Ash knows a lot. Indeed, one of the problems with the book
is that he apparently accumulated a large number of the current equivalent of
note cards with interesting facts, and seemingly decided to include all of them
in the book. Often one wonders why one paragraph follows the prior one, except
in the “Oh, that reminds me of this” mode. The book also has too much of what
passes for cleverness among journalists. An egregious example is this:
Criticizing as a “blancmange of oecumenical waffle” the proposal that children
must learn to speak and act truthfully, Ash writes, “What if the Reverend Baroness
Cara-Marguerite-Drusilla truthfully thinks that one of the practices of Burton
Pretty on Top’s religion should be banned in any civilized community, and
Burton Pretty on Top truthfully disagrees?” Ash apparently thinks that this is
devastating to the proposal. But, it obviously confuses speaking truthfully
with speaking honestly. Each could honestly think what she and he do, but one
or both can’t truthfully think what Ash imputes to them.
And there are quite a few other annoyances. He advocates for
open access to scholarship, in a book for which his publisher is charging a
fee ($14.99 for the Kindle version, if you care). He acknowledges the anomaly, writing that he could afford not to take a
cent in royalties from the book (and maybe he hasn’t, or has donated his
royalties to an appropriate NGO), but that’s insufficient. First, the reason he
published the book with the Yale University Press probably has something to do
with its ability to distribute it more widely than a self-published book would
be distributed, and its ability to get more reviews than would a self-published
book. But, both of those depend on the Press’s ability to use what it charges
for things that benefit both authors and readers. So, sometimes open access has
costs to the dissemination of ideas. And, even more pointedly, the reason that
Ash is able to forgo royalties, if he does, is that over time he made a fair
amount from charging people for his earlier works. Again, this particular book
wouldn’t be available in a world of permanent open access, because Ash wouldn’t
have been able to earn a living as a journalist in such a world. Saying, as Ash
does, “The maximization … and spread of knowledge itself requires a carefully
redrawn, strictly limited but then also effectively enforced protection of
intellectual property,” falls just short of being useful.
Here are a few more of the “just falling short” defects, in
no particular order. Often Ash carefully lays out various dimensions of a real
free speech dilemma, and then says, “Well, the answer to the problem depends upon
a careful evaluation of all the circumstances.” Or, a direct quote: “Although
simply stated, this principle is fiendishly difficult to implement.” And so it is.
But, it would be nice to have an evaluation. And, in particular, referring
the first part of this mini-review, how are we supposed to think
about situations in which a democratically elected legislature chooses to
implement the principle in a way with which we – or Ash – happens to disagree?
(One exception to the careful exposition of the problem is
Ash’s discussion of restrictions on speech in the name of what is claimed to be
national security. Here the dreadfully superficial treatment may be concealed a
bit by artful exposition, and a bit by Ash’s – and his likely readers’ –
suspicion of the claims of national security.)
Ash says that there’s one near absolute: People can
appropriately be punished for advocating violence in Brandenburg-like settings. One would like to know, though, exactly
what counts as “advocating violence.” And it’s not as if Ash doesn’t know that
the problem of characterization exists, because he's read Mill and knows of Mill's example of
a person speaking before an angry mob in front of a corn-dealer’s house,
saying, “Corn dealers are starvers of the poor.” Is that advocacy of violence?
Or, to use the other chestnut, what of Marc Antony’s speech at Caesar’s
funeral?
There’s too much of this in the book: marching right up to
the point where one would like to see some informed analysis, and then moving
on.