Cheap There's No Such Thing As Free Speech: And It's a Good Thing, Too (Book) (Stanley Fish) Price

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The idea is that principles like 'fairness,' 'free speech,' 'justice,' and 'equality,' are, in truth, no more than rhetorical abstractions we use to justify things WE like. To be honest, Fish argues well for this and gives us many examples. But, as Fish himself writes, 'general principles' can be taken too far and outlive any semblance of usefulness. It is when he tries to apply this 'principle' to different problems that he gets a little weird and alas, the 'no general principle' thing comes to bite HIM.

The first section is a collection of essays written for campus debates with Dinesh D'Souza in relation to affirmative action and campus diversity - Fish being ademantly for each of these. Fish's argument seems to be this: "Since 'fairness' and 'equality' can mean anything to anyone and they as principles don't exist, Mr. D'souza or anyone else shouldn't appeal to them. We should only ever appeal to historical context - history is everything here." The problem is that subtley, Fish is (a) making argument against him impossible because...what do you say to someone who refuses to acknowledge any principle at all1?; and (b) subtley sneaking general principles back in by saying: "When we take history into account, affirmative action (etc.) turns out to be fair (even though fairness is not a valid principle).

The next set of essays is on freedom of speech. Fish says that that too doesn't really exist and then proceeds to demonstrate by pointing out the obvious: no matter what 'theory' of free-speech one uses, there will always be hard cases where principle can't decide alone. He then proceeds to take principle too far and declare that because of this, the whole of free-speech law is a rhetorical put-on and therefore, things like hate-speech legislation or pornography bans are really justified. After all, if there are hard cases, then we can do whatever we'd like, right? The problem is that just because there are hard cases doesn't mean that we can't try to be as inclusive and libertarian as POSSIBLE. From Fish's recognition that free-speech always has boundaries doesn't follow that therefore we should just censor everything.

His next section is on legal theory and it is here he takes an almost opposite turn. He concludes (with Richard Posner) that general principles in law and legal theory are just as bogus as they are in any other field. BUT, he disagrees with people like the legal crit school (bet you didn't think Fish would do that!) by saying that here, general principles are at least pragmatically necessary so as to maintain the reason d'etre of law: consistency, order, and at least the appearance of trying to be impartial. Whereas in the other two sections, lack of general principles meant we should sort of do whatever is whatever, here - somehow - general principles have a vital role to play.

All of this is to say that while I enjoyed the book and it was very provocative, Fish does as most people who discover a 'general principle' do: he takes it a bit too far, applying it with a gusto to everything he can get his hands on. What he SOMETIMES pays lip-service to in these essays (and most of the time, not) is that while general principles may be hollow on examination, we can't help but use them as they are (a) valuable communicative tools; (b) unavoidable linguistically; and (c) pragmatically useful in things like law, science, philosophy, and even...literary criticism. LIke those Fish criticzes, I just think he is too drunk with his own "no principle" principle.

But get the book anyway. It is a great read and will most certainly make you think. Fish really is not that ultra-post-modern guy the conservatives like to pretend he is and some of the positions he takes in this book - against interdisciplinarianism and New Historicism - will prove it.

Thought-Provoking... but for what purpose?
Free speech does not exist. American democracy is a sham. Our feeling that the holocaust was wrong is merely an irrational emotional reaction. The U.S. constitution allows churches to persecute nonbelievers - and that would be just fine. These - and many other controvertial opinions - are expressed by Stanley Fish, one of the leading postmodernists of today, in this book.

The core of Fish's argument is that *any* discussion, by the mere fact of *being* a discussion that uses words in a certain languages, involves "censorship", because the words, terms, and expressions used in the language have hidden biases in them. Therefore, we are better of without preserving the "illusion" that there is an objective right or wrong, or that democracy is objectively better than fascism, or that the first amendment means anything.

Fish, I think, is pulling an "Andy Kaufman" on us. It is highly unlikely that he actually believes any of this nonsense, despite his articulate defense of it. (Fish is, one must admit, a compelling writer, who can get you convinced - momentarily - of the most absurd nonsense. You only notice the logical lapses, non-sequitors, and stretching of anaolgies *way* past their breaking point - if at all - when you finish the reading.) I think it is much more probably that he just wants to get people angry by taking up a "provocative" position with a seemingly straight face - hence the book's title.

The question is what is Fish's purpose in all this. If his purpose is to get an apathetic public to question and defend their beliefs in freedom of speech and democracy, that is good. But it seems to me more likely that Fish is simply being meritricious for personal gain: he is using his considerable rhetorical and pedagogical talents to defend nonsense, not because he believes it or wants others to object to him, but in order to make a name for himself as academia's "bad boy".

Stanley Fish is after you! Yes you!
Now, sitting comfortably? Are you a liberal or a conservative? Do you think your views, sane, rational, fair, unbiased or generally decent? Well what if I told you that you are a biased, interested, often irrational and double-dealing individual who rigs debates, fixes the meanings of discourses (and things) and generally configures things to your own advantage and your opponent's disadvantage? OK, you would disagree with me: BUT THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT STANLEY FISH IS SAYING ABOUT YOU!! He does this in a series of extraordinary essays attacking conservatives and liberals alike (though under the post-Enlightenment rubric of "liberalism" in general, that belief system shared by most modern, Western thinkers) for their slipperiness in debate and their use of fake and polemical principles, actually the products of politics (a noble because unavoidable category for Fish). Fish's aim in all this seems to be to drag everyone back to their contextual and historical time and place(s) and to do away with the notion that we can avoid this or retreat into our various cognitive, abstract and universalising hiding places. What is left is what we had before Fish started writing and what, according to Fish, we will always have: political debate, the opportunity to convince your peers that this way is better than that, that this conclusion is better than that one. But, after Fish, we won't be able to do this by appealing to principles anymore since he has exposed them all as partisan and political. So "hoorah" for Stanley Fish's eye opening book, let's build a better world, and watch out, Stanley Fish is after you!

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