The Ethics of Controversy

...That their reaffirmation is necessary is an indication of how low political discussion has sunk...

...But what makes a thing true is not who says it, but the evidence for it...

...the second, however, may be eligible, and, if ineligible, only on grounds relevant to his competence which have nothing to do with his loyalty...

...They are characterized by the fact that they do not desire to establish the truth or to approximate it as closely as conditions permit...

...Among these rules are: 1. Nothing and no one is immune from criticism...

...Consequences alone cannot be a fair test of intentions...

...This "justifies" the secret police in torturing the defendant to confess to an intention which has already been objectively established by the consequences...

...No one can write the history of the Weimar Republic or the Kerensky regime or even of modern France without recognizing the extent to which whispering campaigns, calumniation of public figures, and ill-founded accusations against political opponents undermined civic morale and destroyed mutual confidence...

...3. Criticism should be directed first to policies, and against persons only when they are responsible for policies, and against their motives or purposes only when there is some independent evidence of their character...

...They aim to create a mood of refusal to listen to views challenging some favored or dominant notions...

...Political life, of course, is not a game...

...2. Everyone involved in a controversy has an intellectual responsibility to inform himself of the available facts...

...No moral judgment can be passed upon any individual human action without an appraisal of its intent...

...4. Because certain words are legally permissible, they are not therefore morally permissible...

...No further inquiry is deemed necessary to determine the independent facts about his memberships, activities and other data relevant to his intentions or purposes...

...It is not necessary to deny the vast differences between the subject-matters of the natural sciences and the disciplines concerned with human affairs to recognize that, if the spirit of scientific inquiry were brought to bear on most questions of politics, American democracy would be both wiser and more secure...

...For, just as soon as legal restraints are adopted against the various forms of deliberate untruth, malicious and scurrilous exaggeration, venomous insinuation and outright fabrication, they become weapons to curb honest error and to hamper the spontaneous expression of free minds...

...Certain methods of controversy, however, poison instead of refreshing the life-blood of democracy...

...Evidence is then presented that some individuals did advocate these policies and behave in these ways...

...Most dispiriting of all, some who recognize and denounce morally objectionable techniques of controversy when practiced by others often use them themselves, thus adding hypocrisy to confusion and forgetting that those who blandly lie in a good cause must continue to lie to avoid being found out...

...They are truisms...

...These ground rules express in nuce the logic and ethics of scientific inquiry...

...for, in the former, a single minority party has a total monopoly of the power of denunciation and defamation...

...A common procedure in Soviet and satellite countries is to charge that the consequences of a policy have been disastrous (the charge is rarely proved), and then to take the alleged disastrous consequences as sufficient proof of the presence of an intention to bring them about...

...Against such political enemies I conducted and . . . shall always conduct a fight of extermination...

...But against all others such methods were mandatory...

...The abuses of free discussion are legion...

...The restraints entailed by good form in discussion are, therefore, more than a matter of good manners: They are a matter of good public morals...

...Recent political argument in the United States seems to show that, in the heat of controversy, the most elementary distinctions have been overlooked...

...It is a betrayal of the spirit of the democratic process even when it abides by its legal forms...

...The first should not be eligible for Government employment...

...One of the most familiar is the systematic confusion between what constitutes evidence of the consequences of an action or policy with what constitutes evidence of its intent...

...Hook will attempt to furnish concrete illustrations of polemical and political techniques which, while legally permissible, are now undermining our free society...

...He was charged with impugning the integrity of party members and thus confusing the Russian workers...

...It represents his first impression of the revel of political discussion that struck him on his recent return from a half-year in Europe...

...But when denied or violated, truisms become very important...

...In effect, an accident becomes a crime...

...Lenin was amazingly frank in justifying the use of poisoned weapons of controversy even against other working-class groups...

...Conflicts of interest, conflicts of judgment concerning these interests and the best methods of fulfilling them, are inescapable in a world of limited resources and fallible intelligence...

...The democratic process is the best method so far devised by which these conflicts of interest and judgment may be resolved without repression or violence...

...The Bolshevik concept of "objective counterrevolutionary" guilt, inferred not only from the presumed consequences of a man's actions but from his membership in a family or class and other non-voluntary forms of association, led to the liquidation of millions...

...The reciprocal esteem which citizens of a democratic community should feel for each other, even in disagreement, is replaced by mutual contempt and hate...

...One occasionally hears members of the learned professions substitute abuse for logical analysis and, unable to meet argument or evidence for some positions of which they disapprove, inveigh against the presumed "unconscious" of those who uphold them...

...Totalitarian practices in controversy are at least consistent with totalitarian theory...

...Ibid., p. 491, Lenin's italics) When political feelings run high in democratic communities, many who are firmly opposed to Communism and fascism employ techniques of disputation which bear the hallmarks of totalitarian polemics...

...This serves as a premise to justify the wildest slander against those whom totalitarians oppose, if only it furthers the interest of the Party or Race...

...If men were angels, government would be unnecessary," say the authors of The Federalist...

...The ground rules of controversy in a democracy are simple, and their reaffirmation may sound like truisms...

...They ignore or suppress relevant evidence...

...Truth is identified with partisan interest...

...A bad result is deemed proof of a wicked purpose (particularly if one's political opponents are responsible for the decision), and a good result is proof of good will (particularly if one's political friends initiated it...

...9. Only in pure logic and mathematics, not in human affairs, can one demonstrate that something is strictly impossible...

...But, as natural creatures, men have needs and interests whose specific form depends upon the times and society in which they live...

...Unfortunately, some of those who are critical of Senator McCarthy's methods do not hesitate to use some of his techniques of argument against those who disagree with them: Because Senator McCarthy says that the Communist party is a conspiracy, therefore anyone who says that the Communist party is a conspiracy is suspect of McCarthyism...

...Several books and many articles have been written which persuasively argue that if someone had set out to serve the Communist cause, he would have advocated certain policies and behaved in certain ways...

...This article attempts to explore the general bases for free discussion which does not corrupt the democratic climate...

...Instead of exposing, confronting, reconciling or negotiating the conflicts of interest and opinion, one interest is fanatically identified with the common interest, and one opinion with the loyal opinion...

...They seek to discredit persons rather than to consider problems...

...In the last analysis, only self-discipline can prevent the level of public discussion from sinking below the safety-line of democratic health...

...8. Do not hesitate to admit lack of knowledge or to suspend judgment if evidence is not decisive either way...

...In a world of universal literacy in which everyone is within earshot of a radio, words have become more potent social forces than ever before...

...It would be tantamount to charging a surgeon whose patient had died under the knife with murder or a general of a defeated army with being in the service of the enemy...

...Anyone who studies the totalitarian press and the proceedings of demonstration trials will find certain recurrent patterns of accusation that show up with alarming frequency in countries this side of the Iron Curtain...

...It is overlooked that, just as the same conclusion can be reached from different premises, so the same policy may be advocated for two entirely different, and sometimes incompatible, sets of motives...

...The cumulative effect of such practices is to generate an atmosphere in which the self-corrective procedures of democracy cannot operate...

...3, p. 490, italics supplied) Only toward members of a united party (i.e., when they agreed with him or his faction in the Central Committee) did Lenin admit that such methods were morally impermissible...

...This is the first of a series of regular monthly articles which Sidney Hook (left) will write for The New Leader...

...Instead of being used as an instrument to explore fresh possibilities in the quest for solutions, intelligence becomes a tool to secure only a narrow partisan advantage...

...But if democratic society cannot exist without free discussion, some kinds of discussion tend to undermine democratic society...

...This is then considered conclusive proof that he did set out to serve the Communist cause...

...yet, it has certain implicit ground rules which must be observed if freely delegated government by majority is not to degenerate into the tyranny of the mob, or the dictatorship of faction...

...the evidence that the Communist party is a conspiratorial movement, and not like other American political parties, is by now overwhelming...

...In a democratic society, what is morally permissible and impermissible in public controversy follows from the commitment to permit all sectional, class and individual interests to express themselves openly and honestly before reaching a consensus of agreement on measures that seek to further the common welfare...

...One of its basic assumptions is that truth of fact and wisdom of policy can be more readily achieved through the lively interchange of ideas and opinions than by unchallengeable edicts on the part of a self-perpetuating ?lite—whether of theologians or philosophers or politicians or even scientific experts...

...It is not impossible" is a preface to an irrelevant statement about human affairs...

...A few years before the Russian Revolution, Lenin was tried in a kind of Court of Honor set up by the Social Democratic party (one of whose factions he headed) for using morally impermissible polemical methods...

...But so may an absolute pacifist, in the belief that the Kremlin will kiss the other cheek instead of slapping it...

...Opponents legitimately at odds with each other within the framework of the democratic system are pictured as enemies of the democratic system itself...

...The question is always one of the balance of probabilities...

...The cardinal sin, when we are looking for truth of fact or wisdom of policy, is refusal to discuss, or action which blocks discussion...

...Such a formulation is calculated not to convince, but to break up the ranks of an opponent, not to correct the mistakes of an opponent, but to destroy him, to wipe his organization off the face of the earth...

...A Communist, for example, may advocate unilateral disarmament for the United States...

...In non-political contexts, the crudity and cruelty of such simplistic criticism is easily recognized and universally repudiated...

...In his next article, "The Tactics of Controversy," to appear in The New Leader of March 1, Dr...

...But the presence of intellectually dishonest techniques of argument in a free culture, even when they are employed by many parties in the peaceful struggle for political power, is a disquieting phenomenon...

...Their pooled judgments, expressed in public decisions, always reflect the criticism of healthy opposition...

...Discussion is the life-blood of the democratic process, and, wherever discussion flourishes, controversy is sure to arise...

...Throughout history, controversy and spirited differences have always marked the deliberations of communities of free men...

...This summarizes many pages of discussion today...

...Hitler exhausted the vocabulary of abuse against the leaders of other political groups...

...It would be preposterous to equate the systematic employment of poisoned instruments of controversy in totalitarian countries with the serious abuses of discussion in free cultures...

...But there are signs even here of infection by the virus of partisanship...

...Short of criminal libel and incitement to, or advocacy of, violence in a situation of clear and present danger, they should not be the subject of legal restraints...

...Even the liberal mind, by focusing too intently on achievement of immediate objectives without concern for methods, risks becoming transformed into the crafty mind...

...6. Do not treat an opponent of a policy as if he were therefore a personal enemy or an enemy of the country or a concealed enemy of democracy...

...When the methods of the market place—and of the black-market place—invade the academy, the intellectual life of a country is debased...

...7. Since a good cause may be defended by bad arguments, after answering the bad arguments for another's position present positive evidence for your own...

...ignorance is indistinguishable from treason, and error a form of sabotage...

...Because something is logically possible, it is not therefore probable...

...From one point of view, science may be considered as a field of continuing controversy which leaves behind it not burning hatreds, but vast accumulations of knowledge...

...This formulation is indeed of such a nature as to evoke the worst thoughts, the worst suspicions about the opponents, and indeed, as contrasted with formulation that convinces and corrects, it 'carries confusion into the ranks of the proletariat.' " (Selected Works, vol...

...Hook, of course, is Chairman of the Graduate Department of Philosophy at New York University...

...5. Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments...

...From the true proposition that policies can be intelligently tested only by their consequences, the false proposition is drawn that the consequences alone are the conclusive test of the intent or motives behind the policies...

...Lenin defiantly stood his ground and admitted that the tone of his words and their formulation were "calculated to evoke in the reader hatred, aversion and contempt...

...And the evidence for probabilities must include more than abstract possibilities...

...The intellectual circles of the country have a responsibility for teaching, and living up to, the highest standards of vigorous controversy...

...One of Senator McCarthy's favorite techniques of argument is to insinuate that, since a policy has been followed by the Kremlin, or approved by the Kremlin, anyone else who advocated such a policy is therewith suspect of being a Soviet agent...

...Fact rarely catches up with rumor...

...Both Bolshevik and fascist doctrine deny that there is, or can be, any such thing as "fair" or "classless" or even "objective" discussion of issues...