
TALIA BARNES
Featured Articles
I regularly write about media, culture, and expression. Other topics I touch on include: social media, art and creativity, and mindfulness and personal growth. Here are excerpts from some of my recent pieces:
Co-author: Luke Hallam
For Persuasion magazine
​
"Freedom has value because it allows us to find structure, while structure has value because it helps us to exercise freedom. Only through a healthy relationship with both do we feel empowered and connected."
For FIRE's Newsdesk
​
"Reading “Amusing Ourselves to Death” in 2023 is a clarifying reminder that a healthy culture, like a fruitful garden, needs cultivating. This means examining not only content, but also context. It means digging below the surface of our conversations, tending to the roots that lie beneath."
Co-author: Greg Lukianoff
For Persuasion magazine
​
"Those who take for granted that hate speech should be policed on Twitter would do well to learn the history of attempts to police hate speech on campuses in the United States. Some readers may be surprised to learn that American universities have attempted to regulate hate speech for four decades now: This real-world experiment has shown how subjective and nebulous restrictions chill speech in often-surprising ways."
For FIRE's Newsdesk
​
"Testing boundaries and exploring the unknown is a natural part of individuation, the process by which people come to learn their own capabilities, limitations, and values."
For FIRE's Newsdesk
​
"Can we trust the leaders of our once-venerated institutions to uphold and consistently apply the principles that once earned them widespread respect? Or are policies and their selective enforcement just determined by a giant game of public-pressure tug-of-war?"
For FIRE's Newsdesk
​
"Recognizing that minds can be changed with time and through empathy should be a comfort to those who recognize that cancel culture is a problem, yet strongly oppose particular points of view, because it opens the door to a sort of “cancellation” that doesn’t require coercion or silencing: genuinely convincing someone they’re wrong."