Can I have an opinion? That’s what I want to know. I mean is it possible for me to express my opinions in this country? What is going on?

Perhaps today I sound a little agitated, but I assure you, it is always like this. Everyday is the same.

What is this thing we call ‘insulted?’ How is it that we get insulted. Am I missing something?

It seems self-evident that someone can say something insulting, or do something insulting and for that to have a negative effect on us. But what is this effect?

It should not be too surprising to learn that John Stuart Mill, the Utilitarian philosopher of the nineteenth century, described this effect as that of learning. To hear an offensive or even wrong opinion about something is to open your mind, learn something. I’ll explain this in a minute.

When someone says something I don’t like I assume that they are stupid or bad. I make too make judgments. I know this. But their opinion in no way effect me. It is their own thing, not mine. A thought is not the same thing as an act. The Clansman’s idea that that blacks are inferior is just that, an idea. Are we not capable of seeing the difference between a thought and an act? And is this why we are so sensitive? Does the problem not lie with us? And further, is this ignorance the kind of thing that does indeed lead to an increase in bad opinions (like the Clansman’s).

But I digress.

In our culture, when John Rocker cannot express his ethnocentricity and a College professor cannot suggest that Americans are guilty of their government’s transgressions, there seems to be a lack of causal awareness. We outlaw opinion before we even analyze it. This is worse than the initial problem in the beginning of my diatribe. Perhaps our blind allegiance to conventionality and pop philosophy has clouded our ability to discern the right. Let’s think about this. We have two problems: our ability to analyze argument and our inclination to allow it. Perhaps the latter is distorting the former. Our closing of intellectual borders, the lack of tolerance for free or even unwanted speech, has made us bad critical thinkers. Even if we did become capable of good critical analysis we might find our world lacking in good arguments.

Let’s get down to it, then. Ward Churchill has reached the spotlight because of the timing of his anti-imperialist writing, and specifically his critique of American military positions throughout history. He outlines his basic argument in a book, “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” in which he claims that America has been at war somewhere for every one of her 226 years, engaging enemies as an imperial force in most cases, dominating and subjecting foreign people to ‘our’ ideologies. The destruction of the American Indian is a highlight of this process, according to Churchill. He wraps up this thesis by claiming that ‘911’ was a predictable outcome of this imperialism. “Some People Push Back” is the essay that grew into the book. It was this essay that seems to be the media highlight and the obsession de jour for American ideologues today.

Churchill is attacked across medias for various reasons. He is vulnerable and has received criticism for many reasons, including: the precarious truth of his Indian heritage, his diminutive degree status (M.A. in Communication), his lack of sympathy for victims, his radical left-wing focus and the unmediated dogmatism regarding international politics. Are these accurate: Yes and no. To begin, his Indian status is irrelevant and this criticism works only as an ad Hominem argument. His writings reveal deep education and mastery of both history and articulation. He has made clear both by his original writings and his responses that he does not sponsor terrorism. If anything, he is in the position of a Socrates, both admiring the role and complexity of reason in change and the repercussions of it (potential change). These repercussions are addressed by Churchill in his implicit understanding of the necessity of violence in progress. He notes this specifically in “Who’s the Terrorist” and in comments regarding self-defense.

The debate continues. Yet the main criticism of Churchill appears to be his lack of patriotism at a time of war. Which brings us back to the original and more fundamental question. In regards to philosophy, how do we understand and deal with offensive thoughts?

I don’t agree with Churchill. I think he has fortified his argument too strongly with unsupported left-wing claims. He lacks the fundamental dialectic. This however does not deter me in my discussion of free speech and even unwanted speech. It seems obvious that a climate of only desirable speech ultimately closes in upon itself. For this argument, we can return to Mill.

Mill argues that almost all speech serves a purpose (thus the support of free unrestricted speech). Good opinions strengthen us and bad opinions test us. The result for thinking men is still the ‘right’ or the ‘good.’ We are currently a society that does very little thinking, so it seems clear that this push for unrestricted speech and the ‘right’ can only be impeded by further restriction. It also seem apparent that these restrictions are what has gotten us to (or kept us in) this condition (ignorance). Mill believed that there should be self-protective laws, such as suicide or even most drug laws. In this spirit, he claims, that illegal speech can only be that speech that leads directly to a violation of his harm principle. Laws for mill are only about protecting citizens from harm, not from themselves or, clearly from unwanted speech.

The fundamental question about what it means to be insulted is the key. Any genuine open-minded dialogue about this idea can only result in growth.

In addition, we must consider further problems in order to complete this opening.

What should we do about ‘dangerous speech?’ This is speech designed to directly influence and create violent or illegal acts. Churchill addresses this in his essay “Who’s the Terrorist” in response to critics. He claims that they will be responsible for “dangerous speech” if violence results against him (Churchill). This of course was in response to them claiming that he incites terrorism. This is a tough question and it is one left open by the method of philosophy. A clear tie between violent acts and speech that incites it must be considered illegal. But it must be this tie and not the speech itself that is targeted. We must know that the cause and effect relationship is rationally and factually proven. Thus is the rule of law.

Another consideration is my own. It is the notion that wrong ideologies are often more susceptible to fear of ideas. A faulty or shaky idea system is more wary of offensive language. Free speech threatens those that hold loosely to their beliefs. When I write ‘loose’ I mean intellectually, not physically. People with unsupported belief systems appear to have the most potential for being insulted. This connection seems obvious and revealing. It could perhaps be the guidepost for how we do indeed decide when we are ‘right.’

It is not the offensive language, if one accepts this idea, that is a danger to our civilization. It is the fundamental errors, or the lack of any fundamentals, in our conventional and accepted paradigmatic belief systems that threatens us.

A lack of critical thinking leads to many problems. We don’t seem to understand why we need Churchill questioning our culpability as American citizens (which seems obvious to me) any more than we understand his argument (that we are culpable). It can’t be that difficult to understand how as a voter in a semi-free system, as a representative of our constitution and potentially a candidate for any number of political endeavors, an American citizen is entirely responsible for not only the actions of his/her government but the lack of awareness that results from living with it. Of course we are responsible, that seems obvious, and it is our job to make sure it never happens again (911). The first step in this process is taking responsibility, and our first responsibility is our own philosophy.