A defense of free inquiry and robust debate draws strong opposition from the left.
It was at this point that he [Bertolt Brecht, German playwright and refugee from Hitler] said in words I have never forgotten, ‘As for them [the doomed defendants in Stalin’s show trials], the more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.” I was so taken aback that I thought I had misheard him.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
He calmly repeated himself, “The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.” . . .
I was stunned by his words. “Why? Why?” I exclaimed. All he did was smile at me in a nervous sort of way. I waited, but he said nothing after I repeated my question.
I got up, went into the next room, and fetched his hat and coat. When I returned, he was still sitting in his chair, holding a drink in his hand. When he saw me with his hat and coat, he looked surprised. He put his glass down, rose, and with a sickly smile took his hat and coat and left. Neither of us said a word. I never saw him again.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
He calmly repeated himself, “The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.” . . .
I was stunned by his words. “Why? Why?” I exclaimed. All he did was smile at me in a nervous sort of way. I waited, but he said nothing after I repeated my question.
I got up, went into the next room, and fetched his hat and coat. When I returned, he was still sitting in his chair, holding a drink in his hand. When he saw me with his hat and coat, he looked surprised. He put his glass down, rose, and with a sickly smile took his hat and coat and left. Neither of us said a word. I never saw him again.
The narrator of that modest domestic but morally significant moment in 1935 is the late and much-lamented Sidney Hook in his 1985 memoir Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century.The above is the intro to John O’Sullivan’s eloquent essay on the kerfuffle after the release of a rather anodyne letter in support of free speech by 153 leftish worthies. The “Harper’s Letter”.
I’ve heard of Bertolt Brecht, of course, but never quite realised that as an early Marxist he was a profound supporter of Stalin in all his goriness, all his genocide of kulaks, all the purges and the Red Terror and all that. One of Brecht's plays is The Decision which is pretty much a straight-up justification for mass killing of even your own supporters... the more innocent they are....
Or, in O’Sullivan’s nice take, on the cancelling of people in leftish media -- Kevin Williamson (The Atlantic), Andrew Sullivan (New York magazine), Bari Weiss (the New York Times) --
The more talented they are, the more they deserve to be silenced.
