Speak your mind, if politely
The wearisome argument that pitches free speech against political correctness shows no sign of abating, even though Miss Manners has taken the trouble to explain that both sides are right and both sides are wrong.
Wouldn’t you think that that would have cleared things up?
Well, no. Alarmists on both sides have muddied the argument beyond recognition to sensible people. Those who believe that there should be no restraints on speech whatsoever, no matter what the context, are shouting down those who believe that hostile speech should be censured without regard to context and who, in turn, are hurling insults back.
Even for those who want both peace and freedom, it is hard to hold two apparently opposing rules of behavior in the same mind at the same time, for use in two aspects of the same life. This is why your children cannot understand that clothing that you have given up vetoing for everyday wear (because it wasn’t making any difference) is not equally permissible to wear to Grandmother’s wedding.
With few exceptions, free speech, including the expression of unpopular opinions, is granted to us by law, and nobody is more grateful for that than Miss Manners. You could hardly find a less popular subject than the demand that everyone behave.
How is it, then, that her exercise of free speech includes denouncing a lot of what other people say?
It is because the law is not the only authority she recognizes for curbing offensive behavior. Fortunately, the law does not stoop to snooping into every aspect of your life. Fortunately, etiquette does.
Etiquette cannot make laws, but it can make rules for specific situations. It cannot send people to jail, but it can send them to their rooms. Or to go play elsewhere.
Households and clubs typically make and enforce whatever rules are deemed necessary for their well-being. Penalizing members for cursing, shouting, interrupting, insulting others, talking on cellular telephones during dinner or marching up the stairs singing at four in the morning is a curb on free speech in the interest of preserving the tone desired by the members.
But should the sacred right be curbed among those in pursuit of justice, freedom and knowledge?
It routinely is. For example, nobody can figure out how to run a military service that fights for freedom if the forces can talk back to their leaders.
Hardest for people to accept is the idea that there must also be restrictions on speech in academic settings, where the noble pursuit of knowledge is presumably underway. But allowing people to air their prejudices about one another inhibits, rather than advances, that pursuit. That is why people should be legally free to do it, as long as the etiquette of the institution forbids them from doing it on the premises.