“We surely live in the stupidest possible era of debate about free speech,” says Ian Dunt. When a key arbiter of free expression is the smirking tech bro who owns Twitter, he might be right. How did the right to express yourself freely get hijacked by reactionaries? Are progressives really a threat to freedom of speech?
Dorian Lynskey and Ian delve back in time from the printing press and its early “paper bullets” via the surprisingly racy life of John Stuart Mill right up to the First Amendment of the US Constitution and our current panics over woke, hate speech and cancel culture. How did shouting “free speech” become an instant way to shut down debate?
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“If somebody tries to make their point about freedom of speech by using a cartoon on the internet, they’ve probably simplified it a bit.” – Dorian Lynskey
“There is a choice not between order and liberty, it is between liberty with order and anarchy without either.” – Justice Robert H Jackson
“The whole story of free speech is the story of doubt.” – Ian Dunt
Reading List
From Ian
Jacob Mchangama – Free Speech: A Global History From Socrates To Social Media
John Rees – The Leveller Revolution
John Stuart Milll – On Liberty
The Complete Works Of Harriet Taylor Mill – Editor Jo Ellen Jacobs
Richard Reeve – John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand
From Dorian
Anthony Lewis — Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment
Suzanne Nossel — Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All
Nat Hentoff – Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other
Stanley Fish — There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech
Samuel P Nelson — Beyond the First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech and Pluralism
Karl Popper — The Open Society and Its Enemies
Flemming Rose — Tyranny of Silence
PE Moskowitz — The Case Against Free Speech
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic — Must We Defend Nazis?: Why the First Amendment Should Not Protect Hate Speech and White Supremacy
Henry Louis Gates Jr — Let Them Talk
George Orwell — Freedom of the Park
Herbert Marcuse — Repressive Tolerance
Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
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Freedom of Speech: Censors working overtime | Origin Story podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
