As John Stuart Mill said, if all of society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person it would be most important in fact it would become even more important that that one heretic be heard because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view.
In more modern times this has been put I think best by a personal heroine of mine Rosa Luxemburg, who said that "the freedom of speech is meaningless unless it means the freedom of the person who thinks differently."
He says of the holocaust denier: "That person doesn't just have a right to speak, that person's right to speak must be given extra protection because what he has to say must have taken him some effort to come up with." He follows this with: "One of the proudest moments of my life, that's to say in the recent past, has been defending the British historian David Irving who is now in prison in Austria for nothing more than the potential of uttering an unwelcomed thought on Austrian soil."
See also: Free Speech IS the Speech You Hate - Quotations on Freedom of Expression
John Stuart Mill's quote is, “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
John Stuart Mill's quote is, “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
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