Error has no Rights?
Michael Hoffman
Copyright©2021 RevisionistHistory.org
The Zionist and “Woke” position on book-banning and cancel culture is consonant with the “Error has no rights" dictum of the papal church, which many Protestants shared—cf. Presbyterian Samuel Rutherford’s influential book—Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience. Whereas, the open-minded libertarian standard upholding the Jeffersonian “Error has rights" concept, insists that claims of authoritative Truth must be debated, investigated and if necessary resisted, as conscience requires.
This radical freedom, the legacy of the New World's American Revolution, rigorously opposes the Old World dogma that “Error has no rights.” That dogma and the inquisition that almost always follows in its wake, has been revived on the Left by Critical Race Theory, and on the Right by hypocrites such as Bari Weiss and Ben Shapiro.
Wesley Yang, Kimberly Strassel, Christopher Rufo, Rod Dreher and other leading Right wing critics of cancel culture, have little to say contra the censorship of pro-Palestinian speech advocated by their heroine, cancel commissar Bari Weiss when she was a New York Times writer (a record she has not repudiated), and calls from nationally syndicated talk show host Ben Shapiro to cancel Minister Louis Farrakhan on social media. These two are only the tip of the "conservative" censorship lance.
Their selective indignation subverts the whole weltanschauung of supposed conservative free speech advocacy. Their hypocrisy ensures that the noble ideals of the First Amendment will be circumscribed by the partisan requirements of Right wing obeisance to Israeli idols, while Left wing subservience to canonical Marxist and gender axioms cripple the Left’s self-advertised aspiration to build a better world.
Error has rights because we do not trust any earthly power to decide for the people what is right or wrong—an authority that belongs to God alone—not the fallible, totalitarian zealots in government, media and academia who are perennially prone to declare their opinions as fact, while compelling the rest of us to conform to their dictated "truths."
My right to dissent from your certitude cannot exist unless, commensurate with the presumption that I am in error, my inalienable right to the expression of and belief in my “error” is nonetheless guaranteed. History teaches that many of those condemned in the past as being in heresy and error have been found in subsequent centuries to have been visionary inventors, scientists, writers and activists.
The advancement of knowledge and the progress of the human race depends upon the absolute right to be wrong.
Michael Hoffman's books include Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare (2001), and Twilight Language (2021) available at this link.
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6 comments:
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say wokeness-Zionism believes truth has no right?
If you believe that rights come from God, God wills the good, then I don’t see how error can have rights? This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t extend great liberties to free speech, but rights is going too far.
Dear Ryan
Not just "woke-Zionism".
It was a formal theological doctrine of the Church of Rome's Inquisition that "error has no rights."
This was seconded by the Presbyterian Rutherford and his myriad followers.
I believe you are missing Thomas Jefferson's point: who has the authority to dictate belief?
I say the Zionists are in error so I deny their opinions any rights?
They declare I am in error and deny my opinions rights.
Who wins in a war of suppression and inquisition?
The germ theory of disease was denied by almost all physicians prior to the late 19th century. Dissenting physicians were viewed as in error and were fired and suppressed. Now we know the dissenters were right, and not wrong.
For the sake of the advancement of human knowledge, let's be humble and concede that what may appear to be in error today could be vindicated as truth tomorrow. That's the American way!
Thank you for the response Michael.
From reading it I feel like we are arguing over two different categories. I for one agree that error, or free speech should have certain legal protections, very strong ones for that matter. However to say error has rights goes too far for two reasons:
I don’t know how you define rights, but I would define rights as positive moral imperatives which come from God. As such God created rights for the individual to act for the good. (Intrinsically rights come with duties) God however makes it clear that he disproves of certain behaviors, so either god is contradicting himself or error is not a right.
Secondly granting error rights makes it equal to truth. I believe that any society which cannot make a value judgment of objective truth will descend into permissive degeneracy. Indeed I think we are living out this paradigm today.
Don’t get me wrong I am all for disagreement and putting ideas against each other, but I also believe that we as a people can know what is right and wrong, perhaps not on everything, but certainly on the things which matter. True freedom exists only in the truth anyways.
God bless,
Ryan
Would Moses or St.Paul the apostle say that error has rights? The Jewish High Priest during the time of Jesus was wicked yet Our Lord told people to obey their commands because they had legitimate religious authority.
To Anselm
You are referring to Matthew 23: 1-3.
This passage is an error-has-rights injunction from Jesus.
He is teaching that despite the errors of their works (cf. the latter part of verse 3), the scribes and Pharisees nonetheless retain their position in "Moses' seat" as reciters of the law. Jesus doesn't overthrow them, much less imprison or burn them at the stake. He educates the people about these “serpents” and “vipers” (vs. 33).
When they RECITE the law of the Old Testament, that law is to be obeyed. They are not TEACHERS of the law, however. Notice the distinction. Jesus delineates: "...for one is your teacher, the Christ..."(Matt. 23:8)
Where they depart from the spirit of God's laws and "bind" God's people with "heavy burdens" (Matt. 23:4) the authority of the Pharisees is nil.
Furthermore, chapter 23 contains the grave declarations of Jesus about the Pharisees in the famous and numerous "woe unto you" passages of verses 13-29.
No corrupt pope or Protestant preacher can have teaching authority over God's people predicated on quoting Matthew 23: 1-3.
Let us ponder further the clearest evidence in the gospel that error has rights. This is found in John 6: 60-66. Here Jesus is confronted by the disbelief and dissent of His followers after He proclaimed the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood (53-54).
"From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more" (vs. 66).
What does Jesus do to these dissenters? Does He jail them, beat them, condemn them or kill them, as did the inquisitions by the papalists (and by Protestants by order of Queen Elizabeth I, and as advocated by Protestant theologian Samuel Rutherford)?
No. Our Lord did nothing like that. He allowed the doubters and dissenters to depart and walk freely. They were at least honest in their disavowal. The only one in this case He termed a "devil" was the one who stayed with Him and hypocritically feigned loyalty to Him (verses 70-71). This of course was Judas.
Copyright©2022 by Michael Hoffman
When i was a freshman in a liberal arts college, all eager and sprightly to seek the fruits of knowledge via the institutionalized postmodern drive towards "conceptualism", I was still taught by my Visual Culture and Life Drawing lecturers that you learn more from mistakes made than doctrine recited correctly.
Error has Rights is the same tenet my lecturers expressed, albeit in a fine art college context. I first heard your defining of it via the recent interview with Prof. Hamamoto and i must say, i was gobsmacked.
How are we to learn our own way through the world without being able to learn the error of our ways? Sometimes the greatest of art can be germinated from a seed planted in mistake too, to then sprout forth a creation we never knew could be borne from us..
The art college lecturers defined this phenomena as "a happy accident".
Thank you for educating and challenging consciousness in this era of globo-mentalist diversion.
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