Freedom of expression is integral to creativity. Any artist worth his salt knows this and the ones who don’t haven’t thought about it hard enough. I’ve never been any good at organizing my messy thoughts, but here we go anyway.
You have the freedom to think, correct? If you lay on your bed and think silently any thought that enters your mind and no one can stop you. It is the bedrock of your being. The most personal you can get, and no one should tell you what you can and can’t think. To claim your thoughts is to claim your very soul.
You have the freedom to share your thoughts with others. You may get different reactions from different people from the same thoughts, but that comes with sharing information. This most often takes the form of speech or text like right now. It’s the foundation of human interaction. It sounds too obvious to mention, but sometimes people overlook obvious truths because they’re just always been there. It’s worth stating. Just as you’re free to share thoughts, so are other people. It’s a usually unspoken agreement that everyone around you will be sharing their thoughts and the thoughts on those thoughts, and so on. What’s important is the freedom to do so without repercussions. I’ll cover that briefly at the end.
Finally this leads us to art. The freedom to express your thoughts visually. For some reason this is usually seen as more intimate than even the most vivid text description of your thoughts. Perhaps because they hit the quickest, but I digress. Limiting people’s abilities to express their thoughts through art is just as detrimental as limiting their ability to speak or think at all. While it’s important to have your own thoughts, what are they worth if you can’t share them with anyone else? There’s an old thought experiment that asks people if they’d accept a trillion dollars if it meant they were forced to live in isolation for the rest of their life; never interacting with another person directly or indirectly in any way, ever again. It helps people realize their own value for human interaction. It’s why the “freedom in your own room” argument falls flat. You aren’t truly free if you’re only free in a void. You have to be free among other people or it counts for nothing. Allowing both yourself freedom to think and others freedom to think is the peak of human interaction and information sharing.
Now previously I stressed the importance of allowing people to share their thoughts without repercussions. I have multiple reasons for this. The most important reason is simple decency and empathy. You expect to have your own thoughts and opinions heard, respected and maybe even considered, so why would you not extend that expectation to others?
Another important reason that’s often ignored or overlooked is the fact that just because people aren’t saying their thoughts outloud doesn’t mean they stop thinking them. When people share their thoughts, it’s a sense of relief. They feel validated. Even if many people disagree with them they still feel like they’re being heard. You may even be able to change minds one way or the other. If someone is denied that ability, the thoughts fester instead. What could be minor problems mutate into bigger ones. Resentment grows stronger. Eventually, and pretty much inevitably, it comes to a head. They explode and go on a violent rampage because if you can’t share thoughts peacefully, the only alternative is through force.
Last reason I’ll give here to keep it “short” is that people often think they’re outnumbered or no one else believes what they believe if no one else is speaking up. This causes a variety of problems on its own, such as warping the truth. Nazis are a popular topic right now, so let’s use them as a quick example. Say you and your 5 neighbors all verbally support the Nazi party because you’ll be shot if you don’t, and any one of your 5 neighbors can report you. Now imagine all of you actually dislike the Nazis and what they’re doing. How will any of you know without sharing that information? You won’t. You’ll all continue acting like you all support the Nazis despite despising them all while hating yourself for it, and that’s no different from actually supporting them.
I’ll end it there. No one is obligated to support or like other people’s thoughts and expressions, but if they expect to share their own then they should be offering the same favor to others. Despite the downvotes of BLM images, I didn’t see people suggesting the artists shouldn’t be allowed to make those images. People who support free expression aren’t doing so because they’re secretly evil. They simply value the freedom to, well, be free. Those that value freedom think everyone else should be just as free as they are.
