Glenn Loury is a brilliant and courageous public intellectual who usually says what he means and means what he says! In our grim and dim moment of ugly polarization, even he admits that self-censorship can operate in our hearts, minds, and souls. If Socrates, Jesus, or Martin Luther King, Jr. set the high standards, we all fail. But courage, compassion, and self-respect require us to be and do better! Cornel West
Glenn Lourys brilliant essay on self-censorship is as relevant today as when it was first written. It is published here with a new Afterword in which the author argues through his own poignant example that the preservation of social esteem through the maintenance of public silence is eventually paid for in the coin of self-respect. Rajiv Sethi, Columbia University
Glenn Lourys work on self-censorship merits commendation as being prophetic. It is brilliant and readable scholarship what a concept! Really, I cannot commend the book highly enough. Robert P. George, Princeton University
This is a brilliant and highly important work. It claims, in essence, that restrictive speech conventions arise whenever the signalling function of language crowds out its primary truth-stating function. It is the best close analysis I have read of what has come to be called virtue signalling and related phenomena. It has the potential to be a classic. Edward Skidelsky, University of Exeter
Statements by a speaker on a topic (e.g. recent events in Gaza) will lead a rational listener to update their beliefs both about the topic and about the character of the speaker (e.g. antisemitism). This book reprints Glenn Lourys analysis of this mechanism, which will lead a rational speaker to self-censor in order to avoid the inevitable inferences about character. Stephen Morris, Peter A. Diamond Professor of Economics, MIT
