Free speech as an absolute principle has not and never will exist. Even for those who consider pornography “speech”, all respectable individuals will denounce and justify the censorship of child pornography or its adjacent forms of media (like drawings or computer animations). Furthermore, it can be said that every culture and state imposes blasphemy laws, be it the Soviet Union where counter revolutionary speech was illegal, or in Canada or some states in America where “racist”, “homophobic”, or now “transphobic” speech can carry with it criminal prosecution. Free speech thus has not and really cannot ever exist in an ordered society, yet there are many people on the supposed political right who champion free speech as some form of inalienable right, as if free speech itself had some innate value in and of itself. Now, the ideas I put forward here will most likely be very controversial, especially considering the views of those who read my articles. However, I have come to the conclusion that most of the core “values” that our culture propagates are at best misguided, and at worst (and what I see as likely) means by which the sovereignty of the individual is subordinated to the state. I have come to believe that free speech is one such tool that the system uses against us, and just how democracy is used by the system to fool the people into believing they have control over the political system, free speech as a “right” and principle is used to fool the people into believing they have a voice.
One of the purposes of a state is to control the populace by setting norms for behaviours and discourse. The state brings order to anarchy, and ideally the state reflects the traits of the nation which forms it. Freedom of speech, like freedom broadly speaking, is a capacity, not something which we are entitled or gifted to at birth. We all have biological, including mental, limitations. This boundless idea of freedom, (i.e. in the Classically Liberal sense) has never existed and cannot exist without fundamentally altering what it means to be human, and ultimately destroying the human. From the Classically Liberal standpoint, there cannot be an argument against transgenderism, or really any of the cultural values that mainstream conservatives would like to see enacted. We see this with the expansion of the franchise and the civil rights legislation, policies that conservatives opposed at the time of the proposing but now, some 50 to 70 years later, eagerly espouse. That is because conservatism simply exists to conserve either the current liberal order or to go back to the liberalism of the previous generation. A conservative’s instinct is to conserve, which is fine, but at their core the conservative does not really have any fundamental values, which is why modern conservatives are all for gay marriage and even now are starting to embrace transgenders. If one places abstract freedom upon the pedestal of their political thought, naturally we will find ourselves in an environment that seeks to “free” the individual from the bounds of their religion, culture, biological traits (race and sex), and ultimately humanity itself, like Elon Musk seems to want to do with his desire to merge mankind with artificial intelligence.
Freedom is a capacity, and I argue that it is the capacity by which we do good. I have been gifted a degree of freedom which I can use ultimately to grow nearer or further away from God. From spending time with my family or painting models, the things which we is a reflection on our use of the freedom we have been given, so even if we are not a monastic and cannot pray all day, everything we do, ideally, would be ordered by the principles by which Christ has structured the universe and thus would reflect Him on whatever small a way. Freedom is not the ability to do whatever we want, and in fact such “freedom” is destructive to the individual as he becomes a slave to himself (his passions). The constant need to serve the self is what leads to addiction, which ultimately is just a dependence on dopamine and serotonin. Whether these chemicals are generated by drugs, media, food, sex, or fitness, it does not matter as the vehicle results in the same subservience. It is no wonder that for our well-being, the Church demands that we learn to control our appetites through prayer and fasting. A disciplined Christian life is not one without pleasure, but one in which pleasure can be appreciated as the gift from God that it is and not an end to itself.
So if we conceive of freedom as a capacity, then the degree to which we are able to speak is dictated by that capacity. In our western society in which speech is largely (but not completely) unregulated, individuals are able to speak irregardless of the value of the things which they have to say. It can be argued that this is a positive development, that all should be permitted a voice, but essentially in the masses of the mob, no one single is actually able to be heard unless it has the backing of the system. Freedom of speech gives one the illusion of having a voice just as democracy gives the illusion of political power, but free speech is ultimately only “free” in that it is worthless and poses no threat to the system under which we live. You and I have “free speech” because there is nothing we can say that would undermine the power of the elite who control us. Thus, I see the pushing of “free speech” as something which is diabolical, as it fools people into believing they have power, keeps them passive by disincentivizing them from taking physical action, and is ultimately a self-defeating principle as no one truly wants free speech. The degree to which one may want speech controlled may vary, but lest we forget that many American states had anti-blasphemy and obscenity laws. Thus, it is somewhat painful for me to admit this, but a society which curtails speech like the Soviet Union (or Hitler’s Germany) has more respect for the individual voice and the political power of the individual than the Western powers. As counter intuitive as it may be, the loss of freedom of speech is an indication that those who rule over us do so in either fear or respect of the people, which is something Westerners, but Americans in particular, desire.
So, I fundamentally oppose freedom of speech as a means of population control, yet I do not wish to live under a Stalinist tyranny. The spoken word is the fundamental force by which the universe is maintained, and grammar is the law that orders it. I think it is telling that God created the universe by speech, and thus our reality is the manifestation of the very language of God. The Stoic philosopher likewise held language in high cosmological regard, and I also think occultists using runes and lost languages in their works are, through their actions, admitting to the metaphysical significance of the word, but this is a subject I need to do more research on. But I think our founding premise should be to acknowledge the metaphysical aspect of speech. This spiritual faculty is something in which the vast majority are endowed, and I think that speech can best be utilized under a system of monarchy. In monarchy there is an equality of ruled and ruler that does not exist in any other political system. One may be born a serf or a king, but both find themselves in their position in life through the providence of birth, and thus although a king may be superior in rank to serf and have unlimited power, his power is limited by what he has a right to do. The monarch is a figure of humility as he like the serf are products of providence, and thus the sovereignty of the king as an individual does not trump that of the sovereignty of the serf in their respective roles. Within his home, the serf is the head of his family and the king has no right to interfere in how the serf governs his affairs. Likewise in the affairs of state, it is not the place of the serf to dictate to the king what actions he should take. Placed before each other, both men are equally sovereign, but the degree of power they hold reflects the scale of the realm which they hold. In true monarchy, one does not have speech, but as the state is ultimately limited to a single individual, free speech is not something which holds any value. When the state is a single man whom you can come before or write a letter to, public speech of the political nature is meaningless because you can enter into a dialogue with the state on equal sovereign footing. The fixation of free speech in our current era represents a degradation of both the quality of our rulers and those of the populace. Until men are again ready to be ruled by kings and even after, we should safeguard our speech and only use it when it can be efficacious. As the liberal order continues to decline, freedom of speech will start to recede, which in part is something that we should see as a positive development, but also an indication that we should leave speech behind as a means of political change.
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