A COMMUNICATION
LIBERTY AND THE COMMUNISTS
Richard Rovere's essay, "Communists in a Free Society," in
the May-June PARTISAN REVIEW, was sharply critical of an article I had
written on more or less the same subject in the March
Comml!'ntary.
Mr. Rovere took the view that though liberals err (especially in their
understanding of Communism), liberalism does not; that the venerable
liberal doctrine according to which men should not be penalized for
their opinions, or restricted in the expression of them, except in cases
of clear and present danger, is correct; and that I was dangerously
wrong in arguing that the degree of freedom to be granted Communists
was a matter of expediency, determined by specific circumstance and
governed by no single general principle.
Mr. Rovere does not convince me. Men always have been and al–
ways will be penalized for their opinions, both by society and law;
and this regardless of any clear and present danger.
Organized society is, by its very nature, and even without taking
into account its laws, coercive of opinion to some extent: by religion, by
morality, by custom, by conscience. A man who in our country openly
praises pederasty or publishes a pamphlet in favor of infanticide has
little chance of being nominated for President, or of holding any posi–
tion for which public favor, explicit or implicit, is essential; his opinions
will bring upon him this penalty. This fact it is foolish to deplore as an
instance of "conformity." Conformity, if we mean by that a profound
consensus on moral and political first principles,
is
the condition for a
decent society; without it, blunt terror must rule. To quote Edmund
Burke: "Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and
appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the
more there must be without."
In the case of Communists, since they are odious to the American
people, they will experience an opprobrium that is bound to discom–
fort and disadvantage them; our reaction to this state of affairs will
depend on whether we agree or disagree with Communism, and if we
disagree, whether we disagree amiably, severely, or violently. An un-
