From savages to snowflakes: Race and the enemies of free speech

Abstract Right-wing free speech advocacy is increasingly shaping global politics. In IR, has generally been viewed within human rights and international legal frameworks. However, this article shows that contemporary advocates often ignore or oppose law, focusing instead on (what they describe as) a defence of the nation state against enemies speech. This examines articulation speech's enemies: first historically as ‘savage’ in John Stuart Mill's influential formulation speech; then contemporarily ‘snowflake’, ‘mob’, ‘cultural Marxist’ by elected officials lobbyists UK US. The argues savage figured racialised civilisational hierarchy degrees humanity. Today, right-wing extend reconfigure hierarchy, imagining lesser human, subhuman, extra-human, respectively. Thus, contrast to rights-based analyses – which assume assess promotion ‘public good’ narratives are deployed underwrite policy responses hierarchies.