William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote many memorable lines including, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” a literal and botanical truth.
Juliet lamented Romeo’s Montague name, her family’s enemy. She argued that his nature remained unchanged by his name. Were he not a Montague, they could be together without their families’ feud.
Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859), British historian, poet, and politician, wisely observed, “Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.” I yearn for the days when free discussion prevailed.
Johnathan Turley (born 1961), a George Washington University Law Professor, wrote The Indispensable Right, Free Speech in the Age of Rage (2024).
Turley begins his book as follows, “We are living in the age of rage. It permeates every aspect of our society and politics. Rage is liberating, even addictive. It allows us to say and do things that we would ordinarily avoid, even denounce others.
“Rage is often at the furthest extreme of reason. For those who agree with the underlying message, it is righteous and passionate. For those who disagree, it is dangerous and destabilizing.”
His book is scholarly and historically informative. He writes like the brilliant attorney he has proven to be. I disagree with his Turley’s thesis. Rage and its cousin violence is “dangerous” and “destabilizing.” Rage has occurred more frequently since 2024. Pitting my argument against Professor Turley’s, I confess, is like young David without his five smooth stones battling Goliath.
Only the least informed would deny that free speech is essential to our democracy.
Many otherwise intelligent people mistakenly believe that enforcement of criminal law is ordinarily unnecessary. Some advocate “defunding Police.”
My thesis is simple. Since WW11, we have been overloaded with electronically generated stimuli. Our brain’s capacity to process the bombardment of sensory stimulation is limited and is already surpassed for many of us.
Sensory overload happens when one or more of the body’s five senses become overwhelmed.
In these situations, the brain receives too much information to be able to process it properly. Sensory overload leads to feelings of discomfort that range from mild to intense irritability, anxiety, restlessness, depression, fatigue, and fear.
Sensory overload occurs when the brain struggles to interpret, prioritize, or otherwise process sensory inputs. The mental stress of sensory overload can trigger cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance is psychological discomfort experienced when holding conflicting beliefs, values, or behaviors. This discomfort motivates individuals to reduce the tension by changing their thoughts, behaviors, or perceptions to create consistency. Cognitive dissonance disturbs our feelings.
People strive for consistency between their thoughts and actions. When inconsistencies arise, it creates mental discomfort known as cognitive dissonance.
Iran threatens to destroy Israel and America. Iran requested a “cease fire” in its war with Israel. A “cease-fire” permits Iran to move its nuclear weapon construction to a new hiding place. Decision-makers experience cognitive dissonance between their humanitarianism and their knowledge of Iran’s history of prevarication.
We are exhausted. Numbness and deadness have failed as defenses against sensory excess. Marked irritability, anger-proneness, and rage are traceable to the sensory burden, giving rise to failed escapes into addictions, casual and meaningless sexual misadventures, self-hatred, and suicide.
Our time in history is unique for lawlessness, rage, narcissism, and hopelessness.
When college students and administrators bar free speech from those with opposing views, it annoys me initially, interferes with my digestion, and is slowly forgotten.
But when the students without administrators’ disapproval broke windows, blocked doorways, started fires, and shouted in rage, all captured on obliging TV, I was soon in a near rage myself, harsh to those I love, and unfriendly to our pet rescue dog, Rosie.
Anger begets anger! It is more contagious than measles.
Professor Turley recounts individuals, not masses of raging people, who used free speech to improve the status quo.
In 2025, large masses of angry people, not noble individuals, are using their anger to burn, lute, rob, and heedlessly destroy the property of helpless victims. How many of these violent law-breakers are uninformed about the purpose of their mission?
Colleges and universities, once held in high esteem, are rampant in antisemitism. The antisemites, ignorant of the historical claim of the Jews in the Middle East, behave like mindless animals conditioned by B. F. Skinner.
The gift of language was intended as a universally acceptable way to communicate logically and truthfully. Today, we, like Juliet, also lament about language because it is too often used as a manipulative means of deception.
Protesters today use signs as language enhancers. Words are cobbled into poorly rhyming jingles chanted into an unreligious grade-school magnum opus as their battle cry. Cowardly, these soldiers of destruction wear face masks.
“The war today,” we are told, “is over people’s minds.”
Ingenious pragmatists tell us that “whatever it takes to win the war of the mind is acceptable and necessary.”
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.
“There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.” Thomas Jefferson, 1816.
I have spent much of my life influenced by Thomas Jefferson, his university, and his reputation. At times, I wonder whether his legacy at Monticello would be content knowing that our media operates with its own interpretation of truth and that distinguishing between falsehoods and facts has become challenging for citizens.
The clandestine war, the one outside our awareness, too often gives way to epidemics of violent, injurious if not deadly riots, mislabeled as “peaceful protests,” depending upon the TV channel you are watching.
The transition of the principal use and meaning of language had a subtle beginning. You may rebut my observation. “People have been lying and misleading others since the beginning of time,” you might correctly observe. I cannot disagree.
By the 1950s, television replaced radio as the main broadcast medium, becoming the primary source of home entertainment. In 1946, about 8,000 U.S. households had TV sets; by 1960, that number soared to 45.7 million.
Americans, on average, spend a significant amount of time with media each day. In 2023, for example, the average daily media consumption in the U.S. was 12 hours and 31 minutes.
A 2012 study suggested that total U.S. media consumption, encompassing various forms of media, averaged sixty-three gigabytes per person per day. A gigabyte is equivalent to a pickup truck full of books.
While an individual hears approximately 36,000 words from their daily TV viewing, when aggregated across the entire population and factoring in diverse programming, the total number of words spoken on U.S. television daily could be in the billions.
There are approximately 14.3 trillion photos in existence. Smartphones account for 94% of all photos taken in 2024.
Optics is part of everyday life.
Cell phone usage has become universal.
Social media became mainstream early 2010s. Twitter and YouTube accelerated its widespread adoption.
Despite the advice of close friends, I watch the “News.” To qualify for the News, it has to be bad. Terrible is better. Controversial is necessary. We see the world’s worst. If TV did not cover the best riots, it would not be News and we would sleep more soundly at night, not toss and turn with cognitive dissonance.
The Cambridge Dictionary informs us that a riot can be used as a protest. “A riot isan occasion when a largenumber of peoplebehave in a noisy, violent, and uncontrolled way in public, often as a protest.”
The Cambridge Dictionary defines “protest” as a strong complaint expressing disagreement, disapproval, or opposition.
Amniotic fluid is a water-like substance that surrounds and protects a fetus during pregnancy. It plays a key role in fetal development because it helps develop a fetus’s muscles, lungs, and digestive system. It also acts as a cushion, protecting them from impact (like a shock absorber).
Since WW11, we have been surrounded by an amniotic-like fluid of sensory stimuli of printed and spoken words, visual images displayed by TV, personal computers, tablets, cell phones, social media, Apps, AI, and a host of other sensations including crushing sounds.
Sensory overload contributes to the rage we see that enrages us.
The sensory stimuli in which we float provide entertainment, education, and information, and affect us far more than we know.
Jon Meacham’s book, The Soul of America (2018) reminds us that our country has had its share of unrest in the past from which we have successfully emerged.
Quoting Lincoln’s first Inaugural address, 1861, we are encouraged to keep hope alive because our battles will be won by “our better angels.”
You are correct, Juliet, about the sweet smell of a rose, whatever its name, but what about the stench of rage or the vileness of violence?
Robert S. Brown, MD, PHD a retired Psychiatrist, Col (Ret) U.S. Army Medical Corps devoted the last decade of his career to treating soldiers at Fort Lee redeploying from combat. He was a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Education at UVA. His renowned Mental Health course taught the value of exercise for a sound mind.