Freedom of speech is not just a legal right. This is a psychological necessity.
That’s why today’s culture of silence, yelling, and cancellation isn’t just a political problem — it’s a mental health one, says attorney Greg Lukianoff, president of the Fund for Individual Rights and Free Speech (FIRE). Lukianoff has advocated for campus speech for 25 years. He also survived commit suicide depressionand what saved him was not censorship. It was cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).
“CBT changed and probably saved my life,” she says. “And CBT has a lot in common with free speech.” CBT works by challenging distorted thought patterns, and so does free speech. When we suppress ideas, we suppress opportunities to test reality.
Free speech is how we find truth
“The way to find the truth is a process of checking and rechecking,” says Lukianoff. “It doesn’t work if you talk to people who already agree.” In other words, if you want to know the truth about the world, you have to let people challenge you. Freedom of speech isn’t just freedom, it’s a cognitive calibration tool, Lukianoff recently told a TED audience. .
His observation reflects a central tenet of CBT: cognitive restructuring. In order to grow, we must be willing to examine and challenge our distorted thoughts. Research shows that tolerance of uncertainty and cognitive dissonance necessary for critical thinking and emotional regulation.
When we defend ourselves against opposing viewpoints, we may think we are trading reality for comfort. But this comfort is short-lived.
Free speech makes you smarter and stronger
Lukianoff argues that dismissing culture is an expression of cognitive weakness. In 2024, Israeli lawyer Shlomo Bar-Yoshaphat was scheduled to speak at the University of California, Berkeley. About 200 protesters showed up to stop the speech. They broke into the building where the interview was taking place, broke two windows and a door, forced the evacuation of the building and the cancellation of the interview. Several participants were called anti-Semitic slurs and physically assaulted.
Those protest leaders organized the repeal effort because, they said, they believed the speaker’s “genocidal values” “threaten the safety and well-being of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students on campus.”
Such “crowd censorship,” says Lukianoff, leads to a moral and logical shift — threatening and harming others while claiming to protect safety and well-being. It is also a clash of cancellation culture and cognitive fragility.
As Lukianoff points out, today’s students are often taught to avoid sad ideas. But running away doesn’t help anyone. Experiential avoidance—avoiding unwanted thoughts or feelings—actually increases worry and emotional reactivity.
In CBT, exposure to fearful stimuli reduces their emotional charge over time. The same goes for speech. “Avoiding uncomfortable ideas doesn’t make you safe,” warns Lukianoff. “It makes you fragile.”
Free speech protects the weak
“Free speech has always been for the underdog,” says Lukianoff. People like Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela defended freedom of speech. Civil rights icon John Lewis once said that without free speech, the civil rights movement would be a “wingless bird.”
All of these transformative figures understood that “free speech is not a weapon of the powerful,” says Lukianoff. “This is the best power check ever invented.” It is compatible with psychological capabilities and inner concepts place of control– a sense of agency and the belief that you can influence your world.
Those who worry about protecting marginalized voices don’t always know that silencing others doesn’t protect people who don’t want to be heard; it only leaves them in the dark. We can’t change our minds if we don’t hear them. And, as Lukianoff says, “You’re not safer knowing less about what people really think.”
Basic Readings in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Even bad people can have good ideas
As hard as it is to accept, Likianoff says, “even bad people can have good ideas.” (The corollary is also true: even good people can have bad ideas.) Life would be so much easier if bad people were always wrong and good people were always right. But the world is not like that.
However, the abolition of culture develops with moral rigor. It makes people feel good or bad, and makes ideas guilty by associating with people we don’t like. This thinking is rooted in what social psychologist Philip Tetlock calls the “intuitive prosecutor” model. to know: When we should be open to criticizing our side and persuading the other side, we defend our side and condemn the other.
The result is moral exclusion: the idea that some people don’t deserve to be heard. When a person is considered morally tainted, his arguments are dismissed, even if they are valid.
Mental health requires mental freedom
If we want a culture that fosters mental health, we need the strength to hear, challenge, and thrive on what bothers us.
When conservative pundit Ann Coulter was scheduled to speak at Cornell University a few years ago, students who disagreed with her views shouted at her, “Your words are violent.” “About half of Americans believe that words can be violent, according to some reports.” Lukianoff said in his TED talk. But this is a blatant lie. In fact, he says, “freedom of speech cures violence.” And a culture of free speech makes us safer.
Suppression doesn’t make us strong either. Dialogue. But when people insult and threaten others, falsely calling it “freedom of speech”, there is no dialogue.
Freedom of speech encourages the search for truth. It also develops what psychologists call cognitive flexibility—the ability to enjoy multiple perspectives, adapt to change, and tolerate discomfort.
If we can’t bear to hear what’s wrong, we’ll never understand what’s right – politicsnot in culture, not even in our minds.
