Freedom from Speech (Encounter Broadside)

Freedom of speech is a bedrock American principle. It is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but it cannot be reduced to that amendment. Instead, as Greg Lukianoff points out in this Encounter Broadside, it reflects “cultural values” and “intellectual habits,” such as"giving the other side a fair hearing, reserving judgment, tolerating opinions that offend or anger us, believing that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, and recognizing that even people whose points of view we find repugnant might be (at least partially) right. At the heart of these values is epistemic humility—a fancy way of saying that we must always keep in mind that we could be wrong or, at least, that we can always learn something from listening to the other side."Lukianoff contends that these values and habits are under assault in America today, and he points to numerous examples to establish the point.The assault on freedom of speech cannot be dismissed simply as “academia’s fault,” the result of “liberal groupthink” and “political correctness.” (Academia does play a crucial role, however, as Lukianoff’s Unlearning Liberty details at length. So does the political Left.) Instead, the assault reflects a social trend that can be seen worldwide:"people all over the globe are coming to expect emotional and intellectual comfort as though it were a right. This is precisely what you would expect when you train a generation to believe that they have a right not to be offended. Eventually, they stop demanding freedom of speech and start demanding freedom from speech."The problem with expecting comfort as a right is that…well, the real world doesn’t work that way. Even assuming that everyone is acting on their best behavior, diversity ensures that there will be disagreement in society about what is true, good, and beautiful. Far from helping resolve those disagreements, social rules and cultural norms that promote “freedom from speech” hinder reasonable resolutions of those conflicts—and even the agreement to disagree. Instead, freedom from speech requires power—university administrators, government regulators, etc.—to impose a version of truth, goodness, and beauty on a diverse society that literally does not have a say about it.Far from promoting a tolerant, comfortable society, then, the right to comfort ironically creates victims and transmogrifies conflicts about fundamental principles into zero-sum conflicts about who wields power. In such a situation, reason loses and force wins. That’s not a good situation for democratic societies to find themselves in. Far better to allow Socratic gadflies to ask uncomfortable, even embarrassing, questions and to dialogue the way to reasonable answers. Unfortunately, that’s not the path contemporary American society is taking.

Freedom of speech has been in the news quite a bit in recent years and is on the decline not just in the United States but elsewhere in the West as well. As Greg Lukianoff notes in "Freedom from Speech," in our country today increasing numbers of Americans show not just indifference, but in some cases outright disdain toward one of the bulwarks of civilization.Lukianoff provides the cultural definition of free speech as opposed to free speech as defined by the Constitution and describes the intellectual underpinnings of free speech, as well as why robust free speech is necessary for science, culture, and societies to continue to advance and to avoid stagnation and decline.The author looks at a key trend today that leads many to undervalue freedom of speech. As many value security over liberty in other spheres such as economics, they also tend to do so in other areas as well, and Lukianoff explains why he thinks the threat to free speech will only grow in the coming decades.College campuses are the places where one would expect to find the most fervent defenders of free speech, but this is sadly not the case, and Lukianoff details some of the problems facing free speech in the academy."Freedom from Speech" is a relatively short booklet and can be read in a single sitting, but it timely and convincingly argues why robust free speech and open exchange of ideas are not luxuries, but absolute necessities for civilized societies.

I like this broadside format a lot, even if most of the titles in the series are polemic spewings from critics with whom I don't really agree. Lukianoff makes many valuable arguments in this one, and his arguments benefit from his careful attention to staying on topic and within the scope of his thesis. The length is about as much time as I think the issue is worth, and the book comes together nicely because of it.As a librarian at an elite liberal arts institution, I sympathize with Lukianoff's concerns and I think he treats the issues fairly, without straying into alarmist rhetoric as many other people writing on campus speech initiatives (including trigger warnings, etc) are wont to do. He does pull examples from some isolated cases that I doubt are broadly applicable, and plays a bit into the hands of fearmongers and those who want to uncritically characterize young people as overly "soft" for engaging (sometimes fairly, sometimes poorly) with very real issues of race and gender relations on campus. In the end, however, it's a great contribution to the discussion on what seems to be an increasingly troublesome trend in the ivory tower. Recommended.

College administrators have turned on its head the old adage “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”. Through speech codes that restrict constitutionally protected speech as well as limit other free expression and rights to due process, Universities seek to shield students from hurled WORDS in the name of emotional safety. The notion that mere words, exhaled on one‘s breath (with no other risk of imminent danger or threat of physical harm), could cause such “pain” that it justifies a restriction on our preeminent rights under the First Amendment is nonsensical. But this is happening today on College campuses —public and private, big and small — throughout the USA. Awareness is paramount. Know your rights. Empower your young adult to Stand up for Free Speech.

This is a succinct and to the point discussion of importance of freedom of speech on and off campus and the dangers of losing it. Even though the book has been written nearly 7 years ago, it is of course more relevant today than ever due to the emergence of cancel culture, censorhip, etc.

Greg Lukianoff’s monograph is essentially concerned with the situation in America, but at points throughout his argument he shows how the situation is a global one and has particularly impacted on the UK. The title is arresting and at first, perhaps puzzling, but it soon becomes clear that what the author is concerned with here is an unwillingness to listen to those who say anything that might invade one’s comfort zone. Interestingly, Lukianoff sees this whole issue of protection from free speech in a much larger context than most. It is for him an extension of our increasing reliance on living in a relatively pain free world. As advances in medicine and in social protection have insulated us in a way unthinkable in the past, so we now expect to be protected from views with which we might disagree or which might upset us, even in the most trivial of ways. This is bad news for those of us who believe in “a free and robust exchange of ideas.”Lukianoff does not see the problem as exclusive to the academic world, but it is here, surely, that we might reasonably expect to find a welcome for a range of opinions, for the opportunity to hear and consider attitudes and beliefs that do not coincide with those we already hold. In fact too often here is the root of the problem and it expresses itself in a variety of ways. Pre-eminent amongst these are a bar to invitations to speakers who might not share the collective student sensibilities or who might frighten the administrators, who often rely on commercial funds and wish to be free from political disturbance. “Disinvitation” is becoming increasingly widespread and not in America alone. Germaine Greer has been one recent and unlikely victim of this process in the UK.Then there is the trigger-warning issue. Trigger warnings are now mandatory on many courses. There was a time when BBC television would give advance notice that a programme to follow might be “unsuitable for those of a nervous disposition.” Of course this has long disappeared. We are all much tougher and resilient now. Or are we? In many universities, especially in America the introduction of say a literary text that might show violence towards women, include characters whose racial views are less than pristine or touch on a family in which there are serious problems have to be preceded by an alert – a trigger warning. The fact that these texts may have been written in an age with less socially enlightened attitudes is of no importance. Someone in the lecture hall might be emotionally upset. As Lukianoff says surely higher education is where you are supposed to learn about the world as it truly is and has been, which inevitably includes some painful and horrific subjects. Are we no longer to study the first world war, the appalling social conditions that came with the early years of the industrial revolution and so on?The idea that we can always learn something from listening to the other side, indeed from playing the devil’s advocate on occasion, is slipping away fast. As Lukianoff says: “we are on a slippery slope.” Our freedom of speech is being taken from us by stealth. We must all take up the fight before it is too late.

A great defense of Free Speech. Sixty years ago it was the Radical Right who threatened Free Speech. Today it's the Radical Left. Conservatives and liberals have here an issue on which they can agree: the importance of the right to say things that other people don't like -- a foundation stone of democracy, and now under threat on American campuses. This book provides ammunition to people who believe in freedom.

Zum Inhalt sage ich nichts - das seht in der Beschreibung. Was ich aber sagen kann: das Werk ist sehr gut geschrieben, Lukianoff kann das einfach, und gibt einen guten Einblick ein ein amerikanisches Phänomen. Daher: 5 (FÜNF) Sterne! Einen Stern Abzug dafür, dass dieses Statement ein wenig kurz geraten ist - das Büchlein hat rd. 61 groß gedruckte Seiten.

A summary of the grim state of thought and free speech in the US. In my experience this is mirrored many other western countries. In some it's considerably worse.