Doesn't your description of hysteria track 100% with what is happening in Britain and Germany right now? I'm not so worried about the US since we seem to have turned a corner with new leadership and we have a strong Free Speech tradition enshrined in our Bill of Rights, but Europe seems to be rapidly descending into a new Dark Age!
What made you think I was denying Biden authoritarianism? Right now, Big Brother is cleaning out the Pride flags and BLM stickers and replacing them with American flags and MAGA caps.
There is a terrific book that takes up many of the sociological issues attendant on the growth of printing and literacy in early modern Europe. It's called 'St. Augustine's Bones,' by Harold Stone.
Henry VIII probably ate lamb legs rather than turkey legs. IF any turkeys had been sent to Europe by then they would have been very few and also turkeys were much smaller in those days.
A county in PA waits until it has a majority at a meeting because of non allied member absences. Calls an impromptu executive session and votes to fire an administrator because they conceivably want to censor what books are in their library.
It’s so often and so many instances that can be so disheartening
I’ve always respected the work of FIRE, even when I, as director of religious life at a major university (Vanderbilt, 2012-2018), was caught in the crossfire between the administration I represented and the student organizations who were disenfranchised because of perceived principles of non-inclusion in their bylaws and behaviors. As a center-left Protestant minister who had been impacted, for good and for ill, by the Christian fundamentalism of my youth, I was always open to the free exercise of religious belief, especially when misinformed by questionable theology, as the only way to advance the educational goals of a free thinking society that any credible university should inspire (and not dampen). My only concern at this moment in history is about how, in practical ways, we have allowed major social media platforms to “flood the zone” with disinformation in the name of free speech protections. While all human beings should be allowed to say what they want from any digital megaphone at hand, should that same right be given to bots? Does the First Amendment extend to AI generated speech that’s facilitated entirely by non-human agents? If not, who needs to be held accountable and how should it be done?
Alternative possibility -- institutions are weakening their protections for speech and free inquiry **because** they are now in the public eye. The declining acceptance of ideological diversity in the academy seems to have mostly been imported from social media and amplified by the sense that the public is listening creating the suspicion that you might be advocating an idea because you support the side of the argument it will help.
If you accept that free speech is (like the heading suggests) relatively unpopular at all times and places then it has to be institutions which protect it against elimination. But if the idea is often publicly impossible why would greater public oversight/influence over/etc not further endanger the principle?
Bravo, these are great points (hadn't been thinking of Henry VIII lately) and well said!! And they continuously need saying.
Doesn't your description of hysteria track 100% with what is happening in Britain and Germany right now? I'm not so worried about the US since we seem to have turned a corner with new leadership and we have a strong Free Speech tradition enshrined in our Bill of Rights, but Europe seems to be rapidly descending into a new Dark Age!
Wait for it. The right, and especially Donald Trump, aren't as enamoured of free speech as they're pretending at the moment.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/donald-trump-is-no-warrior-for-free-speech-executive-order
please. “Biden staffers dealing with Facebook apparently did not violate any Americans’ constitutional rights,”
If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn!
What made you think I was denying Biden authoritarianism? Right now, Big Brother is cleaning out the Pride flags and BLM stickers and replacing them with American flags and MAGA caps.
There is a terrific book that takes up many of the sociological issues attendant on the growth of printing and literacy in early modern Europe. It's called 'St. Augustine's Bones,' by Harold Stone.
https://www.amazon.com/St-Augustines-Bones-Microhistory-Paperback/dp/1558493883/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?
Henry VIII probably ate lamb legs rather than turkey legs. IF any turkeys had been sent to Europe by then they would have been very few and also turkeys were much smaller in those days.
You’re right! Good point!
Congratulations Greg. You gave a very inspirational speech. I am going to give a link to it to my students.
Thanks,
randy
A county in PA waits until it has a majority at a meeting because of non allied member absences. Calls an impromptu executive session and votes to fire an administrator because they conceivably want to censor what books are in their library.
It’s so often and so many instances that can be so disheartening
https://www.wvia.org/news/local/2025-01-28/library-administrator-laid-off-residents-fight-over-lgbtq-books-in-susquehanna-county
I’ve always respected the work of FIRE, even when I, as director of religious life at a major university (Vanderbilt, 2012-2018), was caught in the crossfire between the administration I represented and the student organizations who were disenfranchised because of perceived principles of non-inclusion in their bylaws and behaviors. As a center-left Protestant minister who had been impacted, for good and for ill, by the Christian fundamentalism of my youth, I was always open to the free exercise of religious belief, especially when misinformed by questionable theology, as the only way to advance the educational goals of a free thinking society that any credible university should inspire (and not dampen). My only concern at this moment in history is about how, in practical ways, we have allowed major social media platforms to “flood the zone” with disinformation in the name of free speech protections. While all human beings should be allowed to say what they want from any digital megaphone at hand, should that same right be given to bots? Does the First Amendment extend to AI generated speech that’s facilitated entirely by non-human agents? If not, who needs to be held accountable and how should it be done?
Alternative possibility -- institutions are weakening their protections for speech and free inquiry **because** they are now in the public eye. The declining acceptance of ideological diversity in the academy seems to have mostly been imported from social media and amplified by the sense that the public is listening creating the suspicion that you might be advocating an idea because you support the side of the argument it will help.
If you accept that free speech is (like the heading suggests) relatively unpopular at all times and places then it has to be institutions which protect it against elimination. But if the idea is often publicly impossible why would greater public oversight/influence over/etc not further endanger the principle?