Research Catalog

Title

Courting the abyss : free speech and the liberal tradition / John Durham Peters.

Author

Peters, John Durham.

Publication

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

viii, 309 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

"Courting the Abyss updates the philosophy of free expression for a world that is very different from the one in which it originated. The notion that a free society should allow Klansmen, neo-Nazis, sundry extremists, and pornographers to spread their doctrines as freely as everyone else has come increasingly under fire. At the same time, in the wake of 9/11, the Right and the Left continue to wage war over the utility of an absolute vision of free speech in a time of increased anxieties about national security. Courting the Abyss revisits the tangled history of free speech, finding resolutions to these debates hidden at the very roots of the liberal tradition." "A mesmerizing account of the role of public communication in the Anglo-American world, Courting the Abyss shows that liberty's earliest advocates recognized its fraternal relationship with wickedness and evil."--Jacket.

Uniform Title

University press scholarship online.

Subject

• Freedom of expression > History
• Good and evil > History
• Political science > History

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Introduction--hard-hearted liberalism -- Saint Paul's shudder -- Evil be thou my good: Milton and abyss-redemption -- Publicity and pain -- Homeopathic machismo in free speech theory -- Social science as public communication -- Watch, therefore: suffering and the informed citizen -- Meekness as a dangerous activity: witnessing as participation -- Conclusion: responsibility to things that are not.

ISBN

0226662748 (cloth : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2004018511

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library