-Benjamin Franklin, The New England Courant, Jul. 9, 1722
Freedom of speech has been a central notion to the concpet of democracy, and remains a hotly contested point even now. Perhaps the most famous case involving freedom of speech is Plato's Apology, an account of the trial of Socrates. In the Apology, Socrates is brought before a large jury (501 citizens) to defend himself against the charges of Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon that he is not worshipping state sanctioned gods and is corrupting the youth. Socrates explains that he has made many important people uncomfortable with his intense questioning in the search of wisdom, and that he suspects this is much of the real reason for the accusations brought against him.
Though this work is called "Apology" it is not an apology in the sense that we usually use the word. Socrates does not express regret or remorse about the things he is accused of. Instead, "apology" here means a defense or a formal justification. Throughout the work, Socrates goes to great lengths to express that he is not afraid to die, and in fact would rather do that than have his free speech restricted.
"if you say to me, Socrates, this time we will not mind Anytus, and will let you off, but upon one condition, that you are to inquire and speculate in this way no more, and that if you are caught doing this again you shall die;- if this was the condition on which you let me go, I should reply: Men of Athens...I shall never cease from the practice of teaching philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him..."
"Someone will say: Yes Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you?...if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living - that you are still less likely to believe"
Plato's Socratic dialogues, particularly Apology, Crito, and Phaedo are full of passages like these that have helped establish Socrates as a martyr for philosophy and for the idea of freedom of speech. It would be easy to condemn the Athenians for what seems to us a tragic example of democracy gone wrong. However, I believe we would do better to examine the thoughts of Saxonhouse in her Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens when she contrasts the ideas of Thomas Jefferson ("It does me no harm for my neighbor to say that there are no gods or twenty gods; it neither picks my pocket or breaks my leg.") with an Athenian society in which freedom of speech and religion were entirely separate concepts. The reason for this refers us back to a running theme throughout this blog, that the modern US separation between the pubilc and private life make our democracy drastically different from that of the Athenians, for whom being a citizen, and tending to public affairs, was essentially a full time job. For us, and many of the Founders, religion was a private matter, not one pertaining to public affairs, which is why the very beginning of the First Amendment reads "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prophibiting the free exercise therof". However, this does not work in the Greek system where private matters are essentially public matters. While the Greeks understood the need for freedom of speech as it pertained to politics and government, they did not consider religious beliefs to fall within that scope.
This difference in meaning of freedom of speech can be seen in a detailed reading of the Apology by the fact that Socrates, for a man being accused of atheism, references the gods consistently throughout the work, as if to show the jury that he does in fact believe in them. He relates his mission to find the meaning behind the oracle at Delphi and he defends himself directly against the charge that he does not believe in the proper gods in his (extremely one sided) dialogue with Meletus. So, I think we can conclude that Saxonhouse has an interesting and worthwhile point in her statement that "for Athenians freedom of speech could not be uttered in the same breath as the totally alien notion of freedom of religion"
Interestingly, in the modern world, many of the regions most in need of freedom of speech are also regions where religion plays a major cultural and governmental role. In the middle east, where religious views are already highly charged, protests about religion or freedom can easily shift from one to the other. As citizens in countries such as Libya, Egypt, and Bahrain seek more freedom, it will be interesting to see whether they develop governmental systems that support freedom of religion in addition to freedom of speech and freedom from tyranny or whether they will mandate a state religion like the Athenian government did. This will depend on the roles of citizens in those countries and their relationship to the state. It also of course depends on the cultural background of the people in the political system. The US, being founded by people who fled other countries, often because of religious persecution, is in a unique situation which has led to a unique system of government.
thanjs very informative!!!
ReplyDelete