Tangle - RE-RUN: Jacob Mchangama on the history of free speech.

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Hi all! We are on vacation this week, but to keep things flowing, we are bringing you some past editions. We will return with new episodes beginning Monday, August 21, 2023. Have a great week!Jacob Mchangama is a Danish lawyer, human-rights advocate, and social commentator. He is the founder and director of Justitia, a Copenhagen-based think tank focusing on human rights, freedom of speech, and the rule of law. He is also the author of ⁠Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media⁠, which is why he is here today.You can⁠ subscribe to Tangle by clicking here⁠ or drop something⁠ in our tip jar by clicking here.⁠This podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

Hey guys, Isaac here. Just a reminder that we are on vacation this week, but I hope you enjoy this rerun of a past podcast episode. We'll be back with fresh episodes on Monday, August 21st. Enjoy. From executive evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. And on today's episode, we are sitting down with Jacob M. Changama. He is the author of a book that I absolutely love, Free Speech, A History from Socrates to Social Media. He's also a Danish lawyer, a human rights advocate, and a social commentator. And he is the founder and director of Justitia. How do you say that, Jacob?

Justicia, yeah, probably the English way. Justicia. Yeah, I guess that is the English way. I should have asked that before I brought you on. That is a Copenhagen-based think tank focusing on human rights, freedom of speech, and the rule of law. Jacob, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks, Isaac, man. I really have been looking forward to it. So first of all, I mean, I just, again, I want to, I'll plug it before we get off once more. I am about 50 pages away from being done your book, which is a tour de force of free speech history across the globe from ancient Athens all the way up to the modern day.

I'm so curious, maybe you could just start by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you came to write this book. What's the story behind it? Yeah, so, you know, I spent most of my life here in Copenhagen, Denmark. And Denmark is not exactly sort of an authoritarian state. So you might be speaking, why the hell would I care about free speech? And for most of my life, I've been taking it for granted. But as you and your listeners might remember, back in 2005, there was a Danish newspaper

that published some cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. And that led to a huge, I would say, clash over the relationship between free speech, identity politics, religion, minority rights, and so on. And a lot of people who were sort of on the secular liberal left suddenly had a change of heart about free speech. They suddenly saw these cartoons as an abuse of free speech, just punching down on vulnerable minorities, whereas on the right, people were free speech absolutists. And then, you know, then a few years down the line, you had a center-right government that

adopted laws restricting religious speech that was pretty obviously aimed at imams and sort of radical Islamic preachers. And then suddenly, you know, the right was saying, well, in order to protect free speech, we have to limit certain types of free speech. And the left were, oh, this is going against our values. And, you know, I think the whole cartoon affair sort of got me thinking about it and maybe became a little bit obsessed about free speech. And then, you know, why do people continuously change their positions on free speech? Why does it matter? And does it matter? How much does it matter? If it matters,

where does it come from this principle? What are the consequences of not having free speech? And, you know, yeah. So, so all these questions sort of made me interested in, in,

in free speech and very committed also to the principle. But then I, in, in 2017, I began a podcast called clear and present danger, a history of free speech, sort committed also to the principle. But then in 2017, I began a podcast called Clear and Present Danger, a history of free speech, sort of a 40-episode. And the book is sort of pulled from that, sort of an attempt to sort of condense all of that free speech history. Because I think in many ways, you get a more detached view of the present if you look at it through the prism of the past. You don't have to get sucked into the vortex of culture wars and tribalism if you look at

contemporary issues through historical precedents. Yeah, well, I will try and suck you into a couple of those in this podcast because I think so much of your book is relevant to this current moment, especially through the American lens. I don't know that the timing of this book could be better. And I think here in the US, censoriousness is rising on both sides in a much more legislative fashion on the right, I think, but in a very cultural way on the left. I'd love to hear maybe if you could tell me a little bit about where you see us, the United States, Europe, you know, a lot of the Western places that have sort of, I think, well, I learned in your book, not always, but in a lot of cases in sort of the modern world have sort of championed things like free speech.

Where are we in this arc of the history of free speech right now? Is this a good time for free speech? Is it a bad time? How do you view that? Well, you know, I think there are two ways that you can look at it. One way is to say, listen, free speech is an international human rights norm protected in conventions. It's, you know, legally, free speech has never enjoyed a stronger constitutional protection, probably in the U.S. than now under the Roberts Court. So, and, you know, technology just gives us opportunities to share and access information that no generation of human beings have ever even come close to previously. You know, you're sitting right now in the U.S.

I'm in Denmark. We can talk with no censorship. So that's obviously an incredible way to exercise free speech, even if I suspect that neither of us are thinking of it as in terms of exercising our fundamental rights and just take it for granted, right? So that's sort of the positive look. But then you could say, you know, if you go back for more than a decade, free speech has been in decline, I would say, across the globe, starting with authoritarian states, which

is not surprising, because all the way from the overthrow of the Athenian democracy, it's sort of page one in the 101 of authoritarianism is, you know, do away with free speech if you want to become an authoritarian and rule a country. But what I see is that also European democracies are limiting free speech. So especially laws trying to rein in hate speech on social media, propaganda. And in the US, as I said, the constitutional protection of the First Amendment is extremely strong. But as you sense that, you know, from campus college campuses, there seems to be less tolerance for speech. And also, I think, younger and more progressive generations who are genuinely, I think, concerned about racism and intolerance tend to view free speech as a threat to minorities, whereas earlier civil libertarianism perhaps dominated more sort of the boomer generations who saw tolerance for even racist speech as a necessary precondition for equality.

So in other words, you could say older generations saw free speech and equality as mutually reinforcing, whereas younger generations now increasingly tend to see free speech, at least extreme speech, and equality as mutually exclusive. And I think that has influenced the debate around free speech and the cultural tolerance. And then you see a backlash from conservatives who claim to be very concerned about cancel culture, but then respond with extremely illiberal laws trying to cement their own versions of orthodoxy in education, and not just sort of primary school, but also higher education. So that, I think, is a very destructive dynamic. And ultimately, I think the culture of free speech is probably going to be more in 2022 versus, you know, just going back five decades or even further. I'm a bit pessimistic sometimes about the US, although the history of free speech tends to see so. So this might be a blip. I don't know. Yeah. One of the things about your book that really hit home for me was this idea that the state restriction on speech is kind of predetermined by

the culture of free speech that exists in certain places. And that pattern came up a lot in the book. I'm wondering, you know, if you find that characterization accurate, that the cultural notion of free speech sort of dictates where the state goes. And if so, how have we seen that play out historically in the past? And if so, how have we seen that play out historically in the past? Yeah, I think obviously it's more complicated than that. I think there's sort of cross-fertilization between culture and law. But ultimately, I think the culture is likely to shape the laws more than the other way around.

But obviously, as with most things, it's more complicated than that. But I think, you know, lots of examples. So for instance, you know, the French Revolution led to a huge backlash against free speech. You know, the Enlightenment started celebrating free speech, but then the French Revolution led to many states being extremely wary of free speech. And in Europe, you know, it was the return of throne and altar,

basically. And the backlash was much stronger in Europe. There was also backlash in the US, you had the Sedition Act of 1798, which was born out of concerns about possible war with France and sort of political polarization between Federalists and Democratic Republicans. But even if the Sedition Act sent critics of President Adams in prison, it was nowhere near the same degree of intolerance as on the continent. And I think one of the reasons was that that had been, for a long time, a robust culture of free speech in the US, where people would discuss politics in pamphlets, in taverns, you know, they would use strong, symbolic speech, you know, there was an expectation that you could actually criticize your politicians without being convicted for sedition and so on. And that was very different

to what was the state of affairs on the continent. So that could be one example. And then you could also look at the First Amendment really only gets the sort of really robust principle protection that you enjoy now. You get that sort of the late 50s and the 60s. And that, I think, is influenced by changing attitudes, also sort of more liberal attitudes, more sort of a reckoning with racial injustice. So the civil rights movement plays an important role in expanding the First Amendment through a number of landmark cases. But that is obviously influenced by attitudes of judges. You know, if you've taken judges of older generations, they would not have been as receptive to ideas about equality as the judges of the 60s. So in that sense, I think it makes sense to talk

about the culture of free speech. And of course, you also see it with, you know, someone like John Stuart Mill, right? You know, very clearly that he sees the tyranny of majority opinion to and its tendency to impose its values on dissenters as equally dangerous to sort of the tyranny of the magistrate. You see Tocqueville's sort of his democracy in America. He says that on the one hand, there are very wide limits for free speech in America, but if you cross majority opinion, then you're sort of subject to persecution

because you go against the majority. And that sort of is the end of your career. And only the fact that you have such a distributed network of publications and newspapers means that this does not sort of devolve into complete tyranny of the majority. tyranny of the majority. Yeah, you sort of touched on this in both of your last answers, I think. But one of the narratives about free speech in America, especially on the left in America right now, is this idea that allowing free speech or a certain level of free speech to kind of run rampant inherently endangers marginalized people. It enhances white supremacy. And I saw you kind of wade into this argument a little bit on Twitter last week. You know, I think there was some controversy about Sean King quit Twitter for a day or something. And, you know, had basically said that Elon Musk's takeover was all about apartheid and white

supremacy. And you said the idea that the principle of free speech enhances white supremacy, apartheid, et cetera, is deeply at odds with history. Censorship and repression was instrumental to slavery, Jim Crow and apartheid South Africa. talk a little bit about what you mean and what we've seen throughout history in terms of, you know, the value of free speech protecting marginalized people? Because I feel like that's a really important point that is totally absent from the discourse today, at least here in the US. Yeah, actually, just before we started, I was just about to go on a tweet thread because the New York Times correspondent in South Africa wrote a piece about how Elon Musk's view about free speech was informed by the harms of free speech in South Africa, apartheid South Africa, which is, you know, I should formulate myself, but it's, I think, wildly inaccurate and misleading. And we can get back to that. But maybe we, you know maybe we could start with 19th century America.

And the hypocrisy of laws adopted in Southern states, for instance. So you have in the 1830s, anti-slavery societies start this campaign where they mail abolitionist pamphlets and treatises to the South in order to try and convince Southerners to give up slavery. And the way that Southern states respond to this is to adopt some of the most draconian laws restricting free speech in the history of the United States. So some states actually formally adopt the death penalty. I don't know that anyone was actually executed, but there are certainly cases of people being punished. And, you know, some of these laws were extremely hypocritical. So take Virginia. So in 1776, you know, in June, even before the Declaration of Independence, Virginia adopts its Bill of Rights, which protects free speech as the bulwark of liberty, which can only be restricted by despotic governments. But then in 1836, Virginia adopts a law which says that you

cannot write or publish something arguing that masters don't have a right to property in their slaves, and you cannot write or say anything that sort of incites slaves to do against their masters. So these types of laws were prominent in the South. And whereas on the other hand, you had someone like Frederick Douglass, was one of my favorite abolitionists, someone who was born in slavery, escapes and becomes one of the greatest orators in American history. And who argues very forcefully, you know, that free speech is, you know, it's a precious right, especially to the oppressed. And it says, you know, five years of slavery in the South would do away, five years of free speech in the South would do away with slavery. of free speech in the South would do away with slavery. And he argues eloquently that free speech is a universal human right that does not depend on the color of your skin or your wealth or your status. And he does this when he's being, he does this, he writes this eloquent plea for free speech

in Boston after being heckled by white Bostonians who don't appreciate an abolitionist meeting in Boston because, you know, it'll endanger the union, it'll endanger the commercial interest in the South. And so they sort of disrupt this meeting. And very interestingly, you also have a lot of very, very brave women who combine. So here you can really talk about intersectionality, who combine the advocacy of women's rights, women obviously don't have a right to vote at this point in time, with opposition to slavery, and do it very effectively at the time. Now, even after slavery is abolished, of course, you have Jim Crow laws and so on. And there, the civil rights movement depends heavily on the practice and principle of free speech to advance their ideas. And

the late Congressman John Lewis said that, you know, without free speech and the right to dissent, the civil rights movement would have been a bird without wings. And as I said, you know, the civil rights, you know, a classic case like New York Times versus Sullivan, which protects. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

Both journalists and ordinary Americans write to vehemently criticize public officials and the government and not be punished for sedition or false information was the civil rights movement case. So in that sense, I just, I think that free speech has been absolutely instrumental for every oppressed group, whether it's women, whether it's racial minorities, religious minorities, the LGBT movement. In 1958, 4% of Americans were in favor of interracial marriages. Today, it's like 94%. And all the while, while these attitudes have changed, free speech has been, the protection of free speech has been strengthened constitutionally. So that progress has not come about by people being censored or being sent to jail for bigoted opinions.

It has come about, not least through the exercise of free speech, arguing to your citizens, am I not a fully human being just because my skin color is different from yours? Do I not have fundamental human dignity? have fundamental human dignity. You know, protests, petitions, demonstrations, and so on, I think, have been much more efficient than laws limiting free speech. So I think that's a very important thing to have. But as I mentioned, apartheid, South Africa, it's the same story, you know, apartheid regime had hate speech laws that protected the white man. So Alex Haley's video version of Roots was prohibited. They had their own index of censorship with 20,000 titles. orders, which meant that you couldn't speak, you couldn't attend public meetings, you couldn't quote a particular person. So the idea that free speech was instrumental to white supremacy, I just don't see any historical basis for that. Whereas I think the practice and principle of

free speech has been absolutely essential for racial equality. And free speech, I think, has been probably the most powerful engine of human equality that we've ever stumbled upon as a species. Yeah. Another part of this book that I found so entertaining, because it is dense historically, and I just felt like every chapter was sort of like another time in history where people were freaking out about free speech. It was just like this, this new flower opening of people losing their minds over free speech, whether it was, you know, in Muslim communities in whatever the ninth century or in Greek Athens or wherever. It's just like over and over. We've seen this play out.

And I thought that maybe the most relevant to what we're sort of witnessing today was the advent of the printing press. And it seemed like that moment is deeply parallel in history to what we're experiencing now with concerns about internet and social media platforms and, you know, increasing the speed that information can spread. So I'm curious, you know, what kind of similarities you see

between that time and now and maybe what differences too. I mean, I'm sure it's not a perfect parallel. No, no. And, you know, I might want to go back even further just because I think that, you know, in the book, I contrast two concepts of free speech. One is egalitarian and one is elitist. And so egalitarian free speech has its roots in the Athenian ancient democracy, which for its time was radically egalitarian, not by our standards. Whereas free speech in the Roman Republic was much more top down. standards, whereas free speech in the Roman Republic was much more top-down. It was an elite that exercised free speech, whereas you wouldn't allow ordinary citizens to pledge the unwashed mob free speech because they couldn't handle it and their voices were not

worthy to be heard in public discussions on public policy. And I think those two concepts have sort of been clashing ever since. And of course, the printing press is a huge game changer in many ways, because it democratizes access to writing. And someone who takes full advantage of that is Martin Luther. So it's difficult to imagine the success of the Reformation without the printing press, because Luther is just like a natural born talent at religious populace. You know, if he'd been on Twitter, he would have had like 300 million followers.

Right. And he's like, he doesn't write. He writes in German, not boring, dry Latin. He writes sort of short country treatises. He uses memes and cartoons to sort of demonize his opponents. And it just resonates with people. And that, of course, has extremely influential consequences. It disrupts political and religious authority throughout Europe and has consequences that we're still living with today. and various rulers thought it was a great idea with the printing press because it would allow them to spread their ideas more uniformly and sort of show up their authority. Then they quickly found out that people could use it to spread other ideas. Democracies have found out the same thing with social media. But on the other hand, it was not, you know, today, social media comes at a time where free speech has been a principle for a long time. At that time, no one really believed in free speech.

Martin Luther didn't believe in free speech. He believed that he possessed the truth and the Catholic Church was corrupting the truth. And therefore, he should have a right to publish his ideas. ideas, but he certainly was not in favor of everyone else being, you know, it was not sort of tolerance or universal freedom of conscience for all. But it would probably be difficult to imagine the development of tolerance and free speech along the lines that we enjoy them today without that historical development. But we also see it later on. So with the telegraph, for instance, in 1858,

the New York Times writes that the transatlantic telegraph is too fast for the truth because information is unsifted. for the truth, you know, because, you know, information is unsifted. And, you know, Alexander Michael Judd, who's a great free speech advocate, you know, when it comes to the commercial radio, he says that, you know, it brings enslavement and corrupts our morals, and therefore it shouldn't be protected by the First Amendment. And you, of course, see huge about turns even in the age of Internet. So if you look at Barack Obama in 2006, he hailed the Internet as this platform which allows him to say what he wants without censorship. In 2008 and 2012, he wins the so-called Facebook generation, uses the Internet incredibly efficiently, much more efficiently than his Republican opponents. And then after the 2020 election, he suddenly declares that, you know, now disinformation, online disinformation is the greatest threat against democracy.

So you see these outbreaks of elite panic, where whenever the institutional gatekeepers who have enjoyed a privileged access to shape the public sphere come under threat. And sometimes, you know, elite panic is driven by real concerns and dilemmas. You know, I followed your Twitter account, religiously, you know, with the fallout from the 2020 election. And that was a dangerous moment in American history, for sure. And social media played an important role in spreading insane conspiracy theories that ultimately contributed to the attack on the peaceful transfer of power. So it's not that there's nothing there. But it's very often that things get exaggerated and also that the solutions offered are, I think, a cure worse than the disease. the solutions offered are, I think, a cure worse than the disease. So the idea that you could have sort of laws against disinformation in the U.S. if the First Amendment was to allow it, that would be adopted and enforced in a sort of nonpartisan manner, I think is completely insane. I would say quite obviously, at this moment in American history, such a law would be used in a very partisan manner and to target very, you know, depending on whether it was the Republicans or Democrats who were in power.

If you had sort of place in the political world right now is, you know, I sort of see that non-elite entering the space parallel so clearly, you know, between 2008, 2012 now, and also compared to the nineties. I mean, I think Jonathan Haidt wrote that Atlantic article recently that sort of put the blame for all the ails of the world on the Internet. And one of the things I felt like he just totally didn't address was the fact that, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, the Internet was a space for really wealthy tech, highly educated people. And now it's a space for everybody. And I think that is like the major distinction between that time and this time. It's not that, you know, it's functioning much differently than it was then. It's just that there's a new class of people that are also enjoying this information center.

And that sort of just changed the dynamics a lot in a big way. You know, I guess I'm curious. I mean, I know this is a broad question, but given that you've spent so much time immersed in the history of free speech, I'm wondering whether you think there should be a limit to free speech. I mean, can there be too much speech? Where have we seen historically the line drawn maybe in a healthier, effective way? Or is it kind of, you know, you alluded to it a little bit there. I mean, is it always an impossible task? Like, where do you land on that after doing all this research? Yeah, no, I think, you know, I think there are many limits on free speech,

actually, that we don't even think of as controversial. So fraud, for instance, you know, if you want to commit fraud, you have to use speech. And I don't know anyone who would argue that fraud is protected speech or embezzlement. So some categories are more difficult. So I tend not to support laws against hate speech because I think it's impossible to define and they're likely to be abused. And in any event are not, may actually be more counterproductive when enacted. But, you know, let me give you an example where I think clearly the line was crossed. So Ida B. Wells, you know, may be one

of the bravest journalists in the history of America. She's born as a slave and then starts a newspaper in Memphis called the Memphis Free Speech, where she travels around the South to document lynchings and sort of exposes the lie that whites often invoke in order to support lynchings, that, you know, it's because black men rape white women. And she says, you know, she writes an editorial sort of more than intimating that these relationships are often consensual relationships between black men and white women. And so local white newspapers, one of them writes something along the lines that the black scoundrel who wrote that should be, should basically be executed, should be killed, and, you know, white storm and destroy the president, and she has to go into exile. Now, that, of course, was a direct incitement to violence, and an imminent one that I think clearly crossed the line, the same with threats, and so on. So there are certainly categories of speech.

I'm sure that if the FBI today were to review all of the posts leading up to January 6th, they might find a couple of posts there that were also, whether these were actually real threats, you know, these were people that said very openly that they were going there and willing to use violence. And I think they said as much in a report that, you know, one of the reasons that they hadn't been able to step in was because it was difficult to sort of distinguish between credible threats and constitutionally protected speech.

So I think there are, yeah, there are certainly red lines. What I'm particularly concerned about is protecting viewpoints. So there's this concept that American lawyers often use of viewpoint neutrality that I very strongly believe in. So, you know, I think you should have the right to deny the Holocaust. I think you should have the right to say anti-Semitic things. I don't think the state should punish you for that. But if you assemble your neo-Nazi friends in front of the local synagogue and say, let's go get the Jews, that's where you cross the line, in my opinion. And of course, there'll always be sort of gray areas and hard cases. But I think if you operate with a principle of viewpoint neutrality, you at least limit the gray zones

and the hard cases a lot more than if you have sort of laws against hate speech or disinformation or the like. That distinction is, I think, really helpful framing for me and makes it kind of clear in a sense. And obviously, like you said, the tension is always in the gray areas, but those two dichotomies feel really obvious to me in terms of what's exercising free speech and what's sort of stepping out of bounds. But before you go, I know we're running up on time here. One of my favorite quotes actually in the book is in the foreword of the book. And I posted this on Twitter, which is how our interaction that led to this interview sort of came to be. And I wanted to ask you about it because it struck me not just as sort of a reflection on the work that you had done in the book, but also almost as like a personal viewpoint. And for me, I mean, the work that I do in Entangle and the newsletter and the podcast is

sort of bringing this mix of political views together and putting them up next to each other and just letting people think about them and see them and digest them. And this quote is just so like on the bullseye for me. You said, to impose silence and call it tolerance does not make it so. Real tolerance requires understanding. Understanding comes from listening, and listening presupposes speech. I love that quote. I want to tape it to my computer. I love that quote. I want to tape it to my computer. I'm wondering, you know, it feels like a personal kind of attitude almost to me. And I'm curious, you know, how that kind of comes through in your life or your work, you know, because it just struck me as like a little bit more than just a notion of the historical nature of free speech? Yeah. You know, first of all, I'm, you know, as fallible as every other human being and liable to say and write stupid things. But I try to sort of hold myself to a certain standard, for instance, when I argue on Twitter, on social media. And I find that, certainly not with all, but very often, if you don't escalate the Twitter

feud, if you actually try and use arguments and argue in a respectful manner, you can actually get somewhere. manner, you can actually get somewhere. And that also means listening to counter arguments and trying to take them seriously, listening to what people actually say, rather than sort of immediately attacking straw men or attributing the worst possible motivations to them. It's very hard to do, obviously, when you were tempted to just write something, especially when you're emotionally engaged. But I think it actually gets you somewhere. And I think you need radical free speech in order to compromise and find common solutions, right? You know, in human life, it's extremely complicated. And instead of open, free, diverse societies, we need to be pragmatic and engage in all kinds of compromises in order

to be able to live successfully together. But in order to do so, I think we need to be able to discuss all things so that we can know what other people think, so that we can reach compromises that work for all parties and be pragmatic in an enlightened way. So in that sense, I see free speech as sort of the antithesis of violence and basically the precondition for meaningful social peace rather than sort of as some people tend to see it today as sort of the recipe for social discourse and this discord and violence. I very much see it in the other, in the light of being the antithesis of violence and the precondition for a meaningful social peace where we're not sort of forced into specific categories

and where we can engage with each other. Jacob M. Tungama, he is the author of Free Speech, A History from Socrates to Social Media. Jacob, so glad we made this happen. Thank you so much for coming on the show and let's do it again sometime soon. I'd love to. I say, keep up your incredible work.

I'm an avid follower, so thanks a lot. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter Thank you. We'll see you next time. follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like

to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.