Tuesday, August 20, 2019

New piece in Quillette: Free speech is about more than the First Amendment

I'm pleased to appear in Quillette this week on a topic that I had been wanting to write about for a long time -- namely, the importance of recognizing free speech as a cultural value rather than simply a restraint on the government. The piece has received a decent amount of attention. From the conclusion:
When responding to speech we don’t like, a useful guideline is to ask ourselves, “Am I disagreeing, or am I retaliating? Am I trying to persuade, or am I trying to silence?” If retaliation or silencing is the goal, remember that such techniques will ultimately be used not just on “bad” speech, but on “good” speech, as well. And when people refrain from speaking because they fear personal retribution from corporations, the media, academia, or an unruly Twitter mob, the value of their speech is lost—lost in the same way it would be if the government threatened them with punishment.
Read the whole thing there.