Ordinarily in this space I write about growing food, or paring down possessions, or trading with neighbours, or other pragmatic ways to cut expenses, increase self-sufficiency and improve community. I rarely mention timely news issues; in this bitterly divided age I want to talk about things that can unite people, and in this time of competitive virtue-signalling I want people to focus on the simple and the practical. All the practical advantages of life, though, mean little unless we live in a decent and free society, one in which you can speak your mind on an issue without having men show up at your door at night, or attack you on the street.
If you had been dropped randomly into any time and place in human history, however – from the time modern humans evolved perhaps 200,000 years ago until today, anywhere in the world – you would almost certainly have landed in a time and places where these values were unthinkable. Almost anytime, anywhere, you could be killed for speaking the wrong opinion, against the wrong person.
Freedom of speech has existed as only in brief flickers in history. One such flicker was the Athens of Pericles, for example, where in the middle of a horrific 30-year-war, Aristophanes could still write a pointed anti-war comedy. The longest period so far, though, began in Europe after the Enlightenment of the 1600s, and even then free speech was available only to certain classes in a few countries. Its gradual spread across much of the world is one of the great inspirational stories of the human race, and as much as I love traditional ways of life, this is one area where we have been the luckiest people in history.
The free era, though, might already be fading, buckling under pressure from many sides. We saw the first signs of this in 1989, when Muslim extremists condemned Indian author Salman Rushdie for writing a book that they thought criticised Islam. Rushdie has been called one of the greatest novelists of the last century, and his novel The Satanic Verses gently satirised many religions, including Islam – but for that he has had to live in hiding for most of the last 33 years. And last week, after decades of hell, Rushdie was stabbed and severely injured.
[slide-anything id=’3472166′]
Many others associated with this book have also suffered – its Japanese translator was murdered, its Norwegian translator shot, its Italian translator attacked, and its Turkish translator barely escaped a mob that killed 37 people. Amazingly, few people were willing to speak or write in favour of Rushdie, with many European politicians siding with the terrorists instead.
As another Indian writer, Kenan Malik, put it: These extremists lost their battles, as Rushdie’s books went on to be published, but they won the war, as hostility to freedom of speech has now become commonplace in the Western World. Former fans of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling denounced her, burned piles of her books and threatened her life after she expressed personal opinions that harmed no one. Author Jordan Peterson, whose self-help lectures went viral on the internet, has been the victim of a similar campaign, with mobs rioting and trying to shut down his public talks.
Rushdie himself said a few years ago that his book could probably not have been published today. Astonishingly, a May 2019 poll by the Knight Foundation found that almost half of college students thought that not hurting people’s feelings was more important than freedom of speech.
Most of us today like to imagine that if we had been around when slavery existed, or when the Nazis were taking power, we would have been foursquare on the side that we now know to be right. If you think that highly of yourself, ask yourself this: do you have the same opinions as your friends? As the media you listen to? Do you see yourself as being on a political side, and think of the other side as ignorant, violent and malevolent?
If the answer is yes, congratulations – you’re like almost everyone else in the world, hearing your own attitudes reflected back at you. Once in a while, however, you might hear a different voice – a voice that you don’t enjoy, a voice that makes you blind with rage. You might feel complete certainty that they are wrong, and they often are. And occasionally, we – or future generations — look back and realise they were right. When the entire nation “supported the troops,” they were the people questioning the war, and when many of the hippest intellectuals endorsed eugenics, they were the few speaking out against it. They – the unpopular, the unpatriotic, the annoying – are the voices we need, because sometimes they’re right.
You might not like or agree with Rushdie, or Rowling, or Peterson, but you need to be prepared to listen to and seriously consider opinions that anger you. That’s what makes us a free society, and we have been living with that blessing for so long that we no longer take seriously the real prospect of losing it.
I confess I had always meant to read Rushdie’s books, but never got around to it. So I walked into a bookstore today and bought two of his books. It was a tiny decision, I admit, but our lives are made of tiny decisions, so they might as well be votes for principles we believe in.
Image: Funeral oration of Pericles. Painting by Philipp von Foltz (before 1877). Via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Discurso_funebre_pericles.PNG
Comments
Welcome to the new Resillience commenting system!
We have moved from the former Disqus commenting system to a new system as of September 10, 2026.
We made this change because of privacy concerns regarding Disqus. It's also part of a set of changes to bring more services to the Resilience community under a single login: commenting, (coming September 2026), and online courses (coming 2027). Unfortunately, your old Disqus comments may not reliably link to your account in this new system. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
It’s nice to see a non-partisan endorsement
of freedom of speech.
It’s a constant struggle.
I grew up during the tail end of McCarthyism so I remember the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) whose reign was as bad or worse than anything we see today.
I got into big trouble in high school for inviting a friend to speak to our Government class. At the time he was a Trotskyist (later an evangelical Christian, then a mainstream Democrat).
Vietnam brought more conflicts about speech.
Recently we’ve had multiple whistleblowers persecuted like Assange and Snowden
…and sometimes free speech is terribly, terribly wrong… (fall of Athens?)
You’d think after 5,000 years of trying, we’d have figured out good government.
The next decade will test homo sapiens sapiens like never before.
Sincere question: When is it terribly wrong, and why? And which fall of Athens?
First off, Peterson and Rowlings have never been “silenced”, on the contrary they are two of the most loud and public figures of the secular right, who have an audience of millions. While there are definitely radicals calling for them to be silenced, more common is people asking them not to be invited as public speakers. Peterson DID manage to publicly, performatively get himself Twitter banned, by very publicly insulting Elliot Page. And yet clearly this has done little to affect his ability to publicly speak and be heard as shortly thereafter everyone on the internet heard him saying “Up yours, woke moralists! We’ll see who cancels who!”
As for J.K. Rowling and Peterson’s speech being “harmless,” I wonder if you’re aware of how the state of Texas is investigating the parents of trans kids for child abuse, and how anti-trans legislation has been introduced in many states and passed in several of them. Much like other forms of discriminatory speech, even if you take the position that speech itself is harmless (and in the US, the 1st amendment protects this speech), the laws that follow from it are not.
I would like to remind you that Peterson’s tweet that got him banned referred to Elliot Page’s surgery as “criminal” – Something it most certainly is not, for now. And various forms of breast modification and cosmetic or reconstructive surgery are extreme common among cis women, so I have to ask exactly where and for whom he wants this surgery to be criminal, and especially why it should be criminal for an adult like Elliot Page.
As for who is banning books, perhaps you should look up the book “Gender Queer” and read the countless news articles about it being pulled from school libraries and the various attempts to have the book banned and even labeled as obscene.
I definitely am much in favor of free speech, but I can’t help but question exactly what you’re promoting when you champion Peterson and JK Rowling while not mentioning Maia Kobabe.
I was writing about freedom of speech and don’t want to get too far from that topic, but since you asked: I didn’t say that Peterson and Rowling were “silenced” – they weren’t, as they are
successful enough to withstand the backlash against them. Most people are not so fortunate.
Feel free to disagree with Peterson and Rowling if you like, but they have calmly and logically expressed reasonable views that all humans everywhere would have agreed with until historically five minutes ago. They have attacked no one, kept no one else from exercising free speech, burned no books, mobbed no public talks. They have been the victim of all of these things. And, of course, these are just two examples; I could have mentioned the Charlie Hebdo massacre in France, or various disappearances of journalists in the Middle East.
By contrast, Maia Kobabe’s situation has little in common with theirs. As far as I am aware, no mobs have attacked her talks, her books were not burned, and her comic book has not been censored or banned in any way; rather, some parents believe that its depictions of sex are inappropriate for children, and that it should not be in school libraries.
I didn’t write this to discuss transgenderism. I’m making a case that freedom of speech is under threat, not by any particular government but by people no longer respecting it as an ideal. When people peacefully and reasonably express sincere opinions, even if you disagree with them, they should not be subjected to mobs, threats, intimidation or – in Rushdie’s case – attempted murder. I cannot emphasize how elementary a value this is in a democracy, and how dangerous it is that large portions of the population no longer understand this.
Thanks for your reply, it’s clarifying to have it written down exactly how you justify actual book banning. Claiming you didn’t write this to discuss transgenderism is quite hard for me to believe, given you specific champions and your insulting dismissal of the long history of gender nonconforming people. You were perhaps hoping that no one would call you out on it.
But when Maia Kobabe’s books are actually pulled from library shelves, you have an excuse why that particular speech should be censored. I do recommend “Gender Queer” as a book – you could learn a lot if you read it. Especially as you hold yourself a champion of banned books.
I did look into who was burning Rowling’s books and threatening her life, and funny thing, it was religious fundamentalists in both cases I found. Interesting that it’s mostly also religious fundamentalists leading the charge to ban LGBTQ books of every stripe from school libraries. It’s as though there is a common thread among those that do not value free speech and democracy.
I don’t think you understood the article. I’m talking about authors in the modern age in Western countries who have been stabbed, shot, threatened, seen their talks shut down and their books burned. You are talking about an author and book who have experienced none of those things. The two subjects have nothing in common.
When local parents decide that a book with sexual content should not be distributed to children, that’s how democracy works; they are not banning the book or oppressing the author. Everyone is still free to buy the book, and nothing has happened to it. They also did not spend money to give Playboy magazines free to children, but Hugh Hefner was not oppressed. Again, I think Westerners have been living with free speech for so long that they fail to recognise when it is in danger and when it is not.