Maand: november 2015

Vrije meningsuiting is essentieel voor publiek debat.

“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.”
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi (1828-1910),
Russian writer. Source: On Life and Essays on Religion

“Free inquiry requires that we tolerate diversityof opinion and that we respect the right of individuals to express their beliefs, however unpopular they may be, without social or legal prohibition or fear of success.”
Paul Kurtz. 
Source: “A Secular Humanist Declaration,” in On The Barricades, 1989

“It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”
Noël Coward, Blithe Spirit

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.  Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country . . . we’re dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . it is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.”
Edward Bernays,
Propaganda, Liveright Publishing Company, New York, 2005, excerpts from pp.  9-19
Doorgaan met het lezen van “Vrije meningsuiting is essentieel voor publiek debat.”

Debat op de Amerikaanse campuses over vrijheid van meningsuiting..

There is substantial evidence that the more exposure to higher education that people today have received, the less likely they are to be susceptible to demagogy and denial of evidence and proven facts; and they are more capable of changing their prejudice-based opinions, and in general better prepared to join in the long effort to make a better world out of the crooked timber of humanity.
THOMAS H. WRIGHT, emeritus vice president and secretary of Princeton University. Doorgaan met het lezen van “Debat op de Amerikaanse campuses over vrijheid van meningsuiting..”