Nagra - Blog Post 7

  Shiffrin’s third chapter discusses the “thinker-based” approach to freedom of speech. This is different from the listener-based and speaker-based approach that tend to exclude specific valuable speech and expression. While her piece touches upon the issue in various court cases and, more specifically, the last section on sexuality, I wish to explore further Shiffrin’s argument in relation to the LGBT+ community. While the account seems to contradict itself, or at least place bounds on the freedom of sexuality and expression, Shiffrin’s basic argument can be used to motivate the interest the government has in normalizing gay relationships.

    Shiffrin states that speech and mutual discourse “are essential for our mutual flourishing” and that the right of expression is essential in maintaining such an environment (79). Freedom of speech allows for a “functioning government of equals” and, therefore, equality for those who have different sexualities (81). Externalizing speech, in this case, is essential as “for many people, some thoughts may only be fully identified and known to themselves if made linguistically or representationally explicit” (89-90). This is where I will begin to motivate my argument. Shiffrin brings in the parallels between epistemic exclusion and solitary confinement. Suppose one is not able to communicate their ideas and feelings to the world. In that case, they are essentially placed into solitary moral confinement and are left to “progressively lose their grip on reality, suffer[] hallucinations and paranoia” and enter psychosis (90). Members of the gay community are forced into this solitary confinement all the time, whether through closeting in familial or other social relationships. This can be cultural too. Certain groups and individuals place different pressures on heteronormativity, allowing for a range of intensities of this solitary mental confinement. From Shiffrin, the government has an interest in refraining from “banning or attempting to ban the free development and operation of a person mind or those activities or materials necessary for its free development” (92). Would it not then follow that the government also has an obligation to attempt to shift the social environment surrounding the ostracization of LGBT citizens? If it is valuable to externalize our mental contents, why allow for freedom of bigoted speech against any minority group, which further stops them from developing their thoughts and judgments?

    Societal normative forces trap members of a minority group, more specifically in our discussion, the LGBT community, into becoming “compelled speakers,” discounting the sincerity of their speech. 

    I find the example about the expulsion from a religious community to be necessary to discuss here. While I do agree that any expulsion (we can replace religious with familial or any other type of relationship) from a group based on speech and thoughts does not eradicate someones ability to be a thinker and complex person, I disagree with Shiffrin that it allows for the person to have still rich “potential sources of social connection” (101). We can find an example of this in the exclusion from the family unit based on sexuality. A son comes out and his parents, being rather socially conservative, tell him to leave the house and never talk to them again. This situation may seem extreme, but it is the reality for a grossly large portion of the community. While still a free thinker, the son lacks resources, connections, and means to form a large amount of the social relationships that he was previously used to.

    In this way, we can see closeted members of society somewhat as corporations (this is not to devalue their humanity). They are forced to conform to a specific external pressure and therefore cannot be as sincere and truthful as they would like to be. Thus, extending my argument, doesn’t society have an obligation to shift the normative social landscape surrounding sexuality? I am not drawing this conclusion to motivate restraint on the speech of minorities (the constraints Shiffrin mentions about corporations), but to motivate the idea that we should hold bigotted or silencing speech to more restriction. One can have the idea that being gay is a sin, but to use that idea to silence or prevent the moral growth of someone else is fundamentally against Shiffrin’s account of free speech.