The right to speak out - The First Freedom: A History of Free Speech - Book Review

Contemporary Review, Feb, 2004 by Jonathan Doering

The First Freedom: A History of Free Speech. Robert Hargreaves. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. 320 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2923-5.

Whilst reading this erudite and thought-provoking book, this reviewer visited Speaker's Corner, a forum that J. S. Mill did much to establish. There was much discussion, as well as a lot of shouting. Walking away from the polyphony of the interesting, confusing, and downright foolish, one imagined that Mill would have heartily approved of an arena where truth and falsehood clash on equal terms. This utopian ideal, based upon total acceptance of the individual's right to self-expression, has collided repeatedly throughout history with the harsher truth of intolerance. All-too visible imperatives under certain circumstances have a habit of sweeping aside invisible ideas such as free speech. Mr Hargreaves traces some of the antecedents of the debate, and casts a wary eye to the future.

Confessing at the outset that his study is idiosyncratic in content, he selects a rich variety of figures to adumbrate free speech's fitful birth. They are mostly Western, educated professionals who already command recognition (Socrates, Galileo, Milton). Mr Hargreaves tempers this potential lopsidedness by including some unsung heroes of free speech, such as the '"rough hewn" north-countryman' John Lilburne, 'smartly whipp't' for circulating leaflets criticizing Charles I, yet still ready with an answer for every Star Chamber charge.

Arguably, an accessible study of such protean, universal issues must be selective in content, whilst striving to cover all aspects of the question. Robert Hargreaves does this well, bringing together figures from philosophy, politics, literature, the media, and the law. He thus demonstrates the holistic influence of free speech and also offers smartly turned perspectives on unlikely promoters of free speech (see the zealous but worldly Saint Paul). Consequently a history of ideas, political and religious upheaval, media development, and legal debate, The First Freedom could have been loose and baggy, but the author never loses sight of the fluttering concept he is trying to catch in a jar.

The history of free speech has experienced episodes of silence, darkness, and blood which punctuate intermittent advances. This overall gloom is often hardly lightened by the characters we meet. Whilst most of these champions are articulate and sincere, they are also human, and therefore flawed. Socrates gave the first cry for free speech, but only his own right freely to express truth unimpeded by the tyranny of the majority as represented by the Athenian demos. During the centuries of superstition and feudalism following Athens's downfall, free speech was barely considered as an idea. To survive, after all, is the very first right to which we cling.

After the hiatus, Socrates' successors are just as ambiguous in behaviour, motive, and ideals. Galileo abandons his daughters in a convent, and suffers under the Inquisition as much for the Pope's displeasure at a perceived slight as for his claims about the solar system. John Wilkes writes brilliantly in defence of press freedom to report on Parliament, only to be discredited by a dirty poem written as a young rake. This episode further illustrates how the issue of free speech can move with the currents of the day. Parliamentary secrecy had first been invoked to protect MPs from the monarch's wrath; by the eighteenth century the establishment was using it as camouflage for its own venality. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a journalist, Robert Hargreaves gives much of the credit for free speech to the commercial press. By disseminating facts and defending their interpretation of them it is certainly true that the press has done much to enshrine this concept. On the other hand, for every Pentagon Papers' revelation there is a gutter photo story about 'Princess Di'.

Looking to the future, the legal quagmire of the Internet presents new issues and challenges to both free speech and morality. The rights and wrongs of this subject are far from being resolved. In all likelihood, resolution is itself a chimera: our right to say what we feel needs to be said, our right to say the unsayable, must be reasonably examined and reaffirmed in each generation. At a time when a pop group finds its songs banned from radio stations across America for having criticized the War on Iraq, it is clear that yet again we must sanely and justly define and defend free speech. This book is an excellent tool with which lay readers can equip themselves to do that.