Day: 28 April 2017

A Socialist Approach to Free Speech

Samuel Farmer, reprinted from Jacobin by permission of the author

Following the Obama administration’s historic suppression of government whistleblowers, Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the media, and controversies on college campuses nationwide, Timothy Garton Ash’s Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World is well-timed.

Timothy Garton ash: Fre Speech - coverGarton Ash offers a wide-ranging exposition on the right to self-expression and a coherent defence of free speech from an explicitly liberal point of view. Socialist theory and practice has never satisfactorily established the place of free speech in the struggle for social transformation and in a future socialist society — all the more reason to seriously grapple with the challenge posed by Garton Ash’s new book.

Free Speech’s Foundations

Garton Ash’s analysis of free speech has two primary sources: Isaiah Berlin, who proposed that free expression is founded on empathy with and tolerance for multiple and conflicting values, and John Stuart Mill, whose defence of free speech primarily stressed its beneficial consequences instead of its intrinsic value as a right. Neither of these perspectives constitute a solid foundation for a defense of free speech. Continue reading “A Socialist Approach to Free Speech”

The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s dark side – censored

Michael Lesher
Reprinted by permission of the author

This article was originally published in the Times of Israel but was pulled from their site within 24 hours

April 18 would have been the 115th birthday of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. Schneerson, who took over a struggling Brooklyn-based Hasidic sect in 1951, was by his death in 1994 arguably “the most influential Jew since Maimonides” and it is about that influence I wish to write — particularly because, in the 20-odd years since his death, recollections of the Rebbe’s personal charisma have largely eclipsed the record of his actual teaching.

The late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson
The late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson

I note at once that I have neither the expertise nor the desire to try to analyze the whole range of the Rebbe’s religious doctrine. Of his role as clergyman and community leader I have little to say, never having lived in a predominantly Lubavitch enclave. Moreover, since I had no contact with him, I am clearly unequipped to write about the Rebbe’s personal qualities; I am prepared to grant that these were impressive.

I am more concerned with the darker side of what the Rebbe taught. Continue reading “The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s dark side – censored”

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