Posted by
Michael Brazell on Friday, October 19, 2007 11:01:15 AM
(I wrote this article for a blog for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette last week. I think that it captures just about everything that is wrong about the culture of nonsense in Massachusetts. For those unaware of Massachusetts or Worcester politics, the city is run by a city council and city manager's office, but we have somewhat of a sinecure position of the mayor. Konstantina Lukes, a tax-happy defiant Democrat, is our current mayor, but there is a tight race between a host of other candidates -- all Democrats. The mayor of Worcester is the at-large city councilman who gets the most votes, currently, a former public school teacher -- Gary Rosen -- is leading the votes, but several other candidates have gotten some regional and national endorsements [Rick Rushton, Democrat, has been endorsed by Lt. Governor Tim Murray and Representative Jim McGovern]. That about sets the stage. Enjoy).
This Friday, October 12th, 2007, is Worcester's first celebration of "Free Thought Day," a recently recognized day of celebration surrounding the "freedom to think." I feel like an idiot even writing it; I want to put ellipses after every other word just to show what sort of mental difficulty I have in even conceiving of a day to celebrate thought freedom. Leave it to the Worcester City Council, specifically Konnie Lukes, to even remotely consider that this is the cities business. Mark Melady has a, I guess, fine article about Free Thought Day in the Telegram this morning, but honestly, the object of the article is so dumbfoundingly inane and stupid that it is nearly impossible to have any sort of article about it that is useful. Unfortunately, that logically means that this very article is also doomed to stupidity and uselessness as well. So be it, but what follows has to be said.
We do not need a day that celebrates free thought, and there is an innate contradiction in the very idea that the mayor of a city, an established political body, could possibly recognize a day compelling (or perhaps, enforcing?) citizens of that city to partake in "free thought." The idea that a political organization, like the Worcester City Council, would instruct us that this Friday is a day for thinking freely utterly rejects the concept of free thinking... what if I do not want to think freely? I can't help but sound Chestertonian in recognizing that the obvious freedom to think freely is the freedom to not think freely, and this day, Friday, October 12th, 2007, stands in abject contradiction to my freedom to not think freely.
Clearly, I am being facetious, but only because this is just utterly absurd, and if not absurd, it's simply of sterile, impotent uselessness. Lukes, the city council, and whichever other politicians are complicit in this nonsense are publicly financed civil servants, their salaries are paid for by taxes, and it is ridiculous to think that our councilmen actually took time out of their day to consider whether Worcester should ceremoniously recognize "free thought."
From Melady's article, Rabbi Seth Bernstein mentioned, "I approve everything the city does to ask for creativity ... Maybe an invitation to think creatively will lead to creative initiatives." You can tell that all of those who were asked to comment about this collectively rejoiced when somebody used the word "invitation," because it is not an invitation at all - it is a mandate, a declaration, an egregious demand to "think creatively," which in itself is a contradiction to creative thinking. This sort of cutesy social obsession with creativity, freethinking, and whatever other nonsense ideas anybody claims to support, actually subdues creativity and minimalizes actual freethinking. It is no coincidence that the greatest book of the 20th century, Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago came out of the most mentally restrictive regime in the history of human kind. Now, this fact shouldn't be considered as an argument for totalitarian socialism (although I would like to conveniently point out that 20th century communism was built on the pillar of escaping creative oppression imposed by capitalistic societies, yet emerged as the most oppressive ideology in human history), but rather simply that calling people to be creative often results in very uncreative ideas. The whole concept of having a day that recognizes creativity rejects and stunts creativity. To continue to play on that earlier contradiction, if a city mandates that this day is for creativity, does that mean that the city is ultimately the judge of what is creative and what is not?
Continuing from Melady's article,
Joseph O'Brien, an aide to U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, said the day should be used to reinvigorate the democracy. "We have this wonderful democracy that no one participates in," Mr. O'Brien said. "We don't vote; we don't even talk about the big issues. We're spending $120 billion a year on the war in Iraq, and no one's talking about it."
And, well here it is. At least Joe O'Brien laid it out for us: "Think Freely (in so far as that free thinking means ... supporting Jim McGovern's anti-war policy...)" O'Brien serves my point when he mentions that "we" don't vote (I do?), in that he's hoisting free-thought onto a pedestal, but the truly liberalizing condition to think freely is the freedom not to think freely; the true freedom to yield democracy is the freedom to utterly reject democracy. You cannot be "for free thinking" and then imply condemnation against those who "don't vote," or "don't talk about the big issues."
This article continues with some more quotes that are really rich in nonsense, and illustrate a greater point. The core reason that we should not have any day dedicated to "free thinking," is because we have such a perverted view of what free thought actually is. There is an implicit suggestion by most of the quotes in the article that avoiding institutialized thought, or some sort of dogmatism, is what constitutes free thought - this merely isn't true. Chesterton famously penned in Orthodoxy that he was constantly searching for some new, liberalizing idea, absent of the Catholic Church, absent of dogmatism, but he realized that what was ultimately liberalizing, what was infinitely new, was Catholic Theology and Christian Faith. What was tired, what was old, and restrictive wasn't the Church, but rather, the rejection of the Church, the absence of faith, and the empty void of anti-dogmatism. Now, I do not mean to make an argument for the surprisingly liberating quality of faith, theology, or dogma - although I could and would argue it - but rather, that we mistakenly replace slavery with freedom. This is exactly the case of the following quote, from Melady's article, regarding Abbie Hoffman.
"Who knows, maybe someday we'll have an Abbie Hoffman Avenue," exclaims Kevin Ksem, a community organizer. Hoffman is revered as some famous free-thinker, but in a more responsible light, he was entirely a slave to himself and his passions. Insulting Hoffman, in Worcester, is about as egregious a sin as any young Worcesterite can commit, but our free will is indelibly linked with our option to chose or not to chose to sin, so in this case, I will welcome the sin. Hoffman was addicted to drugs, he sold cocaine, he was a self-described anarchist, and he committed suicide when he was barely over 50-years-old. How can we possibly think that this person, a slave to drugs, a slave to anti-dogmatism (which is more dogmatic than simple dogmatism), a slave to his own self-annihilation, can be celebrated as a free thinker? I suppose it is fitting, then, that Chesterton characterized this free-thought-obsessed philosophy as not just a "touch of mania, but a touch of suicidal mania."
While writing this I had to ask myself whether I am for free thinking or not. I've determined that I am really not for free thinking, but rather, I am for beneficial thinking, thinking that has a certain goal, or certain creative, beneficial results (while carefully avoiding utilitarianism). Freethinking for the sake of freethinking is not freedom at all, it is complete mental slavery and it creates nothing. "Free thought has exhausted it's own freedom," Chesterton tells us.
With impeccable timing, Mayor Lukes lauds herself in Melady's article as "a symbol of free thought." Perhaps Plato, or St. Augustine, or even to a very particular degree Nietzsche could be considered a "symbol of free thought," but we should really be cautious in calling ourselves free thinkers, especially when we are using government to mandate days dedicated to "free thinking."
Freethinking for the sake of freethinking is not remotely desirable, and it's arguably not even possible. Freethinking, in the way that our city government is imposing, is not freethinking at all, it is this absurd, over-secularist, anti-religious claptrap that implies that our "religious and spiritual institutions" (quoting Mayor Lukes) are not free thinking organizations, or do not condone free thought. The idea that religious institutions do not support free thought is not only an anti-free-thought but it is simply ignorant and wrong.
"The human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a skeptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, 'Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?' The young skeptic says, 'I have a right to think for myself.' But the old skeptic, the complete skeptic, says, 'I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.'"
"There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped."
(Orthodoxy, The Suicide of Thought)
Free thought for the sake of free thought is not remotely desirable, and it is ridiculous that a government institution is mandating a day "of freethinking." Complete freethinking destroys thought and creates mental slavery, and it is reasonable to assume that our city council is not in favor of destroying thought and instituting mental slavery, so I have to ask, what is the point of this day? Arguably, the point isn't to push through free thought, but rather, to advocate a very specific set of thoughts not unlike those that Joe O'Brien expressed. It is not that he, or Mayor Lukes, or the City Council want to debate certain issues - the debate is completely irrelevant - it is that they want to draw certain conclusions. Not surprisingly, this is being caricatured as freethinking, but there is nothing free about it, and it simultaneously requires the least bit of thought.
As always, feel free to post comments or to e-mail me. Just be forwarned that any disagreement with anything that I say is, effectively, an assault on free thought.... ESPECIALLY THIS FRIDAY! God help us.