<On the other hand, there are really two reasons why we believe the substantial discussion of ideas to be personal. The first is that our ideas display our grasp of reality; second, they explain the way we live our lives. But in response to the former assertion, there is nothing less impersonal, in my opinion, than someone's grasp of an idea -- first, because truths do not really belong to any of us, but should belong to all of us, and second, because if we are wrong about a fact, the best thing that could happen to us is that we are corrected. The belief that an idea is something personal, simply because a person holds it, shows that we consider thinking not a matter of reason, or practicality, or any form of righteousness whatsoever, but a matter of imaginative conceit. A man whose opinions are not worth sharing enjoys opinions that are not worth having; he merely believes himself entitled to fantasy. To this man, I suppose that an idea may be personal, and if it is this personal, then he should do us all a favor and never speak.
But the second reason we believe ideas to be personal, that they explain the way we live our lives, is even less personal than the first. If it can be proven that our beliefs necessarily impact our behaviors -- in other words, that thought is the basis of human action, and that man may be held responsible for his deeds -- then there is nothing less personal than our beliefs. The idea that man is entitled to pride in his political, religious, and social opinions, that he may somehow behave in the way he behaves, but that he may not speak of it, or, if he does speak of it, should always be respected for it, implies that we believe speaking to be more offensive than doing. For a man will always behave a certain way whether he speaks about it or not; by his silence, he never implies inaction. And as the democratic tendencies of any situation increase, so does his enforcement of his opinion; if ideas are impersonal (that is to say, not exclusive to a single person), they are most impersonal in a democratic society, and thus should be spoken openly. And I do not believe that any person, considering this proposition seriously, believes that forcing our opinions upon others with the power of the state is less offensive than simply sharing them.
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I agree, Pandora and IDP! The entire article is needful, but here is some bait, perhaps to tempt one to the whole article.
