Delusions of grandeur and freedom of speech

The celebrated artist, Sir Grayson Perry, has a new exhibition of work, Delusions of Grandeur, made in direct response to the masterpieces at the Wallace Collection in London (until 26th October). He candidly admits he initially found the Collection’s opulence difficult to work with, until he created an alter-ego artist, Shirley, who was inspired by the aesthetic.

In recent years museums and art galleries have become a regular battleground in the culture wars. One of today’s anti-woke warriors is the writer Lionel Shriver. Her latest satirical novel, Mania, imagines a world where intellectual meritocracy is heresy; the words 'stupid' and 'smart' are no longer acceptable, and novels like The Idiot and My Brilliant Friend are banned.

In Shriver’s imaginative world language and thought is heavily policed, speech is free only if it doesn’t offend. The academic Fara Dabhoiwala has written about the emergence of this contested idea, in What Is Free Speech? He shows in the shifting story of the last three hundred years that freedom of speech is not an absolute from which different societies have drifted or dissented, but a much more mercurial, complicated matter.

Producer: Katy Hickman