Inventing Free Speech: Politics, Liberty and Print in Eighteenth-Century England

IF 1.8 1区 历史学 Q1 HISTORY
Fara Dabhoiwala
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Abstract

Our modern concept of political free speech as an individual political right was first elaborated in detail three hundred years ago by two London journalists, Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard, in their best-selling, endlessly reprinted, anonymous newspaper column, known as ‘Cato’s Letters’ (1720–23). As is well known, Cato’s novel ideas about speech and press freedom proved hugely influential, especially in the American colonies. Because they underpin the peculiar formulation of the First Amendment of the United States’ constitution, their impact is still with us today. But Trenchard and Gordon’s own lives and motives are remarkably obscure, and how they managed to formulate a completely new way of thinking about politics and public debate has remained an unexplored puzzle. Nor has it previously been appreciated that their arguments, as well as refocusing existing discussions of press liberty, directly engaged long-standing concerns about false news and public deception. Drawing on newly discovered printed and manuscript evidence, this essay reveals the deliberately misleading character of their ideology, and the reasons for its hidden partiality. It shows both how political freedom of speech first came to be systematically conceived of as a mechanism for truth, an antidote to falsehood, and the foundation of all liberty — and that, ironically, this new and powerful theory was itself but a partial, biased fiction about the world. That is a paradox whose consequences we are still living with.
发明言论自由:18世纪英国的政治、自由和印刷
我们现代的政治言论自由概念是一种个人政治权利,三百年前,两位伦敦记者托马斯·戈登(Thomas Gordon)和约翰·特伦查德(John Trenchard)在他们最畅销、不断转载的匿名报纸专栏《加图书信》(1720-23)中首次详细阐述了这一概念。众所周知,卡托关于言论和新闻自由的新颖思想被证明具有巨大的影响力,尤其是在美国殖民地。因为它们构成了美国宪法第一修正案的特殊表述,它们的影响今天仍然存在。但特伦查德和戈登自己的生活和动机非常模糊,他们是如何形成一种全新的思考政治和公共辩论的方式的,这仍然是一个未被探索的谜题。人们以前也没有意识到,他们的论点,以及重新聚焦现有的关于新闻自由的讨论,直接涉及了对虚假新闻和公众欺骗的长期担忧。本文利用新发现的印刷和手稿证据,揭示了他们的意识形态故意误导的特征,以及其隐藏偏见的原因。它展示了政治言论自由最初是如何被系统地设想为真理的机制,谎言的解药,以及所有自由的基础——而且,具有讽刺意味的是,这个新的强大理论本身就是一个关于世界的片面的,有偏见的虚构。这是一个悖论,其后果我们至今仍在承受。
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来源期刊
Past & Present
Past & Present Multiple-
CiteScore
2.80
自引率
5.60%
发文量
49
期刊介绍: Founded in 1952, Past & Present is widely acknowledged to be the liveliest and most stimulating historical journal in the English-speaking world. The journal offers: •A wide variety of scholarly and original articles on historical, social and cultural change in all parts of the world. •Four issues a year, each containing five or six major articles plus occasional debates and review essays. •Challenging work by young historians as well as seminal articles by internationally regarded scholars. •A range of articles that appeal to specialists and non-specialists, and communicate the results of the most recent historical research in a readable and lively form. •A forum for debate, encouraging productive controversy.
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