According to a new poll on free speech and media from Pew Research, millennials are more likely than older generations to believe the government should have the right to prevent people from making offensive comments about minorities.
When asked whether American citizens should be allowed to make public statements that are offensive to minority groups or if the government should be able to prevent it, 40 percent of millennials said “yes” to government prevention, opposed to just 27 percent of Gen Xers and 24 percent of Boomers.
Looks like we’ve found yet another way to alienate ourselves from the rest of our country.
As a nation, however, only 28 percent support public prevention, falling more in line with the opinions of older generations of Americans but far behind those found in Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, France and the UK (averaging around 50 percent).
A Government Divided
So, why do millennials stray so far from the beaten path when it comes to free speech and the media?
Researchers partly attribute these findings to our diversity as a generation – we’re the most racially diverse generation in American history, with some 43 percent of millennial adults being non-white. Generally, this would seem to suggest that we’re more culturally sensitive and open-minded than older generations.
Moreover, this aversion to free speech as it relates to hate speech has increased along with party polarization and “partisan antipathy” in the United States.
Per a June 2014 survey on party polarization from Pew Research, 92 percent of Republicans are “to the right of the median Democrat, and 94 percent of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.” The gap between those identifying as consistently liberal and consistently conservative has significantly widened since 1994, pulling each party to more ideological extremes.
What’s more, 27 percent of Democrats even go as far as saying that GOP policies are a “threat to the well-being of our country,” while 36 percent of Republicans say the same of Democratic policies.
The result? A rise in the likelihood of hate speech, especially around election season when party leaders are trying to rally voter bases and secure the nomination. As a generation of independents disheartened by the entire political process, namely divisive rhetoric on the far-left or far-right, this aversion to aggressive speech in the mainstream media isn’t surprising.
Our Take
As a cornerstone of our constitution and American ethos, it’s highly unlikely that our unobstructed right to free speech will be altered any time soon – especially when it comes to the media. Aside from opening up a Pandora’s Box of regulatory reform, we would essentially have to redefine the term “free speech” in a highly partisan society.
However, it’s always interesting to see how we relate, or more often, differ, from the rest of our country and why. Understanding how we form opinions as a generation and the impact those opinions have on our country overall sheds a light on our unique and often complex political identity.
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