Latest / UK Column Radio / Chloe Carmichael on the Dangers of Self Censorship | Jerm Warfare

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Chloe Carmichael on the Dangers of Self Censorship | Jerm Warfare · UK Column Radio

0:35
None. Doctor.
0:39
Chloe Carmichael, thank you for joining me in the trenches.
0:42
Thanks, Jerome. Thanks for having me.
0:45
Normally we speak about free speech within the framework of
0:48
politics. Your approach is psychological.
0:51
That's mental. Yeah, You know, I really hadn't
0:55
planned to think about it this way either.
0:58
As a clinical psychologist, I was focused a lot more on issues
1:02
related to anxiety and more typical psychology stuff as a
1:06
clinical psychologist. And then it was during COVID
1:10
when cancel culture started getting on the rise and I
1:15
personally realized that there were some topics that I was
1:18
doing what we call self censorship about.
1:21
And I ultimately decided I had to speak up about those issues
1:25
out of an ethical duty. It had to do with masking
1:28
children. And when I started speaking up,
1:32
I realized that my cognitive process, you know, was, was
1:36
sharpening and emotional regulation, that I was feeling
1:41
less stressed and edgy about the issues.
1:44
Once I started talking about them and it suddenly hit me like
1:49
a ton of bricks. I was like, well, of course.
1:51
I mean, psychologists, if you remove the the phrase free
1:55
speech and you just say to psychologists, would, would
1:59
talking about what you think and feel be good for you?
2:03
Would it help you on a cognitive level?
2:05
Would it help you on an emotional level?
2:07
Would it improve your social relationships?
2:10
They'll all say, of course, but if you say, well, would free
2:13
speech be good for mental health, You know, then suddenly,
2:18
because the issue is politically coded and my profession skews in
2:23
a certain direction, all of a sudden it's controversial.
2:28
Just quickly, what is your background?
2:31
Oh, sure. I'm a clinical psychologist.
2:33
Is that what you mean? Like my professional background?
2:36
Yeah. So I was actually a yoga teacher
2:39
before I was a clinical psychologist.
2:41
And so as a yoga teacher, I focused a lot on metacognition,
2:46
which is your awareness of yourself.
2:48
I think that's why I had that reflective process about what it
2:53
what it meant to speak up. And then I went to Columbia for
3:00
not a doctorate. I got my undergraduate in
3:02
psychology at Columbia. Then I went on to get a PhD in
3:05
clinical psychology and started my practice in New York City.
3:10
My very first book was a self published book about dating
3:14
actually with a high functioning people.
3:17
And then my next book was nervous Energy.
3:20
Harness the power of your anxiety.
3:22
It's about the healthy function of anxiety, which is to
3:25
stimulate preparation behaviors. And then my new book is Can I
3:30
Say That Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly.
3:34
And I know you've connected with RFKJ before, so I just have to
3:38
say my publisher is the same publisher as RFKJ's Skyhorse.
3:43
Great publisher. They also published Alex Jones,
3:46
I think, if I if I remember correctly.
3:48
Yeah, well, his book on the Great Reset.
3:51
And I was so thankful for Sky Horse to take this book because
3:54
even though my Nervous Energy book was a success, it was with
3:58
Macmillan. They refused to take this book.
4:01
They said that they would like to do another book with me, just
4:03
not this book again. It's it's so weird to me that a
4:07
book simply about the mental health benefits of speaking your
4:11
mind could be so controversial, right?
4:15
What are the mental health benefits?
4:17
Well, so I have to admit it's going to sound really obvious
4:21
when I tell you, right? I mean, it's, it's it's really
4:23
intuitive. But yet of course there's a
4:25
million studies and what not to back it up and take it apart and
4:30
understand it, you know, deeper, which I do put in the book.
4:33
But there's three main psychological benefits, mental
4:37
health benefits to free speech. And then there are.
4:40
Also on the flip side, some drawbacks to self censor, but
4:45
the benefits are cognitive. So when we when we use our
4:49
incredible gift of language, it facilitates for example the use
4:54
of logic to be able to make if then statements or to be able to
4:59
create a hypothesis or to rapidly exchange information
5:04
with other people. Also, when we speak our ideas
5:08
aloud, it helps us to have a separation from our ideas and to
5:12
be more rational and objective active about them.
5:15
We don't think about language. It's almost like breathing.
5:18
It's something that feels so natural to us, but yet it's
5:22
really actually very important to our functioning.
5:25
And then the emotional benefits of language.
5:29
When we even something as simple as naming your emotions, if
5:33
you're really upset and you just say nothing, it bottles inside
5:38
of you. But if the moment you start
5:40
saying you know what, I'm really upset by this or I found that
5:44
situation embarrassing or I felt violated by that, your amygdala
5:50
starts to calm down. The amygdala is the part of the
5:53
brain that gets really active during fear.
5:55
Also our cortisol levels drop. When we have a good heart to
6:00
heart with somebody, when we express ourselves.
6:03
And so the three benefits I've discussed, cognitive and
6:06
emotional, and they facilitate the social benefits, social
6:10
support. So as a clinical psychologist.
6:13
I have have to assess somebody's social support as part of any
6:17
comprehensive evaluation. Social support is so incredibly
6:21
crucial to our mental health. It's an incredible buffer
6:24
against stressors that helps us to navigate problems when we
6:29
have a support network. But if we're not telling people
6:33
the truth about what we really think and feel, or even worse,
6:37
like actually pretending to think and feel things that we
6:40
don't because it's politically correct or they're doing the
6:43
same thing, of course our social support is degraded.
6:48
Yeah, you said truth. And so is lying a form of
6:53
censorship? Well, sure.
6:55
I mean, absolutely it's pantomiming, you know, and what
6:59
whatever is a politically correct, you know, moment.
7:02
So you know, for example, if you know, you put your pronouns on
7:08
your bio because your boss tells you to or whatever, you know,
7:11
even though you think that is ridiculous and it's obvious.
7:15
And you know, by by doing that, you know, you're acting as if
7:18
you, you believe it's necessary to tell people or something, or,
7:23
you know, laughing at jokes that you don't think are funny
7:26
because you don't want to be outed as you know.
7:29
So, so, you know, in the US, it would basically oftentimes be be
7:32
Trump. And, and it does typically run
7:35
right to left to right more than left to right.
7:38
And I can get into some interesting statistics about
7:41
that too. But I've talked to many people
7:43
that have been in situations where somebody wants to do an
7:47
orange man bad joke and they feel like they have to laugh at
7:51
the joke and act. Like they think it's funny.
7:54
Otherwise somebody might, you know, wonder well, are you a
7:57
Trumpy or whatever? So yeah, I mean, lying, of
8:01
course. It's I would say it's a really
8:03
elaborate. Form of self censorship.
8:05
It's going beyond just simply not saying anything and taking
8:09
active steps to portray something inaccurate about what
8:14
you think and feel and believe. Let's go back to the basics.
8:19
When you talk about free speech, Chloe, what are you talking
8:22
about? That's a great question, and I
8:25
get into this in the book, too. It can mean two things.
8:28
There's free speech in the legal sense, which absolutely in the
8:32
United States got subverted under the Biden administration.
8:36
We now know that executives at YouTube, Meta and X have all
8:42
indicated that the government was behind the scenes, you know,
8:47
interfere with freedom of expression on those platforms.
8:51
So free speech can be a legal issue, which we also saw with
8:55
parents here going to school board meetings trying to talk
8:58
about that they didn't want boys in the girls locker room or they
9:01
didn't want their kids wearing masks.
9:03
And, you know, the the government was putting FBI tails
9:07
on those people. And then there's another kind of
9:10
free speech, which I use in a more the colloquial term, but
9:14
which is actually very important too, which is self censorship,
9:19
where the government's not even censoring you.
9:21
You're censoring yourself because you are afraid of, you
9:26
know, being socially ostracized, dropped from your friend group,
9:30
failed by your college professor, you know, called into
9:34
your HR department and kind of blacklisted for promotions.
9:38
There's a lot of soft power ways that people can feel pressure to
9:42
self censor that aren't necessarily in the legal realm.
9:47
OK, but that's that's still a fairly safe answer.
9:52
Free speech by definition means free, so no limits.
9:57
Yeah, I mean, so that's actually an interesting question too.
10:00
So there's a chapter in the book called Common Objections to Free
10:03
Speech, and one of them is what about some kind of limits on
10:07
free speech? And yes, you know, anxiety is
10:10
always worse in the face of uncertainty.
10:13
So I do take a moment in the book to unpack like, what are
10:16
the limits? It's like even I consider myself
10:19
a free speech absolutist. However, I still consider that
10:25
to include the basic limits we have, like fraud, libel,
10:30
slander. I don't think it's OK to use
10:33
your speech to say, you know, go execute that person, haha.
10:38
Free speech, you know, so things that are already illegal, it
10:43
doesn't mean that that's just because they're spoken, they
10:46
magically become legal. Free speech to me, being a free
10:50
speech absolutist, applies to the expression of ideas,
10:54
thoughts and beliefs. OK.
10:57
So you're you're suggesting that it's good to be able to have the
11:03
ability to speak freely, but you should also be a decent human
11:08
being? I mean, you're not going to run
11:09
past an old granny on a bus and start swearing at her for no
11:12
reason other than the fact that you got free speech.
11:15
No, no. So I also discuss in the book
11:17
the difference between healthy self restraint and self
11:20
censorship. So yeah, I mean, we would
11:24
already have laws about, you know, obscenity, for example,
11:29
you know, or harassment. So we also have something in the
11:32
United States called a time, place and manner restriction.
11:35
So for example, well, you're allowed to go and I would
11:37
support somebody's right. If they want to go around saying
11:40
women are stupid, fine. Like they have a legal right to
11:43
say that. However, if you want to get a
11:46
public permit to get a loudspeaker and shout that
11:51
outside of a Girl Scouts meeting, you can be denied that
11:56
under a time, place and manner restriction.
11:58
But that's different from saying we take away your right to
12:02
generally express that idea. So, you know, to your point,
12:08
also there's there's healthy self restraint.
12:10
I don't support the idea of people having no filter.
12:14
So, you know, if if somebody says like, hey, do I look good
12:17
in this dress or, you know, whatever.
12:19
Like there might be times where you say like, yeah, you know
12:21
what? It really brings out your eyes.
12:23
But you don't say you know, but it makes you, you know, look.
12:27
Look fat. Yeah, whatever the case.
12:29
May be thank you, that's the word I was looking for.
12:32
So, yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have tacked.
12:35
I mean, in fact, there's there's in the technique techniques
12:38
portion of the book, there's a lot of techniques for learning
12:41
how to listen well, how to express yourself well.
12:44
And in fact. My argument partly is that the
12:46
more we bottle things up, the more likely we are to actually
12:51
be inappropriately edgy or aggressive because stuff kind of
12:55
comes out that we've been bottling.
12:58
But however, even though I advocate for healthy self
13:02
restraint, I don't think that's a legal requirement that that
13:07
people should feel subjected to. Just for clarity also on this
13:12
idea of free speech, free expression, like a pride ready
13:17
where men wear no clothes and now kids around.
13:19
And I tend to find that fairly repulsive.
13:23
Yeah, so you're getting at something really important.
13:26
And I, I unpack this in the book a little bit too, which is that
13:30
in the United States around the 1970s, pornography got included
13:36
in freedom of quote expression. In our United States
13:41
Constitution, we have protection on freedom of speech.
13:45
So I'm talking about spoken ideas, freedom of quote
13:50
expression through, you know, appearing in public nude.
13:55
That would not be, in my opinion, covered if I, you know,
13:58
wrote the world that would not be covered under freedom of
14:02
speech because that's not a spoken act.
14:06
So, yeah, I mean, I, I think we still do have public decency
14:09
laws against appearing nude in public.
14:11
And depending on where you live here in the United.
14:14
States there may or may not be local ordinances around.
14:17
Those. So in your book you talk about
14:22
self censorship being problem. Why?
14:26
Well, so 84%, I mean, and I realize statistics are just, you
14:31
know, statistics, but. 80. 4% of people in a 2022 poll by the New
14:38
York Times, Which, you know, typically would not be a friend
14:42
of free speech, but a poll even coming from the New York Times
14:46
and Siena College found that 84% of Americans are holding things
14:53
back because they're afraid on some level of being of, of
14:56
cancel culture. So I mean, I, I see it in those
14:59
types of statistics. I see it in people and clients
15:03
that I've talked to in private. I've even seen it in myself.
15:07
Like I said, I went through my own, you know, free speech
15:10
journey. I think that many of us just
15:13
kind of thought. Oh well, what's it's safer to
15:16
just be quiet? Why stick my neck out?
15:20
And I did that myself a lot until I had a real like kind of
15:24
red line in the sand when it came to masking children.
15:27
And then once I started speaking up, I suddenly realized that
15:32
there was an, again, it seems so obvious in retrospect, but that
15:36
there's a real cost to self censorship.
15:38
I mean, you and your audience, I'm sure everybody kind of these
15:42
days knows the words like repression, suppression, denial.
15:47
Those are things. Those are mental health costs.
15:50
Of keeping things inside. So yeah, I just, I, I think that
15:55
we, we got here by people thinking the safe thing to do is
15:58
to just hold back, like, what's the harm in that?
16:02
Without realizing that there's a mental health reason to speak
16:05
up. And we also got here by what I
16:08
mentioned earlier of the Biden administration and probably
16:11
other governments, too, I don't know as much about outside of
16:14
the US. But when the Biden
16:16
administration was secretly tampering with what could be
16:20
said and expressed on social media, what they did is they
16:23
manipulated our human sense of social consensus so we.
16:28
All have an adaptive ability to understand, you know, to just
16:32
read the room, right? And so if you go into a room and
16:36
everybody's saying, you know, the emperor's new clothes are
16:40
beautiful, right? And you think you're the only
16:43
person that realizes that the emperor has no clothes?
16:47
You might not speak up because you might say to yourself, am I
16:50
seeing double? Is this just me?
16:52
And so that's called social consensus.
16:55
And the Biden administration really interfered with our sense
16:59
of social consensus by secretly manipulating what was able to be
17:04
viewed and seen on. Basically all of our social
17:08
media platforms, but that spread beyond the USI mean everybody in
17:13
the world uses Facebook, for example, and and that affected
17:17
even me. Yeah, I'm sure it did.
17:20
So, you know, through through those ways that's, you know, to
17:23
answer your question, why and how I think it came to be that
17:27
so many people, you know, were self censoring.
17:30
I think in part it's just that they didn't including me even
17:33
really realize the costs of it. And then we had a falsely
17:38
manipulated. Social atmosphere of what was
17:42
what we thought was, was the new normal and as you say in your
17:47
book, if more and more people are self censoring it leads to a
17:52
reduction in information flow. Yeah, totally.
17:56
It does, You know, which is, again, one of the common
17:59
objections to free speech in that chapter is, well, what
18:02
about misinformation, right? Which is so ironic that people
18:07
would think, and I try to give people the benefit of the doubt,
18:10
that the speech police are truly concerned about misinformation.
18:14
And somehow this, you know, in a convoluted manner came out to
18:18
their minds that therefore what we should do is suppress, you
18:21
know? Speech and debate when the
18:24
opposite of. Of course is true.
18:26
If we want to have a high quality of information, we need
18:30
to be able to have a free flow of information and allow people
18:34
to debate and debunk. I mean, for example, did you
18:37
know that the the physician who originally suggested that
18:42
physicians should wash their hands?
18:44
At hospitals, before seeing patients, he died in a mental
18:48
institution because in his time people told him that he was
18:53
crazy. Galileo, of course, was.
18:55
Failed for seeing that the Earth orbits the sun.
18:58
In the United States, we had physicians testifying to
19:01
Congress that it was fine for women to pregnant women to smoke
19:05
cigarettes as long as they used to filter.
19:08
More recently, of course, we had, you know, Fauci telling us
19:12
that we needed to stay 6 feet apart and, you know, wear masks
19:15
and that this would somehow be good for us.
19:18
So experts can, of course, be wrong.
19:21
It would be unfair to experts to expect them to never be wrong.
19:25
But how would we ever, I mean this sounds so obvious, but how
19:29
would we ever get past the misinformation if we don't allow
19:33
people to come forward and discuss and debate ideas?
19:38
The last few years, we've had a huge amount of censorship coming
19:43
from above and then as a result, self censorship coming from the
19:46
bottom. And that has led to us having to
19:51
have conversations like this that are profoundly primitive
19:54
and basic, and we shouldn't be even talking about this in the
19:57
year 2025. Yeah.
19:59
Yeah, I agree. You know it.
20:01
It kind of reminds me of when you have an abuse abuser with a
20:05
victim. And, you know, the, the victim
20:08
has been very isolated and has almost gotten a warped sense of
20:12
reality from her abuser. I'm just, you know, saying her
20:15
and him just for stereotypes. But she's gotten a warped sense
20:19
of reality because she's, she hasn't been able to talk and to
20:23
speak. And when she's coming out of
20:25
that abusive dynamic, she needs to tell very basic stories like,
20:30
well, he dragged me by my hair and that was wrong.
20:33
And just by saying it aloud, she's really coming to grips
20:37
with what actually happened. And like you said, it sounds
20:41
very obvious. Or when somebody dies, one of
20:44
the first stages of grief is denial.
20:46
And that's why people who are trying to come out of that
20:49
denial phase, they need to just say the obvious many times like,
20:54
wow, I guess he's gone, He's not coming back, right?
20:58
And they're obvious things, but it's through speech, through
21:02
saying them aloud that they come out of that they they come to
21:06
that basic awareness. And to your point, yes, our
21:09
basic awareness about what it's OK to say and if it should be OK
21:14
to say what we want and what, what's really going on in the
21:17
world around us, all of that has been distorted.
21:20
And so yes, we need to have some of these basic wake up
21:24
conversations. But Chloe, words of violence,
21:30
Yeah. Yeah, OK.
21:33
Words are violence, right? That's one of those catch
21:36
phrases that, you know, sounds, you know, almost poetic, right?
21:41
And, and, and it, it, it's fine, you know, if people realize it's
21:45
just a metaphor, right? Like, oh, his words were like a
21:49
slap in the face. His words were a punch in the
21:52
gut, right? That's fine as a metaphor.
21:56
But the problem is, is that people are they're taking it
21:59
literally, which is psychotic. That's where we cross the line
22:05
from using language in a, you know, poetic way to act actually
22:11
becoming psychotic. Psychotic in psychology means a
22:15
break with reality, like, you know, little green men, that
22:18
kind of thing. And unfortunately, many people
22:23
are taking that phrase, words are violence or what you're
22:26
threatening my existence. If, if, if somebody says that,
22:30
you know that they're a man who has now become a woman and
22:33
somebody says, no, you're not. And then they say, well, you
22:36
know, you're threatening my existence.
22:39
And and they mean it literally. And then what what is happening
22:43
is then they're opening up a line for actual violence in in
22:47
quote, self-defense. So humans have a very hardwired,
22:51
innate and actually productive need for reciprocity.
22:56
And that can be in trade. Like you give me something, I
22:59
give you something that's also hardwired into our justice code,
23:03
even going back to the code of Hammurabi, right?
23:07
But when somebody then distorts that with violence and says,
23:11
well, your words are violence or your words are threatening my
23:14
existence, what they're doing is they're setting up a reciprocity
23:19
that makes it OK for Tyler Robinson, for example, allegedly
23:24
to go shoot Charlie Kirk because Charlie Kirk's words were
23:28
violence. Charlie Kirk was, you know, a
23:31
threatening existence. And so therefore he needs to
23:34
pick up a gun and literally take his life.
23:38
Words can only lead to violence if they are at words that are
23:44
already outlawed. Like hey I want to pay you X
23:48
dollars to go murder that person right?
23:51
That's the situation of words you know, leading to violence.
23:55
Otherwise anything other than that, like.
23:58
Well, I don't like what you say, so therefore I'm going to become
24:02
violent again. That's classic abuse dynamics,
24:05
right? You made me do it because you,
24:08
you started your bitching again. So I had to go beat the hell out
24:12
of you, right? That's classic abuser rationale
24:17
to say, well, you know, you, I, I had to become violent because
24:21
of what you said in terms of expressing your thoughts and
24:25
feelings and ideas. That's that's that's nonsense.
24:29
Wouldn't you prefer to know somebody wants to shoot you then
24:32
if you don't know that they want to shoot you?
24:34
Yeah, of course, of course. And again, wanting to is one
24:40
thing. And that's why, again, I go in
24:42
the book and explore this quote concept of safe spaces, right?
24:46
That a truly safe space is 1 where we can withstand
24:50
disagreement and where people know what other people really
24:53
think. Again.
24:54
So I as a woman, if somebody thinks you know that, that, you
24:58
know, women are. Stupid.
24:59
Or whatever it is, I, I feel better knowing what they really
25:04
think than knowing I'm actually in some weird space where I
25:08
can't trust what people say because I know that they have to
25:11
keep it all underneath them. And sure.
25:13
So if somebody wants to go around saying that they believe,
25:18
you know, X group of people should be eradicated, I actually
25:23
count that as free speech. They're making an argument and a
25:27
belief. The difference is when they
25:29
cross the line into speech that's actually action oriented,
25:35
like, hey, let's all meet up at 5:00 today with our Billy clubs
25:40
and go attack those people. That is different from
25:44
expressing an idea that's using your speech to organize a
25:47
violent action. I just want to add as a segue, I
25:52
actually believe that women, on average, are smarter than men.
25:57
Well, you know, do you know what the statistics say about that?
26:01
No, it's an interesting bell curve situation.
26:04
And Larry Summers actually basically got ejected as the
26:07
president of Harvard for. I think I saw that.
26:09
I think I saw that. Sorry.
26:10
Go on. Yes.
26:10
Yeah. So the the simple fact is, is
26:13
that men and women, if you average our intelligence scores,
26:17
they're pretty much the same. But there's many, many, many
26:21
more women in the average zone, and there's many, many, many
26:25
more men in the genius zone, and there's many, many more men in
26:30
the very low intelligence zone. So there's a lot more male
26:33
geniuses. There's also a lot more male
26:36
idiots, and there's just a lot of women that are in the middle.
26:41
But that's my wife and I were talking about this.
26:44
This is precisely why I find Jackass very funny.
26:46
And she doesn't. Sure.
26:49
Yeah, that makes sense. So you said earlier that open
26:57
dialogue enhances good a good mental health status.
27:03
In other words, it reduces levels of anxiety.
27:07
Yeah. I mean, psychologists, again,
27:10
would typically just know this in a very obvious sense.
27:13
It's really what talk therapy hinges upon, right, Is the idea
27:17
that, you know, you can come into the therapy room and then
27:21
the therapist might even probe you and help you to take, you
27:24
know, your unconscious ideas. The unconscious is pre verbal
27:28
and so you might have some beliefs and thoughts and ideas
27:31
that are operating in the background of your mind that are
27:35
causing you anxiety, right? You know, maybe you have a
27:37
background unconscious belief that you picked up in childhood
27:41
that it's not safe to be open with people or something.
27:45
And so therefore then you have this problem in life because
27:48
you're craving intimacy, but yet you're just holding yourself
27:50
back and you can't figure it out.
27:52
So the psychologist will probe your unconscious beliefs and
27:56
help you to put them into words and and and understand why it's
28:01
been so anxiety provoking for you to get close to people by
28:05
taking what's going on inside and putting it into words.
28:08
Also, the healthy function of anxiety is to stimulate
28:14
preparation behaviors. And we know that through talking
28:19
is a problem solving tool. Many studies have shown and
28:24
again it's obvious, but of course in psychology sometimes
28:26
we need to do studies to check of what we think is obvious is
28:29
really true. But talking with another person
28:33
who's an intelligent and supportive sounding board does
28:36
help people to solve problems. So again, the healthy function
28:40
of anxiety is to stimulate preparation behaviors.
28:43
So obviously talking with somebody about your problems can
28:47
help to alleviate your anxiety by it becomes a preparation
28:51
behavior. Also, one of the hallmark
28:53
symptoms of depression is a sense of helplessness.
28:57
This is why anxiety can sometimes lead to depression
29:02
because you're stewing in that anxiety and if you don't know
29:05
how to channel that into preparation and problem solving
29:09
behaviors, you can start to feel helpless and become depressed,
29:13
right. And so one of the symptoms, you
29:15
know, as I said, of depression is a sense of helplessness.
29:18
So we can see we're talking things through would alleviate a
29:22
sense of helplessness. Also, one of the symptoms of
29:25
depression is a sense of isolation and irritability and
29:29
lethargy and not connecting with others.
29:32
So again, obviously having a good social relationships with
29:37
people would help when we have a true heart to heart with people.
29:41
When you're telling me what you really think and I'm really
29:45
listening, we experience what psychologists call neural
29:49
coupling, brain coupling, our brains, It's like that old
29:52
saying, we were on the same wavelength.
29:54
Our brains literally start to show similar neural patterns
30:00
together. And we need this on an
30:02
evolutionary trial level. We need to feel that sense of
30:06
connection or we, we, we struggle mentally and with our
30:10
mental health. When I talked to my wife, she
30:15
certainly doesn't have any type of self censorship issues.
30:20
But you know, jokes aside, is there a difference between men
30:26
and women and the levels of self censorship?
30:29
You know, that's a great question.
30:31
To be honest, I, I don't know. But I, I would like to take a
30:35
moment and differentiate between self censorship and healthy self
30:39
restraint because I too, I know you were just joking, but it's a
30:43
good thing in a marriage typically that that you can be
30:46
real and honest with each other. If she makes a meal and says,
30:50
what do you think? Shall I make this again?
30:52
And you smile and say, yeah, it was great, right?
30:54
That's going to cause a real problem.
30:56
But if you can tell the truth and say, you know, honey, I
30:58
appreciate it, but honestly, it's a little spicy for me or
31:02
whatever, it's it's better to tell the truth.
31:05
But self censorship is when we're being untruthful about
31:11
true, actual, real values that that matter to us.
31:15
So, you know, if you if your wife or somebody else is out
31:20
with their friends and somebody says, yeah, you know, I just
31:23
don't see why these heartless people are against immigration.
31:27
Anybody with an open heart that allow, you know, anybody to come
31:32
into our country and and if you don't agree with that, but you
31:37
pretend to, that's a real issue of values.
31:41
On the other hand, if you're just out with your friends and
31:45
somebody says, you know, boy, that sports team, you know,
31:49
really is my favorite and you're out winning and dining some
31:52
clients and you say, yeah, yeah, they're having a great season,
31:55
right. That's maybe just healthy self
31:57
restraint. You're not really lying about
32:00
anything that is important to you.
32:03
But within a marriage, it's an interesting one because we do
32:07
need some self restraint to have a good marriage, but we also
32:11
want to be extra open to have a good marriage.
32:14
And we certainly don't want to have self censorship.
32:17
We don't want to be lying about our values and a good marriage.
32:21
Let's say that you find out that your close friend was cheated
32:29
on. Yeah.
32:31
So first of all, that's a great moral quandary.
32:36
Whichever way a person decided about that.
32:39
I think there's probably various factors and whatnot.
32:41
I'm not going to make a pronouncement on whether they
32:44
should say something or not, but that would fall into the self
32:47
restraint category. And to understand a really good
32:51
rule of thumb test to just make it super easy to understand.
32:54
The difference is, do you know where the word censor comes
32:58
from? So it comes from back in the
33:02
Roman days, they had these special soldiers that were
33:06
actually called censors. And they would go a ride around
33:10
to the villages that were all controlled, you know, by the
33:12
Romans. And they would inform the
33:14
citizenry what viewpoints and politics and morals and religion
33:20
or whatever else we're acceptable to say and do and
33:24
practice, right? And so when you start feeling
33:27
like, you know, you have a viewpoint or an idea that you
33:31
want to say or express, but like that little Roman censor could
33:35
get on your case about it, that's when we're dealing with
33:38
self censorship levels of self restraint.
33:42
If you choose to disclose that someone's having an affair or
33:45
not just out of your own personal decisions about what
33:49
your role is in disclosure there, that's about your own
33:53
personal level of self restraint that you choose.
33:56
And that's on that particular moral one.
33:58
I could see where, you know, people could make arguments on
34:01
both sides, but it's not really about censorship.
34:05
I didn't know that about the Romans.
34:07
That's fascinating. Yeah.
34:09
Yeah. And it I like it, too, because
34:11
it really does explain that it's something that's happening on
34:14
some level by force. Right.
34:16
And then it's to the point where if you did start violating what
34:20
those Roman censors said, your neighbors could turn you in.
34:23
They could go tell on you for saying that.
34:26
Right. So if you're wondering if it's a
34:28
matter of self restraint or self censorship, just ask yourself,
34:32
is this the kind of thing like a Roman soul soldier would have
34:34
gone around to inform the general public about?
34:37
Or is this just a personal matter in my life that I'm
34:39
trying to decide if I should speak up about the affair or
34:42
not? So free speech being a mental
34:45
issue cuts right through the left right dichotomy.
34:49
Well, that's true, but you know, I do you're kind of dancing on
34:53
the left, right issue. So, and I think it's just
34:56
important to acknowledge the truth because when people are
35:00
thinking, OK, well, I'm going to breakthrough self censorship and
35:03
I'm going to start speaking up. There are a lot more likely to
35:07
encounter problems and difficulties if if you are on
35:12
the more conservative side and you're speaking up to a
35:15
supposedly more liberal group than the reverse.
35:18
And that's kind of counterintuitive, right?
35:21
We would normally think, well, liberal would have a wider
35:23
window of, of what can be said. But in my book, I explain
35:27
something called the 5DS. And the 5DS are forms of social
35:34
hostility that are done by self report much more often by people
35:40
on the left over political differences than by people on
35:44
the right. And the 5DS are to defriend on
35:48
social media, to drop contact in real life, to distance in real
35:54
life, to disinvite a speaker, or to decline to date across the
35:59
aisle. Now, I actually can understand
36:02
the decline to date across the aisle because if you're dating
36:05
for marriage and you want to marry somebody that has your
36:07
values, I actually can understand that one.
36:10
But all of the other DS, I think are really unnecessary forms of
36:16
social hostility that are significantly, and I can tell
36:20
you the link, it's at Doctor chloe.com/the number 5, the
36:24
letter D, the letter S, and I can give you a link for your
36:27
show notes, but I put links to all of the scholarly research
36:31
about the 5DS, you know, right there.
36:35
So to your point, if you're thinking of speaking up and
36:39
you're feeling like, well, it's harder to do it as if you're on
36:43
a more conservative side expressing it to liberals, you
36:46
are correct. It's really true.
36:48
And what's interesting as well is that people who identify as
36:52
liberal are also 2 to 8 times more likely to endorse political
36:58
violence. And as a psychologist, I think
37:01
there's a real connection there because if I'm working with a
37:04
violent offender, the first thing I want to do is get them
37:07
to use their words is to learn how to have dialogue with people
37:12
during disagreements. Violence increases when dialogue
37:15
ceases. So it's interesting to me that
37:19
the political left displays more social hostility of with with
37:24
what I call dialogue intolerance.
37:27
And now they're also showing a greater tendency towards
37:30
political violence. I think those things are
37:32
related, and that wasn't always the case.
37:35
If I look at American history, I think that that flipped at some
37:38
point in history. It was it was the other way
37:40
around. Yes, I discussed that in the
37:42
book, too, which is to say that this doesn't have to be like
37:46
some kind of a permanent issue in our political DNA.
37:49
So as I mentioned, it was in the 1970s that liberals were pushing
37:54
for pornography to be included within freedom of expression,
37:58
and conservatives were resistant.
38:00
Also, liberals were pushing for wider windows on obscenity, and
38:06
conservatives were trying to put explicit warning labels on, you
38:10
know, rap CDs. However, I do think it's
38:15
important to notice this is just kind of an undisputed,
38:18
uncontroversial psychology fact. This has been existent for a
38:22
long time. People on the left have a more
38:25
collectivist mentality. People on the right have a more
38:29
individualist mentality. So to a certain degree, I think
38:33
it makes sense that when it comes to the expression of ideas
38:36
and beliefs, people on the right are very open.
38:40
But when it comes to, you know, pornography or obscenity,
38:44
they're, they're more closed off to that.
38:46
And then on the left having this more collectivist mentality that
38:50
maybe that contributes to them feeling more of a desire to be
38:54
in lockstep when it comes to beliefs and values.
38:59
If you had asked me 10 years ago if I was going to get a flu
39:03
shot, I might have said no and we there wouldn't have been any
39:07
kind of weirdness between us. Yeah, yeah, I would put that in.
39:12
That's an interesting 1. You could make an argument on
39:15
self censorship or self restraint there, right.
39:17
Because if you also say, had a friend that weighed 500 lbs and
39:22
he was talking about another friend that weighed £500 that
39:25
died of a heart attack yourself, restraint might keep you from
39:30
saying, you know, Gee, I guess I really, it's probably his
39:33
weight, right. You would just be trying to
39:35
avoid, you know, hurting his feelings or bringing up an
39:38
awkward topic, right? So the same thing could be said
39:42
maybe about the booster shot thing.
39:46
The difference, though, is that there's been this extreme social
39:50
taboo placed on open dialogue about booster shots.
39:55
And people might do more than just get ruffled.
39:57
On a personal level, they might become enraged at you.
40:01
On a values or political level, they might.
40:04
It might be more than just Gee. That was insensitive.
40:08
It might be more like, you know, what's the matter with you for
40:12
bringing up that misinformation and that conspiracy theory
40:16
That's more on the self censorship side.
40:19
A lot of this conversation about free speech, though, is centered
40:22
around culture, isn't it? Yeah.
40:25
So I mean, again, with the self censorship, there are many
40:29
cultures that are openly embracing censorship, right?
40:33
Like, I don't think in China that I don't know, but I, I
40:37
don't think, or many Middle Eastern countries, they don't
40:40
even pretend to say that they welcome people to express
40:44
whatever ideas and values that they have.
40:47
They're very open about the fact that they have some form of
40:50
those Roman censors, you know, still right getting around
40:54
telling people, you know what it's OK to to to say.
40:58
So yeah, you're right. There are many cultures where
41:02
censorship is still alive and well from a top down, you know,
41:06
government form. And then there's many places
41:10
where again, just that non governmental, but but social
41:14
pressure, which can often be delivered through the media as
41:18
well, which is just another, you know, situation where I think in
41:23
many cases, people here in the United States are concerned that
41:26
the media and we we we learned this too, In fact, to be true in
41:30
some cases was getting their talking points from the
41:33
government. Or that that you have a Media
41:36
Group that's pretending to be unbiased, but it's, you know,
41:39
donating massively to a particular political party, in
41:43
which case it's not really media, it's propaganda, right?
41:48
So yeah, but but you're right, there's, there's different
41:51
cultural mores, social norms in some cultures.
41:56
Of course, it would be a compliment to say, hey, you're
42:00
looking really fat today, right? And So what would be self
42:04
restraint in one culture might be different in another.
42:08
But you're right, self censorship differs across
42:10
cultures too. Again, it's so ironic to me
42:13
because intergroup dialogue is actually the way, obviously,
42:18
that we come to understand each other and to, you know, be able
42:22
to have tolerance for each other, to be able to work out
42:25
our differences together. And it's when we shut down
42:30
dialogue that we end up having, you know, bigger social silos
42:35
and, you know, misunderstandings about each other.
42:39
But even groups, you know, that I think we can just all
42:42
objectively agree are quote, bad.
42:44
So I give some examples in the book about the KKK, the Ku Klux
42:50
Klan, or, you know, jihadi recruiters.
42:52
These are groups that I hope we can all agree are just
42:55
objectively, you know, bad. However, the way that people
43:00
come out of those cults, if you will, is not by people saying
43:06
you're not allowed to talk. It's it's by people having
43:11
dialogue with them. Now that's different.
43:13
I'm not saying that they should be allowed to go and use their
43:16
speech to say let's meet up at 5:00 PM and lynch somebody
43:21
today. But it I do think that they
43:23
should be allowed to say, I believe that this certain racial
43:27
group is inferior and here's why.
43:30
So that way somebody else can dialogue with them and reason
43:34
with them or even just know how they really feel and choose to
43:38
stay away from them or whatever. But cutting out people's tongues
43:42
is one of the most primitive and ineffective ways.
43:45
It's like not opening your credit card bills and thinking
43:48
it means that you have no debt, right?
43:50
Just silencing people. It it really, truly doesn't
43:55
solve anything to feed into what you're saying.
43:57
I don't know if you've heard of a, a black Blues or jazz
44:00
musician by the name of Darryl Davis.
44:02
He's in my book, yes. And he spent years and years and
44:07
years befriending members of the KKK, and instead of shouting at
44:13
them and telling them to be quiet, he actually tried to
44:17
understand them. And through that, a bunch of
44:20
them left the KKK. Exactly.
44:23
He has a very powerful Ted talk where he displays dozens of KKK
44:27
hoods that have been surrendered to him.
44:29
My understanding is now he actually also has a book out, so
44:32
maybe you could get him on your show.
44:34
So, you know, we're getting into Part 2 of the book now, which is
44:37
the techniques. So Part 1 is the psychological
44:40
benefits and costs of speaking up or not.
44:44
And then Part 2 is techniques for speaking up courageously
44:48
when it's hard to do that, as well As for listening well when
44:52
people are seeing things that you disagree with, because
44:55
obviously we need both in order to have healthy dialogue.
44:59
And it's just so, so many interesting things I learned as
45:02
I was researching this. For example, did you know that
45:06
when our heart rate goes above 100 beats per minute, we are not
45:11
cognitively processing information as well as when
45:15
we're calm and relaxed, which makes perfect sense, right?
45:19
And so then when two people are in a heated political
45:22
disagreement, you know, they're cutting each other off, they're
45:26
having stereotypes about each other.
45:28
They're talking past each other. So one of the things you know,
45:32
to your point about listening to understand, I bring up actually
45:36
a couples therapy technique in the book called reflective
45:39
listening where you know, person A says their piece person B,
45:45
their whole job at first is just to repeat back.
45:48
So person A you believe AB and C because XY and Z is that right?
45:53
And then when person B knows that their job is going to be to
45:58
recap person A, they become a much better listener because
46:02
they they want to do well at that little task.
46:05
They want to show that they really heard and understood.
46:09
And then person A is going to be a lot calmer when they're
46:12
speaking because they're not thinking, oh, you know, I'm
46:15
going to get cut off or I better try to get my point in quickly.
46:19
They get to relax and become more peaceful.
46:22
And then the tables turn after the good successful recap.
46:27
Then Person B says their peace and Person A recaps it.
46:31
And that restores some order and dialogue and some structure, and
46:35
it gets around this whole problem of people not
46:37
understanding each other. You'd be surprised when that
46:40
exercise is done, how often Person B gets it wrong the first
46:45
time. And it's really illuminating
46:47
when people can stop arguing over things that nobody even
46:51
actually ever said. When they can get slowed down,
46:54
it's very helpful. But Chloe, all that matters is
46:57
winning. Well, I guess we have to reframe
47:01
winning, right? I mean, well, you know, I mean,
47:04
we've, we've seen this terrible thing now, right, of going no
47:07
contact and, you know, all those 5DS that I talked about.
47:11
And I, I think that I think people on the left are doing
47:15
those 5DS because they really believe people on the right are
47:19
fascists and Hitler and xenophobic and all these other
47:24
things. And, you know, I, I know it's
47:26
somewhat naive, but my hope is that if they could slow down and
47:30
really hear what the other person is saying, they might
47:34
come to revise their perceptions.
47:38
So what is your opinion then on your President Donald Trump
47:44
making headlines recently for calling reporters fat and ugly
47:49
and whatever else? Yeah, I mean, I think in a
47:51
perfect world, obviously that wouldn't be happening.
47:55
However, I get a lot more concerned about people hurling
48:00
labels like Hitler, fascist, you know, celebrating violent deaths
48:08
of, you know, people like Charlie Kirk, for example, or I,
48:12
I find those labels, you know, white supremacists, Nazi.
48:18
I see those labels being used by public figures, you know,
48:22
comparing our immigration department to the Gestapo.
48:28
I find those on a scale of 1 to 10 a lot worse than, you know,
48:34
schoolyard insults. I don't like the schoolyard
48:38
insults, but I find the Hitler, Nazi, fascist, white supremacist
48:44
labels, when they're not accurate, I find those much more
48:48
concerning. I mean, what you're talking
48:50
about is is applicable in all spheres of life, not just
48:56
politics. Thank you.
48:58
Yeah, that's my hope. And I try to write the book,
49:03
honestly in a way that would be palatable to both the left and
49:06
the right. In fact, because the left tends
49:09
to be a lot more open and interested in mental health.
49:12
They want to think of themselves as champions of mental health.
49:15
And that's why a lot of times they want to shut down free
49:18
speech because of concerns about hate speech and bullying.
49:21
Right. And so I my hope was to say
49:24
like, hey, like, let's let's reframe free speech as a mental
49:27
health issue. And maybe then it would be open,
49:30
you know, to people across the aisle more.
49:32
And like you said, you know, this transcends politics.
49:35
This is freedom of expression, true freedom of expression and
49:40
authenticity is something that can help us in our lives
49:44
personally, professionally, academically.
49:47
It helps us across the board. If you argue for free speech.
49:51
And you said earlier that you, you kind of are almost free
49:57
speech absolutist. Does hate does hate speech
50:01
therefore exist? Well, I mean, there's speech
50:04
that is hateful yes. I mean, and frankly, there are
50:08
certain things it's fine to hate, right?
50:11
I hate child sex rings, right? I, I hate, I hate the idea of
50:15
people participating in the those types of things.
50:18
I, I don't even think that it's practical to try to tell people
50:23
what it's OK to hate or that we should never hate anything.
50:27
I mean, ironically, what do we hate?
50:29
Hate then, you know, like you, you, that we, we could go round
50:33
and round forever with that. And I'm not saying that I, you
50:37
know, agree or accept all speech.
50:39
And I also am not saying that we should have no filter about what
50:43
we say or that we have to lend our ears to everybody.
50:48
So as a free speech absolutist, that does doesn't mean that I, I
50:52
don't have the right to discern, you know, what I will put into
50:57
my media diet. But I just think when we start
51:00
trying to categorize, well, it's what you're saying is, is
51:05
hateful and therefore it's not allowed.
51:07
But what you're saying is, you know, just a reasoned objection
51:12
and therefore it is allowed. I mean, who's going to be the
51:15
arbiter of that at the end of the day?
51:17
So therefore, I think it's best to just have a very, very simple
51:21
objective guideline, which was applicable to everybody, which
51:25
is, you know, fraud, libel, slander, incitement to violence
51:32
in the sense of semantically, syntactically organizing actual
51:39
physical violence. Like for me as a clinical
51:41
psychologist, if somebody tells me in private that they're going
51:45
to go say something mean and nasty to their neighbor, I am
51:48
not allowed to break that confidence.
51:51
If somebody tells me in a session that they're going to go
51:55
beat the daylight side of their neighbor, I'm legally obligated
51:58
to tell somebody. The difference is obvious.
52:01
It's, it's, you know, physical violence.
52:03
So I think we just, I think we're good with our very basic
52:07
First Amendment rights as we have them in the United States.
52:10
And hate speech is not banned by the 1st Amendment because it
52:16
would be so such an obvious and subjective way for people to
52:21
come up with their values, right?
52:22
I mean, somebody could say, well, speaking and against Jesus
52:26
Christ and seeing and I, I'm wearing a crosser on my neck,
52:29
right? But if somebody wanted to say,
52:31
you know, bad things about Jesus Christ, I could say, well,
52:34
that's hateful. And so therefore you're not
52:36
allowed to say it. I mean, but no, I, I, I support
52:40
people's right to say their own thoughts and beliefs and ideas.
52:44
What about the government? Sure.
52:47
Well, I mean again, so we have so non disclosure agreements,
52:51
right? So you can voluntarily enter
52:55
into an employment relationship, which is what, you know, if
52:58
you're working for the CIA or the FBI or, you know, you're
53:02
working for a science company and you agree that you're not
53:05
going to disclose their proprietary formulas and
53:08
recipes, right? That's not really a free speech
53:12
issue because nobody's forcing you to enter into that
53:17
agreement. You're choosing that in exchange
53:19
for monetary compensation, you will keep certain information
53:25
private that's important to that company or agency.
53:28
So I don't really see that as a free speech violation because
53:32
it's not being forced on it. Anybody.
53:35
I'm thinking of people like, what is his name now?
53:38
Was Julian Assange? No, I've gone blank.
53:42
Oh yeah, WikiLeaks, Snowden. Yes, So Assange was WikiLeaks
53:47
and then Snowden was an NSA whistleblower type thing.
53:52
That's right. So I think a whistleblower, you
53:55
know, might be violating their non disclosure agreement.
54:01
But, you know, if they're doing it because the government or
54:05
whatever body they're working for is actually breaking the
54:09
law. And so the whistleblower has to
54:12
step out of their legal agreement to alert with the
54:15
public about, you know, a real safety issue or concern because
54:21
somebody else is breaking the law.
54:24
I, I think that's why we have whistleblower protections
54:27
because those are unusual situations.
54:31
What's the moral of the story? The moral of the story is that
54:35
free speech is good for mental health.
54:37
Very simple. You know, So when people try to
54:40
shut down your free speech because of, quote, hate speech
54:43
or bullying or misinformation or, you know, whatever the case
54:47
may be, you know, I want people to have a way to answer back and
54:51
say, well, actually, there's a lot of cognitive, emotional and
54:54
social benefits to freedom of expression.
54:57
And you know that it would be good for us to be able to be
55:01
authentic and to learn how to tolerate disagreement and to
55:04
respect one another, and then to have some very, very practical
55:08
tools on how to do that. So I wrote the book more as a
55:11
public service announcement than anything else.
55:16
And how can my audience get your book?
55:19
Yeah, thanks so much for asking. They can go to
55:21
freespeechtoday.com. So the book is available
55:25
wherever books are sold. And I know your audience is
55:28
overseas, so I'm curious if anybody has any trouble getting
55:33
the book overseas. Please do go to
55:36
freespeechoday.com. Well, Amazon definitely carries
55:40
that. But if anybody has any problems,
55:44
they can go to freespeechtoday.com because
55:46
that's where I also have Amazon links because the book is kind
55:48
of a mouth full of a title. It's can I say that why free
55:51
speech matters and how to use it fearlessly.
55:53
But at my website, freespeechtoday.com, they can
55:57
get the links. But also if you have any trouble
55:59
getting it, wherever you're located, message me through my
56:02
website and I'll get on it. Chloe Carmichael, thank you for
56:07
joining me in the trenches. Thank you so much, Jeremy.
56:10
It's great to be in the trenches with you.