On The Media: “Sticks and Stones”

Screenshot from On the Media website showing the following quote: SUSAN BENESCH If you wait until a country is about to explode then you're unlikely to be able to prevent violence. It makes much more sense to start when the situation is not dire. And that's where I think we are in the United States. I am, of course, very worried but somewhat reassured by the large number of people who are expressing concern about it since that is one of the important ways, in my view, to diminish the power of such speech.

WNYC’s On the Media featured DSP Executive Director Susan Benesch in its October 11, 2019 show on speech in the United States.

From WNYC:

“The right to throw a punch ends at the tip of someone’s nose.” It’s the idea that underlies American liberties — but does it still fit in 2019? This week, On the Media looks back at our country’s radical — and radically inconsistent — tradition of free speech. Plus, a prophetic philosopher predicts America 75 years after Trump.

1. Andrew Marantz [@andrewmarantz], author of Anti-Social: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation — and our guest host for this hour — explains what he sees as the problem with free speech absolutism.

2. John Powell [@profjohnapowell], law professor at UC Berkeley, P.E. Moskowitz [@_pem_pem], author of The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent, and Susan Benesch, Director of the Dangerous Speech Project, on our complicated legal right to speak.

3. Andrew and Brooke discuss the philosopher Richard Rorty, whose work can teach us much about where the present approach to speech might take us, as a nation.

Visit WNYC Studios to listen to the show or read the transcript.