A Step Toward Virtue: The Significance of Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton
By merely acknowledging wrong and evil, we create a pathway to talk about the good and the beautiful.
Ted Capozzi is an undergraduate student at Colby College in Maine.
Following the sexual revolution, what was once seen as reprehensible is now celebrated and even at the forefront of pop culture. Completely vulgar descriptions of sexually libertine behavior can be found in mainstream music, circulating memes on X and Instagram, and all too frequently in popular TV series.
Expectedly, this same culture labels men and women hoping to lead chaste lives as ‘prudish’ and ‘incels.’ Anyone who objects to sexually libertine behavior is met with the belabored quips liberals spout when met with opposition; indeed such reactions are necessary in order to uphold the ideology.
Certainly, such a depraved culture provides challenges to those seeking naturally ordered sexual relations, however, the bigger worry is the next generation; those that are growing up in such a time where sex is completely misnomered and perverted.
To understand these errors, it seems most appropriate to turn to the recent SCOTUS decision, Free Speech Coalition V Paxton. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Texas law HB1181 which requires users to verify their age when visiting pornographic websites. The opinion was delivered by Justice Thomas while Justice Kagan filed in dissent, with Sotomayor and Jackson joining.
While this is certainly a positive, especially for those raising young families, the criticisms of HB1181 are clear signs that a sense of the common good is still completely foreign to many Americans. Citing concerns about privacy and 1st amendment violations, Vera Eidelman and Cecilla Wang write in a co-authored article for the ACLU: “The Constitution should protect adults’ rights to access information about sex online, even if the government thinks it is too inappropriate for children to see.”
One must grant that the two find themselves in a difficult position — there is no eloquent way to argue for the consumption of porn (or as Matt Frad has more aptly described it, “pleasuring yourself as you bond to pixels on a screen”). These writers clearly struggled to do so, as seen in the awfully weak verbiage, “access information about sex online.”
To write with such little conviction and evasive language is reprehensible alone. However, to make no mention of the industry workers and deleterious effects of consumption (especially by children) is repugnant behavior.
In a similar fashion, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) finds itself in a similar position when expressing contempt for the recent ruling. Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere writes the following, “Americans will live to regret the day we let the government condition access to protected speech on proof of our identity.”
Nowhere in the FIRE article that included Mr. Corn-Revere’s brief statement is the immense damage by porn included. This is all because of the mere burden that adults now face following this ruling—as if consuming pornography is a ‘liberty’ that anyone is granted.
Furthermore, arguments that this ruling poses major privacy concerns are rather dubious. If you don’t know that your information is already widely accessed and sold then you likely don't know much about cyber security to begin with.
While tech-savvy teens surely can just access VPNs to work around age restrictions, such a critique seems to partially miss the point of this ruling. Yes, the barrier to access will help dissuade curious minors and that is a great feat in and of itself.
However, this decision also sets a precedent that porn is harmful. This realization alone is important in restoring a sense of the common good. By merely acknowledging wrong and evil, we create a pathway to talk about the good and the beautiful.
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I've found my civics students better able to evaluate the conflict between maximal individual autonomy vs the common good when I reset it into a society outside of their own.
Here's the question I ask them. Jordan is generally a conservative Muslim society and its politics reflect that culture. So, does every Jordanian have an individual right to march in a Pride parade if they choose? Or do Jordanians have a collective right to decide whether to allow Pride parades? If my students answer the former, I ask them why Jordanians aren't entitled to preserve their own culture.
Recasting the "villain who wants to take away civil rights" as a member of a "sacred victim class" (brown and Muslim) challenges the reflexive progressive paradigm most of these kids are raised with, and forces them to really think through the problem and understand the conflict. They nearly always still say that Jordanians ought to have Pride parades, but they're able to at least glimpse why a Jordanian Muslim might not agree with them.
A society built only to support a collective definition of virtue (the common good) is stultifying. But a society built without any collective definition of virtue is highly unstable. The tug-o-war between these two poles essentially is liberal politics.