Let me try to get at this way. Suppose Shockley (if he were still alive) were invited by the local Rotary to give a speech, open to the public. I could say two totally different things:
1. I could appeal to the City Council to bar his speaking here.
2. I could organize people to cover the steps of the hall with garbage, to block traffic, to pelt incoming audience with raw eggs, to throw ball bearings in the path of mounted officers trying to protect the auditorium, and so on.
Number 1 would be attempt to limit Shockley's freedom of speech by invoking state repression of it.
Numbert 2 would _not_ attempt to limit his freedom of speech; it would be a leftit tactic (correct or incorect) to protect the working class against an attack on it.
To speak of the latter as interfering with his free speech would be to introduce a linguistic _and_ a legal confusion.
We need an expression that unambiguously refers to a legal limit on state power -- and nothing else. In the u.s. at least that expression is "free speech" as guaranteed by the 1st and 14th amendments.
My right elbow is still hurting after two weeks of ultra-sound treatment. I've got to keep my fingers off the keyboard.
Carrol
Marvin Gandall wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox writes:
>
> > Marvin Gandall wrote:
> >>
> >> In a nutshell, 1) I don't believe in "free speech for fascists" 2) I
> >> don't
> >> support state intervention to proscribe them,
> >
> > This guarantees misunderstanding. If you don't support state
> > intervention, _then_ you DO believe in free speech for fascists. You are
> > fighting the language, and fights against language are always losing
> > fights, leading to the kind of confusion you describe. And this error in
> > diction leads to confused political debate, because there ceases to be
> > shared understanding when we turn to the question of leftists orgaizing
> > to disrupt racist speeches and so forth. That discussion has to do with
> > left tactics and their efficacy or inefficacy in given contexts, NOT
> > with the question of free speech.
> >
> > Free speech _means_ no state interference. It has no other meaning. Do
> > not use it in any other sense because if you do you will cause
> > confusion.
> -----------------------------
> I'm not sure I follow you, Carrol. I've resolutely tried to explain that I
> don't support state intervention because it invariably ends up being used
> against the left, but that this is not tantamount to supporting free speech
> for fascists, ie. allowing them a public platform. I'm for denying them that
> platform through mass mobilizations from below. This latter is not
> guaranteed to stop fascism if the relationship of forces is adverse for any
> combination of reasons, but it is a more effective means for fighting
> fascism than relying on state intervention. I thought this view was
> confirmed historically, and was widely accepted by Marxists.
>
> The confusion you bemoan doesn't have to do, I think, with the position
> described above, but with the abstract nature of the discussion itself: 1)
> there is today no polarization between a mass left and a mass right as there
> was in the 30's so the current discussion necessarily has an academic
> quality to it, removed from the practical questions people would recognize
> and deal with more coherently on the basis of their own experience, and 2)
> the concept of freedom of speech is treated by many in absolute rather than
> relative terms, so they are either unused to making the necessary
> distinctions - how the "principle" is dependent on context, on whose
> freedom is being defended and for what purpose - or, in fact, don't believe
> there should be any distinctions at all made with respect to the exercise of
> that right.
>
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