Marsha Blackburn and Free Speech

While driving and listening to NPR this morning, I heard what I think was a local report (WPLN) about our own U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn. It turns out that Senator Blackburn has been acting as a champion for free speech. This reminded me of Ben's challenging and valuable presentation on censorship.

Although I haven't been able to locate the report I heard this morning, I did find a news report about her 2019 introduction of a resolution to protect freedom of speech at universities. The Tennessee Star's description, and Blackburn's Senate floor remarks (see below), suggest that the resolution only has conservative allies. The resolution itself, however, lists instances of free speech expression that aren't necessarily conservative--protest of the National Security Agency and distribution of the U.S. Constitution--and it denounces "free speech zones"because they "restrict political speech from all parts of the political spectrum" (italics added).

Of course, I disagree with the senator on a host of other issues. But I think this is a good thing. My doubts about the optimism presupposed by the idea of an "intellectual marketplace" are still several. It seems to me that too extreme a stance against censorship disregards our contemporary struggle with information in a digital age. Moreover, when it comes to this sort of thing, I'm with Plato: for the sake of a social formation agreed upon as desirable, let's censor the poets. What I appreciate about Blackburn's resolution, though, is that it distinguishes the environment of higher education as a "public forum." So, there's legitimate cause to loosen the reigns in a space where "adult" minds are searching out Truth. Still, even with that, we need Socrates (more than one) to serve as midwife!