For the left, on the other hand, free speech is always a subject of power and its invocation frequently a mask for it. The liberal assertion of free speech must never be seen as a value outside the larger context of power: who gets to speak, and how speech is heard, and how pained or threatened the listeners of that speech may feel. Mill’s idea of free speech is what we now call elitist or class-bound. He assumes a pleasant argument among gentlemen, or at most gentlemen and gentlewomen. He does not adequately imagine the way that speech is bought and sold to keep the persecuted in their place.
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