Aristotle, Liberalism, and the Enemies of Free Speech

I ran across this article while reviewing my RSS feeds.  Interesting thoughts in a world where corporations are considered “persons” in the area of speech with an election less than a year away.

Aristotle, Liberalism, and the Enemies of Free Speech
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“It is dangerous,” wrote Aristotle to a Macedonian friend near the end of his life, “for an immigrant to stay in Athens.” Ironically, like America of the 21st century, Athens was a stronghold of liberal ideas, the western birthplace of democracy. The Athenian historian Thucydides wrote of the virtues of free speech in the fifth century B.C.E. when the authors of the Jewish Bible were extolling just its opposite: repression born of  hate and intolerance. Thucydides records the words of an Athenian, Diodotus, that “Haste usually goes with folly, anger is the mark of primitive and narrow minds.” Diodotus, reminds one modern historian, “went on to outline the dangers of using emotional rhetoric to frighten or manipulate an audience into reacting rashly.”

If you can see the parallels between Athens of the fourth century B.C.E. and our own time, it is because they are there to be seen. Liberalism is not something that can survive without being defended, fought – and sacrificed – for. Greed, selfishness, the baser instincts of humankind, including racism and exceptionalism, crop up again and again throughout the history of democracy, and it is no surprise that time and again democracies and liberal ideas have fallen victim to demagogues and plutocrats stirring the mob for their own gain. We might compare the Athenian haters of the fourth century B.C.E. to the Tea Partiers of today. They certainly served the same function, channeling and expressing hate for politicians trying to build their own base of support, part of a symbiotic relationship between who frighten and stir hate and those who fear and hate.  Click here to read more.

, 12/10/2011. Category: Culture.

the latest Sightings

Sacred Air at the Festival of Faiths
— Martin E. Marty | Nov. 7, 2011

Writers who deal with current topics are expected to “declare an interest,” which on occasion—today is an occasion—I do. For many of the sixteen years since the Festival of Faiths has been celebrated in Louisville, Kentucky, I’ve been on the scene, and was again last weekend for this year’s November 2-7 event. Christina Lee Brown served as Honorary Chair. Though mourning the recent death of her husband, Owsley Brown II, she showed that she can keep the Festival spirit despite that loss and in the face of some grim subject matter. Enough about that: have I declared enough interest?

This year an environmental topic attracted, since it dealt with a theme dear to us and to others who enjoy clear air and would like to be surrounded by it a bit longer. Since the event was “interfaithed,” the theme was dressed up a bit as “Sacred Air: Breath of Life.” But if “air” was the element being featured this year, the wide variety of programs during the week had participants keeping their feet on the ground. One signal of this was the presence of Bill McKibben, a notable environmentalist leader of our years, who inspires but is also ready to take on gritty political issues. He did so here in Louisville at a crowded service club meeting, a youth breakfast and workshop, and more. He seldom walks into a room where the audience is all in agreement with his approach to dangerous threats to the environment. Never mind, he seems to say, as he invokes spiritual, religious and theological references, which abound when one discusses Creation.

During McKibben’s days at Louisville, the media were featuring national news by reference to Environmental Protection Agency reports that, despite hopes that things had been getting better, they were improving little; many indicators suggested they were worse. Despite overwhelming agreement by scientists in the field, every reference which suggests a need for reappraisal and reform gets countered by a small but well-financed phalanx of opponents who always find a lone scientist here or there—Denmark comes to mind as one of the few “there’s”—who tells us that the bad news is simply part of a multi-year or multi-century “natural” warming of the globe, and, as we wait things out, in a few hundred or thousand years, some of us will survive.

The Festival of Faith participants are more moved by the understanding that the faiths commend a responsible approach to the environment as a major theme; not only Judaism and Christianity attend to the “doctrine of creation” as being prime among the focal teachings and beliefs. A few years ago some religious conservatives—Christians among them, whom most of us know best—backed off, put off by talk of “harmonic convergence” and “Gnosticism” by many. That is changing. Pursuing my interest at various sites and festivals and conferences, from Grand Rapids to Boise to Louisville—I stay home most of the time—I note that once shy or opposing evangelicals are now in the forefront. In an about face, some leaders changed, and they now lead the pro-environmental fronts which they used to shun. Groucho Marx must have influenced them: “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” Or, many at Louisville would say “. . . . or your own scriptures.” The environmental movements are imperfect and may get many things wrong, but enough positive, sure, scientific, and spiritually profound themes get invoked that they provoke me to write columns which force “a declaration of author’s interest.” Next week I’ll go back to being fair and balanced and objective about less controversial subjects.

 

References
The Festival of Faiths website is at www.festivaloffaiths.org.

, 11/07/2011. Category: Culture, Guest Column, Theological Rant.
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