In her new book The First Amendment: Essays on the Imperative of Intellectual Freedom, Tara Smith explores the constitutional principle of intellectual freedom and applies it to current controversies surrounding the right to free speech. With contributions by Onkar Ghate, Gregory Salmieri, and Elan Journo, the book offers a fresh approach to this important topic from the perspective of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism.
The editors of New Ideal are happy to reproduce here the preface to The First Amendment. The book can be purchased on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
Preface The First Amendment: Essays on the Imperative of Intellectual Freedom by Tara Smith
Americans of every persuasion benefit tremendously from the protections afforded by the First Amendment. Yet few appreciate the principle that it embodies—intellectual freedom. As a result, the foundations of the First Amendment are being steadily eroded. Under misguided notions of religious liberty, for instance, people demand special legal exemptions that chisel away at the wall between church and state. In the face of speech that some consider offensive, people urge “balances” that compromise fundamental commitments. And nearly everyone —from scholars and journalists to protesters and pundits —routinely blurs crucial distinctions between government action and private action and between speech and conduct. “Crucial,” that is, if we are to uphold the individual’s freedom to think and to lead his life as he sees fit, rather than as others decree.
To arrest the corrosion that results from these misguided ideas, the essays gathered here offer a robust defense of the principle of intellectual freedom that is the philosophic foundation of the First Amendment. Their shared, distinctive framework is Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. All of the contributions build on Rand’s recognition that the faculty of reason is the engine of human life. It is only through the exercise of reason that human beings are able to identify our needs, to conceive of ways of meeting those needs, and to act to achieve the requisite values. Man’s mind is man’s meal ticket, you might say, yet we can only cash in when the mind is free —free from physical force. For “understanding is not produced by a punch in the face,” as Leonard Peikoff once put it.1
This is what the First Amendment recognizes: the mind must be free. And it is what we all need to understand, in order to maintain its freedoms. Or, I should say, to maintain our freedom.
The four essays of mine that follow (chapters 1, 3, 4 and 5) were first published in law reviews. Onkar Ghate’s essay first appeared in Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand’s Political Philosophy. (Full detail on previous publications can be found in the Acknowledgments.) Gregory Salmieri’s chapter, “Free Speech as a Right and a Way of Life,” was written for this book.
The collection concludes with a roundtable interview–discussion among the authors conducted by Elan Journo. In the first part of the roundtable, we discuss Rand’s unique understanding of the value of intellectual freedom and her absolutist defense of free speech. This explores important connections between property rights, economic freedom, and intellectual freedom as well as significant ways in which Rand’s views differ from those of conservatives and of the historical figure who is today most often invoked as a champion of freedom of speech, John Stuart Mill. In the second part of the roundtable, we apply Rand’s philosophic framework to more specific contemporary controversies, including calls to regulate social media, demands to revoke Section 230, “cancel culture” and de-platforming, and government failures to uphold freedom of speech in response to terrorism. (The roundtable interview, recorded in the spring of 2023, retains the informal character of conversation.) While the essays often address the arguments of scholars, they are readily accessible to the educated general reader eager to understand today’s controversies.
In sum, intellectual freedom is the sine qua non of rational thought. It is the prerequisite of human understanding, of knowledge, and of all of the life-advancing values that these make possible. The discussions here, I hope, will help us to preserve it.
Tara Smith
Austin, Texas
May 2024
Advance Praise for The First Amendment
Discussions of the First Amendment often focus on specific freedoms that the text cites, including religion, press, and assembly. But philosopher Tara Smith’s new book usefully reminds us that those particular freedoms—and many more that Smith and the other contributors examine—are united by a crucial principle: intellectual freedom. The book demonstrates that the free mind is indispensable for a free society.
—Nadine Strossen, Senior Fellow, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression); author of Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know ®; Past President, American Civil Liberties Union
Tara Smith’s masterful celebration of intellectual freedom is both subtle and forceful. She unhesitatingly carves out a place for herself as a warrior for freedom in the battles that Locke, Jefferson and Madison fought years ago and that require continued support today.
—Floyd Abrams, has argued numerous First Amendment cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and is the author of The Soul of the First Amendment and other studies of the First Amendment
Freedom of speech is essential to human freedom, as Tara Smith’s penetrating analysis of the First Amendment makes abundantly clear. Mapping the complexity of the issues surrounding the rights articulated in the Constitution, this book sheds light, where so many others have only generated heat.
—Pano Kanelos, Founding President, University of Austin; former president, St. John’s College, Annapolis.
There have been many books written about the First Amendment, but only about a half-dozen can be deemed essential. Tara Smith’s superlative treatment of our most essential—indeed foundational—liberty join this pantheon. The author makes clear why the battle for free speech and intellectual freedom may never be fully won, but she also explain why the defense of freedom of speech and thought must never cease.
—Harvey Silverglate, a lawyer and writer, is the co-author of The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses and cofounder and current Board of Directors member of The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America (New York: Mentor, 1983), 309.
I read this book with a reading group. I led to excellent discussions!