Free Speech: Truth’s Only Ally
Despite our keen intelligence and irrepressible curiosity about the nature of the world in which we live, we humans are not primarily truth-seekers. We are a species of social ape,…
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Free Speech
94 posts
Ricky Gervais and the Manuel Problem
The only thing more predictable than the transphobic jokes in Ricky Gervais’ new Netflix special, SuperNature, was the criticism they elicited.
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The First Freedom: Free Speech: A History by Jacob Mchangama
In President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address, he spoke of a “world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere…
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Censoring Joe Rogan
I remember when Joe Rogan was a just a weed-fuelled, combat-sports-obsessed podcast host mainly seen on YouTube—and not trending on CNN every month. However, he’s now a podcasting superstar with…
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From Socrates to Social Media: In Conversation with Jacob Mchangama
In this week’s episode of our Two for Tea podcast, editor-in-chief Iona Italia talks to Jacob Mchangama about his ambitious new forthcoming book Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media.…
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Double Standards for Nadia Murad and Shamima Begum
Nadia Murad, who won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, was only 19 in 2014, when Islamic State (ISIS) militants invaded her Yazidi village, Kocho, in northern Iraq. They killed all the…
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Soft Coercion at the Woke University
Spectacular examples of cancel culture seem to happen weekly. Last month, the University of Michigan banished from the classroom one of its distinguished professors, Bright Sheng—a MacArthur Fellow and composer—because…
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A Multicultural Psychologist’s Take on Free Speech
What is important in life? I think freedom of thought and expression must be among the top contenders. I’d like to share with you how two things contributed to this…
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Against the New Irish Hate Speech Bill
To the Irish Justice Ministry George Orwell once wrote that, “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”…
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The Promotion of Ivermectin: A Free Speech Edge Case
Several recent exchanges about Covid-19 vaccination and a medication called Ivermectin—for example in a recent podcast hosted by Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying—have raised an important question: What responsibility, if…
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The Neuroscience of Intellectual Openness
How is it that some people feel energised by the thought of fierce debate and keen to have their beliefs challenged and their minds potentially changed, while others appear unwilling…
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The Golden Age of Slogans
Free speech suffocates when a requirement to parrot slogans constricts the free exchange of ideas and thoughts in the public square.
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Cancel Culture and the Free Speech Debates
In our public discourse, those who say things that are polemical, simplistic or polarizing tend to receive the most attention. But the world is complex, life is messy, moral intuitions…
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What Multilevel Selection Theory Tells Us About Free Speech
I’m guessing that most readers of this essay are unfamiliar with the theory its title refers to. That’s a pity, because multilevel selection (MLS) theory, which was developed to explain…
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The Right to Remain Silent
But the danger [here] of words in their theoretical insignificance is perhaps that they claim to evoke the annihilation where all sinks always, without hearing the “be silent” addressed to…
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The Lab Leak and Other Conspiracy Theories, Some Of Which Turned Out to Be True
Conspiracy theories are the new evil of our time—or so we thought. Over the past six months, there has been a unified drive from politicians and Big Tech to ban…
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The Free Speech Crisis Runs Deeper Than You Think
The question of whether freedom of speech is under threat has been a point of debate for several years now. Some have argued that the notion of a free speech…
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Censorship and the Policing of Identity in Young Adult Literature
Becky Albertalli is a mover and shaker in YA (young adult literature). Her 2015 debut novel, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, won the American Library Association’s prestigious William C.…
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