Increasing Freedom Lack in the West

It's time to say it out loud: Democracys across the West are at the lowest point of free speech, and it is not clear how things will go about this issue in the next 20 or 30 years. A survey of “Rasmussen Report” of December 2018 found that today only 26 percent of American adults believe they have true freedom of speech, while 68 percent think they should be careful not to say something politically incorrect, not to get into trouble.

In 1990 there were about 75 “hate statements” in American colleges and universities. Just a year later, the number increased to more than 300 before it increased dramatically later. According to the Individual Rights Foundation at Education (FIRE) in 2018, 90 percent of American universities have a regulation that limits the word.

Meanwhile in Europe, Germany adopted a new law, known as NetzDG, in 2017, providing huge fines for social media companies that are not diligent enough in policeing “hate speech” on their platforms.

In 2018, Paris followed the example of Berlin, strengthening its laws on the “hate language” in social media. Yes, last year, a “survey YouGov” in the United Kingdom found that many British voters (48 per cent), believed there were “on many important issues these days, where people are not allowed to say what they think”.

Last but not least, a 2019 Council of Europe report concluded that press freedom in Europe is today more fragile than at any time since the end of the Cold War, given the increase in attacks and threats against journalists. How did we get to that point?

For decades, freedom to speak and debate -- the most fundamental right of a free people -- has been found under the attacks of neo-marketers of a more just “society”. Today, the fundamental right of free speech is threatened not only by word codes, that is, by descriptions of what cannot be said but by more and more of the description of what needs to be said.

But why does societies in Europe and America seem to be aiming to suppress essentially democratic impulses to speak freely, even wrongly, to debate and even insult, so that through all of this we can learn that what passes the test of understanding can perhaps reach a greater national consensus on politics?

The roots of our growing non-freedom have been planted since the late 1960s, but only today can we truly appreciate the extent to which ideas of that time marred our democratic culture. The last neo-marketing wave against free speech acted in the space of a single generation, the result of a cultural contradiction, during which conservatives seem to have lost their sense of care, and liberals of their collective mind.

Ironically, the recent attack against the fundamental values of our democratic tradition was exacerbated by the perhaps largest ideological triumph in Western history and in retrospect, even from our most dangerous moment. It was 1990, the first post-communist government had already been formed in Poland for 1 year, the Hungarians had opened their borders to save refugees from East Germany, and Czechs and Slovaks had gathered in Venceslas Square, to say the communist mafia, that it was time to leave.

The Berlin Wall was then brought down, and the Germans held their breath, hoping that the once impossible dream of reunification would come true. On both sides of the Atlantic, we cheered on “Annus Mirabilis” (the year of miracles), excited by that triumph of democracy, which seemed irreversible.

In fact, Americans and Europeans had every reason to celebrate. The world seemed perfect to acquire a”cunam” new freedom. History was on our side, or at least so a host of analysts and experts claimed at the time. Now that all of Europe had recognized the value of freedom, was it not clear that it would conquer the globe?

However, the moment of the Soviet collapse preserved a secret threat that in less than three decades would deepen our divisions, and weaken the foundations of individual freedom. Our sense of victory contained within it perhaps the greatest danger seed that the West has ever faced: ideological security, not just on the left, that we had cracked the human code, and we could continue with the work of perfection, both the individual and society.

With the break-up of the Soviet Union, we lost an enemy whose society was a vivid example of projects aimed at re-evaluating human nature: losing freedom, followed by depression and terror. After the failure of the toxic Bolshevik experiment that caused millions of deaths, and a untold human misery, the temptation of triumph was very strong.

However, the Soviet fall already empowered neo-marketers, and other advances in the West, to return from itself, and to focus on <x0 domestic enemy”, that is, the “system”. Forgetting the failed efforts of communism, it became possible to build a narrator, under which the true “socialism” could have been achieved if the Stalinists and Maoists had not corrupted the collective dream.

They told us that in the era of globalisation, export-oriented modernization, it will inevitably remove poverty-developed economies, leading to the growth of an educated, empowered middle class that would seek to be governed by a representative government.

Even today, some people continue to cling to this argument against all evidence to the contrary. Sadly, it is not excessive to say that freedom is being reduced throughout the West, not because foreign armies have defeated us in battle. On the contrary, the West is increasingly jeopardising to become <x0post-democratic”, as the fundamental values of free expression and individual sovereignty are moving away from public debate.

In Europe and America, those who have aspirations for professional achievements in university, corporate world, or media must always bow down to prevailing Orthodox people, and clear their speech of all wrong phrases.

Leaving his cultural heritage aside, and being increasingly ignorant of his history, the West is breaking up along racial, ethnic and ideological lines. With freedom of speech under attack, the West, as in politics, is on the threshold of a fundamental battle for the survival of its democratic traditions. It's time for all of us to stand up for freedom. And we have to do this out loud.

Andrew A. Michigan is dean of the College of International Studies and Security at the George C. Marshall