Good for you Mr. Rove.
We don’t find answers in our human experience by blindly allowing one
side or the other to dominate the debate.
Many years ago, Dr. Jacob Bronowski wrote a book called the “Ascent
of Man.” It accompanied a series that
was broadcast on PBS stations. He
explores human existence from the very beginning to the present day. Not so much a history of man, but more of an
outline of man’s search for the truth.
Bronowski believed that by dedicating ourselves to science, research and
knowledge we can find the truth that seems to elude us.
On his journey through time, Bronowski stopped on Auschwitz,
the infamous Nazi concentration camp that slaughtered perhaps millions of
people. He found a place in the camp
where the ashes of the people that were killed there were dumped. As Bronowski reached down into the mud on a
rainy afternoon that could still contain some of the ashes from over 60 years
ago, he looked straight into the camera and quoted Oliver Cromwell, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ,
think it possible that you may be mistaken.”
That very thought is the foundation of the research being conducted
by SETI (Search
for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). A scientist
was asked during an interview about what happens when they find something that
has some of the characteristics of being made by intelligent life. The first thing they do is challenge their
own findings. This challenge doesn’t
take the form of confirmation, that might lead them to just reinforce their
discoveries. It takes the form of error
checking, that would lead them to another conclusion if they were originally wrong. Then, they turn to the outside scientific
community and ask them to tell them why they are wrong. Repeat, why they are wrong!
We don’t find truth for our country by adopting something
that sounds good and resonates with us alone.
That is a personal outlook. We
find truth by asking questions of those around us and having questions asked of
ourselves. To have a single power in our
culture or any culture that defines what is right and wrong is a
dictatorship. Looking back at the
Nazi’s, that is what killed over ten million people.
The words of Voltaire, "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your
right to say it" is still true today.
Our collective quest for the truth must be based on that very phrase. To silence on a single voice means that we
have denied the freedoms that we all share to that single voice. That could be our undoing.
So, Carl Rove, keep up your work and your quest. I will from time to time (if not a little
more often than time to time) disagree with you. But, the continuing conversation in the
public form will help all of us find the right path.
