Eight Values of Free Expression--Which One(s) is Most Important?

Eight scholarly theories regarding free expression outline why the First Amendment is so vital to us as Americans. These are ordered as follows: Marketplace of Ideas, Participation in Self-Government, Stable Change, Individual Self-Fulfillment, Check on Governmental Power, Promotion of Tolerance, Promotion of Innovation, and Protection of Dissent. Of these many ideas, there is much discussion of which can be considered the most important. While all of these
theories are critical to the American ideal of liberty, there are two that particularly stand out to me -- Marketplace of Ideas and Protection of Dissent. These two theories are inseparably twined together and each promotes the continuity of the other.

The Marketplace of Ideas is a theory that was originally formed by John Milton, an English poet, historian, and journalist. The hypothesis claims that when true and false ideas are allowed to compete openly with each other, the truth will always be the victor. I strongly agree with this idea, as its validity seems to be common sense. On the flip side, the Protection of Dissent theory enables unpopular ideas in the marketplace to be protected. Whenever there is no marketplace of ideas or protection of dissent, one specific viewpoint can be shut down, or be the only view that is available/promoted. If this occurs, only bad things can ensue. For example, in Nazi Germany, when Hitler exclusively promoted the idea that Jews were an inferior, subhuman species, that idea was commonplace throughout Germany. This is because all German citizens were conditioned to agree, due to the suppression of any other ideas that disagreed with this notion. However, a marketplace of ideas defeats this possibility

. When people with bad ideas are allowed to freely share their bad ideas and others are allowed to freely critique these ideas, people will rightly recognize the bad ideas and be able to call them out. Germany's problem was that its dissenting voice against antisemitism was not allowed to critique the common idea, which led to it spreading like wildfire. This shows why the Protection of Dissent is so important. If dissent were protected in Germany during this time, I believe the marketplace of ideas would have shut down Hitler’s antisemite propaganda swiftly. This is why I strongly believe one of these concepts of the Marketplace of Ideas and the Protection of Dissent cannot exist without the other. They are both so vital to the other’s existence that one cannot be complete without the other. 

In a day and age where government censorship of the public is becoming more and more normalized, we must remember our nation’s founding principles. Included in the First Amendment is everything us Americans need to defend our right to free speech, yet we constantly allow the government to illegally trample our voices. Why is this? I believe it is because many Americans are poorly educated on what the First Amendment ensures us. Many Americans do not even know that embedded in the amendment are the 8 theories of free expression. While I chose to write about just two of them, all of them are critical components of what makes the First Amendment so strongly supportive of the people. In America, the government is supposed to derive its power only from the consent of the governed, yet so many of the governed are not even aware of this. Better education on the First Amendment and the rights it guarantees is the first step in correcting this grave reality.