bewareheresies

If heretics no longer horrify us, as they once did our forefathers, is it certain that it is because there is more charity in our hearts?
Henri, Cardinal de Lubac, Paradoxes of Faith (Nouveaux Paradoxes, 1955; trans. Ernest Beaumont, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1987), p 226

Every age has its heresies. They must be recognised and conquered.

Do heresies still exist?

Heresy: there is a nasty word, a concept repugnant to modern thinking. We want no more of that! Down with the notion that some ideas are good, while others are clearly bad; that belief that has caused too much intolerance, too much violence. In today's world, we prefer a more neutral attitude: in principle, no idea should be rejected outright. A reader of leading French newspaper Le Monde has well expressed (1) this view:

The desire to erect authoritarian walls to separate a priori the true from the false, the good from the evil, the just from the unjust, is a project belonging to another age.

In other words, the very idea of heresy is obsolete; therefore, heresies no longer exist.

The twentieth century, era of the worst heresies

However, here is a striking fact. The age that has chosen to renounce the notion of heresy, of the false idea that should be condemned and banished from society, this is the same age - in broad terms, the twentieth century - that has probably suffered more than any other era from the consequences of rotten ideas. By denying the concept of heresy, have we not made ourselves more vulnerable to infection by the 'viruses' of such ideas?

In all history, has any age suffered havoc as atrocious as that caused by Nazism? That was founded on a radically false idea which, however, was widely accepted (2) before the arrival of its worst consequences; namely, the idea that some races are inherently superior to others.

The damage caused by communism has been no less severe. This was the consequence of another false idea: the Marxist theory that the injustices of capitalism cannot be righted except by a fight to the finish between social classes.

Today, we suffer from yet another perverse idea: near-idolatry of the market. It is argued that we have no right to interfere with the workings of the market. That the management of our societies by elected authorities should be very largely abandoned and handed over to the blind, deaf, often brutal 'invisible hand' of the market. That we are obliged to tolerate the consequences of the machinations of the free market, however unacceptable these may be. This is another heresy.

What can we do?

We cannot, of course, burn free-marketeers, or even neo-Nazis, at the stake. However, our societies surely need means of protection against the ravages caused by heretical ideologies. So what can we do?

The Enlightenment tradition holds that we should avoid any restriction on the expression of ideas, however repugnant they may be. Voltaire is reputed to have uttered the famous words, I detest your ideas, but I will fight to the death for your right to express them. But the authenticity of this saying is doubtful. Victor Hugo wrote (3), in the midst of a stunning panegyric to French civilisation, that we can resist invasion by armies; we cannot resist invasion by ideas. This remark appears among others such as France offers herself, the world accepts her and elsewhere the glory of savages is to be conquered by civilisation.

However, if certain ideas are seriously harmful, why not resist them? Is there not indeed a duty to resist them? Then the question would be how to resist them effectively, and without destroying our freedom in the process.

In Europe, Britain and many other countries have outlawed incitement to racial hatred. But in America, the First Amendment continues to protect preachers of hatred. No mincing of words in this very brief document of 1791; the Amendment requires purely and simply that Congress shall make no law....to abridge freedom of speech, or of the press.

Thus, Americans hold that the right to disseminate any arguments whatsoever, even perhaps those such as 'Hitler was right' (4), is an essential freedom that must not be restricted, even in the interests of avoiding the scourges of racism or religious extremism. A famous judge of the Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes, stated (5) this doctrine in a typically American form: the best test of truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.

Market failure

However, it is clear that thoughts gravely deficient in truth have, from time to time, been well and truly accepted. Those of Hitler were 'market leaders' for some years in Germany. Those of Marx and Lenin found wider and more durable approval. Islamist fanaticisms, though repudiated by many good Muslims, enjoy popular favour in a number of countries. In reality, the acceptance of an idea depends less on its truth than on the charisma, the energy, the political or economic or military power of those who promote it.

History demonstrates that the 'market in ideas', like any other market, is susceptible to market failure. A comparison with commercial markets may help us. In a completely free market, it can happen that one particularly strong and aggressive competitor grabs most of the business; thus the free market degenerates into near-monopoly. That is why it is necessary to regulate the market so as to prevent one, or a few, participants from becoming unduly dominant. One must restrict the freedom of the market, so that it remains adequately free.

Likewise, for the 'market in ideas', there is a need to prevent excessive concentration among the propagators of ideas - the organisations that control the media. The exorbitant power of certain media moguls, such as Rupert Murdoch in Britain and America, or Silvio Berlusconi in Itlay, can badly distort the ideological market. Elsewhere, state control of the media can have similar consequences.

The need for selection

Yet the problem of ideological 'market failure' begins further upstream, at the stage where ideas are subjects of discussion among intellectuals, rather than widely accepted beliefs. The bad ideas of Nazism and communism have their roots in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They became dominant in the twentieth under the influence of formidable leaders. But the original error was the failure, in earlier periods, of the process of selection whereby the ideological 'market' should eliminate the errors.

New ideas on society, on economics and so on need to be tested for toxicity like new drugs under development. This is the task of scientists, economists, sociologists, philosophers. We are well aware that, in chemistry, new molecules can be dangerous and must be examined with care before being cleared for sale. In today's intellectual climate, we are perhaps not sufficiently aware that new ideas, too, can be gravely harmful.

Separate a priori the true from the false? We must try our best to do so. Otherwise, we risk discovering the division a posteriori, as happened with Nazism and communism. To separate the true from the false only after such disasters, is evidently too late!

The never-ending battle

Once the separation is made, we should not refuse to restrain the deliberate propagation of the worst ideas. For example, the host of this site (OVH, a company based in Roubaix) requires that its clients do not publish on their own sites material that is racist, pornographic or illegal; it also prohibits propaganda by sects. Web hosts have to watch over the 'purity' of their clients' sites, since the hosts can be held responsible for illegal content published thereon.

It is surely reasonable to prohibit the dissemination of material that is libellous, that is conducive to exploitation of individuals, or that contains incitement to hatred against human communities.

To sum up, it needs to be accepted that certain ideas are truly pernicious, and must therefore be flatly rejected by any society that claims to be civilised. Not all ideas are good. Every age has its heresies. They must be recognised and conquered.

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