“We surely live in the stupidest possible era of debate about free speech,” says Ian Dunt. When a key arbiter of free expression is the smirking tech bro who owns Twitter, he might be right. How did the right to express yourself freely get hijacked by reactionaries? Are progressives really a threat to freedom of speech?

Dorian Lynskey and Ian delve back in time from the printing press and its early “paper bullets” via the surprisingly racy life of John Stuart Mill right up to the First Amendment of the US Constitution and our current panics over woke, hate speech and cancel culture. How did shouting “free speech” become an instant way to shut down debate?

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“If somebody tries to make their point about freedom of speech by using a cartoon on the internet, they’ve probably simplified it a bit.” – Dorian Lynskey
“There is a choice not between order and liberty, it is between liberty with order and anarchy without either.” – Justice Robert H Jackson
“The whole story of free speech is the story of doubt.” – Ian Dunt

Reading List

From Ian

Jacob Mchangama – Free Speech: A Global History From Socrates To Social Media

John Rees – The Leveller Revolution

John Stuart Milll – On Liberty

The Complete Works Of Harriet Taylor Mill – Editor Jo Ellen Jacobs

Richard Reeve – John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand

From Dorian

Anthony Lewis — Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

Suzanne Nossel — Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All

Nat Hentoff – Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other

Stanley Fish — There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech

Samuel P Nelson — Beyond the First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech and Pluralism

Karl Popper — The Open Society and Its Enemies

Flemming Rose — Tyranny of Silence

PE Moskowitz — The Case Against Free Speech

Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic — Must We Defend Nazis?: Why the First Amendment Should Not Protect Hate Speech and White Supremacy

Henry Louis Gates Jr — Let Them Talk

George Orwell — Freedom of the Park

Herbert Marcuse — Repressive Tolerance

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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