The Birth Of Free Speech: The Outline Of The Freedom Of Speech

742 Words3 Pages
1 THE BIRTH OF FREE SPEECH

The practice of freedom of speech has been there for long and it is difficult to pinpoint the exact time or year in which the concept of free speech emerged. The freedom of speech was traced during the Ancient Greeks and thus has been argued over and debated that freedom of speech has always been an indispensable principle of what it means to be a free person. The principle of freedom of speech was firstly celebrated as a result of Socrates martyr. In the 399 BC, Socrates was on a trial before the jury in the City State of Athens, on a corruption charges. The corruption charge was a disgraced to the morality of Greek and he said publicly that he would rather be convicted than to suffer restrictions on his free speech.
In the same angle, the free speech became more developed during the enlightenment period by the scholars such as John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, Pierre Bayle and others. Locke in his inspirational view claimed that “we are born free as we are born rational,” he further suggested that, the two are linked. Human beings are free in the state of nature, and they are essentially free in a well-formed civil society as well. The Enlightenment was a period of reflection, and the subjects of such reflection included religious toleration, freedom of speech, freedom of print, and the development of more practical and secular forms of politics and political philosophy. Free speech is one and the most contentious issues in a society. If the