Ebook: Dissent, Injustice, and the Meanings of America

Steve Shiffrin is one of the most important thinkers writing on First Amendment issues today. He has long held the view that the point of the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech is to protect dissent. Shiffrin's dissent-based view constrasts both with libertarian defenses of freedom of speech and the familiar metaphor of truth emerging from the "marketplace of ideas."

Dissent, Shiffrin argues, is a phenomenon closely tied to human beings' felt sense of injustice. Dissent involves ordinary people talking about and criticizing injustice as they see it, whether that injustice is recognized by the rest of us, and whether it is couched in terms that elites regard as "political."

Shiffrin applies his dissent-based theory to contemporary issues like funding for the arts, flag burning, racist speech, and commercial speech. In each case, Shiffrin asks, we need to consider whether the law or regulation in question promotes the goal of dissent or is irrelevant or even contrary to that goal. A good example is Shiffrin's attack on the Supreme Court's commercial speech doctrines, which, he says, do little to promote dissent and much to protect the rich and powerful.

The heart of this book is its fourth chapter, where Shiffrin argues that government should not only protect dissent, but also actively promote it. For Shiffrin, freedom of speech is not, as some have claimed, a purely negative prohibition on government action. Shiffrin argues that to truly guarantee freedom of speech, it is not enough to overturn statutes and regulations that impinge on expression. Rather, because the cultural and economic forces that stifle dissent are often quite powerful, we must reform institutions like the educational process and the mass media as well as our electoral system. Shiffrin understands that culture, economy, and social structure work together with law to create the conditions for a flourishing system of free expression.

This short book is a welcome addition to the literature on freedom of speech by one of our most distinguished thinkers on the subject.