The difficulties of someone’s early life may be insignificant, or they may be severe. Whatever the case, a spiritual master finds a way to embrace the past. If that means loving an abusive parent, without becoming invested in an unhealthy way, then that is what is needed. We cannot change the past. If we do not wish to be controlled…
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Value for Friday of Week 46 in the season of Assessing
Freedom of Expression
- If you’re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. [Noam Chomsky]
- Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. [Silence Dogood, likely pseudonym of Benjamin Franklin]
- My freedom of speech stimulates your freedom to tell me I’m wrong. [attributed to P.J. O’Rourke]
The right to speak freely and to be heard is an indispensable part of equality. Equally indispensable is the community’s receptiveness to ideas: its willingness to listen and hear. This is a daunting challenge in the modern urbanized and suburbanized world, because most of us can never realistically expect to be heard amid the millions of voices in our nation and the billions of voices in our planet. With the economy having become global, this is no mere passing concern. For free expression to mean anything, we must find new ways to make the people’s voices heard in ways that meet the challenges of modern political economies.
Political expression is not the only form of expression. Artistic and scientific expression are also important, and in these, modern technologies have opened the door. The internet makes information accessible instantaneously all over the world. Research and scholarship have leaped forward in the past decade or so because information is readily available to every researcher. What took ten years to research a few years ago may take a year today, and the product is more complete. Perhaps this will serve as a vehicle for the opening of political expression someday.
Real
True Narratives
This part of our narrative finds much of its voice in the negative:
- Edwin Baker, Human Liberty and Freedom of Speech (Oxford University Press, 1992).
- Steven J. Heyman, Free Speech and Human Dignity (Yale University Press, 2008).
- Robert L. Tsai, Eloquence and Reason: Creating a First Amendment Culture (Yale University Press,2008).
- James Boyd White, Living Speech: Resisting the Empire of Force (Princeton University Press, 2006).
- Ivan Hare and James Weinstein, eds., Extreme Speech and Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2009).
- Stewart Justman, The Springs of Liberty: The Satiric Tradition and Freedom of Speech (Northwestern University Press, 1999).
Freedom of the press: on the endangered art and practice of journalism:
- Anthony Lewis, Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment (Random House, 1991).
- Geoffrey Kemp, Jason McElligott, Cyndia Clegg and Mark Goldie, eds., Censorship and the Press, 1580-1720 (Volume 1) (Volume 2) (Volume 3) (Volume 4) (Pickering and Chatto Publishers, 2009).
- Cyndia Susan Clegg, Press Censorship in Jacobean England (Cambridge University Press, 2001).
- Cyndia Susan Clegg, Press Censorship in Elizabethan England (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
- Cyndia Susan Clegg, Press Censorship in Caroline England (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
- Alan Rusbridger, Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now (Farrar,m Straus & Giroux, 2018): “Rusbridger’s anguish over the assault on fact is leavened by rueful recognition that Trump’s abuses, in partnership with social media’s penchant for magnifying them, may carry a pale silver lining.”
- Jill Abramson, Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts (Simon & Schuster, 2019): “She uses her book to mount an expert and passionate defense of old-school journalism. But she overlooks some of its core tenets to do it.”
- Harold Holzer, The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle Between the White House and the Media – From the Founding Fathers to Fake News (Dutton, 2020): “For all of Trump’s transgressions against the press — and they are many — Holzer’s book offers evidence that he’s not the greatest enemy of the First Amendment to have occupied the White House. He might not even rank in the top five.”
- Katherine Corcoran, In the Mouth of the Wolf: A Murder, a Cover-Up and the True Cost of Silencing the Press (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022): “The killing of the journalist Regina Martínez prompted Katherine Corcoran to examine both the murder itself and the news media in Mexico.”
Free speech in the arts:
- Laura Wittern Keller and Raymond J. Haberski, The Miracle Case: Film Censorship and the Supreme Court (University Press of Kansas, 2008).
- Laura Wittern Keller, Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915-1981 (University Press of Kentucky, 2008).
- Francis G. Couvares, Movie Censorship and American Culture (Smithsonian, 1996).
- Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Hollywood Costume (Abrams, 2013): “Even the slightest shadow that suggested cleavage could suspend production.”
Free speech under attack for political/ideological reasons:
- Philippa Strum, When the Nazis Came to Skokie: Freedom for Speech We Hate (University of Kansas Press, 1999).
- David Cressey, Dangerous Talk: Scandalous, Seditious, and Treasonable Speech in Pre-Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2010).
- Evan Gerstmann and Matthew Streb, Academic Freedom at the Dawn of a New Century: How Terrorism, Governments, and Culture Wars Affect Free Speech (Stanford University Press, 2006).
- Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday, 2008).
Free speech in the United States:
- Geoffrey R. Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terror (W. W. Norton & Co., 2004).
- Ronald K.L. Collins and Sam Chaltain, We Must Not Be Afraid to Be Free: Stories of Free Expression in America (Oxford University Press, 2011).
- Sarat Austin, Speech and Silence in American Law (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
- Philip I. Blumberg, Repressive Jurisprudence in the Early American Republic: The First Amendment and the Legacy of English Law (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
- John W. Johnson, The Struggle for Student Rights: Tinker v. Des Moines and the 1960s (University of Kansas Press, 1997).
- Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment (Basic Books, 2008).
- Christopher M. Finan, From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America (Beacon Press, 2007).
- David M. Rabban, Free Speech in its Forgotten Years: 1870-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
- Richard Polenberg, Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech (Viking Adult, 1987).
Ancient traditions:
- Joseph Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule (Princeton University Press,1998).
- Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Free speech in Britain:
- David Colclough, Freedom of Speech in Early Stuart England (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
- Andrew Hadfield, Literature and Censorship in Renaissance England (Palgrave MacMillan, 2001).
Free speech in Asia:
- David Kelly and Anthony Reid, eds., Asian Freedoms: The Idea of Freedom in East and Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
- Robert Taylor, The Idea of Freedom in Asia and Africa (Stanford University Press, 2002).
Salman Rushdie has spent decades under threat from Islamic extremists who seek to kill him for writing a book. In response, he has written more books.
- Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 (Viking Adult, 1991): “Would it have been published now -- and in its present form -- were it not for the high and terrible drama of the author's recent life? Probably not, given the scrappy and occasional nature of a considerable part of its content. Still, enough strong pieces are included to make the book welcome to anyone who has grappled -- in delight or exasperation or both -- with Mr. Rushdie's tumultuous novels or who shares his interest in the political and cultural plight of the migrant.”
- Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (Random House, 2002): “Rushdie’s latest collection, Step Across This Line is split into four parts, the first is a series of randomly published essays on topics as diverse as The Wizard of Oz, literary criticism, writing, film, rock music, bread, on being photographed, religion, US politics, South East Asian politics and his first trip to India after the Fatwa. The second part is a series of writings on “the plague years” – a 10 year period when he was in hiding from the death sentence issued by the Iranian leader Khomeini. The third part, is a chronological sequence of New York Times columns, running from December 1998 to March 2002, and which look at a range of current events during that period. The fourth part, which inspired the title, is the transcript of the 2002 Tanner Lectures on Human Values, given at Yale University.”
- Joseph Anton: A Memoir (Random House, 2012) “is a sophisticated and multilayered book that recounts his years on the lam. It’s a book about friendship, about the many people who took him in.”
- Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020 (Jonathan Cape, 2021): “Rushdie fears that writers no longer trust their imaginations, and that the classroom imperative to ‘write what you know’ has led to dullness, angst and dead ends: cold and bony literary mumblecore.”
- Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (Random House, 2024): “. . . Rushdie was in Chautauqua to participate in a discussion about keeping the world’s writers safe from harm. His attacker had piranhic energy. He also had a knife. Too stunned to try to protect himself, Rushdie only raised his left hand. At first, some in the audience thought the scuffle was performance art.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
- Shut Up & Sing, about how the country music group The Dixie Chicks was intimidated, threatened and ostracized for expressing a political opinion
- Afghan Star: how a popular television show began to open Afghani culture to music
- Welcome to Leith: You may be tempted to side with the people opposing free speech. The film can serve as a lesson for the importance of principle, or for the lesson that no principle is perfect.
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
- Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna: A Novel (Harper, 2009): “Who dares plunge into the wreckage of a discarded history, not knowing the risks of retrieval?”
- Ma Jian, The Noodle Maker: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005): “Two men meet for dinner each week. Over the course of one of these drunken evenings, the writer recounts the stories he would write, had he the courage: a young man buys an old kiln and opens a private crematorium, delighting in his ability to harass the corpses of police officers and Party secretaries . . .”
- Jess Walter, The Cold Millions: A Novel (Harper, 2020), is fashioned “out of the free speech riots that erupted in Spokane, Wash., in the early years of the 20th century. The Industrial Workers of the World had attempted to break a system of kickbacks between corrupt employment agencies, which fleeced laborers with bad job leads, and the crew bosses who took a portion of the proceeds to hire and fire workers in an unconscionable churn. Eventually, rowdy Wobblies packed the streets, and 400 people were beaten and jailed in the ensuing conflict.”
From the dark side:
- Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts: A Novel (Penguin Press, 2022), “explores a fictional world where Chinese Americans are spurned and books are recycled into toilet paper.”
Poetry
If they snatch my ink and pen,
I should not complain,
For I have dipped my fingers
In the blood of my heart.
I should not complain
Even if they seal my tongue,
For every ring of my chain
Is a tongue ready to speak.
[Faiz Ahmed Faiz, “Stanza”]
Other poems:
- Wallace Stevens, “Of Modern Poetry”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Yuja Wang is a classical pianist known for her expressive freedom. Conductor Paavo Järvi says of her: “Although she comes across as easy going, she is an exceptional combination of no-nonsense and fearless at the same time”. Performance reviews have used terms including “whimsical expressiveness”, “expressive touches”, and “complete freedom of expression”. Here is a link to her releases.
Mari Boine is a singer/drummer from the Sámi region in northern Scandinavia. “Born into a strict religious family, where speaking Sami and expressing oneself by traditional singing or joiking was considered ‘wrong’, Boine struggled with being assimilated as a Norwegian and being ashamed of her heritage. Fortunately, she later embraced her heritage and began combining her joiking with other Western styles like pop, jazz, and rock.” “From the start, Mari Boine has been one of the most outspoken and important representatives of the Sámi culture. As an artist and activist, she has worked tirelessly for the recognition and preservation of the indigenous Sámi culture, thus inspiring younger generations to be proud of their unique roots.” Her albums convey a sense of standing up for the people of her region, as on “Gula Gula (Hear the Voices of the Foremothers)” (1988) (50’).
Peter Brötzmann was a free jazz saxophonist who “played with 'a kind of scream' to exorcise his demons, and those of German history.” Here are links to his playlists, an interview, live appearances, and interviews. Here are links to live performances in Budapest in 2016, and in Antwerp in 2018. His albums include:
- “Machine Gun” (1968) (62’)
- “Nipples” (1969) (33’)
- “Balls” (1970) (41’)
- “Alarm” (1984) (52’)
- “Live at the Empty Bottle” album (1998) (58’)
- “For Adolphe Sax” (50’)
- “Born Broke” (2008) (96’)
- “The Damage Is Done” (2009) (103’)
- “Noise of Wings” (2010) (74’)
- “3 Nights in Oslo” (2010) (272’)
- “Live in Wiesbaden” (2011) (62’)
- “Yatagarasu” (2012) (26’)
- “I Am Where You Are” (2013) (54’)
- “Krakow Nights” (2015) (75’)
- “Catching Ghosts” album (2023) (43’)
Compositions:
- Mieczysław Weinberg, Symphony No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 45 (1950) (approx. 33-34’): Weinberg was a Soviet national during the most repressive years of Stalin’s regime. Despite being forced to edit the work to “correct his errors”, Weinberg laced the symphony with humor.
- John Adams, Saxophone Concerto (2013) (approx. 29’): “While the concerto is not meant to sound jazzy per se, its jazz influences lie only slightly below the surface. I make constant use of the instrument’s vaunted agility as well as its capacity for a lyrical utterance that is only a short step away from the human voice.” [Adams]
- Ingolf Dahl, Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Orchestra (1948) (approx. 21’) (analysis): “The concerto is tonally somewhat traditional, but the treatment of rhythm is not, revealing much inspiration from jazz and the works of Igor Stravinsky -- with whom Dahl sometimes worked during this period.”
- Osvaldo Golijov, Ainadamar (Fountain of Tears) (2003) (approx. 80’) (synopsis) is an opera honoring Federico García Lorca, and commemorating his martyrdom for the cause of art. It “tells the story of martyred Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca and his muse, actress Margarita Xirgu.”
- Grażyna Bacewicz, Sonata No. 1 for Solo Violin (1929) (approx. 25’) is an early work by this talented composer, who was already expressing herself fully, even as she was finding herself as a composer.
Albums:
- Nick Brignola, “On a Different Level” (1989) (63’)
- Anthony Braxton, “Wesleyan (12 Altosolos) 1992” (72’)
- Rob Brown Quartet, “The Big Picture” (2003) (63’): “Recorded in Paris, this collection showcases Brown's exquisite talents and those of his fellows, all four preeminent purveyors of the New York sound.”
- Lee Morgan, “The Complete Live at the Lighthouse” (1970) (451’): “To a non-muso, modal jazz means that the soloing is based on alternative, often Eastern scales and modulations rather than traditional chords and root notes. The effect is frenetic, skronky, and often dissonant when compared to more conventional forms.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Madonna, “Express Yourself” (lyrics)
- George Michael, “Freedom! 90” (lyrics)
- Bob Dylan, “I Shall Be Released” (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- Paulo Zerbato, Freedom of Expression
