The Tolerant Society

This book examines the consequences of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. While Americans benefit from its broad protection of freedom of speech, they also suffer from the extremes which result from interpretation of the same amendment. Bollinger provides a masterly critique of the major theories of freedom of expression, finding them persuasive but inadequate. Buttressing his argument with references to many specific cases, as well as with careful analysis of the primary literature on free speech, he contends that the real value of toleration of extremist speech lies in the extraordinary self-control toward antisocial behaviour that it elicits: society is strenthened by the exercise of tolerance.