Freedom of Speech

You Never Know Where Your Impact Will Occur

Garth Beyer

“I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.” – George Carlin

Carlin is a perfect example of one who self-evaluates and redirects purpose. In his story, which I’ve chosen not to write better, Joe Sergi shares how Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words became the cornerstone case for regulating indecent speech.

It all began when a radio station aired his Seven Dirty Words comedy bit and one man called the FCC to complain because the man’s son heard the vulgar language.

Carlin went from nice suit and tie, safe (and by safe, I mean most of the time awful) jokes to a frustrated, yet intelligent spit-show of an average Joe who found stories about crossing lines to be well-liked by the audience. Through his personal transition, he sparked discussions about the First Amendment – something he didn’t need to mention in his standup sessions, but were a result of them.

I mention Carlin because he didn’t follow a path, he made one. He set out to have people realize their own stupidity and in doing so, in constantly redirecting his comedy, his passion, his words, he changed everything about the FCC, the First Amendment, and most importantly, who people can look up to. If we could ask Carlin if he knew where he would make an impact, he would say the where didn’t matter to him, all that mattered was he would make an impact.

At heart, Carlin was a true critic. A heroic one.

 

Stay Positive & We Need More Good Critics

 

 

Constitutive Choices

Garth Beyer

With the founding of the Republic, sets of conditions for its future had to be developed. Paul Starr refers to these conditions as “constitutive choices.”

The first of which that was made is what we have simply come to know as the First Amendment, or freedom of speech. However, the constitutive choice Starr mentions is much larger than that as it directly affects the development of newspapers and by extension the postal service. The old ideas of who should and could know what have been thrown out. Now a sovereign land, people needed to know how their state was running, what was occurring in far off areas, and they needed to have a solid way to communicate with each other – quickly.

Starr refers to this transition as “America’s First Information Revolution.” With the support of the Government for the first 40 years, the postal service helped build a knowledge economy. Since postage was cheap, newspapers were cheap, and most other factors of the press were cheap, information was able to be delivered all throughout the states. The expansion of the Post Office closed the information gap between communities and outsiders (country folk). As a result, the public and political lives of the people were able to closely interact with each other. In other words, the mass had access to information and used it.

In addition, the advance in the postal system and the expansion of newspapers helped create a modern census and played a large role in the rise of common schools. With the rise of common schools, literacy would rise and the cycle would be pushed even more. The constitutive choice to build an open source foundation for the Republic lead directly to its next constitutive choice: the creation and establishment of networks.

The invention of the telegraph gave rise to modern technological networks which in turn speed up the connections that now not only people have with each other as a mass, but that states have with their armies, that towns have with their sister merchant communities, that government has with itself and that newspapers have with each other.

However, at a play against the first constitutive choice, the telegraph evolved into a means of centralized control of information. While chiefly used for business, the telegraph service was also the first national monopoly. The reason behind the controlling path that the telegraph grew into is that it began growing without any government regulation. The telegraph was established as a private enterprise and as a result went through a series of competitions: who would control the networks? How would they control it? Luckily these answers were already provided pre-telegraph.

The interesting aspect of the constitutive choices that Starr discusses is that they are cumulative. The telegraph was simply a new technology to place at the front of processes of communication and information that were already developed and established. All in all, the decision to develop the telegraph privately gave America the challenge it needed to strengthen and affirm their constitutive foundations but it also represented America’s choice for future technological advancements. The telegraph was America’s fork in the road, their initial setting of networking structures, and their decision to privatize it was a precedent to broadcasting.

The third constitutive movement Starr discusses is the development of institutions that resulted in real, human, intangible progress. Previously I had mentioned the expansion of public schools with the rise of the Post Office and newspapers. From there, the technological networks that were implemented furthered the expansion of education. From the beginning, it was decided that knowledge, education, research, and information would be a priority (a constitutive movement) for America. While this movement continues today, a prime example in history involves the radio. The National Committee on Education by Radio (NCER) proposed that 15 percent of broadcast channels be reserved for government-chartered educational stations. This movement promoted the diffusion of knowledge. By extension, the mass flow of information, knowledge, and ideas laid the groundwork for further explorations, developments, and innovations. It needs reiteration that the constitutive choices that were made were cumulative and that there is no going back once the choice was made, which only further signifies Americans transformation through communication.