The almost amusing echos notwithstanding, there are some important ways in which our current cultural moment is different than that described by Hook. To bring these out we can make use of the useful set of ideas introduced by Hook in his title.

Heretics and Conspirators

A ‘heresy’ for Hook is a view falling outside of an orthodoxy of any sort, and he is quite willing to defend the rights of heretics so defined. Minority opinions, unpopular ideas, scandalous judgments, religious apostasy, mutterings unwelcome in polite society—pretty much any speech or thought someone somewhere puts beyond the pale is welcomed by Hook with open arms, and he makes no exceptions of the ideas animating Communism. Reading and writing about and teaching the ideas of Marx, Lenin, Stalin or Mao should not land anyone in any kind of hot water. Nor should trenchant criticisms of capitalism, democracy, the Bill of Rights, Christianity, or anything else held sacred in the US. To the contrary, Hook argues college students should be exposed to such ideas, and—importantly—the ‘democratic responses’ to them. In classic liberal fashion Hook celebrates a cacophony of ideological voices as a vital contribution to the common good.

What does not deserve protection are the actions of those engaged in conspiracies to overthrow the state…Keep Reading