At a debate during the Nuclear free zone campaign in 1984 I asked Carl Cohen, an infamous Commentary type and a philosopher--though not, we used to insist, in the U-Mich. philosophy dep't, and who was running this line,w hether he thought it was OK to jail or execute people who gave nuclear secrets to the Russians, like--I sais arguendo--the Rosenbergs. Of course, he said. Good, I'm glad we agree, I said (also arguaendo), and we agree that classified weapons reserach can be proscribed. Now, I said, the issue isn't freedom, but the type of proscription.
We still lost.
--jks
In a message dated Mon, 25 Sep 2000 3:41:29 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Lisa & Ian Murray" <seamus at accessone.com> writes:
<<
Just think about it. If the stuff is classified, the government
has already
restricted it; and there isn't academic freedom to conduct your
own inquiries
or give it to (at the time) the Russians. Indeed, publication is
prohibited.
The idea that there are first amendment rights or academic freedoms to do
work that you cannot publish or dispose of as you like is a
contradiction in
terms. --jks ========== Justin,
I'm wondering if he thought of it in terms of "I'm free to relinquish my freedom in return for the opportunity to do the research" dimension, so that the two of you ended up talking past one another. His situation isn't that much different from no-compete clauses and other such muzzling of knowledge workers that are allowed under our totally authoritarian labor laws. The crossing of the boundary from freedom to unfreedom issue....
Ian
>>