LETTER: Light your own candle

Editor,

In response to the showing of “Outfoxed” at USU and the subsequent comments of Jared Putnam (Letters, Sept. 15), I would suggest it is highly unlikely that a single exposure to a 75-minute movie would change a person’s fundamental political attitudes. (Students, your homework assignment for today is to do a Google search on “cognitive dissonance” and “responses,” and another on the generally discredited “hypodermic needle theory.”)

Nevertheless, a sage once said, “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Another wise person said, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

I believe both statements are true – no matter how you define the dark.

As the world’s biggest fan of the First Amendment and the author of a half-dozen publications on the history of censorship, might I be so bold as to suggest a corollary?

If you don’t like someone else’s candle, don’t try to blow it out. Light your own.

Michael S. Sweeney