Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought

by Jonathan Rauch

Game-playing is a good way to make touchy social decisions systematically. Suppose a group needs a leader. It could use a game with the following rules. Rule 1: each member of the group gets one vote in each round of vote-casting. Rule 2: whoever gets the least number of votes in each round of vote-casting is out of the game. Rule 3: the last remaining vote-getter is the group’s legitimate leader till the next vote. Thus the liberal game of voting. Suppose a group needs to decide which of several conflicting ideas is right. Again, a game. First, each school of thought places its opinion before the group. Second, friends and enemies of the ideas begin testing and criticizing, poking and prodding, checking and cross-checking. To check, players can do all kinds of things. Their tests can include real experiment, thought experiment, plausibility, simplicity, generality, utility, logical consistency, beauty—always understanding, however, that whatever test they use has to be a test that I or anyone else also can use, at least in principle (no personal authority). If, for you, a theory passes the test of experiment or beauty, then it must do the same for me and for others, or else the theory has not checked out conclusively. Third, everyone is entitled to modify one of the original ideas or to suggest a new one. Fourth, the opinion which emerges as the survivor is the winner—only, however, for as long as it continues to survive (no final say). Thus the liberal game of science.