[lg policy] Speech regulation: a linguistic sewerage system

[Harold Schiffman]

Speech regulation: a linguistic sewerage system

139 Comments <http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3337882.html#comments>

Annabelle Lukin<http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/annabelle-lukin-2464768.html>
[image: Annabelle
Lukin]<http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/annabelle-lukin-2464768.html>

As other commentators on the Bromberg
decision<http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-28/bolt-found-guilty-of-breaching-discrimination-act/3025918>have
already noted, even an open democracy like Australia's regulates
speech.

The Trade Practices Act, as well as laws concerning racial
discrimination/vilification, and defamation, are all a testament to the view
that speech can have the power to hurt individuals, groups, and societies.

This view runs counter to many of the aphorisms we recite as, and to,
children - like 'sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never
hurt me'. But, to paraphrase Donne, no person is an island. Humans are
social creatures. We live in communities and societies that are defined by
an era's socially sanctioned currents of ideas.

This is what Al Gore called 'the marketplace of ideas' in his book Attack on
Reason. Gore argued that, as a society, America just isn't as smart as it
used to be. Its collective intelligence had suffered under the weight of too
many stupid ideas pumped out into the social environment. These ideas are a
kind of brain pollution. They made Americans fearful and small minded. They
marginalised the role of reason and expert thinking. They clouded critical
thinking.

The great American linguist, Benjamin Lee Whorf, once wrote:

*Speech is the best show man (sic) puts on. It is his own 'act' on the stage
of evolution, in which he comes before the cosmic backdrop and really 'does
his stuff'.*

Even the most mundane of our linguistic encounters leaves its mark on us.
Small, unremarkable conversations are all part of our individual processes
of socialisation. They shape who we are, and how we see the world.

Talk is powerful. It can unite and divide. This is why it has to be
regulated. Under the right conditions, you can make some people believe and
do anything. Hate speech broadcast on radio has been considered one key
factor in the Rwandan genocide.

It is obviously not a simple matter to decide where a line might be drawn;
but the problem is not intractable either. The debate about 'free speech'
needs to be had in the context of another question: 'what kind of society do
we want to live in?' This question invites us to scrutinise those who have
more influence than others on our 'marketplace of ideas', and to ask how
their ways of talking shape our society and our communities. And who, if
anyone, is funding them.

It's not so long ago that Sydney was happily pumping its sewage from the
cliff faces off Eastern suburbs beaches. The term 'Bondi cigar', defined by
one online dictionary as 'excrement, usually human, that inhabits the waters
seeking out victim swimmers to bump into', is testament to this history. But
our attitude to the physical environment has changed and the idea of pumping
raw sewage into the waters around where we live and play is anathema.
Dumping of pollution is subject to regulation because of its effects on our
physical environment.

When we regulate speech, it is for the protection of the social environment.
I'm not saying every such law is the right one. But we need to recognise
that the social environment is as worthy of respect as the physical one, and
almost as tangible. And there is no doubt we have a linguistic version of
raw sewage, and the Bondi cigar.

*Dr Annabelle Lukin*<http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/annabelle-lukin-2464768.html>
* is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, in the Centre for Language in Social
Life, at Macquarie University.*
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3337882.html

*
*


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