The shape of free speech: rethinking liberal free speech theory

Mondal, Anshuman A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6628-7572 (2018) The shape of free speech: rethinking liberal free speech theory. Continuum-Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 32 (4). pp. 503-517. ISSN 1030-4312

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Abstract

Noting the apparent inconsistency in attitudes towards free speech with respect to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in western liberal democracies, this article works through the problem of inconsistency within liberal free speech theory, arguing that this symptomatically reveals an aporia that exposes the inability of liberal free speech theory to account for the ways in which free speech actually operates in liberal social orders. Liberal free speech theory conceptualizes liberty as smooth, continuous, homogeneous, indivisible and extendable without interruption until it reaches the outer limits. This makes it difficult for liberal free speech theory to account for restrictions that lie within those outer limits, and therefore for the ways in which restraints, restrictions and closures are always already at work within the lived experience of liberty, for it is these – and the inconsistencies they give rise to – that give freedom its particular texture and timbre in any given social and cultural context. The article concludes with an alternative ‘liquid’ theory of free speech, which accounts for the ‘shaping’ of liberty by social forces, culture and institutional practices.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Issue on: Shifting The Terms of Debate: Speaking, Writing and Listening Beyond Free Speech Debates
Uncontrolled Keywords:	free speech,freedom of expression,liberalism,john stuart mill,antisemitism,islamophobia,liquidity
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Modern and Contemporary Writing Research Group
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	01 Mar 2018 11:30
Last Modified:	08 Dec 2024 01:27
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/66402
DOI:	10.1080/10304312.2018.1480463

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