Freedom of Speech at PHC

From Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (Mansfield trans.):

“I do not know any country where, in general, less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in America.” (244)

“In America the majority draws a formidable circle around thought. Inside those limits the writer is free; but unhappiness awaits him if he dares to leave them. It is not that he has to fear an auto-da-fe, but he is the butt of mortifications of all kinds and of persecutions every day. A political career is closed to him: he has offended the only power that has the capacity to open it up. Everything is refused him, even glory. Before publishing his opinions, he believed he had partisans; it seems to him that he no longer has any now that he has uncovered himself to all; for those who blame him express themselves openly, and those who think like him, without having his courage, keep silent and move away. He yields, he finally bends under the effort of each day and returns to silence as if he felt remorse for having spoken the truth.” (244)

Moralists and philosophers in America are not obliged to wrap their opinions in veils of allegory; but before hazarding a distressing truth they say: We know that we are speaking to a people too much above human weakness not to remain always master of itself. (247-4

I do not want to appear arrogant, but these quotes remind me of the public response to my recent email, a plea for modesty among the women of PHC, particularly in regard to the upcoming formal ball, which in years past, along with other dances, has seen some problems in that regard. But my opinions, or my expression of them, are apparently not popular at PHC. And although some students have privately communicated their regard for my courage in publishing such an appeal, the public response from students has been nothing but ridicule, denouncement, and a perfunctory tossing into the drainage pond. Not that I mind such persecution, or would fear to publish my opinions in the face of such hypocritical and/or ridiculous opposition, but rather I fear for the climate of public intellectual tolerance at PHC. My situation is only an example of a larger underlying sickness. We are loath to be criticized. I fear that our desire always to appear at best advantage, without internal or external criticism, will be our downfall, and that sooner than later. Self-examination and self-confrontation are essential practices for the individual soul; how much more the soul of an institution?

We at PHC pride ourselves on being Americans, but Tocqueville’s critique rings true at every level of our institution. As Americans, we know we are in the right, and even more so, as fundamentalist Christians, we believe that we can do no wrong. This is dangerous.

Thank you, Tocqueville, for your words. May the wise heed them.