There's No Such Thing As Free Speech: And It's a Good Thing, Too

Stanley Fish writes with an overarching theme: general principles and theories might be pragmatically necessary (as communicative rhetoric) but beyond that are just not real or feasible. It is the ultimate irony, then, that while reading this book I found myself asking why Fish didn't apply this 'princple' (and principle it is) to himself.
The idea is that principles like 'fairness,' 'free speech,' 'justice,' and 'equality,' are, in truth, no more than rhetorical abstractions we use to justify things WE like. To be honest, Fish argues well for this and gives us many examples. But, as Fish himself writes, 'general principles' can be taken too far and outlive any semblance of usefulness. It is when he tries to apply this 'principle' to different problems that he gets a little weird and alas, the 'no general principle' thing comes to bite HIM.
The first section is a collection of essays written for campus debates with Dinesh D'Souza in relation to affirmative action and campus diversity - Fish being ademantly for each of these. Fish's argument seems to be this: "Since 'fairness' and 'equality' can mean anything to anyone and they as principles don't exist, Mr. D'souza or anyone else shouldn't appeal to them. We should only ever appeal to historical context - history is everything here." The problem is that subtley, Fish is (a) making argument against him impossible because...what do you say to someone who refuses to acknowledge any principle at all1?; and (b) subtley sneaking general principles back in by saying: "When we take history into account, affirmative action (etc.) turns out to be fair (even though fairness is not a valid principle).
The next set of essays is on freedom of speech. Fish says that that too doesn't really exist and then proceeds to demonstrate by pointing out the obvious: no matter what 'theory' of free-speech one uses, there will always be hard cases where principle can't decide alone. He then proceeds to take principle too far and declare that because of this, the whole of free-speech law is a rhetorical put-on and therefore, things like hate-speech legislation or pornography bans are really justified. After all, if there are hard cases, then we can do whatever we'd like, right? The problem is that just because there are hard cases doesn't mean that we can't try to be as inclusive and libertarian as POSSIBLE. From Fish's recognition that free-speech always has boundaries doesn't follow that therefore we should just censor everything.
His next section is on legal theory and it is here he takes an almost opposite turn. He concludes (with Richard Posner) that general principles in law and legal theory are just as bogus as they are in any other field. BUT, he disagrees with people like the legal crit school (bet you didn't think Fish would do that!) by saying that here, general principles are at least pragmatically necessary so as to maintain the reason d'etre of law: consistency, order, and at least the appearance of trying to be impartial. Whereas in the other two sections, lack of general principles meant we should sort of do whatever is whatever, here - somehow - general principles have a vital role to play.
All of this is to say that while I enjoyed the book and it was very provocative, Fish does as most people who discover a 'general principle' do: he takes it a bit too far, applying it with a gusto to everything he can get his hands on. What he SOMETIMES pays lip-service to in these essays (and most of the time, not) is that while general principles may be hollow on examination, we can't help but use them as they are (a) valuable communicative tools; (b) unavoidable linguistically; and (c) pragmatically useful in things like law, science, philosophy, and even...literary criticism. LIke those Fish criticzes, I just think he is too drunk with his own "no principle" principle.
But get the book anyway. It is a great read and will most certainly make you think. Fish really is not that ultra-post-modern guy the conservatives like to pretend he is and some of the positions he takes in this book - against interdisciplinarianism and New Historicism - will prove it.

This is Stanley Fish at his contrary and quibbling finest. His argumentative points are honed to fine poniards with which to skewer opponents, and it really is one of my favorite books. It's one of those books wherein some of the points are a little hard to master, but when you once see what the author means, you're amazed that you never saw them for yourself before. This is a fine companion to any pursuit of literary studies, cultural studies, rhetoric, in fact it's just a plain fine book to read to restore one's common sense level about the way the modern world operates.

I hope I can get time to read this. I have been to two conferences in the last month, and I am nagged to evaluate this.

First, readers should be warned - if you're not comfortable with the jargon of academia, this book is going to be something of a slog - the author seems to be writing for other academics here, going so far in several of the essays to dispute points made in other articles, by other scholars, without sufficient context for readers who don't read the academic journals.

Once you hack your way through the erudite, convoluted obfuscation of the writing style, you're presented with 17 essays examining a spectrum of topics, largely intended to lead the reader to re-examine basic beliefs and assumptions that may not have previously been closely examined - a worthy goal, and the reason I picked this book up.

The rhetoric is as good as one would expect of a Professor of English, and it's understandable when the text convinces some readerss. The logic of his assertions, however, is remarkably strained, when it appears at all. Much of his reasoning is accomplished by way of case law - he'll take a few legal decisions about the topic, show the flaws in the logic used by the judge in those cases, and present this as proof of his own assertion. This is equivalent to proving that a wall is blue by showing that two people who claimed it as green are color-blind.

He uses unproven assertions, analogy, and observations with little relevance fairly convincingly, but the careful reader will spot the tricks and remain unconvinced.

In academia, one must publish or perish. If one must publish, it is an added benefit if one can re-publish one's work in a book for the general public. This has been used by other members of academia, and there's nothing wrong with it. If you understand the flaw in the logic of 'others have done it well, therefore, Mr. Fish does it well', then this book won't convince you of any of the author's assertions.