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Freedom from Speech (Encounter Broadside Book 39) Kindle Edition

by Greg Lukianoff (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 92 ratings
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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.
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  1. Part of series
    Encounter Broadsides
  2. Print length
    67 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Encounter Books
  6. Publication date
    September 9, 2014
  7. File size
    2133 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Greg Lukianoff is an attorney and president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. His writings on campus free speech have appeared in the Wall Street Journal , the New York Times, and the Washington Post, in addition to dozens of other publications. A regular columnist for the Huffington Post, he is a frequent guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and has made numerous television appearances, including on the CBS Evening News and Stossel. He received the 2008 Playboy Foundation Freedom of Expression Award and the 2010 Ford Hall Forum’s Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award on behalf of FIRE. Lukianoff is a graduate of American University and Stanford Law School.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00MSYUZ42
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Encounter Books (September 9, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 9, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2133 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 67 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1594038074
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 92 ratings

About the author

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Greg Lukianoff

Greg Lukianoff

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Greg Lukianoff is an attorney and the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He is the author of "Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate" and his writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe, in addition to dozens of other publications. He is a regular columnist for The Huffington Post and has appeared on television shows, including the "CBS Evening News," "Fox & Friends," "The Today Show," CNN's "New Day," C-SPAN's "Washington Journal," and "Stossel." He received the 2008 Playboy Foundation Freedom of Expression Award and the 2010 Ford Hall Forum's Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award on behalf of FIRE. He is a graduate of American University and Stanford Law School.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
92 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Mike
5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing New Perspective
Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2014
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A great read about the freedom of speech. I'm not used to books this short, but it covers a lot of content in a (relatively) short number of pages, keeping the reader engaged the entire time. You can easily consume this book in one sitting and learn a lot.

Freedom from Speech takes a refreshingly new approach to defending free speech, looking at the issue through the prism of valuing intellectual comfort rather than face challenging yet uncomfortable ideas, and also the right not to be offended, as opposed to the traditional conservative/liberal dichotomy. The content is also very relevant to real life and not just baked in theory, covering modern day controversies such as the Donald Sterling scandal, Google and the "right to be forgotten," and the recent wave of disinvitations for controversial convocation speakers at universities, among others. Greg also does not shy away from tough or controversial topics in this book, which makes it a very compelling read.
6 people found this helpful
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lec
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Description of a Real Problem
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2015
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This essentially is an expanded op ed piece. It generally is well-written and very well-argued, dealing with a major emerging issue on most college campuses (and elsewhere). Being an academic, who moved from brick and mortar teaching to primarily online, I certainly saw this problem become worse. Although Lukianoff is better at describing the problems than in providing solutions, this is a brief work that is worth reading, particularly for anyone who is involved with higher education.
2 people found this helpful
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George P. Wood
5.0 out of 5 stars Why Contemporary America Wants Freedom FROM Speech
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2015
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Freedom of speech is a bedrock American principle. It is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but it cannot be reduced to that amendment. Instead, as Greg Lukianoff points out in this Encounter Broadside, it reflects “cultural values” and “intellectual habits,” such as

"giving the other side a fair hearing, reserving judgment, tolerating opinions that offend or anger us, believing that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, and recognizing that even people whose points of view we find repugnant might be (at least partially) right. At the heart of these values is epistemic humility—a fancy way of saying that we must always keep in mind that we could be wrong or, at least, that we can always learn something from listening to the other side."

Lukianoff contends that these values and habits are under assault in America today, and he points to numerous examples to establish the point.

The assault on freedom of speech cannot be dismissed simply as “academia’s fault,” the result of “liberal groupthink” and “political correctness.” (Academia does play a crucial role, however, as Lukianoff’s Unlearning Liberty details at length. So does the political Left.) Instead, the assault reflects a social trend that can be seen worldwide:

"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."

The problem with expecting comfort as a right is that…well, the real world doesn’t work that way. Even assuming that everyone is acting on their best behavior, diversity ensures that there will be disagreement in society about what is true, good, and beautiful. Far from helping resolve those disagreements, social rules and cultural norms that promote “freedom from speech” hinder reasonable resolutions of those conflicts—and even the agreement to disagree. Instead, freedom from speech requires power—university administrators, government regulators, etc.—to impose a version of truth, goodness, and beauty on a diverse society that literally does not have a say about it.

Far from promoting a tolerant, comfortable society, then, the right to comfort ironically creates victims and transmogrifies conflicts about fundamental principles into zero-sum conflicts about who wields power. In such a situation, reason loses and force wins. That’s not a good situation for democratic societies to find themselves in. Far better to allow Socratic gadflies to ask uncomfortable, even embarrassing, questions and to dialogue the way to reasonable answers. Unfortunately, that’s not the path contemporary American society is taking.
14 people found this helpful
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Eric Mayforth
5.0 out of 5 stars A Bulwark of Civilization Under Fierce Assault
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2015
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Freedom of speech has been in the news quite a bit in recent years and is on the decline not just in the United States but elsewhere in the West as well. As Greg Lukianoff notes in "Freedom from Speech," in our country today increasing numbers of Americans show not just indifference, but in some cases outright disdain toward one of the bulwarks of civilization.

Lukianoff provides the cultural definition of free speech as opposed to free speech as defined by the Constitution and describes the intellectual underpinnings of free speech, as well as why robust free speech is necessary for science, culture, and societies to continue to advance and to avoid stagnation and decline.

The author looks at a key trend today that leads many to undervalue freedom of speech. As many value security over liberty in other spheres such as economics, they also tend to do so in other areas as well, and Lukianoff explains why he thinks the threat to free speech will only grow in the coming decades.

College campuses are the places where one would expect to find the most fervent defenders of free speech, but this is sadly not the case, and Lukianoff details some of the problems facing free speech in the academy.

"Freedom from Speech" is a relatively short booklet and can be read in a single sitting, but it timely and convincingly argues why robust free speech and open exchange of ideas are not luxuries, but absolute necessities for civilized societies.
3 people found this helpful
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MLRP
5.0 out of 5 stars Empower your college bound and college student so they know their rights on campus.
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2019
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College administrators have turned on its head the old adage “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”. Through speech codes that restrict constitutionally protected speech as well as limit other free expression and rights to due process, Universities seek to shield students from hurled WORDS in the name of emotional safety. The notion that mere words, exhaled on one‘s breath (with no other risk of imminent danger or threat of physical harm), could cause such “pain” that it justifies a restriction on our preeminent rights under the First Amendment is nonsensical. But this is happening today on College campuses —public and private, big and small — throughout the USA. Awareness is paramount. Know your rights. Empower your young adult to Stand up for Free Speech.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Doug1943
5.0 out of 5 stars A book for liberals and conservatives
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 26, 2018
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A great defense of Free Speech. Sixty years ago it was the Radical Right who threatened Free Speech. Today it's the Radical Left. Conservatives and liberals have here an issue on which they can agree: the importance of the right to say things that other people don't like -- a foundation stone of democracy, and now under threat on American campuses. This book provides ammunition to people who believe in freedom.
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Dr. Champaign
4.0 out of 5 stars Hervorragendes Statement eines Top-Juristen
Reviewed in Germany on May 19, 2015
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Zum Inhalt sage ich nichts - das seht in der Beschreibung. Was ich aber sagen kann: das Werk ist sehr gut geschrieben, Lukianoff kann das einfach, und gibt einen guten Einblick ein ein amerikanisches Phänomen. Daher: 5 (FÜNF) Sterne! Einen Stern Abzug dafür, dass dieses Statement ein wenig kurz geraten ist - das Büchlein hat rd. 61 groß gedruckte Seiten.
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T. Noever
5.0 out of 5 stars Grim but unfortunately true
Reviewed in Australia on November 9, 2014
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A summary of the grim state of thought and free speech in the US. In my experience this is mirrored many other western countries. In some it's considerably worse.
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