Rossiter again (from Seedtime of the Republic, 1953):
Under the pressure of the American environment, Christianity grew more humanistic and temperate – more tolerant with the struggle of the sects, more liberal with the growth of optimism and rationalism, more experimental with the rise of science, more individualistic with the advent of democracy. Equally important, increasing numbers of colonists, as a legion of preachers loudly lamented, were turning secular in curiosity and skeptical in attitude.
The Bill of Rights uncoupled religion from the state, in part because so many religions were steeped in an absolutist frame of mind, each convinced that it alone had a monopoly on the truth and therefore eager for the state to impose this truth on others. Often, the leaders and practitioners of absolutist religions were unable to perceive any middle ground or recognize that the truth might draw upon and embrace apparently contradictory doctrines. The framers of the Bill of Rights had before them the example of England, where the ecclesiastical crime of heresy and the secular crime of treason had become nearly indistinguishable. Many of the early colonists had come to America fleeing religious persecution, although some of them were perfectly happy to persecute other people for their beliefs. The founders of our nation recognized that a close relation between the government and any of the quarrelsome religions would be fatal to freedom -and injurious to religion. Justice Black (in the Supreme Court decision Engel v. Vitale, 1962) described the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment this way:
Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion.
Moreover, here too the separation of powers works. Each sect and cult, as Walter Savage Landor once noted, is a moral check on the others: ‘Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce.’ But the price is high: This competition is an impediment to religious bodies acting in concert to address the common good. Rossiter concludes:
the twin doctrines of separation of church and state and liberty of individual conscience are the marrow of our democracy, if not indeed America’s most magnificent contribution to the freeing of Western man.
Now it’s no good to have such rights if they’re not used – a right of free speech when no one contradicts the government, freedom of the press when no one is willing to ask the tough questions, a right of assembly when there are no protests, universal suffrage when less than half the electorate votes, separation of church arfd state when the wall of separation is not regularly repaired. Through disuse they can become no more than votive objects, patriotic lip-service. Rights and freedoms: use ’em or lose ’em.
Due to the foresight of the framers of the Bill of Rights – and even more so to all those who, at considerable personal risk, insisted on exercising those rights – it’s hard now to bottle up free speech. School library committees, the immigration service, the police, the FBI or the ambitious politician looking to score cheap votes, may attempt it from time to time, but sooner or later the cork pops. The Constitution is, after all, the law of the land, public officials are sworn to uphold it, and activists and the courts episodically hold their feet to the fire.
However, through lowered educational standards, declining intellectual competence, diminished zest for substantive debate, and social sanctions against scepticism, our liberties can be slowly eroded and our rights subverted. The founders understood this well: ‘The time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united,’ said Thomas Jefferson.
From the conclusion of this [Revolutionary] war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, ’til our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.
Education on the value of free speech and the other freedoms reserved by the Bill of Rights, about what happens when you don’t have them, and about how to exercise and protect them, should be an essential prerequisite for being an American citizen -or the citizen of any nation, the more so to the degree that such rights remain unprotected. If we can’t think for ourselves, if we’re unwilling to question authority, then we’re just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
Acknowledgements
It has been my great pleasure over many years to teach a Senior Seminar on Critical Thinking at Cornell University. I’ve been able to select students from all over the University on the basis both of ability, and of cultural and disciplinary diversity. We stress written assignments and oral argumentation. Towards the end of the course, students select a range of wildly controversial social issues in which they have major emotional investments. Paired two-by-two they prepare for a succession of end-of-semester oral debates. A few weeks before the debates, however, they are informed that it is the task of each to present the point of view of the opponent in a way that’s satisfactory to the opponent – so the opponent will say, ‘Yes, that’s a fair presentation of my views.’ In the joint written debate they explore their differences, but also how the debate process has helped them better to understand the opposing point of view. Some of the topics in this book were first presented to these students; I have learned much from their reception and criticism of my ideas, and want to thank them here. I’m also grateful to Cornell’s Department of Astronomy, and its Chair, Yervant Terzian, for permitting me to teach the course, which, although labelled Astronomy 490, presents only a little astronomy.
Some of this book has also been presented in Parade magazine, a supplement to Sunday newspapers all over North America, with some 83 million readers each week. The vigorous feedback I’ve received from Parade readers has greatly enhanced my understanding of the issues described in this book and the variety of public attitudes. I have in several places excerpted some of my mail from Parade readers which, it seems to me, has provided a kind of finger on the pulse of the citizenry of the United States. The Editor-in-Chief of Parade, Walter Anderson, and the Senior Editor, David Currier, as well as the editorial and research staff of this remarkable magazine have in many cases greatly improved my presentation. They also have permitted opinions to be expressed that might not have made it into print in mass-market publications less dedicated to the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Some portions of the text first appeared in The Washington Post and The New York Times. The last chapter is based in part on an address I had the pleasure of delivering on 4 July 1992 from the East Portico at Monticello – the ‘back of the nickel’ – on the occasion of the induction to US citizenship of people from thirty-one other nations.
My opinions on democracy, the method of science and public education have been influenced by enormous numbers of people over the years, many of whom I mention in the body of the text. But I would like to single out here the inspiration I have received from Martin Gardner, Isaac Asimov, Philip Morrison and Henry Steele Commager. There is not room to thank the many others who have helped provide understanding and lucid examples, or who have corrected errors of omission or commission, but I want them all to know how deeply grateful I am to them. I must however explicitly thank the following friends and colleagues for critically reviewing earlier drafts of this book: Bill Aldridge; Susan Blackmore; William Cromer; Fred Frankel; Kendrick Frazier; Martin Gardner; Ira Glasser; Fred Golden; Kurt Gottfried; Lester Grinspoon; Philip Klass; Paul Kurtz; Elizabeth Loftus; David Morrison; Richard Ofshe; Jay Orear; Albert Pennybacker; Frank Press; Theodore Roszak; Dorion Sagan; David Saperstein; Robert Seiple; Steven Soter; Jeremy Stone; Peter Sturrock and Yervant Terzian.
I also am very grateful to my literary agent, Morton Janklow, and members of his staff for wise counsel; Roger Houghton, my editor at Headline Book Publishing; William Barnett for ushering
the manuscript through its final phases; Andrea Barnett, Laurel Parker, Karenn Gobrecht, Cindi Vita Vogel, Ginny Ryan and Christopher Ruser for their assistance; and the Cornell Library system, including the rare books collection on mysticism and superstition originally compiled by the University’s first president, Andrew Dickson White.