Freedom of Free Expression and Performance

In a traditional sense, free expression is seen as a public good, something essential to democracy. It’s the central way that people use to exchange ideas and challenge power structures. However, in modern society, free expression feels far more performative. There is always so much discourse occurring, today it feels more fueled by a want for visibility and approval over a desire for truth. This makes the distinction between free expression as a personal value over a public one hard to discern. 

Bejan discusses this when talking about the power that private institutions have:  “Pleading the First Amendment in such cases is not a knock-down argument: it is a non sequitur,” (2019). Although individuals may express themselves on their own, there is a lot to be said about the voices that the institutions are amplifying. Several of these organizations include educational institutions and major social media platforms, where people are forming deep opinions. This has a major impact on our identities, and feels much less neutral and far more curated.

Diving deeper into how this impacts our identity, LePensee and Emmons discuss that expression isn’t just communication, but helps to establish how we relate to each other through storytelling. Showing that expression is how we create our identity. However, when expression faces curation, identity becomes performative. In a society where specific expression is praised and rewarded, everyone performs for that praise. When that praise becomes our driving factor- the discourse becomes incredibly monotonous.  

This dynamic is further explored by Spivak when discussing marginalized voices. Often marginalized voices are deemed unintelligent within the larger system, removing their stories and identity from amplified discourse. Further suggesting that the performances that they were putting on, were not approved by dominant institutions. Institutions will uphold the performance by allowing some voice to be heard, however, visibility does not equate to proper amplification. Without proper amplification, the story being told is lost, thus the identity and freedom of expression that comes with it. If institutions were to allow for amplification of any discourse this would make a major difference in performatized expression. 

Although current society has made expression incredibly performative, I still feel it’s worth protecting. With the heightened need for visibility and amplification of marginalized voices, expression is still important. Expression helps us to form identity, and that is so incredibly important to our sense of self. If there is a way to get less performative voices amplified or a performative way to amplify specific messages there may be a major shift in how expression impacts our society.