Manifesto

The lost half of freedom of speech

For centuries, “freedom of speech” has carried two distinct meanings:

1. As personal liberty, the right of individuals to speak without censorship or coercion.

2. As an engine of progress, the principle that truth, knowledge, and justice emerge only when ideas can be openly tested, criticized, and refined.

Today, in the 21st century, these meanings are routinely conflated. Public debate — especially in the United States — often collapses “freedom of speech” into a narrow, constitutional guarantee: the First Amendment, a shield against government interference. This framing is vital, but it is incomplete. By equating freedom of speech solely with personal liberty, we commit an equivocation fallacy: we treat a political-legal protection as if it exhausts the philosophical idea.

What disappears in this narrowing is the very reason Milton, Voltaire, Kant, and Mill defended free expression in the first place: society’s need for open ideas.

The principle of Open Ideas

We propose to name this neglected tradition Open Ideas.

Open Ideas is not about the individual’s right to speak; it is about the community’s duty to keep ideas contestable. Just as open-source code improves through scrutiny, modification, and iteration, so too do human beliefs and institutions advance only when subjected to criticism and revision.

Open Ideas asserts:

• No opinion is so sacred it may not be challenged.

• No error is so toxic it should be suppressed without exposure.

• Progress requires confrontation, not silence.

The point is not that every idea is valid, but that every idea must be vulnerable.

Freedom, consequences, and confusion

Much contemporary debate revolves around the slogan: “Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences”. This phrase is true in a limited sense — one’s speech may invite criticism, rebuttal, or even social sanction. But in public discourse, the slogan is often weaponized to obscure two different freedoms:

1. Freedom of Speech (personal liberty): protects individuals against government censorship.

2. Open Ideas (engine of progress): ensures that speech is not insulated from critique, challenge, or consequence.

Without distinguishing these, the conversation devolves. Some invoke the First Amendment as it doesn’t guarantee freedom from all consequences. Others wield “consequences” as their own right to silence dissent. Both misfire because they confuse liberty with openness.

Open Ideas restores clarity: freedom of speech protects the speaker; open ideas protects the process. Consequences like rebuttal, refutation, even ridicule are not violations of openness; they are its lifeblood. Suppression by calls to cancelation, deplatforming, or even violence, by contrast, poisons it.

Toward an Open Society of ideas

The Enlightenment’s great insight was that human progress is collective. No individual, no ruler, no institution monopolizes truth. Knowledge grows in public, in the friction of disagreement. The open society, as Karl Popper described, is defined by its willingness to test its own beliefs, to treat every claim as provisional, subject to criticism.

Open Ideas is the cultural software of the open society. It is the recognition that free expression is not only a shield for individuals, but a tool for civilization. If free speech is the right, then open ideas is the reason.

Call to action

We stand at a time when speech is both more abundant and more fragile than ever. Social media amplifies voices but also accelerates outrage. Governments restrict speech in the name of stability; platforms restrict speech in the name of civility. In this noise, the concept of freedom of speech has shrunk into a defensive slogan, stripped of its generative power.

Reclaiming Open Ideas means:

• Refusing to confuse constitutional protection with cultural openness.

• Defending the process of contestation even when particular speakers displease us.

• Insisting that consequences belong within argument and counterargument, not enforced silence.

The future of democracy, science, and human dignity depends not only on the right to speak but on the courage to keep ideas open.

Summary

Freedom of Speech: the individual’s shield against censorship.

Open Ideas: society’s engine for truth, progress, and freedom itself.

Only together do they sustain a free and flourishing civilization.