Taxicab Theory of Free Speech

A theory is a map somebody drew after walking the terrain. Taxicab Theory of Free Speech is a useful map, provided you remember it is not the terrain.

The theory's gift is vocabulary. Once you have the word, you can see the thing — in your office, in your family, in the news. Before the word, it was only a vague discomfort after dinner.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

The village panchayat and the housing society meeting are the same animal in different clothes: five people deciding, fifty people complaining, and everyone leaving wiser than the minutes suggest.

Society is a long conversation; the only question is whether you are listening or merely waiting to speak. The name is new; the wisdom stood at bus stops long before either of us.