out of my chest. and i felt, i was very worried i was having a heart attack. i never had one but my father has we have family history. so i was worried about that. and that i must've put my hand up to my chest because that photograph of me showing one —- showing me line that one —- lying on my back. i don't remember that but i do remember jason taking my hand stroking it and comforting me telling me i will be okay. and being perplexed he was reassuring me because i did not realize i was showing how upset i was.

>> a writer and lawyer and journalist for over 20 years intellectual property and business litigation laws in los angeles published widely throughout his career w and has appeared in periodicals "the new york times" and "washington post" the l.a. times in previous books include the boundaries of desire coming to us today from sanis francisco. . . . . thank .

i'm really thrilled to be talking today. eric is truly one of the finest writers i know, especially when it comes to tackling enormous subjects like the history of the censorship in the west. i love this book. most authors would be intimidated by that huge subject matter but he has a great talent of taking a big subject and serving it up in delicious of history.ls he's a great storyteller and these are page turning stories full of betrayal and heroism and

sex which is always helpful. and burning at the stake and all of those amazing dramatic things. one reviewer has called this book a masterpiece, astounding comprehensive entertaining account of censorship and that was not his mother, that was a real reviewer. one of the major takeaways for me, after reading it, it seems to be a major theme censorship never really works at least in theas long run. is that how you see it? we have all these examples that in the end of the attempts to censor thoughts and words in whatever form fail, is that true? >> i think it's almost entirely true because there is a difference between censoring a

book or picture or even shutting down a demonstration or even killing someone from the idea that actually is embodied and what is set and what we find repeatedly in one form or another is that the efforts of authority, either the mob or generally the government or the church are disturbed by an idea. they feel threatened by the idea, so they run down and try to eradicate all copies, but they always survive and even more than that, the ideas in the copy survive so when something is suppressed, again take it from your own life it is

repeatedly when an expression is locked down and squeak six way through most recently china has the most comprehensive internet scheme in the world and do geverything they can with incredible people, lots of money toar borrow and include they fod a way to funnel thousands of forbidden news stories through the game mine craft so recording songs and putting it in spot of five. these examples.

>> this book begins with some of the first and burgers in china. what do they do to suppress ideaser that they thought were dangerous? >> you touched on the opening anecdote of the book, which is what i thought sort of encompassed so manypa themes in the book. the first emperor of china. we are now back in the third century dc and he is more of a warrior than just about anything else. what we wanted is to start with him.

particularly these are the dark times. what he did his realized confucius was probably the first of all of these ideas. so he got together all the books of poetry, burned them all. he saved copies for himself. he also took the philosophers who were the leading philosophers that carried the ideas and buried them alive, buried 400 philosophers alive. in fact, even to discuss criticallyld he was consumed wih

forestalling death and he died drinking and elixir of life. you bring up a good subject that he tried to keep it away and this is another theme i see in the book is the censorship is kind of a struggle. it's the haves versus the riffraff. people don't want to share stuff with. in the church, with pornography. what really blew this apart was the printing press. >> i can talk about that and we can go into it. we are sort of building on

these. one suchen censorship doesn't work. so then what do you do in the upper class what you are most concerned about is channeling knowledge, channeling ideas rather than actually fully suppressing them. andg so, when books were just in written manuscripts, there were not that many books to go around and they were expensive and difficult. what was in the exclusive province of the ruling class became available to everybody, so instantly in 16th century time that is in the acute decade the catholic church is indexed in censorship law and repeatedly than to keep from the masses and

keep them docile. that has been a main preoccupation. >> i'm thinking of what they call the streisand effect. i've heard of this and you can explain what it comes from.he the idea that the more you try to suppress something, the more appealing it is. >> isn't that the case with you? why is it named after barbra streisand though, where did that come from? >> barbra streisand objected very much to some pictures of the place in malibu and she made a big stink trying to stop it. everybody said what is this place. the forbidden fruit aspect of

censorship never really stops and nothing like keeping the masses criticizing the king and the church in particular. so, there is one example, this antiquarian bookseller who wrote some parodies and jokes, sort of a book of humor but taking some bites. so what did the british government do, they put him on trial for judicious libel and everything else. no one had heard of this guy before him. the trials itself brought him and there were three trials. before they were done he was selling thousands and thousands of copies of his criticisms of

the church. >> what happened to him? >> he actually won the trial. he didn't set out to be a war a year for free speech, but that's what he became. >> he didn't win in the sense but it was a case of a boomerang effect. talk about him a little bit.

in the early 16th century he was a scholar that again was at oxford and cambridge and went through the illegal translation of the bible. there was a big battle and you could keep people from reading it in their own languages. but i'm going to translate this into english. he went to the bishop of london and they said of course not. he went to the continent and did a brilliant jobid and began to smuggle it into england. thousands and thousands of copies began to get sold again. so, the bishop was chasing all these copies and having them by

copies. he was finally caught and murdered. now what is the epilogue to this? it was so brilliant the times change very soon. henry viii grew up in the church and his version of the bible became the core of the king james bible. an ultra forbidden document became mainstream and it's still part of the bible. >> there is a boomerang effect that sometimes i think we don't know the full story. i'm thinking of salman rushdie. i think if you ask most people they say i remember he wrote a

book that offended islamic mullahs who put out a kill on him and he had to go into hiding in england and that looked bad. but now he was up here in the mountains where i live not long ago having dinner a year ago and i saw him near me and my first thought was should i move. [laughter] but to most people it looks as if salman rushdie came out just fine. isn't there a kind of lingering affect of something like that, a kind of censorship that's underneath that people start watching themselves and whether they are going to publish more? is there a lingering effect that censorship likeip that has on an

author? >> it certainly does and there's an accumulated effect sort of a step-by-step process. there is a writer that i want to give a shout out to in england who spent a lot of time on this and used a wonderful phrase i wish i could claim that's called we've internalized. he preserves a book called the satanic verses. it was offensive to some in islam and there was a sentence. the british government had a lot of pressure to shut him down. his book was never fully censored. he survived but we have internalized it now in the sense that there's more concerns and

he covered a lot of plays that were not produced. art exhibits that were not staged, concerts that were not put on because of our fear that perhaps there would be not necessarily violence but we have internalized this notion and we can talk about this if you want that free speech is fine so long as it doesn't bother anybody, so long as it doesn't offend anybody. and that's not the free speech we really care about. it's the salman rushdie's, the nutcase down the street protecting your speech, not you and me. we are just living our lives. we come to believe or many have come to believe that free speech itself is a risk, it's a source of harm rather than the reward of a free society. and i think that the lesson is

that in a diverse society it's no longer the price that we pay for freedom. it needs to be policed and shut down. i personally think that that is incompatible with the notions of what free speech is. >> have you ever personally self censored or felt the need to? >> yes. in fact i think i know where you're going. self censored in a very painful way. you taught me when you were my journalism professor that a reporter should never be the story. the writer isn't the story but in this case i was.

i was writing about this book being published in the united states and in the uk and run by an extremely brave woman who was telling me don't throw punches, tell the truth, be bold. i was writing about this whole issue by the court of human rights that i criticized very heavily and i will just give you a quickk background this woman had given a seminar called the prophet mohammedn a pedophile d he was prosecuted for inciting hatred and they said the rules of discourse say you shouldn't

beld gratuitously offensive andi was astounded the highest court protecting human rights in europe, protecting free expression said unless you offend people. i said something to the affect of its horrible now that we've internalized the fatwa. this very bold woman called and said i can't do it. i cannot like that line and say that we've internalized. we've had death threats, bricks through the window, i've got a child, my employees have children. you've got to rewrite it. for a minute i thought i'm going to pull the book. i am not doing this. then i realized and i self

censored and then i went around it. for those that want to read the american edition, it's all there. for the safety of others, it's been amended. >> and here in afghanistan just last week, 50 young girls were killed. at a school clearly an attempt to stop the education of young women under very extreme islamic kind of ideas and that obviously is going to have an affect in the same way that it had an effect on you. all of it isn't even a subtle but it does have a censoring effect. >> the difference between

afghanistan, afghanistan is a less diverse society than the one we are living in. i think the one we are paying the price on, i am not sure that it's right, i'm not defending it. i've got my soft spots and when i hear things they hit myself and to acknowledge in the universities that are set up it's a lot different now and a lot of people are saying that the price of a diverse society as we have to be a little bit more careful. i'm not sure that i agree with it but that's what it comes down to. what happened in afghanistan is tedious by any prospective. >> i want to get to academia in a minute.

but i think that most americans would say yes, we believe in free speech. we are proud of the first amendment. and yet, there are signs that they like to tinker with the first amendment a little bit. it's maybe gone too far for some people. isis there any evidence that americans are torn on this issue? >> we are not justy a little. we are cutting into pieces. we are in fragments around the floor. a we are very proud of our traditions. we are very proud of our free speech, but at the same time, surveys are showing that at least half of americans and more millennial's believe that the first amendmentll is outdated. it's getting more and more. there is a group that attracts a lot of ivy league students who thought you could forcibly shut

people down. we cannot bear the idea that doesn't fit hours. it's really interesting in my opinion one of the signature achievements by a large margin we have a supreme court that said you know, the noise of free speech is powerful medicine for a society. it makes us responsible for ourselves and for taking care of a free society. but now, i think a lot of people are trained to the government and saying stop that person from saying things and when you ask whether we are torn, that is

absolutely part of it and we are looking to social media to allow me to say what i want, but stop him. >> social media,l facebook, twitter they've almost weaponize to the kind of hate speech and propaganda and lies that used to be censored and there are those who say that facebook has become the biggest sensor in our country. how do you think that that is all falling out with their oversight council banning trump for another six months because of his insightful speech? nobody's lied more on facebook

and twitter than the former president. but yet, you know, somebody that's written about censorship, you must be horrified at the idea that we would be censoring any kind of speech as a country. facebook is a private company. and they are allowed to do that. but give me your thoughts on that whole issue. >> do you remember the cartoon from when we were kids called the sorcerer's apprentice? i think when you start something and it looks good, you have to be careful what you wish for. that's the subtitle i talk about with respect to the internet. just a little bit of background in the way that the country was set up is that the government at least at this point has almost no power to censor speech unless

it is a direct incitement to violence, copyright infringement whereas the. private sector, you know we think about restaurants, cafés, schools and things like that. it's almost complete power to censor speech. don't tread on me. so, we because the normal model has been people versus the government we have the sorcerer's apprentice that has expanded to encompass the world. facebook, twitter, the others are a private company so they don't have to censor anything. t in this country hate speech, offense, things like that they arega legal. theo government has no power. what we want, and people are

increasingly in many ways made crazy by what's going on on social media particularly when we have a president himself and his minions shoving the hatred and the lies into the system and it's not just on facebook. we want to the social media companies to do the dirty work that the government can't. there is no one happier about this. he might look concerned when he shows up in the senate every few weeks. there's no one happier than zuckerberg and jack dorsey because every dispute makes them money. they've upped the system to foster conflict because that keeps us on the platform and targeted so effectively it was set up on this first amendment

principle but then as facebook went into europe they had to observe the much more restrictive rules we can badger facebook all we want and that board of theirs is just a whitewash saying look something bright we are taking care of it to stay away from us. >> i want to remind those of you that are listening and tuning in that you can ask questions and if we have time and we are going to try to make time, we will be sure to ask your questions. so put it on the chat and i will keep an eye on it. while we are on social media, do you see a role, do you see any

kind of push for government o regulation of the internet, social media companies? does that scare you? >> yes it scaresye me terribly. the two words that arrive when i think about the government regulations in the internet, that's donald trump. it was a first amendment that effectively saves us from him. he was an absolute enemy of speech and ready to jail anybody that spoke out against him. he called the press the enemy of the people 5,000 times. it wasn't hyperbole. he believed that. this is one of the lessons in my book reaching back.

you have to look at who is doing the regulation. so, if we think the government can regulate hate speech or fake news or these f other things to benefit us, we always have to think but what if donald trump found thatp power? what if jeff sessions had that power, what if josh hawley had that power, et cetera. so, whereas i as much as everyone want the dirt of the filth, the order off of the internet, i am very concerned about the solution being far worse than the problem. >> there are people who talk a lot about cancel culture, political correctness and this is a reaction to a movement that's's understandably worried about hate speech. it's altogether. but what do you think about that

term cancel culture and political correctness and the impact it's having for instance on academia? >> the latest example one cancel culture that i've seen came out yesterday out of thef kentucky derby. that horse, the owner of the horse is pretty mad. he said cancel culture. i've got it right in front of me. >> what does that have to do with -- >> nothing. it's one of these terms like politically correct or woke. they are these terms that are bleached of all meaning. even the word unconstitutional. that's unconstitutional. we use these terms to label things into developments that we don't like. >> on the other hand, there is a

very renewed concern about the n-word and words that offend people, transgender attacks. but i've also seen such an overreaction in academia, professors being fired, a records professor recently during a meeting with a couple of students. onee student asked to read a cae study, it was a law study. and in r reading it, this creatd a huge -- it got leaked and created a huge thing and both the professor and the student have apologized. it sounds like something out of the cultural revolution where they are ordered to apologize or else. he was reading and quoting certain words that have become

radioactive. they are words. isn't in tension important? what kind of intention do you say something for instance take the word [inaudible] it can be sexist and awful but if you say it's a female dog, just an expression and there's a town in france. they had to remove their name from facebook because facebook was upset that the word was in their title of their facebook page. doesn't it have some power? have we lost our minds is what i'm asking.

>> yes we have lost our minds. facebooknd is facing massive fines, gargantuan fines for letting the hate speech through. billions and billions of content rolls through every hour. the human content moderators that they hire just filed a class-action suit because the working conditions are so terrible so what facebook uses in addition to the human content moderator our programs. the programs are clean sweep. no human thought i'm going to off the town. they saw the term and it was gone. there is the lack of intention on the platforms trying to keep up with regulation and they over remove the problem but they also

talked about cancel culture. that word like the swastika and other things are simply radioactive. it's allowed here in germany, no. it will get cleaned up.et it won't happen. it's beyond what they signify. now the case you talked about, that was a law school case. there was a student quoting from a judge's opinion that included that word so in quoting that was simply to discuss the case but we hit the point of touching it without it can't be allowed. i think talking about the cancel culture, i want to get a little more subtle than that because i was making fun of it with respect to the horse.

a lot of people use it as the revenge ofnc the power that thoe who don't have power can get together and callout or make someone accountable for doing something hideous or having done something hideous or saying something wrong. and this is t a way for people o use social media to gather the power and bring people together. it sounds good in theory, but what emerges is the good old-fashioned mob and there is a lot going on and a lot of lives ruined. a lot more are not and yes professors are getting cleaned up. administrations are terrified of the mob. >> but it is censorship by mob, is it not?

by political correctness? i'm making this argument because so many people do. i'm not saying that it's my opinion. it really is as though you can't escape the censorship in one way or another. it used to mean exclusively actions by the government against people. that's what it typically means. a judge or a cop a or something. in this case i guess the better word since it is losing a lot of its real meaning is may be silencing. >> i have a question on the chat that i want to get in before. if you have an opinion on section 230 of the communication act needs to be eliminated or

modified and if you can explain what it is. >> sure. i've spent a lot of time thinking about this. it is a statute that is no longer obscured. it's been called the 26 words that made the internet. what it basically says is the platforms, everything from facebook to yelp and wikipedia, anything that involves user generated contributions, the platforms themselves for the people t that host, they are not liable. now if it was typically the old world of newspapers wasn't the case by any stretch but it basically allowed interactive internet communications to heaven. the statute w was passed in 96 d

took a lot of heat for being blamed from this crud on the internet and the pervasiveness of hatred. on some level, yes and on some level, no. in answer to this question, should it be modified, i guess my feeling would be no, qualified know and here's why. it can't be modified very well because if the governmentca stas to tinker with what they can do there's going to be a first amendment problem. we still have a very strong first amendment, like it or not and companies such as facebook have speech rights and if they want to amplify something or not amplify something that is their right. there's a lot that can bes done to clean up the internet and we can talk about that at some length.

maybe nowhe is not the time. i personally think that we shouldp stop the targeted advertising model that is the giant. not you but people have weight loss apps [inaudible] apps that know that you are pregnant before you do and they target adds to it so the model that follows someone around and i think in many ways it is the culprit because we can monkey with that more than we would get after those years of litigation to allow this, don't allow that, do this, don't do that.

>> i think you're right. it's all about appealing to our worst selves. whenever i get to somebody liking my opinion of course that goes to an indoor event in my brain that says they like me and so -- >> or when you hear that your enemy is worse than you ever thought. i asked my publisher how did you target my book on social media and they tell you the personality characteristics. >> so nobody that marched in charlottesville is probably going to buy your book is that what you are saying? >> they will never know thate it exists and that's a terrible thing because i would love it if they would. >> you have a great story about

that. one of the fellows that was marching, he was allowed to say whatever he wants. that's free speech and then what happened? >> he was protected by police. he was protected for carrying the torch into screaming the most ridiculous things. this lowlife was absolutely protected as much as you or i and this goes back to the restaurant he works when the door shut. he didn't have a job anymore. now i want to add one more thing. he goes back to the free speech, finds out it isn't respected there and their owner says we respect our employees rights and they are free to make their own choices but they must accept the

responsibility. that same week, these two tourists go to berlin, they are standing in front and they waved a nazi salute. within ten seconds they are arrested so this perfectly illustrates. you can't do that in germany even if you are a tourist. >> almost every day we are hearing examples. the stories are everywhere. censorship doesn't have to be about books or movies. there were two young black kids that were sent home from school. i remembert the state even, they were wearing black lives matter t-shirts and the school said this is outrageous they can't wear this sort of propaganda.

what is so offensive about that? and that's one example. then we've got book publishers saying we don't want to rewrite history or include any of that ugly stuff. we don't want to teach this project "the new york times" has about black history in the country because a it revises wht we thought we knew. what do you think of that? that's censorship, is it not? telling people what they can wear, telling people they can't readad that? it's the same old thing. >> you and i chatted about this a couplele of days ago. it was extremely sad to me. that is the only word. he couldn't say his own life mattered.

an over aggressive school board that is responding to pressure that equates black lives matter with terrorism that was so scard of african-american identity i suppose. it's more than telling people they can't read. there is now legislation saying you can't teach this massive magnificent piece of research talking about health fundamental slavery is to the fabric of the country and how it persists. there is now bills in a number of states forbidding the teaching of that. that will lose on the first amendment grounds. that will happen. but what it means is that it follows along the tradition.

every regime seeks to rewrite history in order to bolster its self. and the democratic society you could rule as authoritarian. we are seeing the latest manifestations. >> we do have a question of somebody's watching. the country purports to respect free speech. do we speak up when we see a kid sent home from school? is it down to that point of view? is it refusing to be on facebook if they continue to use algorithms to track the marketing desires?

the society is chaotic and we are full of a lot. there were decades when we thought that we were taught they have a different shape. these have been living with us for a long time. you've got to put yourself in harms way just a little bit. when there's a professor of your school that you don't agree

with. who is getting fired or put under review for something he or she says, you've got to speak out in favor of that person and argue against your own, because i really, really deeply believe without the robust free-speech environmenten in which -- every day i would wake up and think what is trump giving me and then i would read the tweet and think it's a great reason we got rid of him. when was that, the 60s?

and the aclu backed their right to do that. with of the majority to protect the rights of the ku klux klan calling for his own murder, calling for the murder of african-americans. i'm not going to take the role of shutting down so what can we do. not to echo what we already believe, to do what sometimes

feels if it doesn't hurt, it doesn't count, let's put it like that. >> i think the amendment is misunderstood and the hard thing it's one thing to say, yes, i had a right to speak and another to say you had a right to speak although i hate what you're saying. when the founding fathers but the first amendment in the constitution, it wasn't a snap deal or the first thing they thought of and also it wasn't entirely free speech at the time. >> ben franklin of all people said when they passed the first amendment no one had real ideas of what they were doing. there was no debate during the constitutional convention.

it's emerged in the last 50 years. is it i don't want a free history but we also have to appreciate our achievements? know, the founding fathers seven years after the first amendment was passed, we passed an act that outlawed. the amendment has evolved and it's taken shape.

we don't take that as issue to say let's rewrite the whole thing. we should move a little more slowly and carefully. we do have time to ask. they say do you have an opinion about mark twain and the n-word as in huckleberry finn? the publisher didn't want to use the word in brand but it represents the time in which he lived and without it it isn't the same book. this really is encapsulating the free speech censorship time moves on historical perspective what was the intention. it's all there in that particular and all across the

countrybo people are banning huckleberry finn for the schools. as we were saying. everything wrong is radioactive. >> i should point out the character of jim the n word is used in front of his name all the time because that was the style of the speech at the time. >> so if we went through huckleberry finn and that word is probably used 1600 times in that book and let's just say we took a sharpie to it, one that would only call further attention to the existence of the word, when you erase something you highlight it. let's get back to this very

beginning. it would only make the word that much louder in our head so the idea isn't going away. it's a great examplet of the mindset during that time as they were actively using that word to the extent that he was to highlight. your comment matters a lot here. in short, you can take a sharpie to the word but it's still there and we need to deal with the hatred behind the word and not the word itself. >> i think that's really the important place to sort of wrap

this up and that was a great question to do it. there's obviously a debate that is going to go on for centuries because it never goes away. people try to censor and it never works. here we go round and round and now we have the media that's weaponize the whole debate. we shall see. time will tell all of those platitudes. so i see that nick has rejoined us. i want to thank you for writing this book. ian can't emphasize how many we were able to get to but they are there and wonderful and to remind you they've stood up against oppression to keep the freedom of speech going and that to me is the greatest take away.

>> great villains as well. >> really good stories. thank you for writing it and for being with us today. >> everybody, the book is dangerous ideas and the author tonight is eric. thank you again judy for being in the conversation. it was a lovely conversation. we had excellent chats. thank you to everybody that showed up. it was an interesting discussion that happened. thank you very much. i was glad to be part of it. if you would like to purchase you can doo so from a book passage.com. the linkss has been posted multiple times you can go and follow it there. if you happen to live near a store or you can pick it up but even if youut don't near us we will ship it anywhere in the united states directly to your doorstep if that is what you would like to do and in addition

to that if you have a local bookstore, we would love to grant you if you purchase from them we love all of these across the country not just us but we would be very happy to. again, if you enjoyed the conversation tonight subscribed to the youtube channel it is free and helps us. aif you enjoyed the conversatin a little bit more, click on that thumbs c up button. it helps. thank you for showing up. dangerous ideas.s. thanks again to eric and judy i had a great time. thanks for coming. we will see you all again i hope very soon.

>> you are watching booktv on c-span2. if you are of a certain age, you have one of these on your shelves, a dictionary and you've probably looked up words throughout your lifetime but if you are a little bit younger, chances are you've done it digitally. mary french is trying to change that. she is the founder and director of something called the dictionary project. mary french, what are you trying to do? >> we want everyone to have a dictionary to enjoy the benefits and when he tried to give them out so they get into the habit of looking athe