Thursday Morning Philosophy

C. Vann Woodward (1908-1999) was one of the giants of the historical profession who, although a Southerner himself, rejected the self-serving common wisdom that shaped much of the work that came from that region's scholars to offer a more nuanced and sensitive study of issues related to race and Reconstruction. This quote was a report of a committee he headed in 1975:

"The history of intellectual growth and discovery
clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered
freedom, the right to think the unthinkable,
discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the
unchallengeable. To curtail free expression
strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for
whoever deprives another of the right to
state unpopular views necessarily deprives
others of the right to listen to those views."