These are unhappy times for those of us who believe in free speech. Bedraggled after years of wearying culture war battles and cancellation, we now confront strange new threats on every side. Just last month, UK police raided a Quaker meeting house to arrest six women who had gathered to eat hummus and “discuss climate change and Gaza”.
Almost no society in history has existed without restrictions on speech. We owe our word “taboo” to the more familiar Pacific word “tapu”, which describes a complex web of cultural prohibitions — such as the African tribal tradition forbidding a woman to utter any sequence of sounds that also occurs in her father-in-law’s name. Presumably, it's only a matter of time before the banning of offensive syllables catches on at university campuses.
Once upon a time, we might have turned our eyes to the United States, that fiery beacon of First Amendment fervour. But the beacon is burning low. The Trump administration has curtailed free speech on multiple fronts: pro-Palestine activists arrested on American campuses, “hostile news organisations” banned from the White House press pool, and law firms that represented Trump’s enemies barred from federal buildings. The appetite for any kind of free exchange of ideas or reasoned debate is dulled further by cancelling foreign student visas, ensuring only one flavour of rhetoric prevails on approved American campuses.
Only weeks ago, JD Vance was lecturing European leaders about the continent’s “backsliding” on the issue. We may be horrified by the hypocrisy, but perhaps we should not be surprised. Most people do not like free speech as much as they think they do. A few years ago, a survey by Ipsos Mori found encouragingly high levels of support for free speech — until the questions got specific: conservatives objected to insults to national symbols; liberals were unhappy with insults directed at minority groups.
Genuine enthusiasm for universal free speech is rare. People are far keener on it for themselves than for their opponents. Support for free expression often rests not on principle, but self-interest. Free speech tends to be favoured by those with the most to gain from it. It was a left-wing cause in the 1960s, when the conservative establishment seemed untouchable. But when progressives gained the power to censor, free speech became a right-wing rallying cry in the name of tolerance.
Dispiritingly, intolerance appears to run deep in human nature. In an experiment, neuroscientist Sarah Gimbel presented people with evidence contradicting their political beliefs. The brain activity she measured resembled what one would expect if they were “walking through a forest and came across a bear”. Evolutionary psychologists remind us that natural selection has shaped us not for endless civil debate, but for survival in tightly bonded hunter-gatherer groups, where dissent from group norms might have led to ostracism — or worse.
Hopefully not in Oxford, where David Seymour follows in the footsteps of several Kiwi elite debaters — David Lange, Steven Kos, Willie Jackson, and me — by making a guest appearance at the Oxford Union to hustle a topic.
Future historians may reflect that free speech’s brief ascendancy was less destiny than circumstance. It appealed at times to both the establishment and the marginalised, becoming one of the rare principles capable of uniting politicians and university activists from Columbia and Harvard to Oxford. Victoria University in Wellington grabbed hold of the idea with enthusiasm. Student Representative Council debates often led to students skipping afternoon lectures in favour of spontaneous protest marches and beer crate outbursts to the masses in Cuba Mall.
We miss the oratory, passion, and politics once heard around the dripping sculpture on Cuba Street. Today, the cause of free expression has lost much of its sheen. The internet’s flood of low-quality and offensive speech has made it a difficult principle to defend. And yet, in Aotearoa, there is hope that free speech will endure.
This country has long had a tradition of speaking that reflects a distinct Māori approach to free expression — within the rules and kawa of the marae. In every iwi and hapū, the marae is made up of two connected spaces: the marae ātea, where the speeches of welcome take place under the mantle of Tūmatauenga, the atua of war; and the whare tīpuna, or meeting house, which is the domain of Rongo, the atua of peace.
On the ātea, speech is free — often argumentative, vociferous, and challenging. But this freedom is always exercised with respect for the relationships between hosts and visitors, and an implicit understanding that ultimately, those relationships are protected by the domain of peace.
A whakataukī that resonates with the concept of free speech is: “He tao rākau e taea te karo; he tao kōrero, e kore e taea te karo” (The wooden spear can be parried, but the spear of words cannot be avoided). This proverb highlights the power of words and the responsibility that comes with them — particularly in a context where free expression is protected. It reminds us that words have lasting impact.
The preciousness, fragility — and greatest strength — of free speech lies in its being a victory over human nature and history. The deluge of low-quality and offensive speech from internet trolls, bigots, and buffoons can only be answered with more speech, not less. Whether we’re listening to beer crate orators on Cuba Street or passionate Oxford Union speakers, when relationships are respected, even the harshest words can build us up rather than tear us down.
