Ancient texts offer timely lessons on speaking freely

The free speech issues we struggle with today - such as what is permissible speech and the dangers of misinformation - are not new questions. In "How to Speak Freely: An Ancient Guide to Free Speech and Dissent," classicist Michael Fontaine shows that thousands of years ago, Athenians were struggling with the same topics. In his new translation of Plato's "The Apology of Socrates," Fontaine's modern-day language drives home the familiarity of the dangers Socrates faces.

At the opening of "Apology," Socrates says he's less afraid of his accusers at the trial than he is of those on the jury who were seeded with false information about him when they were children. Lies given decades to take root are impervious to facts, he says, a truth those fighting conspiracy theories today know very well.

This eerily relevant ancient text is paired with a translation of a satirical dialogue by Lucian, "The Gods in Council," a vivid tale of the limits of free speech and the dangers of authority, written in the 2nd century CE.

"How to Speak Freely" is the 50th volume in the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series, to which Fontaine has contributed six other works, including: "How to Tell a Joke," "How to Have Willpower" and "How to Drink."

The College of Arts and Sciences spoke with Fontaine about his book.

Question: What inspired you to choose these two particular ancient works for "How to Speak Freely"?

Answer: Plato's "Apology" was the obvious starting point. The speech is the most famous defense of independent thought and candid speech in Western history, and Socrates is the most famous example of cancel culture in history. He's put on trial partly because he goes around challenging conventional wisdom and embarrassing powerful people, and when weighing the choice between shutting up and continuing to speak as his conscience demands, he refuses to stop even when his life is at stake.

But I didn't want the book to simply say, "Socrates was brave, therefore free speech is good." That's where Lucian comes in. His "Gods in Council" is a hilarious satire about what happens when an institution announces that everyone is free to speak ... and then someone actually does. The speaker is rude, racist and offensive, but he also has a point. So Lucian makes us confront the much harder question from the point of view of the leader of an institution or community: Do we really, truly believe in candid speech when the person speaking is a jerk or saying something we don't want to hear? Or will we pull a Lucy-and-the-football switcheroo on him and walk back the assurance of free speech we just so grandly advertised?

Putting the two works together gives us both sides of the problem: the courage and costs it takes to speak freely, and the patience and judgment it takes to let other people do the same. Especially when we can't stand them.

Q: How do Plato and Lucian encourage dissent, and why do they think it's so important?

A: I'd put it slightly differently: Neither author thinks dissent is automatically good. People are often tiresome, wrong, foolish or malicious. What matters to them is preserving the possibility of questioning received wisdom or the status quo - in other words, of free inquiry.

Socrates' great insight is that none of us are as wise or smart or knowledgeable as we think we are. That makes the toleration of dissent a form of maturity and intellectual humility: If I might be wrong about X, I need people around me who are willing to tell me so. And what else might I be wrong about?

Lucian approaches the same problem through comedy. Institutions love to proclaim lofty principles like openness and free discussion, but the rubber only hits the road when someone says something unwelcome or taboo or ugly. It's easy to demand free speech when we're the ones who want to speak. Lucian challenges us to reflect on what we'll do when we're in charge and tolerance actually imposes costs on us or our organization.

Q: What lesson should readers take from these works for the current day?

A: That free speech is more than just a legal right. It's also, or should be, a habit and an institutional culture. Healthy institutions need people willing to ask difficult questions, but they also need leaders and communities willing to hear them.

That seems especially important at a university. The whole enterprise of a university depends on the possibility that our current understanding of something is incomplete or wrong. If we impose taboos - if students and faculty are afraid to ask certain questions, or if disagreement is treated as bigotry or hatred or disloyalty - then we lose one of the main mechanisms by which knowledge advances, and moral and social progress are possible.

That's also a major reason I'm involved with Cornell's Program on Freedom and Free Societies. We try to create opportunities for serious disagreement. We bring people together around difficult questions, we encourage argument and discussion rather than avoiding it, and we do so without proscribing certain answers or prescribing what conclusions people ought to reach. The goal isn't unanimity. It's a university culture in which people can disagree vigorously, listen seriously, change our minds when the evidence warrants it, and remain part of the same intellectual community.

That, to me, is what Socrates and Lucian still have to teach us after two thousand years.

Linda B. Glaser is news and media relations manager for the College of Arts and Sciences.