During the annual sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations the policy and budget of the Office of Public Information (OPI) of the organization have been the perennial center of a complex debate. Instructions first given the Secretariat in 1946 provide some elements of this debate, while others depend on the professional expertise of the international civil service and on its influence and support in a General Assembly divided several ways. As a whole, the outcome demonstrates once more both the durable force of an attractive idea and the truth of the maxim that secretariats have great weight in the policy processes of international, as of other, organizations. For despite repeated debate and attack OPI has proved enduring and resilient.

During the last 15 years the many-faceted program of the agency has shrunk somewhat, to be sure, under the economizer's knife. In particular, it was under unusually severe criticism in 1957, when the General Assembly established an expert committee to investigate UN public information activities, and also in 1958, when the results of the inquiry were discussed. This committee, appointed with the unenthusiastic concurrence of the Secretary General, and made up of six governmental nominees not all of whom had experience with public information, directly challenged some of the working assumptions of OPI and called attention to difficulties with others. Their report struck a blow, too, at the internal balance of OPI, accused it of substantive failures and urged it to design new programs.

Most students of British parties have accepted the view that the mass organizations are decidedly subordinate to parliamentary leadership. Mainly this has meant rejection of the idea that policy is imposed by a party conference, or its delegated executive, in the Labour party as in the Conservative party. But it may also lead one to ignore or depreciate the role of the constituency units which compose the national organizations. That it is a mistake to do so is now suggested by the activities of local party associations during the Suez crisis of 1956–57. Research material derived from this experience provides the bases for altering the common model of the constituency party as a unit in the mass service organizations sustaining the parliamentary leadership. True enough, the association of dues-paying partisans is primarily service rather than policymaking. However, the Suez experience indicates that this service includes a partly selfgenerating function in relation to the maintenance of parliamentary party cohesion, going beyond the well-known earlier instances of local Labour units simply following national orders to drop candidates who were suspected Communists.

Africans in French Tropical Africa have recently been called on to make several farreaching political decisions. Two basic questions have been at issue: the nature of the relationship between France and the African territories, and the nature of relations between the African territories themselves. On the first question, the Referendum of September 28, 1958 on the Constitution of the Fifth French Republic gave Africans the choice between total independence and internal autonomy within “The (French) Community.” With regard to their mutual relations, the territories which made up the federations of French West and French Equatorial Africa could remain tied together politically, or they could sever all formal political connections among themselves; in French African political terminology, the second issue has been whether or not the individual territories should form “primary federations.”

The issue of total independence or internal autonomy within “The Community” was temporarily decided at the 1958 Referendum, when eleven of the twelve territories of French West and Equatorial Africa voted to remain with France, Guinea alone choosing immediate independence. Since then several members of “The Community” have initiated negotiations with France for the full transfer of sovereign powers to local African governments, and the indications are that all French-speaking West Africa will be fully independent within the near future.

The outcome of the second question—political relations among the African territories–is not so clear. The trend up to now has been against the re-creation of primary federations.

American political parties are often regarded as “brokerage” organizations, weak in principle, devoid of ideology, and inclined to differ chiefly over unimportant questions. In contrast to the “ideological” parties of Europe—which supposedly appeal to their followers through sharply defined, coherent, and logically related doctrines—the American parties are thought to fit their convictions to the changing demands of the political contest. According to this view, each set of American party leaders is satisfied to play Tweedledee to the other's Tweedledum.

The Leviathan has been described as “original, persuasive, solid, coherent.” General commentaries on Hobbes usually single out his logic for special praise; more detailed critiques generally unearth a mass of confusions and inconsistencies. Confusions and inconsistencies there certainly are; more, I believe, than one would expect to find in the work of a man of such undeniable logical powers. Speculation upon the psychological explanation of this fact is intriguing, but no part of the purpose of the present article. It is part of my purpose, however, to contend that Hobbes's passion for clarity and certainty may have played a part in leading him to adopt perverse definitions, to which even he did not consistently adhere and which constituted a major source of confusion. Conversely, I disagree with those who say his analytical system is sound and only his empirical assumptions about human nature are open to serious criticism.

More specifically, one may profitably inquire whether there is some central concept that serves as a focal point for many of these difficulties. For example, it is often suggested, with merit, that Hobbes's perversion, or inversion, of the traditional meaning of “jus naturale” plays such a role. Without making any exclusive claim or denying the insights that may be gained by concentrating attention upon other focal points, my hypothesis is that understanding of Hobbes may be deepened by an examination of his use of the word “liberty.” I shall deal first with his definitions of the term, and then in turn with his applications of it to natural right and natural law, to sovereignty by acquisition, and finally to the social contract. I shall argue that his method, as illustrated by his definitions, leads him occasionally into confusion or inconsistency, and more frequently tends to confuse the reader and so to enable Hobbes to make an unsound conclusion appear sound, by means of specious reasoning. In particular, I shall contend that Hobbes's treatment of liberty (1) leads him into self-contradiction regarding the extent of natural liberty, (2) enables him to argue persuasively but speciously in support of the obligation to obey a sovereign who has attained his position by violence, and (3) prevents him from developing an acceptable theory of political obligation.

Basic concepts in political science have been used in a purely classificatory way ever since Aristotle established the sixfold classification of the forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, constitutional government, and their respective “perversions”: tyranny, oligarchy, democracy. Similarly, a modern writer distinguishes among four types of political systems: the Anglo-American, the Continental European, the pre-industrial (or partially industrial), and the totalitarian. All these are categorical concepts; a political system is either monarchical or not, either of the Anglo-American or of another type. Such key terms as influence, control, authority, power, and freedom also tend to function categorically: one actor either has or lacks power over some activity of another actor; with respect to one actor, another is either free or unfree to act in a certain way.

However, concrete political situations exhibit such characteristics to different degrees. Just as the substances we encounter in nature have varying degrees of hardness (rather than being either hard or soft), so a given political system is more, or less, totalitarian (or of the Anglo-American or of the pre-industrial type) than another. The United States and Soviet Russia have at present more power than any other country, and both are perhaps about equally powerful. Soldiers in general have less freedom than civilians, but they have more than prisoners. There can (or there cannot) be equal freedom for all.

Since we do make such assertions, the question arises whether it is possible to give them precise empirical meaning. To do so, we must replace such categorical concepts as power and freedom by the corresponding comparative concepts, e.g., “more power than,” “as much freedom as,” and provide operational definitions for these expressions.

If there is practice without theory, perhaps there is theory without practice. We have fairly fixed notions of practice without theory—action without reflection, hand-to-mouth existence, meeting problems as they arise, disdain of plans or strategy, and so on. Of theory without practice there seems but one common idea—theory that because of abstraction or irrelevance cannot be applied. Plato told us the story of Thales of Miletus who, gazing at the stars, fell into a well. A little maid laughed to see such sport. Her laughter still rings in our ears, reminding us to practice navigating the earth rather than contemplate the stars.

Theory without practice, then, seems to be theory that cannot be applied. Applied to what? Applied to problems. Which problems? Problems that arise among men or in the community. Who there defines a problem? Not to get bogged down at the start, let us say merely that some men do or that some part of the community does.

We can also conceive of a theory not being applied because it seems farfetched or too costly or immoral, or because the moment for its need is not yet at hand. These are not the main objections, even though they all have a bearing in one way or another on the ideas we are about to discuss. The main objections are usually the ones already mentioned—theory irrelevant or too abstract. Abstractness, for our purposes, can be dismissed. It means either that the theory cannot be understood—a matter of communication, we assume—or that steps are lacking to bring the theory down to the applied level. We are really back to the question of application. Either a theory has relevance but for one reason or another cannot be put into practice, or it has no relevance at all and that is the end of that.

Sigurd Burckhardt has rendered a service in providing the occasion for a thematic presentation of the principles underlying the interpretations of Shakespearean drama by Jaffa and me, to which he has taken such exception. The issue does not primarily concern literary criticism but rather has to do with the relation of art to political philosophy and, in turn, with their relation to life. Burckhardt, however, has not joined the debate on the level of the issues. He does not argue against the substance of our interpretations, and does not say wherein and why they are in error. Characteristic of his method is his offer of three statements “admittedly out of context” from my article for which he then proposes the following test: “Choose,” he says, “a jury of widely read, intelligent men, show them these statements (with the information that they are meant to describe two main characters in a play known to all of them), and then make them guess who is being talked about.” Burckhardt thinks he is “safe in claiming that there will not be a single correct identification.” The moment seems somewhat inappropriately chosen for suggesting the method of a quiz program for deciding a matter of validity. But seriously, does any scholar, however he may wish for public acceptance, make this his standard? Agreement may produce peace, but it can never by itself be a criterion of truth. In presenting my conclusions, I have a right to ask that they be tested in the light of my evidence and my arguments. In the court of scholarly judgment it is a weak argument that rests on the number of witnesses who can be summoned to support an opinion.

Censorship of Motion Pictures. A recent amendment to the New York statute dealing with the licensing of motion pictures defines as “immoral” a picture “the dominant purpose or effect of which is erotic or pornographic; or which portrays acts of sexual immorality, perversity, or lewdness, or which expressly or impliedly presents such acts as desirable, acceptable or proper patterns of behavior.” The Education Department denied a license to the distributor of “Lady Chatterley's Lover” on the finding that three scenes were “immoral.” On appeal, the Regents of the University of New York upheld the denial of the license on the broader ground that “the whole theme of this motion picture is immoral under said law, for that theme is the presentation of adultery as a desirable, acceptable and proper pattern of behavior.” In affirming the denial, the Court of Appeals unanimously and explicitly rejected any notion that the film was obscene, but found rather that the picture as a whole “alluringly portrays adultery as proper behavior,” and that the only part of the statute applicable here was that which bars films which portray “acts of sexual immorality … as desirable.” Though there was no agreement on a single opinion, the Justices were unanimous in reversing the Court of Appeals. In behalf of a bare majority, Justice Stewart argued that since the state construction took the case outside the scope of such concepts as “obscenity” or “pornography,” and did not even suggest that the film would incite to illegal action, the state has in effect prohibited the exhibition of a motion picture because it advocates an idea, that under certain circumstances adultery may be proper behavior. This runs contrary to the basic guarantee of the First Amendment, which is the “freedom to advocate ideas,” and thus the state has quite simply “struck at the very heart of constitutionally protected liberty.” For the state misconceives what the Constitution protects. “Its guarantee,” wrote Justice Stewart, “is not confined to the expression of ideas that are conventional or shared by a majority. It protects advocacy of the opinion that adultery may sometimes be proper, no less than advocacy of socialism or the single tax. And in the realm of ideas it protects expression which is eloquent no less than that which is unconvincing.” Free speech, he went on to argue, cannot be denied where advocacy falls short of incitement, and where there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy will be acted on immediately.