Mollen; I aim not at a particular quote, but rather the general thrust of their piece on my reading of it, that is, that Meikeljohn is wrong to remove commercial speech from First Amendment protection. To my mind, their assertion that "the distinction between public and private speech is ultimately illusory" (1314) is both poorly supported and intuitively inaccurate. Following their own example, a manufacturer of advanced armor could, indeed, advertise their product as the best protection available for American soldiers, but //that claim is unrelated to the public good!// The only part of such an ad that would be related to the public good (and thus, to Meiklejohn, protected under the First Amendment) would be the assertion that too many soldiers are being hurt because of inadequate armor protection. It seems to me that, once that assertion has been accepted into the public discourse and confirmed by the general will, //then and only then//would claims about the efficacy of a given armor become relevant to the public discourse. Even then, it seems clear to me that only true statements would be appropriate to public discourse; a false statement known by the utterer to be false cannot be appropriate. It is for this reason that we have perjury laws and regulations regarding truth in advertising. In short, I feel that Redish and Mollen go too far in their criticism of Meiklejohn's distinction between public and private speech; am I wrong to believe that public and private speech //are and should be// distinct?


 * Beth Ropski:** Redish and Mollen: "Meiklejohn excluded self-interested speech from the First Amendment because he mistook his personal vision of democracy for democracy itself. Of course, on a purely normative level one might well agree with Meiklejohn that individuals engaged in democratic self-government should ignore private self-interest to pursue the common good, though even that point is itself the subject of reasonable debate. But this is simply one political opinion about what democracy should be, rather than a logical outgrowth of a commitment to a system of free expression" (320). I struggle some with this idea of self-interested vs common good speech. It seems to me, that if everyone in a democracy has the same goal to find a common good, then there shouldn't be an issue of self-interested vs common good. Wouldn't self-interested speech be just a personal endorsement of something for the common good? This is speaking idealistically though, I suppose. Humans have proven to be self-interested in many ways that are against than for the common good. This makes me question the endorsement of the general public to democracy. What 'should' democracy be? What characteristics 'should' and 'should it not' it have? Can there ever be a functional society that has complete free expression? Meiklejohn: "We must accept and applaud the assertion that the Constitution is an experiment, in the sense in which all life is an experiment. Our plan of government, being based on imperfect knowledge, must be forever open to amendment, forever on trial. It will change as social conditions change, and as human insight changes. And no one can tell in advance how slow or how quick, how superficial or how radical, those changes will be. We, the People, acting under the Constitution, will decide, from time to time, on that issue. And our successors will be free, as we are, to determine what form, for them, the government shall take" (85). This caught my eye while reading Meiklejohn. I feel like this is an idea that everyone knows but is rarely exercised (and the times it is, seems somewhat futile for the most part). The apathy of many citizens leads to unchecked and unbalanced power in political positions. I believe I read somewhere that in the last presidential election, only 63% of the eligible voting population voted. Where are the other 37%? Why do they choose to give up their say in such a huge matter? If they can't be bothered to vote for such a huge decision, why would one assume that they vote for lesser ones? How can people believe that they have a right to complain about the state of our nation if they can't be bothered to try to change it, even just by voting? (Sorry, this seems to have gone off on a bit of a tangent.)


 * Travis Dawson** In chapter 3, page 88, Meiklejohn states, “We need the truth as a basis for our actions. But the truth is better attained if men trade ideas freely than it is if each man stays within the limits of his own discoveries. A man’s ideas must, therefore, be subjected to the competition of the market.” Blank asserts that a marketplace of ideas is important to obtaining the truth, which he goes on to state, is important for self governance. I only question the validity of a free marketplace of ideas being able to extract truth from the market of ideas rather than an assertion made by a powerful individual. Is a free marketplace of ideas effectual in bringing out the truth? Or does a free marketplace of ideas silence the meek and reinforce the dogmas of the elite? Especially now considering money now counts as free speech. Can a level playing field for the exchange of ideas regardless of class or wealth even exist? If not where does that leave us?


 * __Brian Malone__** In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be.” Do we in America think this way today because it seems that we in this country want to just let things happen but we still seem to think that if we do let things happen then we can complain if it doesn’t go our way? I think that in the United States, after reading the Meiklejohn, and Reddish and Mollen pieces, we seem to live out Jefferson’s warning. We vote in a president who says one thing and does another and the people who voted him in complain about it and they shouldn’t. Likewise the people who never voted are not allowed to complain because they did not do anything go try and combat it. Only those who were against it are allowed to complain. We as people seem to take for granted many things like free speech, and when we abuse it we must take the consequences and not complain.


 * Tyler Morrison ** Meiklejohn states: "the judgements which a government makes between interests are based upon such general principles as unity, justice, tranquillity, defense, welfare, equality, liberty. For the sake of these common demands as expressed in impartial laws, any given individual in any given situation may be required to suffer the loss of his life, his liberty, his property, his happiness." In this, he is stating that the government is the one that organizes individual interests so that they tend to the common good. Is he is stating that these things such as unity, justice, etc. are innate principles on which all, or at least a large majority of people believe, from which individual interests can be measured and organized?


 * Randall Gunn: **“If the meaning and validity of the First Amendment be derived from the principles of self-government, still another very serious limitation of its scope must be recognized. The principle of the unqualified freedom of public speech is, then, valid only in and for a society which is self-governing. It has no political justification where men are governed without their consent. For example, in such social institutions as an army or a prison or an insane asylum,...There is, therefore, no political ground for the demand that discussion within the institution shall be free from abridgment.” If there is a population or society without self-government, they can be said according to this to have no need or even right to claim freedom from the abridgment of speech. How then can a society gain the will to become self-governing? I understand that the freedom of speech is paramount to rise above a situation without self-government, but this seems a paradox. Is the freedom of speech granted to a society when they decide to take it, or rather, would any society become self-governing when they claim the will to do so?


 * Jordan Howser** Meiklejohn makes two comments that I would like to mention. The first is a criticism of the American understanding of the 'free market' of thoughts and a refutation that truth is what one believes: "...the minds of our people is almost unbelievable. Under its influence, there are no standards for determining the difference between the true and the false. The truth is what a man...can get away with" (87). If truth is not subjective it must be objective, pretty standard. Secondly, both Holmes and Meiklejohn admit on page 88 that this free market exchange of ideas is important for discerning the truth (or at least moving towards it). My response to this is, as I have asserted in class, that this view is naive in the sense that it omits the natural and evident persuasive power of certain people or groups of powerful people that, in this free market of ideas, sways people to certain ideas. The ideas people are being swayed to are not necessarily more true or helpful, but instead ideas that certain people (and not necessarily more informed people) wish for everyone to believe. It is often the case that they are succesful. I think that the model of the intellectual free market leading to increased competition which leads to a flushing out of bad ideas leaving the good ones does not work, or at least is not realized, in our modern political and social climate.


 * Matthew Baughman** – “First, there is undeniably a genuine, though partial, validity in the dictum that “best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the conception of the market.” It rightly tells us that the only truth which we self-governing men can rely on is that which we win for ourselves in the give and take of public discussion and decision. What we together think at any time, for us, our truth at that time. And, in the sense in which words are here used, that test of truth is not merely the “best” test. There is no other. But that partial insight has often been interpreted by the individualism which Mr. Holmes represents, to be a total characterization of the truth-seeking process. And, in that form, it has become, in our American public life, a fruitful source of intellectual irresponsibility and of the errors which irresponsibility brings. We Americans, when thinking in that vein, have taken the “competition of the market” principle to mean that as separate thinkers, we have no obligation to test our thinking, to make sure that it is worthy of a citizen who is one of “the rulers of the nation.”” Considering this line of thought, isn’t there a sense where we need transparency to protect our intellectual responsibilities? If Bradley Manning had not linked intelligence, then we wouldn’t know that Obama authorized bombing of innocent civilians in Yemen. If the American people didn’t know this was based off faulty intelligence then we wouldn’t even have a potential intellectual responsibility. By consenting to intellectual censorship, of any form, don’t we commit to intellectual irresponsibility?

Emily McCormick In Redish and Mollen’s criticism of Meiklejohn they keep using the term  epistemological humility. In the Introduction on page 1305 they outline what I am guessing they mean by said term: “Democratic theories, as a result, must respect the principle of epistemological humility—they must assume that no determinate “right” or “good” exists, apart from what the electorate, or those responsive to it, determine. Democratic theories must therefore commit such substantive valuations to the people to decide through democratic procedures. Epistemological humility is a direct outgrowth of the principle of self-rule: the people cannot be self-governing if some external concept of rightness or goodness coercively determines their decisions.” However, I still don’t understand why they think Meiklejohn misinterprets it. More importantly, I don’t understand the term itself. While this isn’t a very insightful question, I’m really wondering what exactly Redish and Mollen are referring to about epistemological humility in regard to Meiklejohn’s interpretation of free speech. What is epistemological humility? (Not just a direct term-definition sense). Does Meiklejohn contradict this concept of essential democracy by having a listener-oriented understanding of freedom of speech?


 * Aly Lamar-** Redish and Mollen critique Meiklejohn's theories based on their intrinsic tension with democracy as defined by Meiklejohn. //(Redish and Mollen bottom 1304).// I understand Meiklejohn's ideal democracy as one created by the general will of educated and informed citizens. Meiklejohn's division of regulation in the First and Fifth amendments seemed to be clarified by public vs. private freedoms, still at the benefit of the general will. While I am very interested in the critiques posed by Redish and Mollen on Meiklejohn's distinction between public and private speech, I would like further explanation on their assertion that his "complete banishment of so-called private speech from the scope of the First Amendment, is immediately suspect because Meiklejohn's asserted criteria for drawing this distinction contradict his own theoretical premises" and that this "differentiates speech protection on the basis of criteria that conflict with its underlying postulates." (1314) I do not see as clearly as Redish and Mollen that Meiklejohn's theoretical principles are all proceeded by the "assumption that the constitutional value of free speech grows exclusively out of its effect on the listener." (1315)

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Travis Dawson In chapter 3, page 88,  Meiklejohn  states, “We need the truth as a basis for our actions. But the truth is better attained if men trade ideas freely than it is if each man stays within the limits of his own discoveries. A man’s ideas must, therefore, be subjected to the competition of the market.” Blank asserts that a marketplace of ideas is important to obtaining the truth, which he goes on to state, is important for self governance. I only question the validity of a free marketplace of ideas being able to extract truth from the market of ideas rather than an assertion made by a powerful individual. Is a free marketplace of ideas effectual in bringing out the truth? Or does a free marketplace of ideas silence the meek and reinforce the dogmas of the elite? Especially now considering money now counts as free speech. Can a level playing field for the exchange of ideas regardless of class or wealth even exist? If not where does that leave us? 

Brian Malone In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free. . . it expects what never was and never will be.” Do we in America think this way today because it seems that we in this country want to just let things happen but we still seem to think that if we do let things happen then we can complain if it doesn’t go our way? I think that in the United States, after reading the Meiklejohn, and Reddish and Mollen pieces, we seem to live out Jefferson’s warning. We vote in a president who says one thing and does another and the people who voted him in complain about it and they shouldn’t. Likewise the people who never voted are not allowed to complain because they did not do anything go try and combat it. Only those who were against it are allowed to complain. We as people seem to take for granted many things like free speech, and when we abuse it we must take the consequences and not complain. 

Tyler Morrison Meiklejohn states: "the judgements which a government makes between interests are based upon such general principles as unity, justice, tranquillity, defense, welfare, equality, liberty. For the sake of these common demands as expressed in impartial laws, any given individual in any given situation may be required to suffer the loss of his life, his liberty, his property, his happiness." In this, he is stating that the government is the one that organizes individual interests so that they tend to the common good. Is he is stating that these things such as unity, justice, etc. are innate principles on which all, or at least a large majority of people believe, from which individual interests can be measured and organized? 

Randall Gunn: “If the meaning and validity of the First Amendment be derived from the principles of self-government, still another very serious limitation of its scope must be recognized. The principle of the unqualified freedom of public speech is, then, valid only in and for a society which is self-governing. It has no political justification where men are governed without their consent. For example, in such social institutions as an army or a prison or an insane asylum,...There is, therefore, no political ground for the demand that discussion within the institution shall be free from abridgment.” If there is a population or society without self-government, they can be said according to this to have no need or even right to claim freedom from the abridgment of speech. How then can a society gain the will to become self-governing? I understand that the freedom of speech is paramount to rise above a situation without self-government, but this seems a paradox. Is the freedom of speech granted to a society when they decide to take it, or rather, would any society become self-governing when they claim the will to do so? 

Jordan Howser Meiklejohn makes two comments that I would like to mention. The first is a criticism of the American understanding of the 'free market' of thoughts and a refutation that truth is what one believes: "...the minds of our people is almost unbelievable. Under its influence, there are no standards for determining the difference between the true and the false. The truth is what a man...can get away with" (87). If truth is not subjective it must be objective, pretty standard. Secondly, both Holmes and Meiklejohn admit on page 88 that this free market exchange of ideas is important for discerning the truth (or at least moving towards it). My response to this is, as I have asserted in class, that this view is naive in the sense that it omits the natural and evident persuasive power of certain people or groups of powerful people that, in this free market of ideas, sways people to certain ideas. The ideas people are being swayed to are not necessarily more true or helpful, but instead ideas that certain people (and not necessarily more informed people) wish for everyone to believe. It is often the case that they are succesful. I think that the model of the intellectual free market leading to increased competition which leads to a flushing out of bad ideas leaving the good ones does not work, or at least is not realized, in our modern political and social climate. 

Matthew Baughman –  “First, there is undeniably a genuine, though partial, validity in the dictum that “best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the conception of the market.” It rightly tells us that the only truth which we self-governing men can rely on is that which we win for ourselves in the give and take of public discussion and decision. What we together think at any time, for us, our truth at that time. And, in the sense in which words are here used, that test of truth is not merely the “best” test. There is no other. But that partial insight has often been interpreted by the individualism which Mr. Holmes represents, to be a total characterization of the truth-seeking process. And, in that form, it has become, in our American public life, a fruitful source of intellectual irresponsibility and of the errors which irresponsibility brings. We Americans, when thinking in that vein, have taken the “competition of the market” principle to mean that as separate thinkers, we have no obligation to test our thinking, to make sure that it is worthy of a citizen who is one of “the rulers of the nation.”” Considering this line of thought, isn’t there a sense where we need transparency to protect our intellectual responsibilities? If Bradley Manning had not linked intelligence, then we wouldn’t know that Obama authorized bombing of innocent civilians in Yemen. If the American people didn’t know this was based off faulty intelligence then we wouldn’t even have a potential intellectual responsibility. By consenting to intellectual censorship, of any form, don’t we commit to intellectual irresponsibility?

Emily McCormick In Redish and Mollen’s criticism of Meiklejohn they keep using the term  epistemological humility. In the Introduction on page 1305 they outline what I am guessing they mean by said term: “Democratic theories, as a result, must respect the principle of epistemological humility—they must assume that no determinate “right” or “good” exists, apart from what the electorate, or those responsive to it, determine. Democratic theories must therefore commit such substantive valuations to the people to decide through democratic procedures. Epistemological humility is a direct outgrowth of the principle of self-rule: the people cannot be self-governing if some external concept of rightness or goodness coercively determines their decisions.” However, I still don’t understand why they think Meiklejohn misinterprets it. More importantly, I don’t understand the term itself. While this isn’t a very insightful question, I’m really wondering what exactly Redish and Mollen are referring to about epistemological humility in regard to Meiklejohn’s interpretation of free speech. What is epistemological humility? (Not just a direct term-definition sense). Does Meiklejohn contradict this concept of essential democracy by having a listener-oriented understanding of freedom of speech?