Against Free Speech with Anthony Leaker
Вставка
- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- Is the principle of free speech being weaponized to legitimize harmful ideologies like racism, sexism, and transphobia? What happens when the sanctity of free speech collides with the complexities of societal power dynamics? In today's episode, we navigate this intricate terrain with Anthony Leaker, a senior lecturer in culture and critical theory at the University of Brighton, and the author of "Against Free Speech." John Tomasi and Anthony’s conversation revolves around the contentious and often polarized discussions surrounding free speech on university campuses.
Anthony challenges liberal ideals and advocates for a nuanced interrogation of free speech, particularly how it has been historically weaponized to maintain power imbalances. Through a thought-provoking dialogue, Anthony and John explore how free speech and reason, historically viewed as pillars of liberal democracy, can sometimes obscure deep-seated structural inequalities.
In This Episode:
• The defense of free speech versus power imbalances
• Historical critiques from John Stuart Mill and Herbert Marcuse
• The role of social media and algorithms in perpetuating power structures
• Contextual application of free speech in various settings
• The legitimacy and impact of deplatforming on campus
• The narrative of students' sensitivity and grievances
• Affirmative action and ideological imbalances in universities
About Anthony:
Anthony Leaker is a principal lecturer in cultural and critical theory at the University of Brighton. His academic work primarily focuses on political philosophy, critical theory, and issues surrounding free speech and its societal implications. Leaker is best known for his book Against Free Speech (2020), where he argues that the traditional liberal defense of free speech is often co-opted to serve right-wing political agendas and justify the marginalization of oppressed groups.
In Against Free Speech, Leaker critiques the way free speech is invoked in modern political debates, particularly how it has been used to legitimize reactionary movements and suppress marginalized voices. He explores contemporary events such as the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Brexit, and the rise of Donald Trump to analyze how free speech is frequently framed as a neutral right, when in reality, it can be a tool of power structures.
Follow Heterodox Academy on:
X/Twitter: bit.ly/3Fax5Dy
Facebook: bit.ly/3PMYxfw
LinkedIn: bit.ly/48IYeuJ
Instagram: bit.ly/46HKfUg
Substack: bit.ly/48IhjNF
Listen to the podcast on:
Apple - apple.co/3PZzplD
Spotify: spoti.fi/3S51uee
Amazon: amzn.to/3ZXQnFL
i-Heart - bit.ly/3M69qYA
Tune-In - bit.ly/3S5oBVR
Pandora - bit.ly/46AaLze
Find out more about Heterodox Academy at: linktr.ee/hete...
I'd love to see this gentleman in a room with someone like Peter Boghossian or Kathleen Stock.
Or maybe a padded room. What a loon.
I wouldn't want this guy, who says he doesn't believe reverse racism exists, defining what viewpoints should be considered racist and therefore disallowed. I wouldn't want him defining for everyone else what transphobia is when he assumes, as he does without even acknowledging that reasonable people might disagree on this, that what J. K. Rowling said was necessarily transphobic.
The principles of Free speech does not - or need not - legitimize racism or sexism or homophobia - but all need to be rebutted by just more speech and sound arguments which is hard work. Having the right to say what you like does not make what you say the right thing to say. These are distinct and separate ideas. He simply assumes - without data of any kind - that modern western society (in the UK and the US and EU) is somehow deeply sexist, racist, homohobic, or whatnot, with no actual evidence of any kind. In the end I go with Hitchens when he says that what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence as well.
Good to hear such a voice. May even read the book but, ultimately, he comes across as an example of Marcusian 'repressive tolerance'.
Who does he imagine will be deciding which speech is forbidden? The powerless and downtrodden? No. It will be those with political power. Short-sighted people are okay with that when they believe their side has political power.
Irredeemably woke and inexorably muddled!
"“In any argument there are only three possibilities. You are either wholly wrong, partially wrong, or wholly correct - and in each case free speech is critical to improving or protecting those positions.” In Anthony's case, he's wholly wrong.... thank goodness every comment on this thread is "allowed". Kinda....
Anthony Leaker can decide which controversial ideas *he* discusses, but he should not be allowed to decide for society 16:20
Click bait title, as if there are even any arguments here. Gave up after wasting 20 minutes. Just a bunch of banal, boring assertions that could be applied to anything including censorship. Regardless of whether or not I'm convinced , I would at least like some interesting arguments or insights.
THis guy is mostly inchoherent. The major problem here is that he's unwilling to say that he would be willing to forcibly shut down speech he does not like. How else can you be "against free speech" if not by some sort of authoritarian move to shut down speech that you don't like? He buys into - and deploys - ideas that he does not take time to explain like "whiteness" as if we all understood what was meant by that. We are just meant to accept. He mostly repeats well-known tropes and cliches about "colonialism" and "structural racism" as all somehow built-in the so-called dynamic of power structures. There is no substance to his thinking whatsoever. He admits from the get-go that the principles of free speech as defended by John Stuart Mill are "sound" but he then claims that these get used and abused by powerful people only. There is nothing but heat and no light here. He would be easy to co-opt into the heterodox academy and eventually be found to be the empty vessel that he is.
The validity of "structural racism", "whiteness", and so on wasn't argued for here, but I think that's because that wasn't intended to be the focus of the episode. I don't think his arguments necessarily hinge on those particular ideas either. Just make them slightly more generic.
He says the title "Against Free Speech" is hyperbole and that what he's really arguing for is "contextualized free speech", "a recognition of the way speech operates in all different contexts". Part of his point seems to be that he thinks the principle of free speech is often invoked inappropriately, serving to distract us from the real issues. He *does* also say he's for shutting down speech he doesn't like, giving the example that if somebody stands up during a seminar on the history of the Second World War and says something racist he's going to tell them that that sort of speech is inappropriate for that context. Presumably, there'd be some sort of force being applied down the line if the person persists, such as being removed by security.
@@Anthropomorphic Point taken.
@@Anthropomorphic I certainly want to be as generous as possible but I can only assume that all defenders of free speech fully understand the limitations - as in the context of a classroom - where there are limits - and where the stage is not really a public stage for the wholly free expression of the student. That some use of force might be necessary to evict some recalcitrant student in class goes almost without saying. But this is far different from the heckler's veto - whereby some few students can manage to shut down speech they do not like - or shut down a speaker they do not like - who has otherwise been given an official stage at a university - like people like the very conservative (and occasionally odious) Ann Coulter and other who are - or could be seen to be - slightly offensive - like talking about research on race and IQ. I'm under the impression that he is ok with shutting down that kind of a speech as well - but I could be wrong. I made it only to 30 minutes - and may return to hear the rest. I was not impressed at all with the 30 minutes that I heard. I am subject to change my mind if persuaded that there is more to this guy than meets the eye as you seem to think there is. That "free speech could be used to distract us from the real issues" is just about true about anything else when put this broadly. Watching a film on Netflix could be a way to distract us from the real issue which might be we need really be working in a soup kitchen feeding the poor? Anything can be said to be something that is being used to distract us from the real issues, when you can get to pick and choose in your own mind what the "real" issues are. A more concrete example needs to be given. For my part, I believe that there was no real free speech about Covid and that insufficient skepticism was allowed about the masks - the lockdown - the vaccine - the lethality - the efficacy - etc... and that only a certain class of people were allowed to push a certain kind of narrative about Covid which proved extremely profitable to big pharma. I hope you appreciate the irony - or that this guy appreciates the irony - that in fact fully free speech was not allowed about the Covid narrative that served the interests of the rich and powerful!
@@pascalbercker7487 @pascalbercker7487 I think the strongest version of his argument might have to be based around particular examples. He wrote the book six or seven years ago, and seemingly in response to a particular moment in history as his references to people like Milo Yiannopoulos indicates. I think it's about particular individuals or movements invoking the principle of free speech in a way that Leaker thinks serves as a distraction, or maybe as a shield from criticism.
I get what you mean about the difference between a disruptive student in a classroom and the heckler's veto. As you say, I think it's true that not all speech is appropriate in every venue or at every time. Leaker thinks the principle of free speech is often invoked as an attempt to crowbar speech into contexts where it isn't appropriate, or as an attempt to divert attention away from and I think that *does* happen. The problem is that I suspect that he may be guilty of doing something similar in the opposite direction. This is part of why I'd like to hear him describe a situation where the hypothetical racist student *would* have the right to express their racism, a situation where he'd defend the student's right to say racist things.
Keep listening to the likes of him, and there will be no more heterodox Academy
silly
This is a devastating indictment of his entire "field of study". What an embarrassment. If anyone's "form of speech" isn't worth listening to, it's this joker's.
Also for Christ's sake don't they have antiperspirant in the UK?
John, I applaud you for taking this on, but you let Leaker get away with too much convenient ambiguity. The abstract elements of Leaker's critique -- and of Marcuse's "Repressive Tolerance" -- are meritorious, but the rubber fails to meet the road here. The real issues today are not the "hate speech" issues of the previous decade (and it is, at any rate, implausible that actual hate speech reflects attitudes presently hegemonic within elite academic, journalistic, or cultural spaces). At issue today are arguments, based on evidence and analysis (whether fully sound or arguably flawed), that incur suppression and even real punishment because they contradict the favored narratives of particular social movements -- movements that refuse to acknowledge their own power, even as they devastate careers and reputations. (Ironically, pro-Palestinian arguments have incurred similar and even harsher suppression, further revealing the imperative need to support academic freedom and student speech rights.) Leaker piously recites anti-liberal rhetoric, but ends up side-stepping that rhetoric's implications for current campus expression controversies -- perhaps because he is unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences.
I wonder what he thinks ok Kathleen Stock
"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that", and to that end we probably need more of these discussions.
He reminds me a little of the joke that invocations of free speech are the surest sign that someone's out of arguments. Jokes aside, though, I feel like he's a little too quick to move past free speech as a fundamental concern. Even when he says that the principle of free speech isn't the central issue, he's still relying on speech happening in a relatively free manner *somewhere* at *some* stage. Speaking truth is downstream from figuring out what's true. I'm not even saying that he's necessarily wrong here, because I don't think anything I've said is necessarily incompatible with his notion of "contextualized free speech", but I'd be interested in hearing him describe what a maximally permissive context would be like under his model. He says he's fine with silencing racists on certain platforms because "there's enough spaces in our societies for racists to speak". Does he think they *should* be allowed to speak in those spaces, then? Would it be wrong to silence them in those particular spaces, whatever they might be?
Who is 'Mautoo' ??
I feel for his students. A disgrace to academia
He’s full of bullshit.
56370 Dare Curve
Usympathetic woke guy, sorry