As I wrote on the last post about this, I completely agree that YUP made the wrong decision.

But then I think to myself: if I were the head of such a press, could I endanger the entire staff and their families to publish these cartoons? Lots of folks imagine themselves to be Patrick Henry, ready to die for freedom. But how many could say they'd be prepared to risk an innocent person's life for their ideological struggle? That is to say: if you were told that speaking out would cost twenty random people their lives, would you still speak out? Because that is essentially the choice YUP faced. If it were just the author or the publishers who faced death threats, then they have the right to make decisions about their life and death. But if the death threats are made against the children of anyone associated with YUP, what are the ethical dimensions of that decision? I'm not sure I'd be as quick to play Patrick Henry then. I'm not sure I have the right to risk Jane Doe's life because I think freedom of speech is essential.

“Liberalism is not equipped to meet and overcome the actual challenges confronting Western civilization in our time.” – James Burnham in Suicide of the West, published in 1964.

I just finished reading this well-written book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the strange phenomenon of our failure to defend our own cultural values and hard-won rights. The latest PC debacle at Yale is just the most recent in a long line of Western retreats, great and small, and from Burnham I learned that the slow surrender did not begin in 1968, but started decades earlier and accelerated rapidly in the years after WWII.

To LB:
A question: Where will this path lead to and end if we are so willing to censor ourselves in this way? I know you're not recommending that we do, and are just thinking out loud, so to speak, but I don't think the threats -- real or imagined -- are going to go away anytime soon. But our freedoms might. How much is that freedom worth? How best to fight to keep it?

Well, to me the question of right and wrong is pretty straight forward (it must be if Matt and I can agree).

1) If Donatich couldn't see what that what he was deciding was wrong as he was thinking things througth, he is unfit for his job and should resign for his incompetence.

2) If Donatich did see that he was compromising academic integrity and free speech, but went forward anyhow for cynical reasons (contributions to Yale, for example), he should resign for selling out the principles of free speech and academic inquiry.

3) If he decided as he did because of the reasons he gave — that he didn't want blood on his hands for defending his principles — then he should have excused himself from the process and resigned in favor of someone who did have the cajones to do what was right.

4) If he proceeded as he did because of pressure from above, he should resign for having sold out his principles because of fear for his position.

Prof. Conn wrote:

I do not envy you the difficult choice. At the same time, I do not hesitate to insist that you made the wrong decision.

Precisely.

I have no patience with the cowardly Donatich. He's picked his comfy job over the principles of free speech and dispassionate scientific inquiry. It may not be fair for him to face such an issue, but it happened and he failed the test, miserably.

The Donatich's message is crystal clear: if his excuse is to believed, ande I'm enough of a cynic to question his honesty on this point, he and Yale will bend to whoever threatens the most havoc against innocent people.

Good grief. What have we come to?

Thank you, Prof. Conn.

See, here exactly is where my problem arises. Sure, fire Donatich for not defending freedom of expression. And sure, hire someone who thinks that freedom of expression trumps the rights of the YUP secretary's son not to be blown up by Islamic hate groups.

Perhaps YUP needs to make it clear to all staff that the books they publish could lead to death. I wonder how many people would take that job for the $15 an hour the clerical staff probably receive.

And if the clerical staff is *not* prepared at this late date to risk death so that a professor can publish cartoons, then I suppose they should quit as well.

But what if the Islamic hate group decides simply to target Yale students as punishment for the publication of the cartoons? Does the editor of YUP have the right to put his defense of free speech over their rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?

Again, I think it's easy to say, "I'd die for my beliefs," but it's harder to say, "I think a Yale sophomore should die for my beliefs."

What right trumps others when academic freedom gets in the way of others' guaranteed rights to life and the pursuit of happiness?

I'm just admitting that the dilemma as presented here is more complicated and messy than one simply of some individual editor's bravery or cowardice. It's not brave to let others suffer for your decisions.

LB.."I'm not sure I have the right to risk Jane Doe's life because I think freedom of speech is essential." A valid point. But consider the risks--more diffuse, but real nonetheless--that you would be exposing the entire society to by bowing to intimidation in the name of protecting Jane Doe. The more successful intimidation is seen to be, the more it will be attempted.

Suppose you were CEO of a biotech firm working on a vital new drug that, for some reason, is particularly offensive to the "animal rights" crowd...and they inform you that your employees and their families will be targets of violence if you do not cease work on this drug immediately. By continuing, you are risking John Doe and Jane Doe's lives--but by stopping, you are risking the lives of patients who could have benefited from the new drug.

Although protecting freedom of speech is not as tangible as drug development, it is even more vital for our collective survival as a society that we'd want to live in.

David, that's an interesting example. And I agree that freedom of speech is as important as other rights held by the Founders to be self-evident: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Christopher Hitchens has a typically astute article on the Yale situation at Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2225504/

He makes an important distinction about the term "instigate." The publisher would not have instigated any violence by publishing the cartoons. Only the hypothetical killers would have instigated violence. So for Hitchens, there's no "blood on the hands" of the YUP if a bookstore carrying the volume is blown up.

My own concern is more existential, perhaps overly psychological. Of course, no one of sound mind would legally or even ethically blame YUP for the actions of an extremist. But no doubt the publishers at YUP would feel responsible. So the publishers' true reasoning is: I don't want to feel guilty should anything happen to an innocent as a result of these cartoons. It's not just about the hypothesized killing but about the guilt, which is essentially a rather selfish motivation.

Ultimately, I agree: there's no bargaining with terrorists. I just wonder how many of us, myself included, would ever want to make that decision. If I knew that some anti-Greek-literature group was threatening to blow up my classroom if I taught the Odyssey again this year, I'd be justified in teaching it, and from the broad perspective of protecting human rights, I should teach it. But I'd still have to think about the 26 students who could die as a result. I wouldn't find it as easy to be Patrick Henry unless it were simply my own life on the line.

LB...thanks for the response, and I agree that it is entirely appropriate for the decision-makers to think/feel about such things.

I'd point out, though, that there are many, many situations in which people are at some physical risk in their jobs. The operation of a major railroad, for example, carries the almost absolute certainty that during the year some number of employees will be killed or seriously injured. The building of each of the dams which were the pride of the New Deal cost several lives. I do not think it would be possible to structure a society in which decision-makers do not need to do things that put people at risk...nor is this just true of modern industrialized society (think lion hunts in Africa or buffalo hunts among the Plains INdians)

I think that the protection of free interchange in our society is as vital as the operation of its railroads. The gradual decline of free expression would lead to results less dramatic than those of an end to railroading (starving and freezing in the dark), but eventually catastrophic nonetheless.

I think Yale UP overestimated the danger of printing the cartoons. As I recall, the Rocky Mountain News, the New York Sun, and many other publications ran them without any problem. OTOH, the cartoons are easily accessible all over the web--just Google danish cartoon Jyllands-Posten mohammed--so it's not as if it's absolutely necessary to publish them in order for readers to understand the book's arguments. It really *was* necessary to endanger people's lives to (say) build Hoover Dam, it's *not* necessary to endanger anyone in order for a writer to make a point about the cartoons. In the absence of that necessity, why take the risk?

Not that I agree with Yale UP's decision--but I can at least understand it.