"The State of Nature"

In an article for the philosophy blog of the NYTimes, "The Stone," Steven Nadler writes insightfully about the 17th century philosopher Spinoza's unprecedented commitment to freedom of expression.  He notes that Spinoza's conviction arises from the basic fact that beliefs and thoughts cannot be regulated.  As the German volksong puts it: Die Gedanken Sind Frei, wer kann sie erraten. Thoughts are free, who can guess them.  The song goes on to say that no one can know then, and no soldier can shoot them with powder or lead.  We think what we like, no one can take away that freedom.  Spinoza's (and Nadler's) argument runs that with such individual agency taken for granted, any attempt by government to keep people from expressing these free thoughts will only cause resentment and tyranny.  Here is the final paragraph of the blog:

Well before John Stuart Mill, Spinoza had the acuity to recognize that the unfettered freedom of expression is in the state’s own best interest. In this post-9/11 world, there is a temptation to believe that “homeland security” is better secured by the suppression of certain liberties than their free exercise. This includes a tendency by justices to interpret existing laws in restrictive ways and efforts by lawmakers to create new limitations, as well as a willingness among the populace, “for the sake of peace and security,” to acquiesce in this. We seem ready not only to engage in a higher degree of self-censorship, but also to accept a loosening of legal protections against prior restraint (whether in print publications or the dissemination of information via the Internet), unwarranted surveillance, unreasonable search and seizure, and other intrusive measures. Spinoza, long ago, recognized the danger in such thinking, both for individuals and for the polity at large. He saw that there was no need to make a trade-off between political and social well-being and the freedom of expression; on the contrary, the former depends on the latter.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/spinozas-vision-of-freedom-and-ours/?hp

Interesting to me was a tiny phrase earlier in the piece, "state of nature".  This came from a moment in the blog when Nadler was analyzing Spinoza's idea of restricted freedom of expression: sedition can still be banned when free speech steps over the bounds of civility and into the realm of inciting violence.  Nadler claims this is because of the "social contract" that all citizens have tacitly entered:  

 As individuals emerged from a state of nature to become citizens through the social contract, “it was only the right to act as he thought fit that each man surrendered, and not his right to reason and judge.” 

This all seems well and good, but that little phrase "state of nature" seems worthy of investigation.  What is the "state of nature"?  It seems here to indicate some savage, purely self interested sovereignty of cavemen.  But that picture is surely invented, for all social groups even of animals today operate within bounds of affection, selflessness, and mutual responsibility (they probably don't call it that).  Grounding the narrative of such a right in some imagined time period when all people were free and independent seems suspect.

So my response to this right is part classically conservative: what about the deep traditional mores of public discourse? Ought they not be maintained, with a countenancing of certain speech as allowable but deplorable? (Example: Holocaust deniers.  We let them have their say, but don't give them credence).  On the other hand I certainly believe that the minority voices, especially those condemning of the instruments of power, ought to be carefully protected, whether Rush Limbaugh or the Occupy Protestors.  We can disagree with their messages, but must support their right to say it:

Libertas philosophandi, the freedom of philosophizing, must be upheld for the sake of a healthy, secure and peaceful commonwealth and material and intellectual progress.