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Discussion Membership
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Free Press and a Better Future
Note: This was written January, 1999, for publication in a "World Press Freedom Committee" publication on the subject. A free press is the free exchange of ideas. It is the freedom to be wrong and the opportunity to learn about it. It is the freedom to meet a bad idea with a better idea. A free press offers hope for civilization. Hope for ourselves. Hope for our children. Hope for our future. Wise people and sensible communities fasten thoughts to paper. Why? As an individual, from your own past you can recall when you thought you were right and it later proved you were not correct. You think you're right, not because you are right, but simply because you think you're right. As Lucius Annaeus Seneca (5 BC?65 AD) wrote:
If a man remembers how very many times he has been wrong in his judgment, will it not be foolish of him not to mistrust it ever after? When I find myself convinced by another's argument that I have held a false opinion, I do not learn so much from the new fact he has taught me and from my ignorance on this particular point? as about my own weakness in general and the untrustworthiness of my own understanding. You need to be right, because you plan your future according to the map of reality you carry in your mind. You need a mental map as accurate as can be. Your best future depends on it. How can you discover when you are wrong? Read. Write. Discuss. Writing freezes each thought to be examined from any side. The light of each new day helps see if our ideas on paper make the same sense they seemed to make the night before. Public Ideas in Democracy What writing is to you individually, newspapers and a free press are to your community. Society needs the unrestricted opportunity to nail its thoughts down. How silly to say some thought is unthinkable or unwriteable. Some thoughts are undoable, but never unthinkable and never unable to be discussed. Beware of anyone who proposes to judge for you what you should not read or write. While democracy is frequently understood as "majority rules", it means significantly more. It means any person can publicly express a new idea that neighbors may find of value. Newly expressed ideas help society find better ways to do things. Expressed ideas help society rediscover for itself that, sometimes, when society thinks it is right, it is not. Humanity is in a race with no guarantee civilization will win. Jacob Bronowski (1908?1974) noted that science has put incredible power to hurt in the hands of any who care to learn certain mechanics of operation?be they zealots, earnest but misguided, demented, or merely ignorant. No longer is a good iron strongbox enough to protect our valuables and no longer can a door with iron bolts protect our families. We?re in the race to reach peaceful problem resolution, the free exchange of ideas, and community. A sound future demands we inoculate ourselves, our friends, and our enemies with habits that consider that we just might be wrong and that safeguard the free exchange of ideas. If humanity has any chance to win the race toward civilization, the odds improve because these thought processes are acquired traits and because our long?term self interest is at stake. Fortunately, all it takes is a change of mind. As Confucius (551-479 BC) wrote: To know what you know and know what you don't know is the characteristic of one who knows. Regards, Stephen B. Waters Publisher, Rome (NY) Daily Sentinel
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