There is no such thing as free, unconstrained speech. Laws and constitutions may protect us from the state when we speak our minds. But the state is just one possible constraint. Glenn Loury, one of America’s most outspoken and important intellectuals, provides a provocative and dazzling analysis of the powerful social forces that can prevent speakers from voicing unpopular views in public forums.
Every society, Loury notes, has norms to enforce. That can be a good thing: There ought to be social sanctions for, say, compulsive liars. When, however, a society shows a low degree of tolerance for speech about matters of political importance, self-censorship proliferates and public discourse and policy suffer. The answer, Loury argues, is for as many of us as possible to be braver and more human – to take a risk and unapologetically “live within the truth”.
Loury first presented these ideas in the 1990s in a celebrated and prophetic essay about “political correctness.” In Self-Censorship he expands and updates the account, deploying his analytical powers and psychological acuity to diagnose our current political climate. The result illuminates prevailing social dynamics with the same brilliant and startling effect that made the paper an instant classic thirty years ago.
