More about the right to use coarse and abusive language

In the previous comment I used a reductio argument against the "right to use coarse and abusive language" to show how ridiculously far such a right could extend, and how much the right is tilted in favour of the abuser. Indeed, it may be said that in the way Gerry van der List formulates it, all the right is on the side of the abuser - a strange outcome for a tolerant liberal society.

One may perhaps object that my example goes too far, that the abuser does not have the right to follow a person around all day or wait outside his house in order to continue the abuse. There are stalking laws in Australia and I should assume there were similar laws in Holland. And, yes, on googling I found that there is such a stalking law and it was enacted in July 2000. This is the article:

He who unlawfully, systematically and on purpose encroaches on someone's personal life and circumstances with the aim of forcing that person to do something, not to do something, or to tolerate or to fear being intimidated will be punished, if found guilty of stalking, with a jail sentence of up to three years or a financial penalty of the fourth category.

For the purposes of Dutch law on stalking verbal intimidation is included, as it is in Australia. Remember, this is the way Van der List defined the right to abuse and use foul language against someone.

Abuse does not cause pain: that is the justification for the right to use coarse language. You may express your displeasure in every way as long as you do not use physical violence. That forms the core of the right to free speech.

Obviously, and fortunately, the Dutch lawmakers in this case thought that pain was not only physical, which is a truth that the ordinary person not afflicted by a propensity to get lost in a theoretical cloud of individual rights realises without more ado. Violent abusive language can be extremely intimidating and it can act to shut someone up in a blink of an eye, leaving the individual fearful. Liesbeth Wytzes experienced that first hand. The violence of the verbal assault left her shaking for the rest of the day.

So, in Dutch law nobody has the right to abuse a person in a systematic way. If verbal abuse is harmful in a series of events, as acknowledged by Dutch law, it is logically harmful in the one instance. Does that defeat van der List's right to abuse?

A moral right is one thing, a civil right another, a right in law still another. In political or legal philosophy the distinction between morality and law is basic. But outside a discussion of rights there is the question of a mentality. In the mentality of the Dutch the right to free speech has been elevated to such dizzying heights that it has taken central place on the altar of individual rights. And its devotees are ever ready to protect that sacred sanctuary against intrusions. Witness the right to abuse. I suggest such a right might draw strength not so much from any philosophical justification but from a group attitude that dominates. But the right of free speech is incontestable, one would say.

It is an irony that the Dutch equivalent of the loose English "freedom of speech" is literally "freedom of opinion expression". The original framers of a law of free speech, I suggest, had John Stuart Mill's arguments on behalf of free speech in mind. Mill's idea of liberty, in brief, turned on the distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding acts. Nobody may interfere in my behaviour when it concerned behaviour that did not affect others.

The basis of Mill's justification of free speech in the public arena included the claim that it was only through a clash of differing opinions that one arrives at the "truth". Leaving aside criticism of that idea, the issue of free speech for Mill and his followers was about expressing opinion. Abuse does not come into it. Truth would hardly issue from the clash of two foul mouths. I imagine that with the prevailing system of manners at the time - mid-nineteenth century - that it would not have entered Mill's head that telling a policeman to "f--- off!" would be tolerated in civil society. Civil society, that's what it was all about - not about calling Catholics "filthy god lickers" (gore godlikkers) or telling the police in a foreign language to "f--- off!"

Central to the Millian idea of liberty is the "harm principle". I would argue that telling the world on the internet that Catholics are "filthy god lickers" does harm to me and other Catholics by inciting contempt for us thus reducing our opportunities in civil society. Yes, it is just in the same way that homosexuals claim calling them "poofters" or "fags" does them harm. The harm principle is the basis of the growing anti-vilification legislation around the world.

If the law is consistent, if the harm principle is operating consistently, and if the clash of abuse renders nothing in the way of the truth, then van der List's absurd definition is shot to pieces.

There is more to be said, but it will wait for following comment.