War On Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech—And Why They Fail

Heresy Press’s first non-fiction offering addresses free speech and creative freedom—central to the Press’s mission—through a systematic debunking of the most common pro-censorship arguments. Co-authored by Greg Lukianoff and Nadine Strossen, The War on Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech—And Why They Fail constitutes a bulwark against the persistent censorial efforts from both the political left and right. At a time when conformist pressures threaten viewpoint diversity, and when political attacks on free expression are mounting, this book is a valuable resource for all who seek to understand and defend the right that is central to both individual liberty and our democratic self-government.   
 
This concise volume is organized around 10 claims that proponents of speech restrictions regularly assert, such as: “words are violence,” “free speech is right-wing,” and “hate speech isn’t free speech.” In lively, clear, and persuasive prose, the authors examine the flaws in these pro-censorship assertions. The book also includes an insightful introduction by Jacob Mchangama, shedding additional light on the topic from historical and international perspectives.  

 

Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He is the author of several books, including Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate (2012), and he co-authored  The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018) with Jonathan Haidt and The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution (2023) with Rikki Schlott. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.
 
Nadine Strossen is the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School and was the national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. With more than 40 years of experience in First Amendment law, Strossen is a leading expert and frequent speaker/media commentator on constitutional law and civil liberties, who has testified before Congress on multiple occasions. She is a Senior Fellow at FIRE and serves on the advisory boards of the ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy, and National Coalition Against Censorship. Strossen is the author of several books, including HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (2018) and Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know®  (2023). Her many honorary degrees and awards include the American Bar Association’s Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award (2017), and in 2023, the National Coalition Against Censorship selected Strossen for its Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. 
 
Jacob Mchangama is a Senior Fellow at FIRE, the Founder and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech, and a research professor at Vanderbilt University. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his work on free speech and human rights and has commented extensively on these topics in outlets including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed book Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media.