Deep Dive with Shawn

Trump's America: The End of Free Speech and a Free Press (w/ Flemming Rose)

• Sea Tree Media

Share episode

Freedom of expression stands as democracy's most essential and most vulnerable foundation. In this conversation, Danish journalist and author Flemming Rose shares profound insights from his experience at the center of the 2005 Muhammad cartoons controversy that sparked global protests and death threats.

Rose offers a surprising revelation: free speech is fundamentally unnatural. "Free speech is a consequence not of culture, not of nature," he explains. "The natural inclination among human beings is not to accept free speech." This counterintuitive truth helps explain why even those who claim to champion free expression often only support it for views they find agreeable—a contradiction that becomes increasingly problematic in multicultural societies.

We discuss how the publication of twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad wasn't simply an isolated incident but emerged from an ongoing national debate about immigration, integration, and self-censorship. 

Most alarmingly, Rose identifies a global "freedom recession" affecting even established Western democracies. As societies become more diverse and face increasing instability, governments frequently respond by imposing greater restrictions on expression—a trend accelerated by terrorist threats, wars, and the chaotic information landscape of social media. Despite this bleak assessment, however, Rose maintains some hope, noting that throughout history, free speech has served as the primary tool for marginalized groups fighting for equality.

For anyone concerned about the future of democracy, especially under this second Trump presidency, this episode offers essential context for understanding the delicate balance between free expression and social cohesion. As authoritarian impulses gain strength worldwide, including in the United States, Rose reminds us why we must actively cultivate tolerance—that rare capacity to live peacefully alongside ideas we find objectionable without resorting to suppression or violence.

Recommended:

The Tyranny of Silence - Flemming Rose

After America Podcast Series

-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Bluesky
YouTube

Email: deepdivewithshawn@gmail.com

Music:
Majestic Earth - Joystock



Flemming:

You cannot have free speech without tolerance, and tolerance meaning the ability to live with things that you hate without, you know, resorting to violence, intimidation, threats and legal bans. But that's a product of a culture and not of nature. So without practicing free speech on a day-to-day basis, it will fade away, because the natural inclination among human beings is not to accept free speech, and that's why, you know, one of the things I learned from this process is that what most people mean when they say they are in favor of free speech is that they are in favor of free speech for people who more or less think the same as they do themselves.

Shawn:

Welcome to Deep Dive with me, s C Fettig. I'm going to tell you up front that this episode has a lengthy intro and a call to action in the outro. I have been guilty of sometimes skipping the intro and outro podcasts, and I'm sure you maybe have as well. I get it, but I am asking that for this one episode, you listen to both the intro and the outro and obviously the middle. The point is, this entire episode is important.

Shawn:

Last year, I released a limited series called After America, which brought together two dozen academics, journalists, authors and researchers to imagine what democratic backsliding or outright authoritarianism might look like in the United States, how our politics have been primed for exploitation of democracy, how Donald Trump poses a unique and very present threat to democracy, what levers could be pulled to bring about a democratic collapse and how it might race through every aspect of our lives political, economic, social, spiritual, cultural and physical, transforming everything we've ever known and understood about our privacy, liberty, freedom and opportunity, all for the worse. That moment is here. We are no longer in danger of democratic backsliding. We are far down that road. We need to stop prevaricating and parsing our language. We are in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of American democracy and, while you may not feel it yet, you will eventually. While you may even delight in the violence and brutality that is exacted by Trump on his enemies, and even on innocent, hardworking people just trying to survive in a country that fleeces its most vulnerable for the benefit of its most affluent, while some of you may enjoy watching this happen, the downstream impact on all of us, including you, will be devastating, and enduring A failed state means we become the country some of you despise and dismiss. We become the shithole country. Some of you despise and dismiss we become the shithole country.

Shawn:

It is the institutions that Trump is attacking now that make us the world power that we are or were. Higher education is facing an existential moment in this country and, frankly, universities have become, in many ways, elitist institutions in need of a dramatic overhaul. But it is also the strength and independence of these institutions that have made them the envy of. But it is also the strength and independence of these institutions that have made them the envy of the world, where the smartest and most creative people the world over clamor to be. We have cornered the market on cutting-edge thinking and research, and if we close that door, it will be to the benefit of other nations, some of which are already taking advantage of the academic purge and exodus, instituting visa policies and job packages that make it easy for academics and researchers to relocate abroad, taking their expertise with them.

Shawn:

Lawyers and law firms perhaps justifiably are scorned at times as being duplicitous and capitalist, to the detriment of true justice, and that demands reformation. But Trump's sledgehammer is not fixing the problem. It's actually exacerbating it. By forcing the American legal system to bend to his whims, to support only his causes, to prosecute his enemies, he is transforming our flawed system of aspirational justice into his personal engine of persecution. He's creating the corruption and the abuse he pretends to be.

Shawn:

Dispensing of the free press in the United States has not always been clear-eyed or even accurate. They have made mistakes, but they have also been responsible for uncovering abuses of power in the interest of the greater public, the greater good. Without a free press, we would not have known how much the United States government was lying about our involvement in the Vietnam War, the extent of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church, sexual abuse and harassment in Hollywood, how Facebook was selling our data to Cambridge Analytica, the ways in which American military personnel were torturing detainees in Abu Ghraib, in Iraq, the toxic level of contaminants in Flint, michigan's water supply, how Big Pharma created and profited off of the opioid crisis, and much more. Trump's attack on the free press threatens our ability to be informed about things in our lives that literally could mean the difference between life and death. I don't always like the news I'm hearing. I don't like to hear that politicians and artists and civil servants and educators have done bad things, have disappointed me, are sometimes undeserving of my adoration and adulation. But I don't blame the press, I blame the bad actor. If we blame the news, the press for telling us inconvenient truths, then we are complicit in a future in which we don't actually know anything and have to fear everything and everyone. That is the wasteland, the apocalyptic course that Trump has set us on.

Shawn:

A dedicated and independent civil service is the backbone of a functioning economy, society and democracy. Bureaucracy can be frustrating, it can seem unfair and unyielding, and sometimes it is inefficient and impersonal. But to do away with a civil service and, worse, replace it with inexperienced political ideologues means that your Social Security is no longer guaranteed. Medicare and Medicaid become ineffectual as billing procedures and wait times become opaque. Mail delivery becomes intermittent. Passports aren't updated regularly. Schools experience random budget shortfalls, meaning that teachers are hired and fired unexpectedly. Programs disappear without notice. Curriculum is no longer supported by science or history or any best practice, all of this disrupting educational planning and continuity. Travel is routinely interrupted, delayed and canceled. Air train and sea travel become truly life-or-death experiences. Public websites responsible for critical care and infrastructure crash. Voters are unsure if they can vote in any given election and they're turned away.

Shawn:

Day of People are inexplicably and mistakenly arrested and prosecuted, and the justice system is too burdened and understaffed to correct. Neighbors get into property disputes that cannot be mediated effectively, turning neighborhoods into mini war zones. You get the picture, and people will be routinely disappeared those that are in the states undocumented, but also, as Trump has suggested, even legal resident visa holders and citizens. Masked individuals in unmarked vehicles will show up in our schools, our churches, shopping centers, parks and even our homes and just grab people without identifying themselves. People we will never see again, maybe people we know, and mistakes will be made. I know this because it is already happening. This is a model that has been tried in other countries. It never succeeds, it never makes a country great, it never leads to economic prosperity. It never increases happiness and freedom. It always destroys. It only destroys. This is Trump's America.

Shawn:

Today's episode is a bit different than a typical deep dive episode. As I said, I interviewed about 24 people for After America, of which I only used certain parts of those interviews to provide context throughout the series. No individual interview ran in its entirety. A handful of those interviews resonated with me particularly having a prescient and relevant value to the moment we're living through right now in the United States. One of those interviews was with Flemming Rose, a Danish journalist and editor, best known for his role in publishing the controversial Hamed cartoons in Jyllands Posten in 2005, which sparked global protests and a fierce debate over freedom of speech. As the paper's culture editor at the time, fleming defended the publication as a stand against self-censorship and in support of free expression and free speech in liberal democracies. He later became a vocal advocate for press freedom, writing and speaking extensively on the balance between liberty, tolerance and the challenges of multiculturalism, immigration and integration. He also wrote the book the Tyranny of Silence.

Shawn:

As Trump's America is coming into focus, as we are already experiencing a constitutional crisis, a dismantling of democracy, from which we may not be able to come back, I think that my conversation with Fleming is particularly important, so that's what I'm releasing here today.

Shawn:

While our conversation occurred over a year ago, much of what we talk about really foreshadows what is happening in the United States now how government and law can be weaponized to suppress speech, to deny liberty and freedom and to perpetrate violence.

Shawn:

The first part of our conversation really focuses on the Muhammad cartoons of 2005, the response, the fallout, the death threats, the actual attempts on his life, and while I think this is really interesting, I understand that you have limited time, so if you'd like to jump over that part and really get into the free speech, free press, democracy, multiculturalism part of the conversation, you could choose to jump ahead about 23 minutes from this point in the episode.

Shawn:

Also, you should go back and check out all 12 episodes of After America. There's a link in the show notes. All right, if you like this episode or any episode, please give it a like, share and follow on your favorite podcast platform and or subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. And, as always, if you have any thoughts, questions or comments, please feel free to email me at deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom. Let's do a deep dive. I'm actually thinking we should start with some landscaping, which in this context is the Muhammad cartoons controversy. So would you be willing to give kind of an overview of that, what happened, how it played out, and also you've criticized some of your journalism colleagues for their response to it, so maybe talk a little bit about why.

Flemming:

Yeah, I mean, if we begin with the publication of the cartoons and the controversy that followed, I think it's all very context dependent and you know a lot of people afterwards said, well, you should have known or you could tell that this would be the reaction that followed. But I don't think that's the case and you can just go back and you can see that publications or cartoons of the Prophet you know they have been published earlier without causing these kinds of controversies. I'm not trying to say that Muslims were excited and enthusiastic about the publication of those cartoons, but I don't think that you just liked, you know, triggering a gun process. That involved and depended on what was going on primarily within Muslim majority countries in the Middle East and in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and I think also maybe the broader geopolitical context at the moment. This was in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Western forces were based in Afghanistan and I think that is the broader context.

Flemming:

And when I wrote the book I went back and talked to people and found out that, for example, if you take Egypt, egypt let the Muslim Brotherhood participate in a parliamentary election for the first time in many years, if not ever. And the Muslim Brotherhood you know, they present themselves as the true caretakers of Islam and that was, you know, one of their points of difference with the Mubarak government. And therefore, this case was, you know, a gift from heaven for Mubarak and he could exploit it in order to tell the Egyptian people no, it's not the Muslim Brotherhood, it's, in fact, us. So there was a very specific context. But if we take the cartoons, I mean a lot of people think that they were just kind of published out of the blue, that they were just kind of published out of the blue, you know why. Let's find some way that we can offend a billion Muslims. But that's not the case. I mean, it was part of a debate about immigration, integration, the place of religion in a secular democracy and, in this case, specifically Islam, the relationship between a majority and minorities in a multicultural democracy and all these issues. Somehow, I think they were all part of the debate about these cartoons.

Flemming:

But the specific trigger was a children's book that was published in the fall of 2005 by a Danish children's writer about the life of the prophet Muhammad, and in the late summer, the Danish wire news service published a story about his book, a news story that basically said you know I've written this book, but I had big difficulties finding an illustrator and that story was on the front page of most Danish newspapers. Also the paper I worked at at the time, jyllands Post, but not only, and most papers published the illustrations that he in fact finally got into this book and it triggered a big debate about self-censorship and how to treat Islam within the public domain in Denmark. So the publication of the cartoons that was not the initial coverage of this topic, but when we had published this story about this children's writer and we had called illustrators, translators, people from cultural life, people from political parties, and they had responded to this, and the following week there was a debate at an editorial meeting about, you know, are there any way that we can follow up on this story? And then a journalist came up with this idea, because at that time there was a debate, you know, is there self-censorship or not? Is it true what this children's writer in fact is saying? Both his specific case, and was this part of a broader trend or not, or not? And then journalists suggested well, why don't we invite cartoonists to draw the profit so we can find out if there is self-censorship or not, which is, you know a classical journalistic principle Don't tell, show it. I mean you can have this debate back and forth, but he proposed this idea so we in fact could test it on people who work with images and do images as their daily job, how they relate to this challenge.

Flemming:

And in the aftermath, a lot of people criticized me for approaching cartoonists and not illustrators or painters. And I mean I can see in hindsight why, because cartoonists they do often satirical cartoons, because cartoonists, they do often satirical cartoons. But I mean I didn't pay any attention, it didn't catch my mind back then. And the fact of the matter is that when you work at a newspaper, you have a deadline and from the moment when you have an idea until you have to publish something, it's quite a short time, quite often a short time. And it just happened so that two weeks before I had been in touch with the chairman of the Danish Cartoonist Association and that's why I reached out to him and I told him you know, we have this idea, what do you think? And he got back to me and said well, it's an interesting idea and we would like to participate, but we don't want to be part of an anti-Muslim project. And I said to him. You know that we have no intention to target Muslims here. It's not about that. It's about self-censorship and the debate that have evolved around that issue. And I wrote I got the addresses of all members of the Danish Cartoonist Association from him and I wrote a letter in which I invited them to participate. And my question to them was draw the prophet as you see him? So there was no invitation to mockery or satire, so it was a very neutral and open invitation.

Flemming:

And if you look at the newspaper page, it becomes obvious that those cartoons are very different, because it was an open invitation and they have tackled this challenge in very different ways. And you know there are cartoons making fun of this children's writer. There is one cartoon targeting the newspaper where I worked. There's another cartoon that is targeting at that time the most anti-Muslim politician in Denmark. And at the end of the day, out of those 12 cartoons, only four of them in fact depicts the prophet. So eight of them, two thirds they don't even depict the prophet. And I received those 12 cartoons and there were 42 members of the Cartoonist Association were 42 members of the Cartoonist Association. So we thought at some point that this is not very representative. It's only one third of the members of the association. So can we publish that? And then one of the cartoonists said to me well, in fact there's only 25 members who are active, so that made it about 50% and we thought that was okay.

Flemming:

But then another process started within the paper and that had to do with the original story, because there was a debate was this just one isolated case or was it part of a broader trend? Point one. Point two was this children's writer just inventing this story in order to sell more books of the book went public, saying that he had insisted on anonymity, which is a form of self-censorship you do not want to appear under your own name because you are afraid what might happen to you if you do. And he admitted that he was afraid and he had spoken to his wife. And he made a reference to Salman Rushdie and the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was killed in Amsterdam in 2004 for doing a documentary or a movie criticizing violence against women being justified with references to the Quran or the Hadiths. And while we were having this debate, I mean four or five other examples pointing to the same problem became public. Pointing to the same problem became public.

Flemming:

I think there was a museum in Gothenburg, Sweden, where they had exhibited a painting by an Algerian-French woman of a man and a woman having sex, and then with the first words from the Quran on the painting. And Muslims in Sweden they complained and the curator removed the painting without asking the artist. Not the curator, but the director of the museum removed the painting without asking the artist and the curator, and that was a clear example of self-censorship. And you had a similar case in a Tate Gallery in London where a conceptual British artist I think his name is John Latham he had a retrospective exhibition and one of the installations was a copy of the Bible, the Koran and the Talmud, torn into pieces and layered in a piece of glass. The director of the museum decided to remove that installation, also without asking John Leifheim and the curator, and also without asking Jews, muslims or Christians involved or the police if there was any threat connected to exhibiting that piece of art. This is in the aftermath of the 7-7 bombings in London in 2005.

Flemming:

And you know there were five or six similar cases speaking to self-censorship, cases speaking to self-censorship and fear when it comes to the treatment of Islam in the public domain. So then we decided to publish the cartoons on September 30th and I wrote a short text, you know, laying out the reasoning behind this and referencing some of the cases, these five, six cases, and that was it. And you know, I think on the first day, the day they were published, I received a phone call from a newspaper vendor in Copenhagen who said that he didn't want to sell the newspaper anymore in his store. But that was everything I heard, and you know that's quite usual for a newspaper editor when you publish things that some people don't like and then they unsubscribe or they don't want to sell the newspaper, and so on and so forth. But then the debate started and it all exploded, I think about four months later, as a consequence also of imams traveling to the Middle East trying to gain support from important imams and governments in Muslim-majority countries, important imams and governments in Muslim majority countries.

Flemming:

So that's just a little bit about the context in which they were published. To me it was never about mocking Muslims, even though I acknowledge that a lot of Muslims perceived it that way, and I know people will see this as a joke or not very serious. But I think you can make the argument that the publication of those cartoons could be seen as an integration project in the sense that by publishing those cartoons, we were saying to Muslims in Denmark that you know, we do not expect more of you and we do not expect less of you. We expect of you exactly the same as we do of every other group in our society when it comes to satire and public debate. In our society, when it comes to satire and public debate and in that lies an act of recognition that you are equal members of our society you are not strangers that have to be treated in an especially polite way. You are part of our common society. Did?

Shawn:

you ever get any feedback from the government about it?

Flemming:

No, and I think that speaks to the. I suppose that I mean, I don't know if you remember that case in the United States, but there was a priest in Florida, terry Jones. But after 9-11, he annually organized burnings of the Quran as a way of expressing his relationship to Islam and 9-11. And in fact, bob Gates and Petraeus, who was the commander, I think, of the US forces in Afghanistan at the time. They called him and asked him to call off the Koran burning, which he finally did. But the fact of the matter is that this is legal it's First Amendment, protected speech but it didn't happen in Denmark.

Flemming:

The government didn't call the editor-in-chief or me to ask us not to publish one thing or the other.

Flemming:

Some businesses did that and that's quite understandable. I would have found it quite natural if the government had called the editor-in-chief, but in fact they didn't, because, you know, it turned out to be the worst foreign policy crisis for Denmark since World War II and there was a huge pressure on the government and a real terrorist threat. I mean, we didn't understand that in the beginning, but gradually, as months and years went by, it became very clear that there was a very serious terrorist threat and in fact some terrorist attacks did take place. So I mean the businesses. One of the businesses who called they were losing money in the Middle East because Danish products had been boycotted and the Association of Danish Businesses called on the newspaper to give a public apology to Muslims. And he didn't know that at that time we in fact already had published on our website in Arabic a message saying you know that we feel sorry if people had been offended by the publication of those cartoons and that had not been our intention.

Shawn:

I want to talk a little bit more about self-censorship, because I'm thinking about when Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2020. I have a handful of Russian 2022. Yeah, correct, correct. I have a handful of Russian friends in my orbit, and so we were having a conversation about this and arguing a little bit, and one of them pulled up a cartoon of Russia was represented as a big bear and Ukraine was represented as a bear cub, and then the United States was behind the bear cub poking the russian bear, and they were saying this is all about the united states poking the bear and that by doing that now they've caused all of this.

Shawn:

Right, and I think it's the same concept as that. It's in the same realm as self-censorship is, which is maybe we shouldn't do this because we don't want to cause a problem. We do this in our personal, which is maybe we shouldn't do this because we don't want to cause a problem. We do this in our personal lives too, like, maybe I shouldn't say that because I don't want to offend someone, but in the context of journalism, I guess I'm wondering if you think that any amount of self-censorship at any point is okay or not, and at what point does self-censorship become dangerous in the world in the context of journalism. When does it become dangerous and why?

Flemming:

I mean I don't think that you can give a final and general answer.

Flemming:

I think it always depends on context, so I don't think you can provide any general guidelines. And it is true, I mean you have etiquette, you have good manners, and then you have self-censorship, and I think I mean I'm all for good manners and good behavior and try to be nice to other people, but I think the I mean one way of explaining the difference between good manners and self-censorship is that you know, good manners is basically following a norm that you impose on yourself, on yourself. When you go to a restaurant, you don't eat with your hands, at least in Denmark, with your fingers, while I think self-censorship is that you want to say something but you refrain from doing it because you are afraid of the consequences, and then, of course, there are all shades of gray here in between. But I think the fundamental problem with self-censorship is that it is invisible. You don't see it. You know, in this debate in Denmark about the cartoons, because at some point all media stopped publishing you know this famous cartoon of the prophet with a bomb in his turban, and that was clearly self-censorship, and I think that's, I mean that's okay. In fact, I just think that I'm not calling on people to publish something. If they don't, if they are afraid of what might happen, I think that's totally fair game and I will not criticize it. What I will criticize is if they come up with other explanations. So they are not transparent about their self-censorship. So if they say, you know, we're not publishing this cartoon because we are afraid, I think that's perfectly fine and then we can have an honest debate. Because, you know, I myself I don't think that a single cartoon is worth, or any cartoon is worth, a single human life.

Flemming:

The problem for editors and journalists is you know, what do we do if other people think so, that it's okay to kill and threaten because of a cartoon? Media stopped publishing that cartoon in Denmark. You know, there were two explanations running through the whole thing, and one was that, well, we now know what this cartoon looks like, so we don't have to publish it anymore. To which I replied well, we also know what Barack Obama looks like, but nevertheless we publish a photograph of him every time we run a story about him. So I don't think that's the real reason why you don't publish it.

Flemming:

And the other explanation was well, you know, we know this is offensive to a lot of people, so we don't we shouldn't publish it and that sounds nice, but the problem is and the fact of the matter is, that you know, newspapers and media every day publish things that some people out there are offended by and nevertheless they publish it.

Flemming:

I can just give you one example In the summer of 2011, a Norwegian terrorist he killed, I think, 77 young Norwegians on an island not far from Oslo, on an island not far from Oslo, and the year after there was wall-to-wall coverage of this in Danish media about this guy and what happened, and I can assure you that the relatives of those who had been killed, they were offended by a lot of that coverage, but nevertheless the media ran with that story because it was relevant and it was news. So I think both of those explanations they are a cover-off, because it's not courageous to say you are afraid. It's not courageous to say you are afraid. So you try to come up with nice and rational explanations that sounds good and make yourself look better. And, of course, at the end of the day, you can't be sure, because self-censorship is invisible and you only find out about self-censorship when people are transparent about their motives and why they do not publish something.

Shawn:

I guess that kind of makes me wonder you've been in the journalism industry, so you have an insider knowledge that I don't have, but do you get the sense that journalists are self-censoring way more than they make public? I don't need specific examples, I'm just wondering if it's a problem in the industry.

Flemming:

You know, I think it's a problem anywhere where you have a group of people who establish a narrative about what is newsworthy and about what is not.

Flemming:

I think then the issue becomes if you have enough different media covering a broad spectrum of opinions in society at large. So if you don't like you know the way the New York Times cover a story, then you can read the New York Post or the Wall Street Journal. If you don't like CNN or MSNBC, you can watch Fox News. I mean I think you know I mean in every society and within every group norms. I mean they are not, you know they are unspoken. I mean they are not, you know they are unspoken. But it's just like the atmosphere that and it just comes about in the process of doing journalism that you, there are certain stories that you think this is a great story for the New York Times or other stories that you think, well, this is a great story for Fox News. I mean that's the way you know social psychology works and I don't think that newsrooms or media, they are any different. It would be the same in a soccer club or in a church community or whatever.

Shawn:

So let's talk about why speech is critical to a democracy, and I guess the approach I want to take here is that in any authoritarian regime or in any country that's experiencing democratic backsliding, one of the first things, that one of the first tools that they employ is suppression of speech and press and association, which begs the question what is the threat that speech and press and association pose to authoritarianism? And then I guess the other side of that coin is what role does free speech play in a healthy democracy?

Flemming:

I think free speech is perceived as a threat both to the powers that be in an autocracy but also to the powers that be in a democracy. The difference is that we treat it differently, or at least try to, and that has to do. I mean, one of the things I learned from this whole cartoon affair is that, you know, freedom of expression is very unnatural. It's the exception and not the rule, because free speech in many ways goes against human nature. So free speech is a consequence not of nature, but of culture. It's something that we have to teach and learn, and the natural reaction when you're exposed to speech that you don't like is to switch off the television or throw away the newspaper or leave a meeting. You really have to learn to overcome this sense of rejection and protest when you're forced to listen and read opinions or speech that you don't like.

Flemming:

And that's why I think that the concept of tolerance is very important to free speech. You cannot have free speech without tolerance, and tolerance meaning the ability to live with things that you hate without, you know, um, resorting to violence, intimidation, threats and legal bans. But that's not that's. That's, that's a product of culture and not of uh, nature. So it's. It's so without practicing free speech on a day-to-day basis. It will fade away, because the natural inclination among human beings is not to accept free speech, and that's why, you know, one of the things I learned from this process is that what most people mean when they say they are in favor of free speech is that they were very supportive of Jyllands Post and me when it comes to the publication of the cartoons during the debate of the right to bear a burqa or veil or if Muslims should have a right to build mosques and things like that.

Shawn:

I mean, if they were really in favor of free speech in a consistent manner, they would have supported both the Muslims' right to exercise their freedom of religion and freedom of speech and the newspapers' right to publish satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but they didn't you're hitting on something else, that a friction that exists that I want to talk a little bit about, which is, you know, on the one hand, we argue that, like free speech is critical to a functioning and healthy democracy, and, on the other hand, we argue that absolute free speech can also be damaging to a democracy, and I guess I feel like, yes, both of these things are true, but I wonder if you've given any thought to this and where you land on this or how you think about the balance.

Flemming:

If you look up the literature on free speech, then there are three main arguments throughout the literature in favor of free speech, and one is the argument from truth. That is, free speech is important to figure out what is truth and what is not, and therefore it's important that a democracy, that you debate things and you pass new laws after a public debate, where you have different points of views and you have this competition or contest and political parties represent different points of view and in the end, you arrive at some laws and they are legitimate because you had a free debate before you passed them. You have the argument from autonomy, that is, in order to develop yourself as a human being, in order to be the person you are, in order to be able to to to interact with other people, free speech is important. It's important that you, you, you, you speak your mind and you get feedback and in that process you get a sense of who you are and you get an opportunity to develop as an individual. And I think all of these three arguments, they have some truth to them.

Flemming:

But I think today that a fourth argument is maybe more important and that is that you know, in the United States, in Denmark. In most societies in the world, we have a more diverse society, you know, it's becoming more multicultural, more multi-ethnic, more multi-religious, and I think free speech is, in fact, and tolerance, of course this is. They are closely related. But free speech is, in fact, the best way to manage differences and disagreements in a diverse society, because free speech and tolerance implies that you know you can be offended, you can sort out your differences, you can argue, but you do not use violence and threats in order to settle your disagreements. And in that process, I think free speech and tolerance, in fact, are the tools that make it possible to live in peace side by side, in spite of all differences, and still be committed to a working democracy.

Shawn:

I'm glad you talk about multiculturalism, because it is a lot of democracies, at least, are becoming much more multicultural, and I do think I don't think this is controversial to say. I think that multiculturalism can pose challenges to democracies in ways that they don't in one authoritarian regimes, but also in unicultural societies, and by that I mean both racial and ethnic, but also religious. When you have one very large racial makeup in a country or a very large religious representation in a country, there's just less conflict. You mentioned this as well. It really behooves these countries, then democratic countries, as we increase our multiculturalism, to also be focusing on integration into our. I don't know if European countries France and Netherlands and Italy as well and the United States are doing a good job of integrating folks.

Flemming:

Well, at least until recently, I thought that the US was doing a better job than Europe. But that might be because the United States is just receiving so many more people now and you can see that the border and immigration has been, you know, a big political issue for some years. It wasn't a big issue when I was living in the US in the middle of the 90s, but it is now. You know. I think that no, in Europe we are not good at integrating foreigners. I think it has to do well. There are several factors. One has been that we have big welfare states and it's very difficult to run a big welfare state in a multicultural society and especially with a lot of immigration, because when you know at one point have you made such a big contribution to society that you deserve the same kind of benefits as those who have been living in the country for decades, and their families might have been for centuries. So that is a difficulty. And it also has tended to create a situation where immigrants have moved to Europe and ended up on welfare and had very big difficulties finding jobs because the minimum wage is so high that their labor productivity doesn't fit the wage. So they end up in the margins of society, and it's very clear that one of the most effective mechanisms of integration is to be on the labor market and have a job. But I think, at least in Denmark, it has also to do with the fact that we have been a quite homogeneous society for a long time, with high levels of social trust. So it's just we just have to get you know, accustomed to a new situation where people are more different, and it's also difficult. I mean I'm married to an immigrant myself. Difficult, I mean I'm married to an immigrant myself and so I know a little and I also used to work, in fact, at the Danish Refugee Council. So I know this also from the other side.

Flemming:

And it's very clear that for an immigrant and a newcomer to Denmark it is very difficult to get a sense of belonging to society because the cultural code is very thick. Very difficult to get a sense of belonging to society because the cultural code is very thick. You know it's not just about subscribing to some values, but it's also about you know the way you dress, the jokes you tell, what you eat and many more things, the way you communicate. So it's very easy to identify an outsider and it might be in the United States, for instance. I think what you need in order to feel part of your society is you know, it's just a few things. It's not a thick cultural code, it's the American dream. And you know, maybe, what's in the Bill of Rights or parts of the Constitution and so on and so forth. It's not so much about ways of life, faith and so on and so forth. It's not so much about ways of life, faith and so on and so forth.

Shawn:

Before we started recording, we were chatting a little bit about, you know, the events of the cartoon controversy, so that was in 2005. And you said that the landscape has changed quite a bit since then as it relates to censorship and speech, and I think you were also alluding to how we communicate with each other. But I'm wondering if you could tell me what do you think has changed?

Flemming:

You know, in 2005, facebook was less than one years old, there were no social media. And I can only you know in my nightmare, imagine what would have happened if you have had Twitter and Facebook and Instagram back then. But you didn't. Yes, you had emails, you had the internet, but you did not have the amount of interaction in the virtual space as you have today. But I think, I think the key thing is that, I mean, I think it was all, it was already beginning back then.

Flemming:

But what is very different today is that for the past 10, 15 years, if you look at all international surveys, we are experiencing a freedom recession. And in the beginning, you know, people thought well, this is mainly happening in places like China and Russia, turkey, other parts of the world. But it turns out that within the past 10 years, this has also been the case in Western democracies and if you look at those rankings and ratings, even Western liberal democracies find themselves in a freedom recession. I think it might have to do with, you know, partly with social media, because this is an explosion of information and it's very difficult to manage, but I also think it has to do with the fact that we have more migration and societies are becoming more diverse and you know, while I'm in favor of free speech, and I think that if you are in favor of a more diverse society when it comes to culture, ethnicity and religion, it's natural to also be in favor of more diverse speech, because it reflects a more diverse society, If people are to speak their minds and say what they think and feel and do not feel restrained by this new reality.

Flemming:

But the fact of the matter is that most politicians, they want to solve this problem by passing new laws putting new limitations on speech in order to preserve the social peace. I think this is, I think it's understandable, but I think it's short-sighted and I think it's not wise to sacrifice civil liberties and freedom of expression on the altar of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. So I think and then the final thing that has been that has accelerated this process since 2022 and the war in Ukraine, also now the war in Gaza you have turbulence in other parts of the world that you have, in fact, a world that feels very insecure. We speak about the risk of war and even nuclear war, in a way that we didn't do 10, 15, 20 years ago, and in a world where people feel insecure and unsafe. It's a common rule that then you put new limitations on individual freedoms. It happens during war times, even though we are not at war with Russia. We have banned Russian media in Western Europe, within the European Union, and you spoke about the Russians.

Flemming:

You are, that is, you know, they're part of your orbit and until recently now it's a little bit, you know it has changed a bit, I think, within the past months, because it looks like the situation is very difficult for Ukraine on the battlefield. So people are starting to looking for a way out of this mess. But for the first year and a half you criticized Western policy and argued for a need to find some kind of settlement to this conflict. So there was a big, big echo chamber in the West and it turns out that we miscalculated a lot of things, especially the state of the Russian economy, and later on also the state of the Russian economy, and later on also the state of the Russian army and their ability to produce weapons, and I think that is that is it's wishful thinking, it's magical thinking. But it's also due to the fact that we couldn't have a free and honest debate about this without this very strong moral component that made it very difficult to challenge the established narrative without being called names.

Shawn:

I'm also married to an immigrant, and that immigrant is Russian, with family in both Russia and Ukraine, so that conflict is very much part of our life.

Flemming:

Yeah, my wife is in fact also from the former Soviet Union.

Shawn:

Oh really.

Flemming:

Russian yeah.

Shawn:

Okay, well, we have that in common. But so we do have some of these countries that we've talked about that have experienced significant backsliding Russia, obviously. There's also countries like India, and then we have other countries that are on the precipice of that, and I'm talking about democratic countries. So I'm thinking about even some of the policies under Macron in France are somewhat repressive.

Flemming:

I think basically it's the same everywhere, that in all democratic countries there's been a backsliding when it comes to the protection of free speech, terrorist attacks in Western Europe and now the war in Ukraine and social media. The way to manage this very chaotic platform world, the trend is more bands, more limitations. So I think it's not just Russia, china, india, it's more common than that, even though, of course, the situation there is far worse. But they also have a war going on. And even though the US didn't pass any new laws after 9-11 or the war in Iraq, the New York Times and the Washington Post they had to apologize later for their very uncritical reporting of what was going on.

Shawn:

Well, that actually gets at my question and maybe you've answered it which is do you see any countries that are on the opposite track and actually moving in the direction of enshrining and protecting rights to free speech?

Flemming:

For instance, across Europe laws were passed criminalizing the condoning of terrorist acts or support of terrorist acts. That is, it was not incitement to terrorism in and by itself. Of course that's prohibited. That's prohibited. But even if you said anything positive about a terrorist act being committed, which of course is outrageous but it used to be protected by free speech. And every European country passed these laws, without Norway as an exception. And in Norway they also used to apply hate speech laws in a far more, in a far narrower sense than in Denmark and Sweden, for instance, not to speak about Germany and France. Speak about Germany and France. So I think Norway might. I don't know what happened recently, but at least until some years ago I think they were not doing all the things limiting speech that other democracies in Europe were doing at the time.

Shawn:

This kind of paints a bleak future for, or at least in the near future. It paints a bleak picture for freedom of speech globally. This is probably my final question, but, given that and what we know, how do you feel about the future of free speech moving forward? Do you have hope or do you think we maybe are too far gone?

Flemming:

No, I do have hope. And it's not. You know, it's based on historical evidence and the history of free speech, because history, in this sense, is not linear, it comes and goes, it moves in waves. And I would say I would put it this way that because people you know ask me sometimes well, do you think free speech is on the threat? Do you think free speech is threatened? And my reply is, I mean, free speech is always threatened, by definition, because of what I said earlier, that it's not a product of nature, it's culture. So free speech is doing well, as long as we keep cultivating and nurturing this culture of free speech, and the war for free speech will never be won in a final way. You can win and lose battles along the way, but you can never win the war because there is so much in human nature that in fact goes against free speech. So it doesn't come and go by itself. And that's the reason why I think at some point I mean, the world is living through a very turbulent time right now but I think, you know, within 10 years or so, I think we will see the contours of a new world order which will provide some kind of stability, and this is, in fact, the precondition for people not being afraid, and that will provide the context for, you know, it will be easier to stand up for these values and protect them. And I also think that, as we go along, we will become better at managing social media.

Flemming:

You know, I used to work at Cato on content moderation. We had a project there and that's Facebook and Twitter. You know what speech should you take down and what should you leave up, and it's very, very chaotic and there is so much speech that basically, you can. In the current world, it's very difficult to do it without artificial intelligence, but this is due to the fact that the um, the, the platform world is dominated by some very few big players, and I don't think that was the way it was meant in the beginning. And we might, you know, move in a direction where we will have a more fractured public space, where you will have communities that are smaller and that will create more diversity across platforms, instead of having, you know, one, two, three, four, five big platforms I don't know. But I mean, a lot of people is struggling with these issues and we are very early in this process, so I just don't think that we have not been able to work out. You know a way of managing this information chaos in a way that is protective of of of free speech, and we have excesses, you know, going both ways, but at some point I think this also will settle down and and then it might be easier to have a more usual conversation about.

Flemming:

You know the legitimate limitations on on on speech and speech and what is problematic. Do you think content should be moderated? Yes, and I'm not, you know I mean you had that question in the notes, jean about I'm, in fact, not a free speech absolutist in the sense that I don't think that there should be any limitations on speech. I do think that there are legitimate limitations on speech, for instance, threats, incitement to violence, fraud.

Flemming:

When you give testimony in a court case, you're not allowed to lie. That's perjury. And I also think libel laws to some extent are okay in order to protect your reputation, your reputation. People should not be allowed to say anything about you and your business without potential legal consequences, even though I think they should be very narrow these laws. And I also think that ordinary people they have a right to privacy, so media should not have an unfettered right to invade people's private lives and publish information about it Only if they are public figures and if what is happening in their private lives is relevant to what they are doing in the public to what they are doing in the public.

Shawn:

That's interesting and it makes me wonder. I think about people that exploit and traffic in this very kind of speech, right? So I'm thinking about Donald Trump, I'm thinking about your neighbor, geert Wilders. So you know, given that that this is exactly the kind of speech that they exploit, do you think that they truly pose threats to democracy?

Flemming:

Not in and by themselves. I mean, they have supporters are unimportant, of course they are. But they only become presidents or prime ministers or chairmen of a big party if they have followers. And I think it's very tempting. I mean, geert Wilders has in fact been convicted in the Netherlands for speed. But I think one should be very careful what they wish for, because if Geert Wilders gets into power and becomes prime minister and will have a majority in parliament, he will use the hate speech laws that have been used against him, against the Muslim minority in the Netherlands. He will say that the Koran and mosques and Muslim communities, they are exercising hate speech and therefore we have to ban them. So you know, it's this saying one man's hate speech is another man's poetry. So I think I'm not in favor of these hate speech laws.

Flemming:

I think we should get rid of them and I also think, if you look at history and this is also, I mean, this power, narrative, ability to have a voice in the public domain that's very unequal, that's true.

Flemming:

But if you look at, you know, social movements throughout history who have been repressed and who have not had a voice.

Flemming:

Their main tool would be, you know, the movement for women's rights, the civil rights movement, representatives of religious minorities fighting for their right to freedom of religion and equality, gay rights. If you ask Jonathan Rauch, my good friend, gay rights, if you ask Jonathan Rauch, my good friend, who was part of the movement fighting for gay rights, he will say you know, without free speech we would not have had a chance. So, yes, it is true that there is, you know, unequal access to platforms, but free speech has been the main weapon of oppressed people throughout history, even though it might not look that way today. But if you look at history, that's a fact and that's why I think even though it can be frustrating when you listen to powerful people and what they are allowed to say to try to pass new laws so you can shut them down, but I think the unintended consequences of that would be that the people in power will use those laws against the people who don't have a voice today or who are on the margins of society.

Shawn:

I'm going to say it again this is Trump's America. We are at a pivotal moment in American history. The fate of democracy is in our hands right now. We cannot afford to rely on the press, on Congress, on the Republicans or the Democrats, on the judicial system, on our neighbors. People rarely get to choose the moment that they have to stand up for their values, for their freedoms.

Shawn:

Jews in Nazi Germany would have preferred if they could have just not lived through that period of time. I'm sure the average Palestinian in Gaza today would probably choose to that period of time. I'm sure the average Palestinian in Gaza today would probably choose to live in another time, another place. Uyghurs in China, the same Many Ukrainians would probably prefer to have lived through an era of peace and stability rather than one of indiscriminate murder, bombing, rape and kidnapping.

Shawn:

We in America have become complacent in our convenience and relative stability. But that time has passed. I wish I could spend the rest of my life knowing that my retirement will be flush, that my passport will allow me to go anywhere at any time, that I can express my opinion freely and that the economy will only get better. But that time has passed. Grieve it, but you cannot avoid it and we need you to pull it together. Stand up, bear witness and resist what is happening, even though it will hurt People, will die. People have already died because of this systematic attempt to disappear American democracy. But hiding, cowering, relenting will only hasten the demise, the apocalypse. So find your backbone, because the moment has arrived and we need you All right. Check back next week for another episode of Deep Dive Chat, soon, folks. Thank you, thank you, you.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Shawn C. Fettig

Host