Curtailment Of Truth

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32391, 2 September 1970, Page 2

Curtailment Of Truth

“Any curtailment of the freedom of interchange of Ideas may be a curtailment of truth,” said the public affairs committee in its paper. “It is for this reason that we look with dismay on the trials and imprisonment of writers, artists, and thinkers, and the use of the law to suppress opposing views,” the committee said. “In order that truth may prevail all must be free physically, mentally, politically, socially. But, and here is the rub, in order that all may be free, all must be prepared to accept their duties to others.” The committee said that one of the tragedies of today was the constant debasement of the currency of the language. The words free and freedom had become associated with licence and extremists' views and activities—so much so that there

were public demands that freedom be curtailed, and that the university should take action against its members who gave positive expression to their views. In this regard, the statement made by the ViceChancellor of the University of Canterbury (Professor N. C. Phillips) emphasised the standpoint of academic freedom and its place in the community. In his statement. Professor Phillips said that persons within a university had a duty to dissent if they felt that conformity o,n any particular issue was repugnant A society, to remain healthy, needed this dissent “No-one would deny the importance of education in promoting healthy dissent and positive values,” said the committee. “The world needs educated people and people need an educated world. However, the prime target

should be quality in education.

“Raising the school-leaving age, increasing the percentage of the population with university degrees, will not increase the intellectual and moral stability of our society, unless we see that the time spent in education is well spent and that the attitudes acquired are positive and relevant” The other and fundamentally more important educational factor—when the implications of recent zoological and psychological studies were considered—was the family, the basic unit within which personalities developed and attitudes were established. “In modern life and the affluent society, the family is at the moment facing stresses which can weaken its beneficial formative powers,” said the committee.