Open inquiry

 Ilana Redstone, a sociologist at the University of Illinois, mentions three features of an atmosphere of open inquiry:

• Any claim can be questioned.

• Questioning something doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

• Exploring an idea doesn’t mean you endorse it.

Professor Redstone studies viewpoint diversity. It’s a topic that has some appeal if you were ever a newspaper editor, and at times she sounds like one.

 

We can’t have a world where there is a diversity of viewpoints, pluralism, and communication across differences, and also have a world where nobody gets offended or upset by what somebody says. At the end of the day, you have to pick one.

 

The newspaper I used to work for would run pages of letters from readers about the major stories of the week. I’d have to request extra space to run them. But the letters were an indicator of the health of the newspaper and of the community that supported it.

When some challenge arose, readers wanted to express their views about the best course of action. They wanted to criticize policies they thought harmed the community. They did that because they cared about the community. And because the newspaper let everyone have a voice, people cared about what was in the paper.

I spent part of my working days trying to convince editors at other papers to open the doors to public commentary. It was a tough sell. For all the talk of freedom of the press, editors in small towns leaned toward self-censorship. In every small town, there is a Grand Moose Club, though it goes by different names. The views expressed by club members are safe commentary. The opposing views are dangerous. Printing them can get an editor fired.

But it’s precisely that uniformity of opinion — by giving voice only to “respectable” people and not publishing material from the dissenters — that makes a newspaper as dull as the meetings of the Moose Club. Every community has its share of dissenters, dissidents and malcontents. And if you didn’t seem signs of them in the village newspaper, you knew that it’s the house organ of the Moose Club. It represents a part of the community, not the whole.

I think that democracy is sound only in communities that have public discussions about public affairs. And, like Professor Redstone, I don’t think you can have discussions about any substantive topic without offending people.

Some of the most painful moments of my life were spent talking to people who had been wounded by the public discussion. They included African Americans, Jews, Muslims and gay people, but it was a long list. These people had done nothing wrong. They didn’t think it was fair for the newspaper to publish prejudiced views.

A prejudiced view is easier to identify in principle than in practice. It is OK to oppose affirmative action, Title IX, a policy of the state of Israel, a law regulating same-sex marriage?

I think it’s better to have discussions about our public life in public. I also think we need rules for what people can and can’t say.

Most people agreed that letter writers shouldn’t be allowed to encourage violence against political opponents. But it came as a shock to some people that they couldn’t accuse their opponents of crimes without evidence of a conviction. People complained endlessly that the paper wouldn’t publish anonymous letters.

People said the newspaper was putting itself out of business because people would just publish their factually challenged, anonymous rants online.

People are free to do that.

But if that’s the state of our public discourse, we’re in trouble.

I think we have a better discourse if we have rules and follow them. And while it’s the style today to mock the idea of gatekeepers, I also think we need a referee. Some poor soul must make the individual calls, knowing only some of them will be as wise and fair and just as he or she would hope. The system works best when that same person must face the wounded and the outraged on the following day.

It’s a terrible system — except when you compare it to the others.

• Sources: Greg Berman, “’A Healthy Democracy Requires Social Trust’: A Conversation with Ilana Redstone”; Harry Frank Gugenheim Foundation, Sept. 9, 2024. It’s here:

http://www.hfg.org/conversations/a-healthy-democracy-requires-social-trust-ilana-redstone-090924/

Evan Madery, “They Wanted a University Without Cancel Culture. Then Dissenters Were Ousted”; Politico Magazine, Jan. 16, 2026. It's here:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/01/16/civil-war-university-of-austin-bari-weiss-00729688