The first amendment to the US. Constitution gives us the ‘right’ to say almost anything…but what is the right thing to do?
I feel truly blessed to be an American and be fortunate enough to live in the longest-standing democracy in the history of the world. One of the keys that makes this country so unique is our constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The first amendment to the Bill of Rights includes the right to freedom of speech. Here are the words written almost 250 years ago:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I believe these words are truly key to our democracy. Unfortunately, we often take this right for granted, rather than truly understanding what it means.
For example, when we say we have the right to say anything, there are clearly some exceptions. Yelling “fire” in the theater is clearly wrong and against the law.
However, should the right to freedom of speech be interpreted that it is always the right thing to do? What if the purpose of someone’s speech or expression is to hurt, embarrass, or insult another person?
Maybe my problem is I’ve been teaching values based leadership for too long. It seems obvious to me that having the right to free speech comes along with the responsibility of considering how it impacts others.
A great example is the incident that most of us have witnessed in the last few days. President Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed as the pope after joking that his choice for the next pope would be himself. The image (which I definitely will not post here) received many positive reactions. In fact, when it was posted on Instagram, it received more than 1.4 million “hearts.”
I think of myself as a person with a good sense of humor and always up for a good joke, but let’s think about this for a minute. Freedom of speech would say, why not? It’s just a joke. Let’s have some fun. OK, but as I mention in my values based leadership classes, you may have the right, but what is the right thing to do?
As I shared in my last blog post, Pope Francis passed away last week and millions of people are mourning his loss.
Whether people liked him or disliked him, Pope Francis was the spiritual leader of more than 1.3 billion Christians around the world. Is saying something you think is humorous that insults the religious and spiritual beliefs of others the right thing to do? I think not.
Personally? I question why the President of the United States, with all of the issues we are currently dealing with as a country, would post that image on Instagram, X, and other social media platforms using not only his personal accounts, but the official United States White House and POTUS accounts as well.
Again, let me be clear. He clearly has the right to post that image. And the fact that 1.4 million people said they “loved it” is their choice. I guess I’m just surprised and a bit bewildered, why people would want to do and say things that clearly hurt fellow human beings. I respect all of you who will disagree with me, but I wanted to respectfully at least share my view.
Harry, I agree wholeheartedly. Beside that only because one has the right to do or say something, doesn’t mean one should or that it is the “right” thing to do or say. I also truly believe that guidelines are not only helpful but necessary. As you know, in Germany we forbid by law that one is denying the existence of the holocaust, as an example. The US VP, Mr. Vance. lectured us on this earlier this year as he believes this is against the freedom of speech. Very hard to understand what kind of freedom is represented when one can say the untruth.
Thinking of you and what we learned from you on value based leadership a lot these days, where values don’t seemed to be valued or relevant anymore.
My best, Stephan
Hello, Harry.
I’ll begin by saying that I’m a student of your work and an advocate of your Values Based Leadership philosophies. I’ll also say that I entirely agree with your perspective that we as leaders need to cross reference our right to say what we want with what’s the right thing to say. In fact, our team studies the tenets of Emotional Intelligence and workshops them regularity to help honor on of my personal leadership comments of “building into each other personally and professionally.”
Here’s where the conversation becomes difficult. While I fully respect your right and desire to celebrate your faith and share that with others, my question to you is, where does one draw the line between what is Values Based and what isn’t? Is it entirely specific to each individual leader, or is there an implied circle, so to speak, of what values are to be celebrated and which ones aren’t?
For example, you take offense to Trump making a meme of himself in jest and I understand why you would, but surely you must understand that using the Catholic Church as a Beacon of Values is equally if not potentially more insulting to people given the thousands of family members impacted by the abuse of children at the hand of Catholic leaders and the associated and coordinated cover up of said abuses. No?
If it had come to light that Baxter had used traffic humans in the studies of med development, would you have remained working there?
A religious and ethical dilimia indeed.
I’d submit for consideration that we as leaders must be mindful of the fact that while we reserve the right to live along our own personal value systems, perhaps there are times when what we value is in direct conflict with what someone we lead values and, therefore, is stating those values out loud the right thing to do?
I’m genuinely interested in your perspective.
Thanks for all your work.