There was more freedom of speech 2,500 years ago than in Britain today
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Evening Standard
17-07-2025
- Evening Standard
There was more freedom of speech 2,500 years ago than in Britain today
It's hard to think of anyone who put the case for free speech better than John Stuart Mill in his work, On Liberty (1859): 'If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind…. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.' In other words, Mill makes the case especially for the protection of opinions that may be wrong, and at odds with the opinion of the majority.
Economist
04-07-2025
- Economist
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|4 min read The high priests of speaking out are John Stuart Mill, an English philosopher, and Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor. 'Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends,' Mill warned, 'than that good men should look on and do nothing.' Niemöller famously ventriloquised the many Germans who kept silent when the Nazis 'came for the socialists', the trade unionists and the Jews: 'Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.'
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|4 min read The high priests of speaking out are John Stuart Mill, an English philosopher, and Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor. 'Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends,' Mill warned, 'than that good men should look on and do nothing.' Niemöller famously ventriloquised the many Germans who kept silent when the Nazis 'came for the socialists', the trade unionists and the Jews: 'Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.'
