Podcast Summary: "What is Free Speech" with Fara Dabhoiwala

New Books Network — October 9, 2025
Host: Uli Baer | Guest: Fara Dabhoiwala, Princeton University

Episode Overview

This episode of the New Books Network's "Think About It" features historian Fara Dabhoiwala discussing his new book, What is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2025). Host Uli Baer and Dabhoiwala explore the global, historical, and philosophical roots of free speech, challenging conventional narratives about its development, efficacy, and the contrasting American and European traditions. The conversation investigates free speech as both an ideal and a weaponized tool, tracing the evolution from Enlightenment polemics to the digital era’s regulatory challenges.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Write Another Book on Free Speech?

• Historical Perspective Gap: Dabhoiwala contrasts his book with other prominent works (Fred Schauer, Stanley Fish, Catherine McKinnon) that focus on present-day or US-specific debates.
• Personal Experience & Global Perspective: Encounters with censorship (in the West and China) and reflections on cultural contingencies of free speech motivated a deeper historical inquiry.

  "The Chinese were using every single tool of censorship that had ever been invented... They were winning, in the sense that they were able to shut down even the Internet..." — Dabhoiwala, [04:50]

2. The Birth of Modern Free Speech and the Role of Cato’s Letters

• Early Modern England’s Media Revolution: The emergence of mass political journalism, with partisan Whig/Tory battles shaping the idea of an unregulated press.
• Cato’s Letters (1721):
  • First major articulation of free speech as a fundamental liberty.
  • The notion that a truly free press is the bulwark of all liberties—an idea that rapidly became popular, especially in Revolutionary America.
• Speech as a Partisan Tool: Even in its origins, free speech was wielded by self-interested actors as much as by principled reformers.

  "These people are putting forward a theory that is completely bogus. It’s completely full of holes, but it sounds great. ...Bulwark of liberty, that's a phrase invented by Thomas Gordon in 1721 that goes straight into these declarations." — Dabhoiwala, [22:35]

3. Flawed Assumptions in Early Free Speech Theory

• Marketplace of Ideas:

  • The Enlightenment belief that unfettered debate leads inevitably to truth.
  • Underlying assumptions: universal good faith, rationality, equal access—qualities rarely present in real societies.

  "None of us are bad faith actors, that we all consciously engage in a collective endeavor... None of these things is true." — Dabhoiwala, [18:47]

• Problems with Power and Media:

  • The rise of mass media created incentives for profit-driven distortion rather than truth-seeking.
  • Early critiques (19th century) recognized the need to balance individual rights with collective responsibility to inform the public accurately.

4. Transatlantic Divergence: American Absolutism vs. European Responsibility

• Constitutional Fork-in-the-Road (1789):

  • US First Amendment: Absolutist, limiting only federal interference ("Congress shall make no law…").
  • French Declaration of the Rights of Man: Rights are paired with responsibility; free speech is permissible unless abused.
  • Many US states mirrored the French approach, contrary to the federal model—this nuance is largely lost in popular memory.

  "Every other American state after 1789... takes the same view, adopts the French balance model, rejects the unilateral absolutism of the First Amendment. This is a completely unknown untold story..." — Dabhoiwala, [29:09]

• Original Context Ignored by Modern 'Originalists':

  "How we now interpret the First Amendment is exactly the opposite of how it was originally meant to be understood." — Dabhoiwala, [33:02]

5. Contradictions: Free Speech, Power, and Exclusion

• Freedom for Whom?:

  • Many free speech advocates of the 18th/19th centuries limited “the people” to white, male, property-owning citizens, excluding women, slaves, and colonized people.
  • Exclusion is a feature, not a bug, of the theory.

  "It's not a bug, it's a feature. It's absolutely central to how these things are theorized, that certain voices count and other voices don't." — Dabhoiwala, [36:37]

• Mill and the Limits of Liberal Theory:

  • John Stuart Mill made vital contributions by grounding free speech in secular individual rights but ignored the power structures and practical inequalities.
  • His work justified restrictions on colonial subjects, declaring only "civilized" (read: Western) societies fit for free speech.

  "Mill...says: everything I'm going to say applies to rational adult civilizations, but not to childlike civilizations. ...It's a telling connection between the flaws in Mill's overall theory and his very colonial outlook." — Dabhoiwala, [48:29]

6. The Modern Era: 20th-21st Century American Free Speech

• Rise of the First Amendment Jurisprudence:
  • The Supreme Court only began citing the First Amendment in major decisions post-1919, prompted by socialist litigants and the changing media landscape.
  • A post-WW2 attempt to balance rights and responsibilities, with echoes in the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948).
• Weaponization and Corporate Capture:
  • From the 1960s onward, a libertarian, “context-neutral” reading takes hold—culminating in business interests wielding the First Amendment to fight regulation.
  • The internet era accelerates these contradictions, with American legal exceptionalism exported globally.

  "It immediately becomes weaponized by, say, corporations...for a fail safe legal card to play when subjected to regulation..." — Dabhoiwala, [55:21]

7. Contemporary Challenges: Cancel Culture, Government, and the Internet

• Cancel Culture and Who Gets to Speak:
  • Speech debates today are about both content and identity: “Speech is never just about the content. It's always about the speaker as well.” — Dabhoiwala, [61:20]
• Platform Regulation and the Digital Commons:
  • US law treats internet companies as both publishers (with censorial power) and common carriers (with few responsibilities), compounding the historical flaws.

8. Richer Alternatives and Paths Forward

• Against Absolutism:

  • Free speech must be analyzed contextually: who speaks, to whom, with what power, and for what purpose.
  • Different domains (comedy, scholarship, politics) require different regimes of control and responsibility.

  "Free speech is not just one thing... If you think that absolute unfettered freedom is the way of arriving at truth, I'm afraid you need to think a bit harder." — Dabhoiwala, [66:36]

• Reclaiming Historical Insights:

  • Dabhoiwala argues for re-engaging with global and historical models that balance freedom and responsibility, recognizing that different contexts (media, academia, politics) demand different solutions.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Free speech is a great ideal...but my book is different because all the people you mentioned...only talk about free speech in the here and now.” — Dabhoiwala, [03:46]
• “Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.” — Jonathan Swift, as quoted by Dabhoiwala, [11:56]
• “It’s always about who is speaking, why are they speaking, to whom are they speaking, what’s the medium, what’s the effect, what’s the audience.” — Dabhoiwala, [40:06]
• “How we now understand and interpret the First Amendment is exactly the opposite of how it was originally meant to be understood.” — Dabhoiwala, [33:02]
• “This process of the weaponization of free speech is not unique to the United States... But the American approach, I think, has led us into particularly dangerous territory.” — Dabhoiwala, [62:19]

Timestamps: Key Segments

• [02:30] Origins of the project; why a history of free speech?
• [09:57] The emergence of modern free speech ideals in 18th century England, Cato's Letters, and the press revolution
• [16:08] The limits of early free speech theory; collective vs. individual rights; flawed “marketplace of ideas” analogy
• [22:35] How Cato's Letters fueled both rights rhetoric and problems of slander, misinformation, and media corruption
• [27:32] The constitutional split: US vs France on responsibility vs. absolutism in free speech, and the American states' largely forgotten embrace of a balanced model
• [36:37] Exclusion of enslaved, colonized, and women's voices as central, not incidental, to classical free speech theory
• [42:05] John Stuart Mill: radical innovations and deep blind spots
• [52:21] 20th-century pivot: media critique, socialist activism, and the First Amendment as a flexible tool for diverse interests
• [61:20] Today’s battles: cancel culture, identity, government intervention, and the limits of “absolute” speech
• [66:36] Dabhoiwala’s call for nuance and context: “Free speech is not just one thing...”
• [68:52] Closing reflections on reclaiming richer, contextual models and avoiding simplistic oppositions

Conclusion

Dabhoiwala’s history urges listeners to rethink free speech as a nuanced, context-dependent principle—one shaped by centuries of debate and routinely wielded by the powerful for various ends. Rather than succumbing to simplistic, absolutist formulas, contemporary societies must revive more robust traditions that balance liberty, truth, responsibility, and justice.