When Did Americans Become Afraid to Say What They Think?

When Speaking Your Mind Can Cost You More Than an Argument

Part of The American Time Capsule — preserving the people, places, products, traditions, and everyday moments that shaped growing up in America before the digital age. This article explores the customs, celebrations, shared experiences, and traditions that connected generations of Americans.

I’m 77 years old, which means I’ve lived long enough to watch America change in ways I never could have imagined when I was growing up in Ferguson, Missouri.

Some of those changes have been remarkable.

Some were long overdue.

Some I’m still trying to figure out.

But there’s one change that keeps bothering me.

When did Americans become afraid to say what they actually think?

I’m not talking about deliberately insulting somebody.

I’m not talking about racial slurs, attacking somebody’s religion, humiliating people, or walking around looking for somebody to offend.

That’s not courage.

That’s just being an asshole.

I’m talking about something much more ordinary.

Disagreeing.

Questioning.

Saying, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Objecting to a government policy.

Questioning a social trend.

Expressing an unpopular opinion.

There was a time when Americans seemed perfectly capable of doing those things without assuming every disagreement was a declaration of war.

At least that’s how I remember it.

Today, I wonder whether a lot of Americans aren’t keeping quiet because they’ve changed their minds.

Maybe they’re keeping quiet because they think they’ve got too much to lose.

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We Were Never as Free-Spoken as We Remember

Nostalgia can play tricks on you.

America in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s wasn’t some paradise where everybody freely expressed every opinion without consequences.

Far from it.

There were plenty of things you didn’t say.

You didn’t tell your boss exactly what you thought of him if you wanted to keep your job.

You didn’t tell Grandma you were tired of her green bean casserole.

You didn’t discuss certain subjects in polite company.

And plenty of Americans had very good reasons to be careful about what they said because their voices weren’t always welcomed equally.

So I’m not going to pretend we lived in some golden age of completely free conversation.

We had unwritten rules then, too.

But the rules were different.

And more importantly, most arguments stayed relatively close to home.

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The Barbershop Didn’t Have a Share Button

When I was young, people argued in barbershops.

They argued in taverns.

They argued over backyard fences.

They argued at the dinner table.

They argued at work.

They certainly argued on the golf course.

Somebody would say something stupid.

Somebody else would tell him it was stupid.

Everybody would argue for twenty minutes.

Then somebody bought another round.

The argument usually ended where it started.

Today?

Pull out a phone.

Record fifteen seconds.

Upload it.

And suddenly an argument between two people can become entertainment for thousands—or millions—of strangers.

The barbershop didn’t have a share button.

That may be one of the biggest differences between then and now.

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Nothing Disappears Anymore

When I was twenty years old, I undoubtedly said stupid things.

Fortunately, most of them evaporated into the atmosphere.

There isn’t a permanent searchable archive of Richard Schaefer saying something idiotic in 1971.

Thank God.

Today’s generations don’t have that luxury.

That’s one of the enormous differences I explored in Life Before Smartphones—we could do something stupid without assuming somebody nearby was recording it for the entire world.

A joke can become a screenshot.

A bad argument can become a video.

An old post can reappear years later.

Something said to ten people can suddenly be shown to ten thousand people who know absolutely nothing about the conversation that produced it.

We used to worry about putting our foot in our mouth.

Now the foot can have its own URL.

That changes how people talk.

It probably has to.

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When an Accusation Became a Punishment

Something else changed during my lifetime.

People began realizing that certain accusations could carry enormous consequences even before everyone agreed about the facts.

Call somebody a racist.

Accuse somebody of sexual misconduct.

Call somebody an Islamophobe.

Call somebody transphobic.

Those words describe very different accusations, and serious accusations deserve to be taken seriously.

But there’s another principle that matters just as much:

An accusation isn’t the same thing as proof.

That distinction can disappear remarkably quickly when a controversy explodes publicly.

A courtroom has procedures.

Evidence.

Witnesses.

Rules.

A social-media mob has a share button.

And once thousands of people have decided who the villain is, additional facts may arrive too late to completely repair a damaged reputation.

That doesn’t mean every accusation is false.

It doesn’t mean genuine misconduct should be ignored.

It means something much simpler:

Evidence still matters.

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Then Came #MeToo

The #MeToo movement forced America to confront allegations of sexual harassment and abuse that many women said had previously been ignored, tolerated, or concealed.

That mattered.

But another debate came with it.

What happens when an allegation is disputed?

What constitutes sufficient evidence?

How should employers respond?

What does due process mean outside a courtroom?

When is immediate action justified?

When does accountability become punishment before the facts are established?

Americans didn’t agree on the answers.

They still don’t.

But ordinary people were watching.

Employees.

Business owners.

Teachers.

Executives.

Coaches.

People with families and reputations.

People with something to lose.

And I suspect some reached a very practical conclusion:

Why take the chance?

Don’t make the joke.

Don’t discuss the controversial subject.

Don’t challenge the prevailing opinion at work.

Don’t put your name on something that might be interpreted differently five years from now.

Just keep your mouth shut.

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Political Correctness Didn’t Appear Out of Thin Air

I’ve heard the phrase “politically correct” for decades.

Usually it’s said as an accusation.

But underneath the arguments was a legitimate question:

How should people talk about one another in a country containing people with very different backgrounds and experiences?

Some language once casually accepted really was insulting.

Some jokes weren’t nearly as funny to the person being joked about.

I looked at that cultural shift from another angle in Before Comedy Came With Warning Labels, when comedians could push boundaries that would generate a very different reaction today.

People who previously had little ability to object eventually gained a louder public voice.

That’s part of America’s story, too.

Trying to treat people with dignity isn’t something I object to.

But somewhere along the way, another concern developed.

What happens when people become so worried about using the wrong word, expressing the wrong opinion, or asking the wrong question that they decide saying nothing is safer?

Courtesy and self-censorship aren’t necessarily the same thing.

And sometimes the line between them gets awfully difficult to see.

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The Label Can Replace the Argument

This is where I think we’ve gotten ourselves into trouble.

Suppose someone wants stricter enforcement of immigration law.

Another person may disagree.

Fine.

Debate the policy.

What would it accomplish?

What would it cost?

What does the law actually say?

What would happen to families, employers, taxpayers, communities, and the economy?

Those are arguments.

Calling the person a racist doesn’t answer any of them.

The same principle applies when Americans debate religious accommodation.

Or assimilation.

Or transgender participation in women’s sports.

Or race.

Or policing.

Or practically any other subject capable of starting an argument.

Someone may have good reasons for a position.

Someone may have terrible reasons.

You don’t discover which by attaching a label and ending the conversation.

You discover it by asking them to defend what they believe.

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Silence Has a Price Too

Here’s the part that concerns me.

Silence isn’t neutral.

If people believe something is wrong but also believe the personal cost of saying so is too high, public debate stops accurately reflecting what people privately believe.

That doesn’t prove the silent people are right.

They may be completely wrong.

But we’ll never find out if nobody is willing to have the argument.

This is why I love guys like Larry Cox and Matt Walsh, two of my favorite conservative, common sense podcasters, rare people who aren’t afraid to say what they are thinking, even it if costs them.

Because sometimes reality hurts.

And if you don’t like what they have to say or the way they say it, go listen to your favorite liberal morons like Bernie or AOC or Sayed or any of those other idiots.

And problems don’t disappear because discussing them becomes uncomfortable.

Sometimes they get bigger.

Sometimes resentment grows underground.

Sometimes people begin believing nobody else sees what they see.

Then one day everybody discovers that millions of other people were thinking the same thing.

They just weren’t saying it.

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Immigration and Assimilation Are Legitimate Questions

Immigration may be one of the clearest examples.

America has argued about immigration for generations.

How many immigrants should the country admit?

How should unauthorized immigration be handled?

Who should be allowed to remain?

What obligations does America have toward refugees and asylum seekers?

What obligations do newcomers have toward the country receiving them?

How much should immigrants assimilate?

How much of their original culture should they preserve?

Those are legitimate public-policy and cultural questions.

Different Americans are going to reach different answers.

But immigration debates become considerably less useful when disagreement over policy immediately becomes a judgment about somebody’s character.

Supporting stricter immigration enforcement doesn’t by itself tell me whether somebody is racist.

Supporting more immigration doesn’t by itself tell me that somebody wants uncontrolled borders.

Make the argument. Defend the policy. Show me the evidence.

That’s how adults are supposed to disagree.

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What Does Assimilation Mean Anymore?

There’s another question underneath immigration that Americans have wrestled with since long before I was born.

What does becoming American actually require?

America has never demanded that immigrants erase everything about where they came from.

Thank God.

Our food alone would be considerably worse.

Immigrants brought languages, religions, music, traditions, recipes, businesses, customs, and ideas that became part of America.

But historically there has also been an expectation that somehow all these different people would share enough of a common civic culture to function as one country.

That’s where the difficult question begins.

How much adaptation should newcomers make?

How much accommodation should the existing society make?

Where does religious freedom end and generally applicable community rules begin?

When does preserving your heritage enrich your new country?

When does separation make integration more difficult?

Those aren’t questions with one-line answers.

Which is precisely why we need to be able to discuss them.

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Living Overseas Changed How I Think About Assimilation

Living in the Philippines has given me a perspective I didn’t have when I lived in America.

When I moved here, one fact was obvious.

I was the immigrant.

I moved to the Philippines.

The Philippines didn’t move to me.

I didn’t stop being American when the plane landed.

I didn’t surrender my identity.

I still have my American habits.

My American food preferences.

My Marine Corps cap.

And probably considerably more American stubbornness than I need.

But I never expected Filipinos to reorganize their country around Richard Schaefer.

I had some adapting to do.

Their customs.

Their laws.

Their social expectations.

Their way of doing things.

Sometimes I understand them.

Sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I probably look like the confused old American that I am.

But I chose to live in somebody else’s country.

That creates some responsibility on my part to adapt.

I think that’s a reasonable starting point for discussing immigration anywhere.

It doesn’t mean immigrants must erase themselves.

And it doesn’t mean the receiving society should never change.

The interesting question lies somewhere between those extremes:

How much adaptation does living together require from everybody?

America should be capable of having that conversation.

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Religion Shouldn’t End the Conversation Either

Religion creates similar arguments.

Americans have constitutional protections for religious exercise, and the country contains people practicing many faiths—as well as people practicing none.

That inevitably creates disagreements.

Public religious expression.

Schools.

Workplaces.

Noise.

Dress.

Holidays.

Food.

Community standards.

What happens when one person’s religious practice affects another person’s daily life?

That’s not automatically hatred.

It’s a question societies containing different religions have to work out.

Calling somebody an Islamophobe doesn’t settle every disagreement involving Islam.

Just as criticizing Christianity doesn’t automatically mean somebody hates Christians.

Ideas, practices, and policies have to remain open to discussion.

Otherwise we’re no longer protecting tolerance.

We’re protecting certain subjects from debate.

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Then Everybody Got a Microphone

While all these cultural changes were happening, technology poured gasoline on everything.

First came the internet.

Then social media.

Then smartphones.

Suddenly everybody had a printing press, television station, camera crew, and broadcasting network in his pocket.

That democratized public speech in an extraordinary way.

It also created something humanity had never experienced on this scale:

Millions of people talking at once.

And millions more waiting to judge what they said.

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Disagreement Became Content

An ordinary disagreement isn’t particularly interesting.

Outrage is.

Anger gets attention.

Conflict gets attention.

Humiliation gets attention.

A thoughtful discussion between two people who disagree doesn’t generate nearly the spectacle of:

YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT THIS IDIOT JUST SAID!

So our communication technology didn’t merely give everybody a voice.

It created an enormous marketplace competing for everyone’s attention.

And conflict sells.

Now an argument doesn’t merely need participants.

It needs spectators.

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Being Offended Isn’t New

People weren’t emotionally bulletproof when I was young.

They got offended.

They got angry.

They held grudges.

They stopped talking to relatives.

Neighborhood feuds could last longer than some marriages.

The difference was that most disagreements weren’t performed for an audience.

Your argument with your neighbor remained an argument with your neighbor.

Today an audience can arrive before the argument is even finished.

And once there’s an audience, people behave differently.

You’re no longer merely defending your opinion.

You’re defending your identity.

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Maybe Americans Aren’t Afraid of Their Opinions

Maybe they’re afraid of the consequences.

That’s different.

If you have nothing to lose, saying exactly what you think is easy.

But suppose you have a career.

A business.

Employees.

Customers.

A professional reputation.

A family depending on your paycheck.

A name you’ve spent thirty years building.

Suddenly the calculation changes.

Before speaking, you don’t merely ask:

“Do I believe this?”

You ask:

“What could happen to me if I say it?”

Maybe that’s one reason the loudest voices aren’t necessarily representative of everybody else.

Some people have decided the argument is worth having.

Others may have decided the argument isn’t worth the risk.

And that creates a strange society.

One in which millions of people are talking…

while millions of others may be thinking:

Keep your mouth shut. You’ve got too much to lose.

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But Something Was Gained Too

I don’t want nostalgia to turn this into another:

Everything was better when I was young.

It wasn’t.

More Americans can participate in public conversations today.

People who once struggled to be heard can speak for themselves.

Genuine misconduct can be exposed instead of quietly buried.

Information that once required access to a newspaper, television station, university, or publishing company can reach the world from somebody’s bedroom.

Those are enormous changes.

Some are improvements.

But every social and technological improvement seems to send us another bill eventually.

One of those bills may be that public conversation has become more permanent, more performative, and sometimes less forgiving.

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I Still Believe in Speaking Your Mind

At 77, I’m probably not going to become particularly skilled at keeping every opinion to myself.

That ship sailed somewhere around 1958.

But living this long has taught me something else.

Speaking your mind isn’t the same thing as saying every thought that enters it.

There is a difference between honesty and cruelty.

There is a difference between disagreement and disrespect.

There is a difference between asking a difficult question and deliberately trying to provoke somebody.

Maybe that’s one reason MAD Magazine became my satirical bible. It taught an entire generation that practically everything—including ourselves—could be questioned, mocked, and laughed at.

And there is a difference between listening to another opinion and surrendering your own.

Maybe that’s the skill America needs to rediscover.

Not learning how to agree.

Learning how to disagree without immediately becoming enemies.

Because free speech isn’t only about whether the government allows you to speak.

A culture of open debate also depends on ordinary people believing they can disagree, ask uncomfortable questions, challenge prevailing ideas, and sometimes even be wrong without losing everything they’ve spent a lifetime building.

A country where everybody thinks the same thing would be unbearable.

But a country where people become afraid to talk to one another isn’t much better.

Maybe the goal was never to make America safe from disagreement.

Maybe it was to make disagreement safe enough that Americans would keep talking.

I’d hate to think we lost that.

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