My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Stevenson’s line frames liberty not as the comfort of majority approval but as the protection of dissent. A society can claim democratic forms—elections, legislatures, courts—yet still punish heterodoxy through law, surveillance, blacklisting, or social intimidation. By making “safe to be unpopular” the test, the quote emphasizes civil liberties (speech, press, association, due process) and the cultural tolerance that allows minority views to be expressed without fear. It also implies that the health of a free society is measured at its margins: how it treats critics, nonconformists, and those who lose public favor. Freedom, here, is resilience against conformity and coercion.

“A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.”
“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”