Against the use and promotion of ‘hate speech’…

Of all the reasons to write a book this one’s got to the most incongruous: i.e. the receipt of an email saying “YOU ARE A TOTALITARIAN ASSHOLE”. Nice piece from John Paul Stevens in the New York Review of Books, in which he reviews Jeffery Waldron’s theses that freedom of speech should be tempered particularly when it comes to the use of ‘hate speech’. In the end Stevens is not convinced, but quotes Waldron’s call for the reinforcement of civility …

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