How Freedom of Speech Became a Dangerous Idea
"Question to Radio Eriwan: What is the difference between the Constitutions of the USA and [insert country of choice]? Both guarantee freedom of speech."
"Answer from Radio Eriwan: Yes, and the US Constitution also guarantees freedom after speech."
I. The Promise of Freedom
Once upon a time, freedom of speech was an unquestioned virtue. It was the bedrock of democracy, the shield against tyranny, the sacred right that separated the free world from authoritarian rule.
The idea was simple: People should be able to speak their minds without fear.
For centuries, the greatest thinkers and revolutionaries defended this principle. Voltaire, Jefferson, Orwell—they all knew that without the right to express an idea, no other right truly existed. A free society meant a messy society, one where debate, disagreement, and even offensive speech were part of the deal.
II. The Shift: “Free Speech for Me, But Not for You”
At first, it seemed harmless: “Of course, you have free speech… but not hate speech.” The problem? No one could agree on what “hate” actually meant.
What began as a safeguard against genuine incitement to violence slowly morphed into a tool of control. At first, hate speech meant direct threats—speech that could lead to real, immediate harm. But over time, harm was redefined: offense became damage, damage became violence, and suddenly, words became weapons.
The focus shifted from protecting people’s rights to protecting their feelings, making speech a matter of subjective perception rather than objective reality. As a result, once-protected debates became dangerous transgressions, and questioning mainstream narratives became punishable dissent.
What was once meant to guard against oppression is now used to enforce ideological purity—because in the end, no power is ever content to remain a shield when it can be a sword.
Universities, once the guardians of debate, began disinviting speakers who challenged prevailing ideologies.
Social media platforms, once digital town squares, started shadowbanning and algorithmically silencing unpopular opinions.
Entire careers were destroyed overnight for comments made years ago, often taken out of context.
What began as a reasonable attempt to promote civility quickly spiraled into thought control. No longer was speech protected based on its truth or merit, but based on who found it offensive. And as it turns out, someone always finds something offensive.
III. Plato’s Warning: Democracy Always Devours Itself
Plato saw it coming. Over 2,000 years ago, he warned that democracy would not lead to freedom—but to tyranny.
In The Republic, he described how a society obsessed with absolute equality and unrestricted liberty would inevitably turn against itself. In its desire to protect the weak, it would silence the strong. In its quest to ensure fairness, it would crush dissent. And in its effort to prevent harm, it would punish even the suggestion of an opposing view.
The paradox? The freer the society, the more fragile it becomes.
IV. Tocqueville’s Prediction: The Soft Tyranny of the Masses
Plato predicted the fall of democracy, but Alexis de Tocqueville predicted its modern form: not through government control, but through public pressure and social ostracization.
Tocqueville warned that future societies wouldn’t need a dictator to enforce conformity—people would do it themselves. In Switzerland, this prediction was fulfilled long ago, as Friedrich Dürrenmatt described in his speech Die Schweiz – ein Gefängnis. He painted Switzerland as a country that functions like a prison—not with iron bars, but through mutual surveillance, social pressure, and the suffocating expectation of conformity. Order is maintained not through force, but through unspoken rules that dictate what can and cannot be said. In such a system, thought policing is not an act of government—it is a national pastime.
The most dangerous censorship doesn’t come from laws—it comes from public opinion itself.
This is exactly where we are now.
Governments don’t need to arrest dissenters when social media mobs will do it for them.
No need for secret police when HR departments will enforce ideological purity.
No need to burn books when publishers self-censor out of fear.
And so, freedom of speech still technically exists—but everyone knows the cost of using it.
V. Nietzsche’s Insight: The Resentful Take Over
Friedrich Nietzsche had another angle: moral ideas don’t stay pure forever—they get hijacked. What begins as a noble principle is eventually weaponized by those who feel powerless.
Freedom of speech started as a way to protect individuals from the state.
But now, it is used as a tool by the weak to silence the strong.
It’s no longer about open discourse; it’s about control.
Nietzsche’s concept of slave morality explains this shift. Those who feel powerless don’t seek truth—they seek revenge. And what better way to punish one’s enemies than to declare their words dangerous, their thoughts illegal, and their very presence harmful?
Thus, freedom of speech—once a shield against oppression—has become a weapon of oppression.
VI. The Hegelian Pendulum: How It All Ends
Of course, history doesn’t end here. GWF Hegel’s dialectic teaches us that every extreme provokes its opposite.
When speech is suppressed, people find new ways to rebel.
When opinions are banned, they don’t disappear—they go underground.
When ideas are declared too dangerous to discuss, they become even more powerful.
What happens next? A reversal. The cycle repeats. Eventually, the excesses of censorship will lead to a demand for unrestricted speech once again.
But for now, we are living in the absurd middle:
A world where people chant for free speech while simultaneously demanding its restriction. A society where words are considered violence, but actual violence is excused as speech.
The ultimate irony? In the name of protecting speech, we have destroyed it.
VII. Conclusion: The Endless Loop
So, we return to the question: Why do good ideas turn absurd?
Plato, Tocqueville, Nietzsche, and Hegel all saw it coming. Good ideas are fragile. They are stretched, distorted, and exploited until they no longer resemble their original form.
But if history teaches us anything, it's that this isn’t just a problem of politics or ideology—it’s a problem of human nature itself.
Blasie Pascal had it right: Man cannot sit quietly in a room. We are restless, unable to leave things as they are. Even when something works, we push, prod, and twist it—sometimes out of genuine idealism, sometimes out of resentment, but always because we are incapable of leaving well enough alone.
Even when people are given paradise, they will burn it down just to prove they can.
Today’s thought police will one day be replaced by a new group that overthrows them in the name of free speech. And they, too, will go too far. The pendulum swings, the cycle repeats, the absurdity continues.
Because history is not a straight line. It is a spiral—always repeating, always shifting, always turning good into absurdity.
And perhaps, in the end, that is just who we are.