The claim that public discourse operates as a marketplace of ideas — where truth and falsehood compete on equal terms, and the better argument wins — has never described how mass public discourse actually works. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty imagined the competition occurring among individuals with roughly equal access, sufficient time to weigh competing … Continue reading The Marketplace of Ideas Was Always a Protection Racket
Tag: marketplace of ideas
The Other in the Academy
"The theory that a political debate can only be won by silence should sound strange in the mouths of people who toil in the realm of ideas. Alas, it isn’t strange at all. I have a friend who compares his academic work today to 'a mine-clearing operation': at any moment, you might step on a … Continue reading The Other in the Academy
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