The Minority Voice

In spite of a long-advocated tolerance, there are times when all of us are annoyed because someone has disagreed with us. But to establish something on the basis of opinion without proof, of authority without reason, is as difficult as it ever was, or maybe more so—even though it may be annoying. Men who have attempted by sheer authority to impose edicts without reason or without the conversion and support of those whom they affect, have seen the beginning of trouble—but not the end. Ofttimes men have made the mistake of assuming that anyone who had an opinion contrary to the majority was necessarily wrong, or of unsound mind, or disloyal, or dishonest. Indeed, it has gone further than that. In those places where a single sovereign will has held dominion over all the destinies of all his subjects, men who presumed to have a contrary opinion have often been obliged to change their views, or else! A more refined form of the same kind of practice is to call a man a name when he disagrees with us—publicly proclaim his disloyalty or incompetence or dishonesty—discredit his reputation. “Name-calling,” it has been said, “is a subtle way of diverting attention from the facts.” We shouldn’t call a man a name merely because he has an opinion of his own. He may be right—and even if we’re sure he isn’t it doesn’t necessarily follow that he is dishonest or disloyal, or of unsound mind. In the name of tolerance and reason, it must be recognized that he who disagrees with us is not necessarily an undesirable citizen. If that were true, then everyone us an undesirable citizen, because no two people think alike in all things. The unintimidated right freely to express honest contrary views is essential to the survival of freedom and to the maintenance of progress. In the affairs of men, any place in which there is the imposition of one mind and one will in all things, is fundamentally weak leaning perilously to one side, and lacking the structural strength of opposing opinions.