Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times Highlight

the legal right to free speech was not enough to guarantee that individuals who exercised it in situations that cried out for opposition actually had any impact. “Even in democracies, disparities in power play a large role in silencing dissent—sometimes by ensuring that dissenters keep quiet, but more insidiously by ensuring that dissenters are not really heard.” A properly functioning democratic society, Sunstein argued, “has a culture of free speech” that “encourages a certain set of attitudes in listeners, one that gives a respectful hearing to those who do not embrace the conventional wisdom. In a culture of free speech, the attitude of listeners is no less important than that of speakers.”