On the record
The prohibitions, therefore, that are imposed are an attempt to extract from the experience of society certain principles of action by which, in their own interest, men ought to be bound.
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Harold J. Laski
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gutenberg.orgHarold J. Laski: “The prohibitions, therefore, that are imposed are an attempt to extract from the experience of society certain…”
Editor's note · Context
Laski discusses how societal prohibitions aim to derive principles of action that bind individuals for their own benefit.
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He is able, accordingly, to indulge in the twofold luxury not only of preserving his own authority, but also of assisting the persons attacked to enter, if they so choose, the way of truth.
The essence of the persecuting position is always that the persecutor has hold of truth and that he would betray its service by allowing it to be questioned.
The intolerance may be Catholic, when it insists that a unity of outlook is essential for the preservation of society; or it may be Protestant when, as with Calvin and the Socinians, it holds that the blasphemous nature of the belief…
Ultimately, that denial is always made upon the same ground: it is insisted that the doctrines or practices attacked are subversive of the civil order.
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