The year 1902 marked the publication of The Little White Bird by the Scottish novelist J.M. Barrie, an early chapter of which finds the narrator reflecting on a moment of unkindness between two characters. “Shall we make a new rule of life,” he asks, “always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?” To live by this rule is to subordinate the freedom of our speech to the constraint of our consideration of others. We should indeed try, but we should not underestimate the difficulty. Deference is more easily imagined than practiced.
In a not entirely unrelated work of nonfiction published 17 years thereafter—the opinion of a unanimous Supreme Court in Schenck v. United States—Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously argued that freedom of speech does not extend to “shouting fire in a theatre.” The moral principle that he coined this phrase to illustrate deserves a place in our collective memory as well:
We admit that, in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants…would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. [Emphasis added.] The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.
Freedom of speech—specifically freedom of speech in higher education, and impassioned debates about limits pertaining thereto—are much in the news following the tortuous testimony before Congress on December 6 of three university presidents, two of whom have since resigned, in response to resurgent antisemitism on their campuses. Bret Stephens of the New York Times acknowledged feeling “some sympathy” for the witnesses afterward (“they are clearly struggling with how to balance respect for free expression with opposition to hate speech”) but criticized the apparent hypocrisy of their institutions. “Colleges and universities that for years have been notably censorious when it comes to free speech,” Stephens observed, “seem to have discovered its virtues only now, when the speech in question tends to be especially hurtful to Jews.”
Nouns and noun phrases of a lawyerly cast (constitutionality, rights, censorship, harassment, free expression, double standard, and so forth) have dominated media coverage of the congressional testimony, including Stephens’ own; but it is his empathetic adjective “hurtful” here that deserves our attention more—that connects us back to Barrie (“be a little kinder than is necessary”) by way of Holmes (“the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done”). I daresay that no one alive today feels personally or emotionally affected by, say, Carthaginian atrocities against civilians in Saguntum in 219 BCE or Roman atrocities against civilians in New Carthage a decade later; but a great many people today are personally or emotionally affected by the violence of Hamas against Israeli civilians or the violence of Israel against Palestinian civilians. Shouting “Roma victrix!” in a theater today would hardly cause a panic. Shouting “Globalize the Intifada!,” however, just might, if not a riot. “The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.”
Our demographic circumstances at MICDS are increasingly diverse and thus increasingly exacting of the character of our actions. In view of our growing population of families with personal or ancestral ties to China, our teachers cannot treat questions about Sino-American relations—let alone China’s fraught relationship with Taiwan (to which many members of our community are likewise connected)—as remote or hypothetical. For similar reasons, they cannot treat questions about India, or its fraught relationship with Pakistan, as merely academic. The number of MICDS families with ties to both of these nations has grown significantly in recent years and will likely increase further. We must also continue to recognize and respect the personal resonance of discussions of American slavery and its racist aftermaths for our Black students and their families—particularly those with ancestors who were enslaved—as well as the personal resonance of antisemitism and Islamophobia, renascent since October 7, for our Jewish and Muslim students and their families. We must not shy away from challenging conversations and risk limiting the educational opportunities they afford; but at the same time we must honor and embrace the community we serve—our evolving “circumstances,” to borrow from Holmes—and, to borrow from Barrie in turn, always “try to be a little kinder than is necessary.”
If he were writing the Court’s opinion today, instead of “circumstances” Justice Holmes might favor the word “context,” which was relatively obscure in his lifetime. According to A.O. Scott, it was the use of this word by Claudine Gay before Congress—her statement that calling for the genocide of Jews might or might not violate policy at Harvard “depending on the context”—that precipitated more than any other factor her abdication of the leadership of that university earlier this week. The lawyerly note that it sounded, Scott contends, rang hollow within the context (yes, context) of the “multidimensional crisis” that presently besets higher education (“opaque admissions policies; runaway tuition costs; administrative bloat; grade inflation; helicopter parents; cancel culture”). Deference to context without an overt corollary deference to the care and keeping of others—deference to the wisdom of Holmes without a corollary deference to the wisdom of Barrie—can feel like deference to the mind without a corollary deference to the heart. “Shall we make a new rule of life: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?”
As our community context at MICDS broadens, our hearts alike must broaden—and indeed are broadening—in tandem. J.M. Barrie’s most memorable character, Peter Pan, makes his first appearance in the aforementioned novel, The Little White Bird. Four years later, he got his own book: Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly,” he tells us in its second chapter, “you cease for ever to be able to do it.” I look forward to continuing our confident flight forward together. The weather is cold, the broader winds of social and political dysfunction continue to howl, but kind hearts aloft will not be daunted. Hope is the thing with feathers.
Always reason, always compassion, always courage. Winter Term is here! Spring will follow close behind. My very best wishes to you and your families in the promise of a new year.
Jay Rainey
Head of School
This week’s addition to the “Refrains for Rams” playlist: This Will Be Our Year by The Teskey Brothers (Apple Music / Spotify)