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Clear thinking part 3
This book is good; I recommend it. It's a lesson in clear English, punctuation (though two spaces after full stops, and one space before exclamation marks, semi-colons and colons are now out of fashion), and views of the 30s as well as in clear thinking.
Here are more extracts, this time about The Popular Press.
A modern democratic government cannot work properly without a free Press. If the electors are to take an active and intelligent interest in politics, they must have access to the material on which to base their opinions and judgements; they must have unfettered opportunities to express and to examine divergent views. Freedom of expression, freedom of discussion, freedom to criticise, and full knowledge of the facts are essential if electors are to take their proper part in forming collective decisions on matters of public policy.
Those who, from Milton onwards, worked so hard to secure the freedom of the Press, not only from arbitrary official control, but also from restrictions, by way of taxation, calculated to make newspapers inaccessible to the poorer classes, had this in mind. ...
The dangers of State control over the Press were well illustrated during the Great War, when Governments of belligerent countries not only suppressed rigorously all news that could be of service to the enemy in the prosecution of their campaigns, but also used the immense propagandist value of the Press to encourage and strengthen the unity of effort in their own country, to undermine the confidence of the enemy and to impress neutral lands with the success of their arms and the justice of their cause. Such methods may be defensible in times of stress or crisis, on the ground of self-preservation; and in such times we are not unwilling to forgo some of our liberties in order that we may ultimately retain all of them. No one objects to taking medicine when he is ill; but medicine is hardly to be recommended as a daily food; and it is the sign of a healthy people, as of a healthy man, that they should be allowed to choose their own diet.
Ha! Choose their own diet; how times change. Freedom of expression, freedom of discussion, freedom to criticise; how times change. Have we advanced in 70 years? Materially much, mentally little.
Thought for today
Thinking: the operating skill with which intelligence acts upon experience.
Edward de Bono
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