While working on the previous two posts (“The Tell-Tale Textbook” and “But It’s Ours”), I was reminded of these two passages, one from W. E. B. Du Bois (from his severe yet charitable critique of Booker T. Washington), and the other from William Zinsser (quoting Mort Sahl):

“But the hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,—criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led,—this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society” (W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Penguin Classics, 2017, p. 37).

“Mort Sahl, a comic, was the only person who stayed awake during the Eisenhower years, when America was under sedation and didn’t want to be disturbed. Many people regarded Sahl as a cynic, but he thought of himself as an idealist. ‘If I criticize somebody,’ he said, ‘it’s because I have higher hopes for the world, something good to replace the bad. I’m not saying what the Beat Generation says: ‘Go away because I’m not involved.’ I’m here and I’m involved’” (William Zinsser, On Writing Well, Harper Perennial, 200, p. 213).