The The Multi-Cultural Myth
Schedule Wayne Holstad for Your Group
Order by credit card ~ Order by check or money order
© Alethos Press LLC
PO Box 600160
St. Paul, MN 55106
The Marketplace of Ideas
It is commonly believed that the importance of
the First Amendment is to “preserve the debate of ideas in the ‘marketplace
of ideas.’ ” The term “marketplace of ideas” does not exist in any of the
writings or correspondence of the Eighteenth Century. The term is attributed
to John Stuart Mill, an English utilitarian thinker in the mid-Nineteenth
Century, and not to any of the authors or supporters of the original Bill of
Rights. The concept of the “marketplace of ideas” was not a First Amendment
concept until used by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the Abrams case in
1919.
This belief in a “marketplace of ideas” echoes
the sentiments of Justice Douglas expressed in Gillette v. U.S.
(1971). He stated, “At the core of the First Amendment’s protection of
individual expression, is the recognition that such expression represents
the oral or written manifestation of conscience” within the “sphere of
intellect and spirit” as the domain of the First Amendment was described in
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. The core
principle governing contemporary America is the belief in the debate. This
idea that such a debate in the marketplace of all ideas is guaranteed by the
First Amendment’s protection of free expression provides the cornerstone of
modern constitutional law, rather than that there is one true idea.
What happens when the marketplace of ideas sits in a
naked public square where nothing is sacred and ultimate truth is rejected?
The modern idea that Judeo-Christian theology cannot be relied on as
singular truth results from the belief that epistemology is limited to
scientific experimentation. Truth can never be claimed if one believes that
ultimate reality can only be realized through the process of dialectic
reasoning.
Differences in viewpoint, however, arise not only from the field of
philosophy, but also from theology. Numerous religions are rooted in
pantheism, not Biblical theism. And some religions are simply cults that
exist outside of Christian orthodoxy, based on different interpretations of
Scripture and new revelations rejected by orthodox Christians. Can these
different philosophies and religions with their unique cultures coexist?
More importantly, from a Christian perspective, should the Christian
response be tolerance, evangelization or separation?