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Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Professors Denise Meyerson and Malcolm Voyce at Macquarie University Law School. During my PhD studies, Professor Meyerson, a highly regarded legal philosopher, was very supportive in my first foray into using social theory as a framework for a free speech analysis. While taking a postgraduate research course from Malcolm Voyce, I was re-acquainted with Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and other social theorists. This brought me back intellectually to the heady days in the 1960s when I studied anthropology at the University of Rochester and became initiated with the theoretical world that so enervates university students when they first realise that the world is much more complex than they previously imagined. I hope that the free speech discussion in this book stimulates others to expand the argument and pursue it in new directions.
I am, of course, most grateful to my wife, Dr Wei Wu, and our boys Axel and Wyatt for their support and understanding. As for the days and nights of self-imposed sequestration where I reviewed and endured sociological theory from Durkheim to Habermas and tried to glean out pearls that might explain human communication and freedom of expression, special thanks must go to our two very patient dogs who were so happy just to share my