In an era when much of what passes for debate is merely moral posturing - traditional family values versus the cultural elite, free speech versus censorship - the terms `liberal' and `politically correct', are used with as much dismissive scorn by the right as `reactionary' and `fascist' are by the left.
In There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, Fish takes aim at the ideological gridlock paralyzing academic and political exchange in the nineties. In his witty, accessible dissections of the swirling controversies over multiculturalism, affirmative action, canon revision, hate speech, and legal reform, he takes both the left and the right equally to task. This book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the outcome of America's cultural wars.
A vigorous debunker of the pieties of both the left and the right, Stanley Fish takes aim at the ideological gridlock paralyzing academic and political exchange in the nineties. Fish is Arts and Sciences Professor of English and Professor of Law at Duke University, and the author of many books.
Mr Fish deflates anointed truths with joyful abandon, and he is at his best in exposing the often baleful effects wrought by mean-spirited defenders of traditional values
