The Thinkers Library, No. 68. LIBERTY TO-DAY BY C. E. M. JOAD By the same A uthor GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF MORALS AND POLITICS Revised Edition LONDON WATTS CO., 5 6 JOHNSONS COURT, FLEET STREET, E. G. 4 First published 1934 Revised and brought up to date for this edition 1938 Printed and Published in Great Britain by C. A. Watts Co. Ltd., 5 6 Johnsons Court, Fleet Street, London, B. C. 4 NOTE MY thanks are due to Frank Hardie and Jonathan Griffin for many valuable ideas and suggestions, and to Frank Hardie for the care ...
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The Thinkers Library, No. 68. LIBERTY TO-DAY BY C. E. M. JOAD By the same A uthor GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF MORALS AND POLITICS Revised Edition LONDON WATTS CO., 5 6 JOHNSONS COURT, FLEET STREET, E. G. 4 First published 1934 Revised and brought up to date for this edition 1938 Printed and Published in Great Britain by C. A. Watts Co. Ltd., 5 6 Johnsons Court, Fleet Street, London, B. C. 4 NOTE MY thanks are due to Frank Hardie and Jonathan Griffin for many valuable ideas and suggestions, and to Frank Hardie for the care with which he has read through the book in manuscript. The publishers gf this book are in no way responsible for the views expressed therein. C. E. M. JOAD. CONTENTS THE ATTACK CHAP. PACK I. THE TWILIGHT OF LIBERTY .... 3 II. THE FACTORS HOSTILE TO LIBERTY . . 36 III. THE CASE AGAINST LIBERTY ... 66 THE DEFENCE IV. THE CASE FOR LIBERTY . . . . in V. THE ALTERNATIVE TO LIBERTY . . .141 VI. THE PROSPECTS FOR LIBERTY . . .176 THE ATTACK A2 CHAPTER I THE TWILIGHT OF LIBERTY Bury and Strachey THE struggle of reason against authority has ended in what appears now to be a decisive and permanent victory for liberty. In the most civilized and progres sive countries, freedom of discussion is recognized as a fundamental principle. The quotation is from Pro fessor Burys A History of Freedom of Thought, pub lished in 1913. In this book he tells us how freedom of thought was established once and for all in the nine teenth century, and expresses the view that the struggle for liberty may now be regarded as closed. Well, that is very nice, very nice indeed if it is true com ments Lytton Strachey in his review of Burys book. But, after all, can we be quite so sure that it s true Is itreally credible that the human race should have got along so far as that That such deeply rooted instincts as the love of persecution and the hatred of heterodoxies should have been dissipated into thin air by the charms of philosophers and the common sense of that remarkable period the nineteenth century Strachey proceeds to suggest that Bury may, perhaps, have allowed his judgment to have been unduly in fluenced by the cessation of religious persecution. That Western man is more tolerant in matters of religion he concedes but it is not the principles of 3 4 THE TWILIGHT OF LIBERTY toleration that make us so it is mere indifference. We simply do not, he hints, care enough about the great truths of Christianity to make things uncom fortable for those who do not hold them. But in spheres in which men feel keenly the grounds for sdf congratulation may not, he suggests, be so strong. Churches are, after all, not the only institutions that have persecuted and oppressed there are also States there is also the sphere of politics. Since Burys words were written over twenty years have elapsed. They have endorsed Stracheys doubts and answered his questions, conclusively and in the negative so conclusively, indeed, that it is inconceiv able that anybody writing a history of the freedom of thought in 1940 could have reiched Burys conclusion. Over most of the so-called civilized world to-day liberty of thought does not exist. Government is omnipotent and strictly irresponsible the Press is its mouthpiece education its propaganda history its apologist the arts its echo. As for democracy, the only form of government that has been able to tolerate liberty in the past, after fighting and winning a warfor its ideals in 1914, it is to-day fighting for its existence. Nineteenth-Century Hopes In the years before the War, and again in the years immediately succeeding it, it really seemed as if the long struggle for individual freedom against political autocracy and religious persecution might be drawing to a close. There were, of course, still reactionary countries in which, even if men might think what they pleased, they dared not say what they thought. But these were regarded as anachronisms, unrepresentative sur
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