Stanley Fish's view on free speech with a personal opinion.

In the essay in his recent book, "There's No Such Thing as Free Speech and it's a

Good Thing Too," Fish argues that free speech "is not an independent value, but a

political prize," and any differences, which the courts have drawn between, protected and

unprotected expressions are "malleable." Like any other concept, the principle of free

speech is, for Fish, "inherently nothing," but one more noise in the "din and confusion of

partisan struggle."

Fish, a literary theorist, has brought textual theory and post structuralism into the

debate over how to understand legal theory. Fish argues that there is no such thing as an

objective legal text that can be applied to law. So, for example, to use a title for his

famous essay There's No Such Thing as Free Speech and It's a Good Thing Too because

free speech does not and cannot reside in some Platonic ideal. Rather it can only be

understood as a reason of politics or in terms of what people and groups can get away

with in any particular time and in a given circumstance. Fish analyzed textual studies and

legal studies particularly. This led to his view of "interpretive studies" as the location

where meaning is created in relation to a text. Such communities are usually composed of

"experts" or groups of like-minded and influential people, such as literary critics or

lawyers.

Fish also condemns the idea that legal theory can be used in a positive way to

guide legal judgments and justice in general. Instead he argues, "theory is irrelevant;"

judges, like baseball players or fully socialized members of any other interpretive

community, do not apply theory when they are making decisions. They might use theory

after the fact to provide a justification for their actions, but at the time of decision-making

they avoid theorizing in place of applying the deep interpretive knowledge they share

with other members of the community.

Thus free speech, like every other aspect of the law, is inherently political. Fish

notes that free speech will always be limited somehow. There will always come a point,

relative to some "assumed conception of the good," that a given community will refuse to

allow certain speech "not because an exception to a general freedom has suddenly and

contradictorily been announced, but because the freedom has never been general and

always been understood against an originary exclusion that gave it meaning." Thus there

can be no platonic idea of absolute free speech.

The First Amendment was probably intended to protect political speech more than

all forms of expressions. Fish fails to note this, but instead deals with how the First

Amendment comes to be interpreted. The First Amendment is an important idea and a

good principle. Because the Fist Amendment is so broad, it is difficult to make any

restrictions on speech at all, therefore careful restrictions are made without political

considerations. Fish's ideas would allow for any number of drastic limitations.

On the topic of freedom of speech, I believe that is it very vital but it must have

certain limitations like all freedoms. These must be acted upon in the context of conflicts

with other rights. If people have a right to life, then yelling "fire" in a crowded room

would violate their rights. Threatening phone calls are considered harassment and people

have rights against such. This list goes on with examples. This is basically the system we

currently have in the United States. It does not involve influence on others as a basis for

restrictions, as Fish advocates. Influence is far too indirect a way to look at things, as it

would leave the door open to far more invasive restrictions that even Fish would probably

not enjoy. You could be threatened, harassed, and trampled, as a person thinks it is

amusing to yell "fire" in crowds. That is not appealing to me either so my position is

more moderate in the philosophy of Fish.