Free Speech & U.S.
‘His freedom to speak protects my freedom to call him a bigot. His freedom guarantees mine.’
That is how the successful and influential author J.K. Rowling, creator of the Harry Potter novels, sums up her attitude toward Donald Trump. She was speaking at the prestigious PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists) America awards event in New York.
In the past, she has compared Trump to Lord Voldemort, arch villain in her stories. At PEN’s gala, she mentioned a petition to ban the Republican candidate from Britain, which has garnered a half million signatures.
This draw cheers and laughter, but she continued that our freedom fundamentally depends on tolerating precisely those opinions we find most objectionable. ‘Unless we take that position without caveats or apologies,’ she stated, ‘we have set foot upon a road with only one destination.’ She argued supporting suppressing others would remove her moral right to defend feminism, transgender rights or universal suffrage.
The current popularity of shouting down speakers on campuses strengthens her case. Colleges and universities, where freedom of speech should be paramount, have become sad and disturbing examples of exactly the reverse behavior.
Wider society is hardly immune to unnerving intimidation. Several decades ago, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, where I worked, attracted intense organized pressure to cancel an event featuring a PLO official. We did not do so. Council Chairman John D. Gray, head of Hart, Schaffner & Marx, and our board were supportive.
Additional efforts to suppress speakers came from some foreign government representatives, opponents of religious reconciliation in Northern Ireland, and others. We held firm against varied censorship pressures.
Winston Churchill demonstrated the principle dramatically and profoundly, when the stakes were highest. Churchill evolved over many years into a genius at collecting diverse eclectic information, and also people.
Among the latter was Frederick Lindemann, a brilliant Oxford scholar from Germany. Despite his intellectual success, he remained rather isolated socially. No doubt anti-Semitism was one factor in 1930’s Britain.
Lindemann’s primary problem, however, was Lindemann, who was a relentless know-it-all and generally unpleasant. Churchill’s granddaughter Celia Sandys politely described him as ‘anti-social.’ Even Churchill’s endlessly patient, tolerant wife Clementine resisted having the Oxford don as a weekend houseguest, but Winston insisted. He clearly regarded his friend as not only interesting company, but possessed of special talent.
When Churchill returned to government as head of the Admiralty at the start of World War II in Europe, he immediately recruited Lindemann, who was given freedom in selecting his staff and generally in choosing his projects. The scholar, who was particularly talented at statistical analysis, had one mission: to undermine the navy’s conventional wisdom, established procedures, and operational plans
Churchill became Prime Minister after France fell, and Lindemann’s role expanded to general strategic oversight. His basic task in the midst of the enormously complex war remained continuous: to undercut whatever was proposed by the admirals and generals, civil servants and politicians, and members of government – including in particular the Prime Minister.
Churchill assumed that Lindemann would enjoy his role but also expected him to excel, and he did.
That war could easily have turned out differently. Imagination, resulting in the ability to do the unexpected, was a crucial ingredient of Allied success. Reliability of information was another. Lindemann was vital in driving these dimensions.
Meanwhile, Nazi Germany pursued self-reinforcing spirals of ever more brutal intolerance and conformity
Defend freedom of expression.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of ‘After the Cold War’ (Palgrave/Macmillan and NYU Press). Contact acyr@carthage.edu