Joshua Glasgow’s Reviews > The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent > Status Update

The last chapters on college campus free speech battles has not been as engaging to me as what came before. I’m also a little bothered by his outrage at stuff conservatives are doing which he would celebrate if done by leftists. I think it loses sight of his larger point, which is that it is the message that matters: it’s not that fascists are bad for influencing policy, but because they promote FASCISM.

I’n in a section now about the “free speech” debate in college campuses, which could be more accurately framed as the debate about whether to listen to students of color (so-called conservatives say “no”). Moskowitz refers a lot to Stanley Fish here, one of the only authors on free speech, which is ironic because Fish (stupidly) believes colleges can and should be apolitical, whatever that means.

I wrote a tweet once (back when Twitter was still a thing) which played off a lyric from ‘Hamilton’ and which I still think of often: “Raise a glass to freedom, that’s something they can never take away… because it’s a meaningless buzzword.” It seems Moskowitz is making a similar argument about “free speech”, with the added question: who does supposedly “free” speech *really* benefit? 🤔