Individual Self-Fulfillment

Individual Self-Fulfillment in my opinion is very important for the further continuation and development of the human race and the people who occupy it. Individual Self-Fulfillment, also known as Self-Actualization, primarily revolves around free speech and their ability to create their own identity. C. Edwin Baker has been a massive First Amendment scholar and has done many hours of research on First Amendment topics. Baker argued in his book Human Liberty and Freedom that the primary justification for freedom of expression need the protection of individual human liberty rather than just traditional marketplace ideas rationale to survive. On page five of his book, Baker said “The liberty model holds that the free speech clause protects not a marketplace, but an arena of individual liberty from certain government restrictions”. This statement is important in today’s society because with the evolution of digital communication and social media it really sets the United States apart from every other country in terms of the us as citizens knowing that we have some protection from the government when it comes to what we want to say. 

 

Baker was also a massive believer of the liberty model or liberty theory. The “liberty model is Bakers own idea and he used it to replace or challenge the model of “marketplace of ideas”. “Marketplace of ideas” relates to having ideas that are deemed acceptable by society and that have already been subject to censorship. While keeping on the subject of rejection, Edwin Baker also rejected the idea that the First Amendment was designed to protect political speech. From my research, and the help of John Stick and his commentary on Baker’s book, I’ve discovered that when the marketplace theory was created it was used to assume that truth is objective and that the public searches for truth in data by processing it rationally and using that as their basis for ideas.

 

However, C. Edwin Baker wasn’t the only scholar to pursue findings on the First Amendment. One of Baker’s favorite scholars and professors on the topic was a professor at Yale Law School by the name of Thomas Emerson. Emerson himself also wrote a pivotal book called A system of Freedom of Expression. This book was so influential that it became a one of the main seminal works in First Amendment History. Emerson studied law at Yale Law School from 1928 to 1931 and returned in 1946 as a professor after serving under FDR’s administration. While he was at Yale, he became successful at arguing famous First Amendment cases. Two of the most famous cases being Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 and Sweezy v. New Hampshire in 1957. Griswold v. Connecticut was a landmark case that found that the Constitution allowed for protection against government interference towards couples who wish to use contraceptives. Sweezy v. New Hampshire was another landmark case where a professor, Paul M. Sweezy, was jailed for refusing to answer questions about a lecture he gave at the University of New Hampshire. Some questions that the professor refused to answer that were also asked in court were “What was the subject of your lecture?” “Did you advocate Marxism at that time?” and many more asking the professor if he was also advocating for socialism at the same time. The court obviously ruled in favor of Sweezy however it just goes to show that even though freedom of speech has been a part of the constitution since its creation, it only was respected just over six decades ago. 

 

In conclusion, I feel like freedom of speech is an extremely important part of America’s fundamental structure and the fulfillment of Self-Actualization only solidifies that idea. I think that we still have a long way to go to find out just what the perfect balance between government intervention and people’s freedom but as shown in some of the examples from earlier, we have come a long way from what we started out from and it seems as if we are only going to go up from here with the rapid adoption of social media and the ever expanding reach of the internet. 

Sources:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FICnq-qmSyY0DZyQFal25oCmJHZqoQScNQd9ahEXS1E/edit?usp=sharing