Sigmund Freud closed the first edition of Civilization and Its Discontents with a flicker of hope. He emphasized a life-affirming principle, which he believed might prevail “in the struggle with its equally immortal adversary,” a life-denying force.
When the second edition was released, Dr. Freud was less confident. He ended his book with a disquieting question:“But who can foresee . . . what success,” if any, will “result” from such “struggle”? That question was added in the 1931 edition, “when the menace of Hitler was already beginning to be apparent” (ed. note, James Strachey).
Hitler’s rise to power gave Freud pause. It was cause for anxiety.
In other words, how we view the future depends on where we stand at the present moment.
Civilization and Its Discontents, by Sigmund Freud, published by Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, New York, 1930
On that score, let us not fool ourselves: We live in the shadow of suppression, even if politicians deny it — owing either to cowardice or to trust on counterfeit promises. Ditto for the subserviently silent crowd, those “one-way defenders” of First Amendment values. Everywhere one turns, as Freud tagged it, there is a “destructive” stink polluting the air.
Case in point:
“Federalizing Guard troops in [Los Angeles] — and raising the specter of also sending in active duty military personnel — is a political stunt, and a dangerous one.” — Rosa Brooks
On the one hand, there is the shocking denial of reality — one that is becoming normalized. On the other hand, there is the illusion that what once was will not perish. For those not wed to “the future of an illusion,” to borrow from Freud, the result is life in an age of anxiety.
How so? Well, do any or all of the following make you anxious?
The authoritarian swelling of executive power.
The abdication of congressional oversight.
The presidential takeover of the Department of Justice for punitive purposes.
Anxiety strikes when suppression is offered up with the admonition that there are “very fine people on both sides,” and when “restoring freedom of speech” is touted in words but abridged in practice. The resulting collective malady is intensified when chaos is constant and when the rule of law is persistently breached.
In such a state, merely reading the news inflames anxiety.
Despotism thrives when constitutions, institutions, and norms lose their efficacy and when values like free-speech-freedom are obliterated by Orwellian doublespeak. The Madisonian ideal of faith in the exchange of ideas, along with the Meiklejohnian ideal of self-government through self-expression, die when executive action aims to squash political opposition. In the authoritarian process, apprehension increases, tensions swell, and a certain restlessness expects the worst.
For many, this is becoming the psychology of our times — call it “anxiety in an age of suppression.”
“The fateful question,” as Freud put it, is whether such repressive trends are irreversible. Is the hope of salvation by way of judicial review but a desperate fantasy? Recall, after all, the Roberts Court’s ruling that Trump enjoys “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.” Of course, when such authority is, practically speaking, unbridled, the president reigns supreme. This is so despite the High Court’s (dare I say?) naïve reliance on Marbury v. Madison as a counterforce to executive imperiousness.
“Cassandra” by Evelyn De Morgan 1898; Cassandra in front of the burning city of Troy, depicted with disheveled hair denoting the insanity ascribed to her by the Trojans.
In the constitutional chaos of our times, even the most learned and credible danger warnings fall on deaf ears or lose their meaning when the zone of truth is flooded with lies. One is reminded of Cassandra, that Trojan priestess granted the gift of prophecy but then cursed to have her predictions ignored.
Perhaps one’s anxiety level was calmed by a sense of courageous hope for those who watched CNN’s airing of the play Good Night and Good Luck. Though the comparison of Trump to McCarthy was never expressly made (even in virtually all of the post-program commentary), one would have to be brain dead not to discern the link. Throughout the televised play, with George Clooney starring as Murrow, the theme of the costs and value of free speech in the face of fear of government persecution was evident.
Good Night, and Good Luck, starring George Clooney — Winter Garden Theatre, 2025
When CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed Clooney, the actor was candid: “Although McCarthyism was bad, it wasn’t anywhere near as pervasive as it is right now, the kind of fear that you see kind of stretching through law firms and universities.” In a post-program exchange with Scott Pelley, the CBS correspondent for “60 Minutes” echoed Clooney’s point about fear: “The most important thing is to have the courage to speak, to not let fear permeate the country so that everyone suddenly becomes silent. If you have the courage to speak, we are saved. If you fall silent, the country is doomed.”
At a time when Paramount (CBS’s parent company) is offering to settle Trump’s “60 Minutes” lawsuit, Pelley spoke boldly about the importance of independent journalism: “You cannot have democracy without journalism. It can’t be done. . . . We have to figure out how to keep journalism free, independent, accurate, and responsible .”
As for Paramount’s timidity, Pelley was blunt: “You really wish the top echelons of the company would come out publicly and say ‘60 Minutes’ . . . is a crown jewel of American journalism, and we stand behind it one-hundred percent. I haven’t heard that.”
Courage can be an antidote to anxiety. Of course, one must pay a cost. But the costs of cowardliness are even higher. The Murrow and Pelley takeaway is to stand up and speak out. Fight to reverse the irreversible. Take heed!
The board, which issued its statement after an all-day meeting Monday, also said that it supported Bunch’s “authority and management” of the Smithsonian.
The statement did not directly mention the high-stakes standoff between the White House and Kim Sajet, who has still been reporting to work.
Forthcoming book on noncoercive threats to freedom
States and institutions in both conventionally authoritarian and formally democratic societies overtly circumscribe freedom in any number of ways. Yet there are also subtler forms by which authorities and cultural forces compromise the choices of individuals in ways that do not seem, at first glance, to be coercive. This book brings together a distinguished set of scholars to examine covert constraints on academic, political, and economic freedom from a variety of angles, developing surprising and timely new insights.
Ranging across philosophy, economics, law, health, science, art, and the media, luminaries from different fields expose threats to freedom within avowedly liberal and democratic institutions and cultures. Their incisive essays, both analytical and historical, emphasize how economic inequality, academic orthodoxy, media control, racism, and gender roles undermine the potential for human flourishing. By considering such multifarious noncoercive threats, they illuminate the vexed notion of freedom. Lively and learned, this book offers a provocative and urgent understanding of the often-unacknowledged forces that restrict our choices.
Contributors include David Bromwich, Eric Foner, Robert Gooding-Williams, Michael Ignatieff, Laura Kipnis, Anya Schiffrin, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and Geoffrey R. Stone. In an essay and an interview with the volume editors, Noam Chomsky addresses the neoliberal assault on academic freedom.
'Free speech' has become central to discussions about racism, and is increasingly weaponized against anti-racist movements. This book argues that the weaponization of 'free speech' across the political spectrum, particularly by the far-right/alt-right, has been central to the resurgence, rehabilitation and normalization of racism within the mainstream politics of western liberal democracies in the last decade. The dilemma then, for anti-racist movements, is how to respond to such a challenge - for if 'free speech' allows racism, then it follows that the elimination of racism is not possible.
Anshuman A. Mondal
Anshuman A. Mondal argues that liberalism has made it look as if there is something called 'free speech' when, in fact, speech is enabled by the structures of power within which we are all embedded. These structures determine who gets to say what, and whose voices are heard. They create and sustain racism, and anti-racism should look beyond the mythology of 'free speech' and focus instead on creating expressive regimes that foster racial and social justice by reshaping social discourse and transforming racialized structures of power.
We discuss the Supreme Court backing Maine lawmaker Laurel Libby, NPR filing suit against Trump, a years-long dispute over a student wearing a "there are only two genders" shirt, the Secret Service investigation into James Comey, the latest on Harvard vs. Trump, and more.
2024-2025 SCOTUS term: Free expression and related cases
Cases decided
Villarreal v. Alaniz(Petition granted. Judgment vacated and case remanded for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam))
Murphy v. Schmitt (“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam).”)
TikTok Inc. and ByteDance Ltd v. Garland (9-0: The challenged provisions of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.)
Yost v. Ohio Attorney General(Kavanaugh, J., “IT IS ORDERED that the March 14, 2025 order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, case No. 2:24-cv-1401, is hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned order of the Court. It is further ordered that a response to the application be filed on or before Wednesday, April 16, 2025, by 5 p.m. (EDT).”)
Free speech-related
Mahmoud v. Taylor (argued April 22 / free exercise case: issue: Whether public schools burden parents’ religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents’ religious convictions and without notice or opportunity to opt out.)
Thompson v. United States (decided: 3-21-25/ 9-0 w special concurrences by Alito and Jackson) (interpretation of 18 U. S. C. §1014 re “false statements”)
“[I]n this moment, this moment, this morning, our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack. And insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts — the fear to speak in America.” –
This article is part of First Amendment News, an editorially independent publication edited by Ronald K. L. Collins and hosted by FIRE as part of our mission to educate the public about First Amendment issues. The opinions expressed are those of the article’s author(s) and may not reflect the opinions of FIRE.
