I’d like to call your attention to a fairly new feature of The Atlantic that began last fall: a series of columns and short pieces gathered under the rubric (and webpage) called “The Speech Wars”. Click on the screenshot to go there:
The topics and viewpoints are diverse, but all have something to do with the rights of people to say what they want, and the counterspeech against it. There are pro- and con-columns about Ilhan Omar’s statements, columns about hate speech, about the demonization of Harvard’s Ronald Sullivan, a house master and lawyer who is defending Harvey Weinstein as a client, and so on. Here’s a small screenshot:
You won’t agree with everything—how could you when the pieces sometimes take diametrically opposed stands?—but you’ll probably benefit most by reading things you don’t agree with. After all, isn’t that one of the great boons of free speech?


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