Freedom of the mind
Hong Kong may currently be conspicuous in the struggle for free speech, but it should not be overlooked that attacks on freedom of speech are widespread across the West. In Britain, a person can be jailed for political speech deemed inappropriate by the government; in Canada, one can be dragged before a social justice tribunal; and in the United States, where citizens are protected from the government by the First Amendment of the constitution, speech can be shut down by rioting "students" while university administrators stand idly by.
An attack on freedom of speech is ipso facto an attack on freedom of thought, and, consequently, on freedom of belief. As stated by Immanuel Kant, "Certainly one may say, ' Freedom to speak or write can be taken from us by a superior power, but never the freedom to think!' But how much, and how correctly, would we think if we did not think, as it were, in common with others, with whom we mutually communicate!"
The irreconcilable division with regard to freedom of the mind is drawn in two treatises published in the 18th century by two towering figures of the French Enlightenment, on one side Voltaire, champion of reason, science, freedom and civilization, and on the other Jean-Jacques Rousseau, their foe, and spiritual godfather of the modern left. In 1762, Rousseau published The Social Contract, and in 1763, Voltaire published the Treatise on Tolerance. Voltaire argues fervently for freedom of belief and Rousseau is equally ardent in his demand for mandatory adherence to state dogma. In 1762, in his Traité sur la tolerance, Voltaire wrote,
"Do I propose, then, that every citizen shall be free to follow his own reason, and believe whatever his enlightened or deluded reason shall dictate to him? Certainly, provided he does not disturb the public order." A year earlier, in his seminal political work Du Contrat Social, Rousseau had written,
"There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject. While it can compel no one to believe them, it can banish from the State whoever does not believe them - it can banish him, not for impiety, but as an antisocial being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, at need, his life to his duty. If any one, after publicly recognizing these dogmas, behaves as if he does not believe them, let him be punished by death: he has committed the worst of all crimes, that of lying before the law."
The articles of which Rousseau speaks are not based on the Word of God, universal moral truths, or rational principles. Having the proper feelings makes one a good citizen. The articles cannot be defended with reason because they are sentiments. Rousseau realizes that no one can be compelled to believe, but not believing makes one antisocial, an outcast who can be banished. Should one pretend to believe so that he can live with relatives and friends in the society in which he was born, then the punishment is clearly prescribed: death.
Rousseau's great disciple Maximilien Robespierre, leader of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, addressed Rousseau as "Divine man." Rousseau's contemporary children lack the power of Robespierre, but what would they do were they to gain such power? Do they not speak the same language as the totalitarian regimes that have murdered more than 100 million people in the quest for their socialist utopias? Have we not witnessed their willingness to defile a man's family, to deprive one of his living, and to accost their opponents in their daily lives?
The enragés inside and outside the chamber during the US Senate hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh were reminiscent of the trial of Charles Darnay in Dickens' Tale of Two Cities.