We have grown a deep commitment to free speech out of an idea that would seem absurd if we were to interrogate it now. This idea is as follows. We are autonomous, rational beings. We're independent. We are concerned about getting the right answers to particular intellectual challenges, and we see our society as resulting from a joust between independent actors exchanging rational arguments. To put it in Darwinian terms, the winner of this joust will be the most sensible and rational idea.
That’s our concept of free speech. It's based on something most people now see as false, namely that we stand outside the world, immune from its pressures. That seems to me to be incomprehensible. We are composed of passions, societal pressures, family allegiances and feelings. We're not just brains wandering around the place like computers, making dispassionate judgments. Secondly, we understand now that there isn't a truth above us that you can simply grab onto. Some religious people of traditional minds still think that’s the case, but most people disagree. Therefore, we have a truth that manages to establish itself in this chaos of argument and discussion. But it's a chaos that is not driven only by reason. It's a chaos driven by feelings, anger and desires to punish. We are much more emotional and complicated than was assumed. So free speech, which is fantastic for many reasons, is also dangerous.