Speech

The other day, I was lurking in a comment stream online about workplace attire.  Women were complaining about being judged for what they wear; men were complaining about being told what to wear.  Turns out, I don't have much of an opinion on this: when in Rome, I disinterestedly dress like a Roman.  Whatever.  I neither judge nor care.  I have a mild dislike for wearing ties.

But what struck me about the conversation is that unpopular opinions, if not expressed in a sufficiently tentative manner, were immediately shouted down by the crowd.  For example, one women expressed disgust at how all women, regardless of what they wear, are judged at work--either too trampy, or too frumpy, or too materialistic, or unfashionable, etc.  Another person (unfortunately, a man) countered that he thought there should be some standards at work.  This commenter then met with an absolute barrage of opposition: people called him unenlightened, or expressed outrage, or just passive-aggressively responded, "you can't possibly understand."  I'm not really interested in the content of the argument here: what fascinated me was that people were attacking one another, expressing emotional outrage, and taking offense--just for having expressed differing opinions.

Is this free speech?  Because this didn't seem like freedom of speech to me; it seemed like socially-controlled speech.  In my example, the "standards" commenter was backed into a corner and essentially forced to shut up or apologize (he just went silent, of course).  And as I watched the situation unfold, I recalled the numerous times I've typed something out in a public forum, but deleted it without posting because I knew it would be an unpopular opinion.

I suppose it's still free speech, in the sense that it's not illegal.  And yet there are constraints on what we're socially allowed to say--real constraints--that don't make sense to me.  For example, my wife avoids posting anything online about our parenting choices based solely on the rationale that we know some of our friends would disagree with our choices, and just the conversation itself might harm those relationships.  You can scoff and say they aren't true friends, or you could lecture us about just "being ourselves," but we really don't need bullet-point advice from a self-help pamphlet.  Reality is complex and this is a nuanced decision, not cowardice; such decisions are frequently part of maintaining good friendships.  If you have any friends who aren't exactly like you, you know what I mean.

But obviously, this irks me.  What is it in our culture that forces us to hide those opinions and choices from our friends?  Have we become such a petty, small-minded culture that good friends really would be separated over differing opinions?

I suppose social groups in every culture and time period have enforced some level of constraint on speech.  It feels like there are tighter constraints today than there were in years past, but how can we tell the difference?

Or am I just sensing these constraints because they fall on the other side of my own opinions?  Is this really a cultural trend, or do I just have dreadfully unpopular views?