The paratroopers' mission, in large part, is to highlight the predominant culture­­the commercial television culture­­in which the eighteenth­century first amendment strives to exist. Against that backdrop, a different first amendment emerges in bold relief. Our article sketches something of this first amendment, and the responses to it add color. As we read most of our colleagues, however, their thoughts paint a picture of the first amendment that was never before quite noticed. This bold and different picture of the first amendment may be antithetical to the core values of current free­speech theory. This first amendment cannot, and does not desire to, secure any ennobling form of self­realization, ensure participatory democracy, or promote real possibilities for serious discourse. It trades ideas for images. The central value of this vision of the modern first amendment is, simply stated, self­ gratification. Of course, this value is the ultimate norm of the Huxleyan regime. In this Reply, as in our article, we neither condemn nor endorse such a first­amendment vision­­we merely place it in bold relief.

Toward the end of our article, we ask whether recasting the first amendment to grapple with the paratroopers' paradox would render us better off or worse off. Our answer is uncertain because the Huxleyan factor has not yet become a variable in the constitutional calculus of the first amendment. ¹ Our colleagues' responses, however, reveal a spectrum of first reactions likely to arise when free­speech analysis finally faces the Huxleyan presence. With this spectrum of reactions, we are in a better position to view the modern first amendment in bold relief.

The spectrum of responses ranges from denial to acceptance, from counterattack to revision, and even to the expression of powerlessness. One can deny or accept that any respectable theory of free speech can turn on questions about the dangers of our commercial entertainment­based culture. One can counterattack by pointing to a parade of horribles that follows any such attempt to recast the first amendment. Alternatively, one can revise the traditional concept of our constitutional culture to diminish or negate Huxleyan tyranny. Finally, one can concede the paratroopers' paradox and its strong potential to immobilize.