For the sake of sounding like an old fogey, I remember back to my college days and having to make a presentation in front of a group of people – and then defending my work to my fellow classmates. We critiqued all of our work. We learned to express our point of view and how to mollify someone who had a different opinion. And we learned not to take every opposing remark as an affront to our personhood. It was just another opinion. Nowadays it seems that if I disagree with someone’s opinion, their feelings get hurt and I am labeled a hater. What ever happened to an honest debate?

You may think that has nothing to do with your business and marketing in particular. I would tell you to wake up. This sort of everybody-has-to-agree thinking has brought us lock step to the same place – boxed into the same corner of the room. We have limited free speech, so that it is no longer okay to say what is truly on your mind. Sound bytes are taken out of context and fed to us to support the intolerance of speaking your mind. Even historically accurate statements are deemed unspeakable if they are thought to cross a line of hateful thinking.

Let’s take some examples from recent events. Yesterday it was announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had canceled several trademarks of the Washington Redskins football team. For years, there has been a debate about whether teams with names that were tied to native Americans were racial slurs. Chief in that debate were the Redskins. You may agree that the name is racially indiscrete. It may offend you. You have the right to speak out and try to change people’s minds to agree with you. You have the right to boycott their team. But it is quite another thing when a privately held corporation is stripped of its copyright protection to its own name. They have the right, guaranteed by the First Amendment, to call themselves whatever they would like as long as they are not violating the copyrights of another organization. If enough people stop buying tickets to their games because the name is offensive, the owners of the Redskins will change their name. What will happen if this is upheld in court? Will your brand be protected if enough people find it offensive? There were five people who filed a complaint against the Redskins with the Patent and Trademark Office. How many people would it take to make you change your brand, your advertising, your marketing strategies? What if it were mandated by a federal agency on the basis of five people’s complaint?

Example two comes via the state treasurer of the state where I live; Indiana. In a speech around the D-Day commemoration, he cited historical fact when he reminded his audience that the leaders of the Nazi Party were elected to office in Germany in the 1930s because their country was bankrupt. They achieved economic recovery, but with a sinister twist. He warned that the United States needed to heed history lest we make the same kind of mistake. His facts were spot on. He was vilified for these comments. Despite your political leanings, when did historical fact become hate speech?

Do you see where we find ourselves these days? Say what you think as long as it agrees with the trending thought. And just who gets to decide what the correct thought is? Pretty soon you will be throttled back to the point that we will be without any creativity to distinguish one business from another. The thing that has made America great and American business so ingenious has been those people who thought about going beyond what everyone else was doing. They dared to speak their mind. They made the counterpoint against conventional thinking. They were audacious enough to try something no one else had tried before. In a world where the honest debate is dead, we all look alike. In marketing, we are charged with making our products and services distinct – like none other. The question is, will it still be allowed to happen or will we be regulated to stay within the same lines as all of our competition and let someone else decide who wins and who gets shut down? In the good old days, there was an honest debate and the market chose the winners and losers. I hope, for the sake of free speech and free markets, that we can regain those days again.

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Richard Mourdock blows it once again, by Matthew Tulley, Indianapolis Star, June 10, 2014

Washington Redskins will appeal trademark office ruling over 'disparaging' nickname, by Frank Schwab, Shutdown Corner, June 18, 2014

Photo by Innovated Captures