8.27: Media -- Argumentation

They're cute, my 9th graders, as they struggle to remember the concept that writers don't have to be honest. That it's okay to question everything. That if an author tells you that the sky is red, it doesn't actually mean that it's red. It could be green. Or white. Or the color could be so unimportant, it doesn't matter.

Today they read editorials from the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and they focused on the idea that Americans should spend less time being offended and should instead let free speech flow on. Not one student had an objection to the murky phrase "free speech", and I wondered when the desire to limit free speech developed, because it wasn't by grade 9, as far as I could tell. And then I thought about how "free speech" was one of those things that sound good, like "open marriage", until you're faced with the actual specifics, and then sometimes those specifics bother you much more than you had realized. Mom #1 is all happy with "free speech" until I assign a Sherman Alexie book, and suddenly she finds that she actually IS kind of upset with the way that I asked her child to read a book that mentions masturbation and says "fuck", and then free speech is violated. Or Dad #2 is upset that his son was asked to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because he heard that the word "nigger" is used over and over in the book, and he doesn't actually spend any time reading the book to see that the use of the word is used by the uneducated, and that the main message of the novel is freedom, and that it's a wonderful book that is against slavery. So even though these two people are all about "free speech", when it becomes personal for them, suddenly "free speech" has a limit.

Part of me really wants free speech. I think most of me wants free speech. I want sexuality to be decriminalized. If there's a picture of a penis on a box of cereal, that's okay. If there's a television show and the word "fuck" is used, that's fine.  I want everyone to be able to offend, to insult, to say whatever it is they want to say. I think, as Americans -- as intelligent humans -- we shouldn't limit any free speech, no matter how hateful. If the thoughts are there, why hide them? Get them out in the open so we can deal. But at the same time, I don't know if I want someone else making decisions about SC for me. I'd probably be okay with him hearing or seeing just about anything, but I'd want to be able to make my own decision. And that's a hypocritical statement, and I understand that.

This is a tough issue, and one that's never going to go away.

NGS likes penises in her breakfast cereal.