Freedom from Speech

The past year has been a surreal time for freedom of speech. While the legal protections of the First Amendment remain strong, the larger culture is increasingly obsessed with punishing both public and private individuals for allegedly offensive utterances or (often misunderstood) jokes. Academia--already an institution where free speech is in decline--has grown still more intolerant with high profile "disinvitation" efforts against speakers as well known as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and demands from students for professors to provide "trigger warnings" in class to protect them from even G rated material. Meanwhile the global situation for freedom of speech has grown even worse, with a politician in the UK arrested for quoting Winston Churchill. In "Freedom from Speech," author Greg Lukianoff argues that the threats to free speech go well beyond "political correctness" or "liberal groupthink." As global populations increasingly expect not just physical comfort in their lives, but intellectual comfort as a kind of right, threats to freedom of speech are only going to become more intense as time goes by. Lukianoff offers potential solutions to ensure freedom of speech survives in the long battle to come.