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Freedom from Speech
This is a surreal time for freedom of speech. While the legal protections of the First Amendment remain strong, the culture is obsessed with punishing individuals for allegedly offensive utterances. And academia – already an institution in which free speech is in decline – has grown still more intolerant, with high-profile “disinvitation” efforts against well-known speakers and demands for professors to provide “trigger warnings” in class.
In this Broadside, 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 but also intellectual comfort, threats to freedom of speech are only going to become more intense. To fight back, we must understand this trend and see how students and average citizens alike are increasingly demanding freedom from speech.
In this Broadside, 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 but also intellectual comfort, threats to freedom of speech are only going to become more intense. To fight back, we must understand this trend and see how students and average citizens alike are increasingly demanding freedom from speech.
62 pages, Paperback
First published September 9, 2014
21 people are currently reading
556 people want to read
About the author
Greg Lukianoff
12 books262 followersGregory Christopher Lukianoff (born 1974) is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He previously served as FIRE's first director of legal and public advocacy until he was appointed president in 2006.
Lukianoff has published articles in the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Atlantic, Inside Higher Ed, and the New York Post. His article in The Atlantic, "The Coddling of the American Mind" laid the groundwork for a nationwide discussion of whether or not trigger warnings are harming college health.
He is a blogger for The Huffington Post and served as a regular columnist for the Daily Journal of Los Angeles and San Francisco.[citation needed] Along with Harvey Silverglate and David A. French, Lukianoff is a co-author of FIRE's Guide to Free Speech on Campus. He testified before the United States Congress on the state of free speech on college campuses, and he appeared in the films Brainwashing 101 and Indoctrinate U on the same topic. He has made numerous appearances on nationally syndicated television shows.
Lukianoff has published articles in the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Atlantic, Inside Higher Ed, and the New York Post. His article in The Atlantic, "The Coddling of the American Mind" laid the groundwork for a nationwide discussion of whether or not trigger warnings are harming college health.
He is a blogger for The Huffington Post and served as a regular columnist for the Daily Journal of Los Angeles and San Francisco.[citation needed] Along with Harvey Silverglate and David A. French, Lukianoff is a co-author of FIRE's Guide to Free Speech on Campus. He testified before the United States Congress on the state of free speech on college campuses, and he appeared in the films Brainwashing 101 and Indoctrinate U on the same topic. He has made numerous appearances on nationally syndicated television shows.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
May 28, 2021
Great "pamphlet" that gives a quick overview of this important and timely issue.
Quotes:
“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.” -pp. 12-3
“Settling conflicts with discourse and reason rather than wars of duels has been one of the greatest sources of peace and prosperity in human history. But make no mistake about it: we are still at combat with one another. We simply use words instead of weapons to determine who gets to wield power and decide what is considered to be true.” -pp. 20-21
Quotes:
“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.” -pp. 12-3
“Settling conflicts with discourse and reason rather than wars of duels has been one of the greatest sources of peace and prosperity in human history. But make no mistake about it: we are still at combat with one another. We simply use words instead of weapons to determine who gets to wield power and decide what is considered to be true.” -pp. 20-21
October 29, 2014
I'm uncomfortable with the Goodreads rating system as most of the books I read, I read for the significance of their ideas. Accordingly, the "did not like" to the "it was amazing" range of choices do not truly fit what I would like to say. Thus, I am grateful for the comment section.
This is a short book, part of the Encounter Broadside series; but, important as it explains in a straight forward manner the threat to freedom of speech on the campuses of America's universities.
This is a short book, part of the Encounter Broadside series; but, important as it explains in a straight forward manner the threat to freedom of speech on the campuses of America's universities.
January 30, 2021
Freedom from Speech (Encounter Broadside Book 39) by Greg Lukianoff analyzes the extreme deterioration of our basic American freedoms focusing especially on Freedom of Speech. The author provides evidence that our schools have been conditioning our students about trigger warnings and offensive speech and how they should deal with it for at least a generation now. Typically today's college students have been taught that they have the right of Freedom From Speech that they don't like or that they claim makes them uncomfortable. One of the results, unsurprisingly, is known as disinvitation in which an invited well-known speaker to the school, usually for graduation, is disinvited as school administrators cave in to student protesters and their demand to not have to listen to speech that they disagree with, mostly conservative speakers. This actually goes against the purpose of college to be a place to discuss and share ideas and to be exposed to those unfamiliar to everyone; not any more. Those conservative or controversial speakers that do somehow manage to make it on campus often face loud and sometimes violent protests and being shouted down to prevent them from being heard. The author argues that the threats to free speech go way beyond political correctness and graduates often struggle when they arrive in the real world after graduation. After being coddled by leftist and progressive professors students have grown accustomed to physical comfort as well as intellectual comfort that most businesses will likely not accommodate. As an easily foreseen result of this protective bubble our schools have created, threats to freedom of speech are only going to become more intense. In order to fight back, we must learn to recognize this trend and see how students and average citizens alike are increasingly demanding freedom from speech and may need to resort to our legal system to correct.
October 9, 2014
An excellent pamphlet-length attack on the rising demands for "freedom from speech" — that is, demands to be protected from contrary or unpleasant ideas. Main topics include "disinvitation season" (college protests demanding the disinvitation of non-left wing speakers) and the abuse of "trigger warnings".
A highlight of the work is Lukanioff's claim that freedom of speech is not limited in extent to first amendment issues, but should be seen as a cultural value; punishing and silencing others for their opinions is not automatically blameless when it is legal.
A highlight of the work is Lukanioff's claim that freedom of speech is not limited in extent to first amendment issues, but should be seen as a cultural value; punishing and silencing others for their opinions is not automatically blameless when it is legal.
April 9, 2015
I went into this broadly sympathetic with Lukianoff's stated aims, but was thoroughly disappointed. I've read significantly more in-depth, informative and insightful blog posts (and even Facebook comments) on the subject. There's nothing new in here for anyone with even a passing interest in the subject, and Lukianoff's analysis is shallow and trite. There are plenty of much better discussions of recent anti-free speech trends available for free online.
July 5, 2019
This is a refreshingly clear and concise pamphlet that summarized the imperiled future of free speech in academia specifically and our culture in general at the time it was written (2014). A lot has happened since then, but the author's analysis of the roots of suppression remain accurate. He wrote of the "care ethic" which has become the new morality that governs public discourse. Empathy has superceded all other considerations in our society. I guess we will see what happens next.
May 28, 2018
A couple of weeks ago I accidentally wandered into a very conservative bookstore, the sort of place I didn't know actually existed. I was fascinated. I had to leave with something, some token of the experience, and so I bought this book and another in the same series, mostly because the store only took cash and I didn't have enough cash on me to buy much else in the place.
I got around to reading this tonight and am happy to say I didn't hate it. It's a very short book, so the author doesn't dig too deep on anything, but most of what he says is fair, more or less on the mark. He explores the trend of restricting speeches on American campuses. He talks about the "disinvitation" movement, wherein students and faculty protest to get speakers they don't like "disinvited" from the campus. And he tears into "trigger warnings" and the whole notion that college campuses are a place where students should feel intellectually comfortable.
His discussion of trigger warnings strikes me as mostly dead on. His discussion of "disinvitations" strikes me as a little less dead on; I'll have to say I agree with him that it can often go too far, but I also think that students and faculty have every right to make their opinions known and to speak out against using campus space for peddlers of hate. It seems perfectly fine to me to say that such and such campus shouldn't be used as a platform for people to showcase their hate speech. Maybe in a longer book the author would be more nuanced and say the same thing; here, he's limited in space, and is pointing to the overall trend, and I suppose he's close to the mark most of the time.
Where I disagree the most is in his contention that this is a new trend. He seems to think that this is mostly a recent phenomenon, that until recently campuses and the American public in a general sense were open to all kinds of ideas. To his credit, he makes an effort to say that this isn't only a problem of the left trying to censor the right. But in spite of that acknowledgement, his vision here seems to be skewed by his own partisanship.
He laments the recent rise of freedom from speech, apparently forgetting the long history of those whose voices weren't allowed to be heard at all. The history of people on the left being jailed for their speech, beaten for their speech. He laments Brendan Eich being forced out of his job for donating money to groups pushing Proposition 8 in California, but doesn't seem terribly bothered that the voices of gay men and women were shut down for most of our country's history, that those who spoke up too loudly lost their jobs, and their families, and their pretty much everything else, often including their lives.
It's great that Lukianoff and other conservatives are championing free speech. As a group, though, they're late to the party. This isn't a new trend. What's new is simply the fact that the ugliness occasionally affects the people they like instead of the people they have counted as the "others" for so long. While what they are saying is more or less accurate, their timing is nauseating, makes it hard to swallow this stuff.
I got around to reading this tonight and am happy to say I didn't hate it. It's a very short book, so the author doesn't dig too deep on anything, but most of what he says is fair, more or less on the mark. He explores the trend of restricting speeches on American campuses. He talks about the "disinvitation" movement, wherein students and faculty protest to get speakers they don't like "disinvited" from the campus. And he tears into "trigger warnings" and the whole notion that college campuses are a place where students should feel intellectually comfortable.
His discussion of trigger warnings strikes me as mostly dead on. His discussion of "disinvitations" strikes me as a little less dead on; I'll have to say I agree with him that it can often go too far, but I also think that students and faculty have every right to make their opinions known and to speak out against using campus space for peddlers of hate. It seems perfectly fine to me to say that such and such campus shouldn't be used as a platform for people to showcase their hate speech. Maybe in a longer book the author would be more nuanced and say the same thing; here, he's limited in space, and is pointing to the overall trend, and I suppose he's close to the mark most of the time.
Where I disagree the most is in his contention that this is a new trend. He seems to think that this is mostly a recent phenomenon, that until recently campuses and the American public in a general sense were open to all kinds of ideas. To his credit, he makes an effort to say that this isn't only a problem of the left trying to censor the right. But in spite of that acknowledgement, his vision here seems to be skewed by his own partisanship.
He laments the recent rise of freedom from speech, apparently forgetting the long history of those whose voices weren't allowed to be heard at all. The history of people on the left being jailed for their speech, beaten for their speech. He laments Brendan Eich being forced out of his job for donating money to groups pushing Proposition 8 in California, but doesn't seem terribly bothered that the voices of gay men and women were shut down for most of our country's history, that those who spoke up too loudly lost their jobs, and their families, and their pretty much everything else, often including their lives.
It's great that Lukianoff and other conservatives are championing free speech. As a group, though, they're late to the party. This isn't a new trend. What's new is simply the fact that the ugliness occasionally affects the people they like instead of the people they have counted as the "others" for so long. While what they are saying is more or less accurate, their timing is nauseating, makes it hard to swallow this stuff.
February 26, 2015
This short little book – board side is the correct term – is about speech today, in particular why it is important that upsetting speech be heard and not condemned. It is rather good and thought provoking, in particular the trigger warning section. I do wish, however, that something more had been done with the question of capitalism/marketing and freedom speech. For instance, I agree that people shouldn’t be punished for voicing an unpopular opinion. But when dealing with a business, I’m more conflicted. For instance, if I, as a consumer, determine that for whatever reason I am not going to watch anything with Tom Cruise in it again (a position I currently hold) and if enough people agree with me. Doesn’t the movie company or television channel, have the right (perhaps even the duty to shareholders) to fire the person who is costing them money? Isn’t it my right not to watch or listen? I’m not sure what the answer is, and we need to be more open to opposing viewpoints, but I would like to see this question addressed more.
(BTW - a friend who is currently teaching a World Literature class was asked by a student not to use the s word. Said friend was confused because he hadn't used shit in class. He asked what the word was. The student said the word that describes what mom and dad do)
March 11, 2018
“…she placed greater value on the emotional comfort of those with whom she identified than on the physical security of the women she assaulted.”
~Lukianoff, p47, on UCSB Professor Mireille Miller-Young assaulting a pro-life protester
Free speech, disinvitation, trigger warnings on campus.
In my view, this is the most pressing issue affecting the Academy. The American university system can be a bastion of free speech, inquiry, and intellectual growth, or it can be a westernized madrasa of stultifying political correctness and infantilism. Lukianoff and FIRE are doing a thankless and indispensable task.
~Lukianoff, p47, on UCSB Professor Mireille Miller-Young assaulting a pro-life protester
Free speech, disinvitation, trigger warnings on campus.
In my view, this is the most pressing issue affecting the Academy. The American university system can be a bastion of free speech, inquiry, and intellectual growth, or it can be a westernized madrasa of stultifying political correctness and infantilism. Lukianoff and FIRE are doing a thankless and indispensable task.
June 28, 2020
"Freedom from Speech", de Greg Lukianoff, faz parte de uma série de panfletos modernos nos EUA (a série é chamada "Encounter Broadside") que tenta rememorar a literatura e os debates públicos dos clássicos panfletos americanos do século XVIII (Common Sense, The Federalist Papers, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, etc). A ideia nesses livros curtos (panfletos) é a de fomentar o debate sobre temas atuais nos EUA e no mundo.
No presente panfleto, Lukianoff apresenta a questão da liberdade de expressão não apenas pelo aspecto eminentemente jurídico. Assim, o autor indica que o ambiente universitário americano enfrenta atualmente uma síndrome de repressão à liberdade de expressão em que as ideias de conforto ideológico e de expectativa de confirmação de suas próprias visões de mundo (confirmation bias) falam mais alto do que o mote maior da Universidade: pensar o impensável, discutir o indiscutível e questionar o inquestionável. Diante disso, a ideia de que o ambiente acadêmico deva proporcionar conforto de pensamento representa justamente a antítese da Universidade.
Tudo isso é demonstrado em vários incidentes em que estudantes demandam que eventuais palestrantes e oradores sejam "desconvidados" de eventos universitários pelo simples fato de apresentarem visões de mundo distinta daqueles que clamam pelo conforto ideológico na Universidade. Nesse rumo, figuras como Ayaan Hirsi Ali e Condoleezza Rice, por exemplo, já foram devidamente "desconvidadas" do debate em Universidades.
O livro / panfleto de Lukianoff é um convite ao debate aberto, chamando a Academia a repensar sobre ideias de conforto ideológico e de um falso direito a não ser ofendido pelo debate aberto de ideias. Sem dúvida, todo esse contexto também se repete no Brasil, em todos os lados do espectro político e ideológico.
No presente panfleto, Lukianoff apresenta a questão da liberdade de expressão não apenas pelo aspecto eminentemente jurídico. Assim, o autor indica que o ambiente universitário americano enfrenta atualmente uma síndrome de repressão à liberdade de expressão em que as ideias de conforto ideológico e de expectativa de confirmação de suas próprias visões de mundo (confirmation bias) falam mais alto do que o mote maior da Universidade: pensar o impensável, discutir o indiscutível e questionar o inquestionável. Diante disso, a ideia de que o ambiente acadêmico deva proporcionar conforto de pensamento representa justamente a antítese da Universidade.
Tudo isso é demonstrado em vários incidentes em que estudantes demandam que eventuais palestrantes e oradores sejam "desconvidados" de eventos universitários pelo simples fato de apresentarem visões de mundo distinta daqueles que clamam pelo conforto ideológico na Universidade. Nesse rumo, figuras como Ayaan Hirsi Ali e Condoleezza Rice, por exemplo, já foram devidamente "desconvidadas" do debate em Universidades.
O livro / panfleto de Lukianoff é um convite ao debate aberto, chamando a Academia a repensar sobre ideias de conforto ideológico e de um falso direito a não ser ofendido pelo debate aberto de ideias. Sem dúvida, todo esse contexto também se repete no Brasil, em todos os lados do espectro político e ideológico.
April 9, 2020
I think this article did a great job of describing the movement against freedom of speech that's been occurring all over the world (especially college campuses) over the past twenty years. Linking different opinions to traumatic events seem to be the most common rationale provided by people who push for trigger warnings and safe spaces. What is actually happening is that we are seeing a decline in intellectual growth. We are also seeing an increase in the number of incidents where anything that is deemed offensive gets punished and blown out of proportion. It is a slippery slope when we consider that anybody can say that anything is offensive from a purely personal, subjective opinion. I think this is a paper that should be read in every college.
April 29, 2020
Huh. Well, that was odd.
This book showed up as read even before I put it into my 'reading' list. Apparently my phone kindle app is communicating with goodreads even though I didn't tell it to.
Sigh.
Anyway. Other than my technology spying on me, this was a nice little book. A little short. A bit lacking in the detail I wanted. But there were a couple of good quotes, and hey, it only took 30 seconds to download to my phone, so I had a fun time reading it to and from a thoroughly exhausting hike.
Yep. Good book.
This book showed up as read even before I put it into my 'reading' list. Apparently my phone kindle app is communicating with goodreads even though I didn't tell it to.
Sigh.
Anyway. Other than my technology spying on me, this was a nice little book. A little short. A bit lacking in the detail I wanted. But there were a couple of good quotes, and hey, it only took 30 seconds to download to my phone, so I had a fun time reading it to and from a thoroughly exhausting hike.
Yep. Good book.
March 9, 2023
A short and concise book covering exactly what the title says, freedom from speech.
More and more there is a expectation that someone should filter themself to prevent someone else from being offended. Additionally, if that person is offended then the speaker needs to be punished because how dare they say something that would hurt someone else's feelings.
What a convoluted world this has become.
More and more there is a expectation that someone should filter themself to prevent someone else from being offended. Additionally, if that person is offended then the speaker needs to be punished because how dare they say something that would hurt someone else's feelings.
What a convoluted world this has become.
January 6, 2022
A jewel of a book and a strong warning of the trend in society and college campuses for freedom 'from' speech, the idea that intellectual and emotional comfort is more important than intellectual and emotional growth and the enshrining of confirmation bias in the echo chambers of left and right political discourse. Highly recommended.
November 21, 2021
You're better off picking up either of the author's longer books - especially "The Coddling of the American Mind" - but this is a solid cliff's notes version of many of the issues he deals with elsewhere in more detail. Lukianoff does a good job summarizing the problems he sees with students in campuses around the US seemingly beginning to believe that they have a right to not be offended, a right to not listen to opinions with which they disagree. He worries that these attitudes have begun to leak outside college campuses and that the American public is becoming less interested in hearing arguments from both sides of an issue, and more interested in simply demonizing and dismissing their political enemies. A quick glance at Twitter would pretty easily prove the author correct, but it's still hard to tell how representative that is of the overall American public. I tend to think things aren't quite as dire as the author does, but it's absolutely good to keep an eye on the disturbing trends he points out and guard against their spread.
January 20, 2023
Short and excellent book about an important, timely cultural issue.
March 19, 2026
Short, snappy, and smart as all get out.
February 1, 2016
This compact volume makes an impassioned case against the trend to challenge the right to free speech on grounds that some find it offensive or hurtful. The author, Greg Lukianoff (a constitutional lawyer and president of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), distinguishes between constitutional protections for free speech (which apply to individuals and groups against government actors) and the value of free speech.
Lukianoff contends that free speech is a fundamental pillar of modern society. Following Jonathan Rauch ("Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought"), Lukianoff sees modern society as depending upon the political institution of democracy, the economic institution of capitalism, and the intellectual institutions of free speech and open inquiry. Each of these institutions depends upon competition, and in this way, each of these institutions opens us up to discomfort.
Lukianoff sees that the advance of modern society has led to profound improvements in the degree of comfort that moderns enjoy; a subtext to his argument is that we have grown soft and weak. Undoubtedly there is truth to this. He also notes, following Jonathan Haidt ("The Righteous Mind: Why good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion") and George Lakoff ("The Political Mind"), that Progressives - who dominate our intellectual institutions - are deeply motivated by "the care ethic" and are deeply concerned with the needs of those they label as "victims". This suggests a kind of vicious circle in which young people, growing up coddled and soft, have a sense that their lives should be without challenge or strain; a belief that is confirmed by their (Progressive) teachers who steep them in the ideology of victimhood from their earliest years.
Those who challenge either the sense of emotional entitlement that has been instilled into young people, or the ideology of victimhood they have been given, are roundly criticized as either insensitive or as engaging in hate speech or bullying. Empowered by the success they have had in evacuating perceived threats to their intellectual and emotional comfort, the current generation of college students has sought to take advantage of Progressive university administrations, whether through disinvitations of campus speakers with unpopular (i.e. un-Progressive) views, through imposition of speech codes or the ghettoizing of free speech into special zones, or through demands for trigger warnings to protect them from words or ideas they may find unappealing.
Lukianoff is pessimistic about the future of free speech. Indeed, he concludes that higher education, which has previously played a foundational role in establishing the norm of free speech and open inquiry, and which has provided the most important space within which ideas have been debated and tried, is now the institution where opponents of free speech are having their greatest successes. This is perhaps the greatest threat we face to the future of liberal society.
Lukianoff contends that free speech is a fundamental pillar of modern society. Following Jonathan Rauch ("Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought"), Lukianoff sees modern society as depending upon the political institution of democracy, the economic institution of capitalism, and the intellectual institutions of free speech and open inquiry. Each of these institutions depends upon competition, and in this way, each of these institutions opens us up to discomfort.
Lukianoff sees that the advance of modern society has led to profound improvements in the degree of comfort that moderns enjoy; a subtext to his argument is that we have grown soft and weak. Undoubtedly there is truth to this. He also notes, following Jonathan Haidt ("The Righteous Mind: Why good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion") and George Lakoff ("The Political Mind"), that Progressives - who dominate our intellectual institutions - are deeply motivated by "the care ethic" and are deeply concerned with the needs of those they label as "victims". This suggests a kind of vicious circle in which young people, growing up coddled and soft, have a sense that their lives should be without challenge or strain; a belief that is confirmed by their (Progressive) teachers who steep them in the ideology of victimhood from their earliest years.
Those who challenge either the sense of emotional entitlement that has been instilled into young people, or the ideology of victimhood they have been given, are roundly criticized as either insensitive or as engaging in hate speech or bullying. Empowered by the success they have had in evacuating perceived threats to their intellectual and emotional comfort, the current generation of college students has sought to take advantage of Progressive university administrations, whether through disinvitations of campus speakers with unpopular (i.e. un-Progressive) views, through imposition of speech codes or the ghettoizing of free speech into special zones, or through demands for trigger warnings to protect them from words or ideas they may find unappealing.
Lukianoff is pessimistic about the future of free speech. Indeed, he concludes that higher education, which has previously played a foundational role in establishing the norm of free speech and open inquiry, and which has provided the most important space within which ideas have been debated and tried, is now the institution where opponents of free speech are having their greatest successes. This is perhaps the greatest threat we face to the future of liberal society.
October 7, 2014
The author makes some very interesting points and provides a useful update on the state of free speech on America's college campuses and in contemporary culture in general. It's thoughtful and makes its (very good) points powerfully and concisely. It takes a great deal of effort to say it all without saying too much, and that is the achievement of this broadside. Anyone familiar with FIRE's work will love this piece, and anyone unfamiliar will be curious to learn more.
July 28, 2016
Author claimed to be unbiased, but he was clearly conservative. Still recommend it for thoughtful consideration of the unhealthy standards we now have for censorship.
April 3, 2019
Overall it was a very short read but held a lot of important information, it focuses on the lack of intellectual debate on college campuses and the ever growing trigger warning and safe space problem. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to help fix our one way thinking or you’re wrong problem.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews