Thou shalt not question the wisdom of Stephen Fry

[venta]

A while ago, I saw someone on my friends list posting something which basically said "here's what I think about this issue, and I'm a little confused by it, what are your thoughts?"

It's a very disconcerting thing to find yourself thinking something, but not to be sure whether you're entirely comfortable with your own opinions, or whether someone could easily shoot them down in flames.

Recently the sainted Stephen Fry brought to my attention the following petition:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to apologize for the prosecution of Alan Turing that led to his untimely death."

(Which is here, if you wish to sign it/read it/etc.)

Now, I think Alan Turing is someone to whom much more general accolade is due. I also think that his prosecution for gross indecency (read: being gay) and subsequent "treatment" were disgusting and shouldn't happen to anyone. But I don't think asking one G Brown to apologise for it makes any sense at all.

Firstly, I don't think[*] that the conviction itself is unreasonable. Turing was convicted of something which was, at the time, illegal - and would remain so for another fifteen years[**]. That later generations judge the law to have been unreasonable, immoral and wrong is neither here nor there. Appeals for - say - a posthumous pardon of Ruth Ellis have been denied on the grounds that although she might not now be convicted of murder; she was fairly convicted under the law of the time. You simply can't apply today's laws to history.

Secondly, I don't really understand the function of these post-dated apologies. When people called for Tony Blair to apologise to the French for Waterloo, I was just as nonplussed by that. (And, for the record, had the French won that particular round I'd have been as underwhelmed by the idea that M. Sarcozy should apologise to the English.)

Yes, Gordon Brown is the representative of the system that hounded Turing to his death. And yes, I presume there may be friends or relatives of Turing who might find comfort in the idea that that system admits it was wrong to do so. But isn't the changing of the law forty years ago just that admission ?

I think Turing was a genius; more people should (as the petition says) "recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany". He should be more widely known, and his life and work should be celebrated. But if the PM is to make a public statement and draw people's attention, isn't it better to leave them thinking "Turing, father of computer science" rather than "Turing, bloke who was prosecuted for being gay" ?

That someone so brilliant could lose their job, reputation and, ultimately, life over their choice of sexual partners makes me very sad. I wish I could shuffle time forty years so Turing could live in a world that didn't mind what he did in between inventing universal machines. I wish I could reach back and tell him that he'd be remembered as a great man, not as a humiliated one. I wish that things had not happened as they did, and an apology written by an underling and read out by Gordon Brown will not change that at all.

[*] This is one of the bits I'm confused about. I can respect people who resist an unfair law, but I don't think it's necessarily reasonable to demonise people who obey it.
[**] I had to look up when homosexuality was legalised in the UK, and realised that although it was in 1967 in England and Wales, it wasn't til 1980 in Scotland. 1980! And 1982 in N Ireland. Maybe you're all smart people who knew that. I didn't.

Comments

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think I'm pretty much with you; there are lots of more current issues which should be addressed, and issueing an apology to a dead person from someone who had nothing to do with it seems a bit pointless.

Here, have a faintly amusing anecdote about something tangentially related; a few years ago, the Vatican decided to apologise for the Inquisitions, and they organised a conference on the subject. What with my dad being a "leading Catholic Historian" and a bit of an expert in both the Reformation and the history of the papacy, they invited him to come along and give a paper on the inquisitions in England and ireland, in order that they might know properly what they were apologising for.
He replied, pointing out that while he was quite happy to do so if they liked (they were going to pay his costs and so on), it would be rather a short paper, given that there was't an Inquisition in England or Ireland.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

I agree that apologising for one's ancestors and so on doesn't make sense. I suppose one could argue that apologising on behalf of the British Government is comparable to other occasions where an organisation has done something (e.g., we still generally consider companies to be responsible for past deeds, even if the people that form the company have changed over the years).

I think it's fair to criticise bad laws and other actions of the past. True, we can't criticise the police back then for just doing their jobs, but the Government was the one that makes the rules.

But yes, I see the point that there's nothing special about Turing here - one could just as much argue that everyone convicted under homosexuality laws should be pardoned, or indeed for any law that's overturned. (Although then again, perhaps raising publicity over Turing's case helps raise awareness for all such cases.)

But this now makes me wonder - whilst posthumous pardons are pretty much just symbolic, what happens if a law is repealed, and someone is still in prison at the time? I suppose there's some argument that they should have obeyed the law whilst the law existed - on the other hand, if it's agreed that a law was wrong, it seems wrong to me to continue to keep those people in prison (also consider an extreme case where one Government manages to pass some draconian law and locks up a load of people for life - should they not be released even when a future Government changes the law?)

But yes, in summary I share confusion over this issue (I signed it anyway, as I agree with the general spirit of raising awareness over the issues, but I won't lose any sleep if Gordon Brown doesn't give the apology).

[zotz]

The removal of his security clearance was probably of at least as much importance, and (it's often said) a lot more given the importance of his work. The blanket ruling that you couldn't be gay and have clearance seems odd - it goes further than just worrying about blackmail, because having been prosecuted he could no longer be threatened with exposure. It's past the mere application of the criminal law at that point.

It has long been said (possibly without justification, I don't know) that this policy was at the FBI's insistence. If true, it would be very galling given what's now known about J Edgar Hoover.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

I'm in favour of the apology. As you pointed out yourself, it's from the system rather than Gordon Brown per se.

And I think it's more an apology for the system being what it was, rather than an indictment of those who followed it's prescriptions as to how Turing should have been treated (although the phrase 'just following orders' does spring to mind..)

I do know a number of people who are aware of his work, but who weren't until recently aware of the persecution, and I think both sides of the story need to be told.

But to be honest, it just seems at a gut level to be "the right thing to do."

[maviscruet.livejournal.com]

I'm broadly against retro-ative apologies because they don't seem to do anything really.

However just because something was legal then does not mean we can not look at it now and go "oh god!" slavery being the prime example.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree with you. What happened to Turing was awful, but it was because the laws of the time were so. I don't feel representatives of today's government should be apologising. And likewise for other historical issues.

In general I wish that people wouldn't obsess with the past so much or try to request apologies for people that they can't matter to any more (being dead and all). Yes, a looking back and saying "That was terrible, it's such a good thing that everything's changed since then" is great, but I'd rather there was more focus on the present and the future.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

These sorts of things used to seem a little baffling to me, but these days I find them much less surprising. The reason is, it's basically copycat behaviour. At some point (and my knowledge of the history of modern activism is way too hazy to know when) someone kicked off the first such campaign. The first one I really noticed was various governments being asked to apologise for the slave trade. This behaviour generates some free publicity and you either get to make some officials grovel a bit or you get to make them look bad, all at pretty much zero cost. What's not to like?

For as long as this sort of thing never generates any kind of backlash beyond vague puzzlement it's likely to continue. Evolution in action! I might even let someone get away with calling it a meme if they really must. ;-)

[ewx.livejournal.com]

In some cases an apology for some (distant) past wrong is seen as a first step towards compensation, payable to the descendants of the people wronged or perhaps to a government which claims to be their representatives. Obviously this makes the possibility of an apology more or less attractive depending whether you're going to be receiving or making it...

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

It's a bit much asking Brown to apologise when (for all its many faults) the Labour govt (prodded where necessary by the ECHR) has really done pretty well on anti-discrimination legislation, age of consent stuff, civil partnerships, and so forth. I can understand using something like this to push a government that wasn't doing enough to ensure that what happened to Alan Turing couldn't happen again. I realise that he's being asked to apologise on behalf of an institution, not a government, but still.

[john-the-hat.livejournal.com]

I agree. Re-interpreting historical actions on the basis of the laws now is an interesting slippery slope that would result in a lot of people being retrospectively done for child abuse of various kinds, from workhouses and illegal marriages, people being done for domestic abuse, fox hunting, badger baiting, cock fighting, quite apart from a good part of the aristocracy being dug up and done for war crimes...

There have been, in the past, a lot of unjust laws (there still are a fair few). Hopefully (Ha!) later generations will correct the mistakes of their predecessors. However laws are a writing of the societal norms of the time, and should be regrded as such...

I think an award to Mr Turing for services to his country would send the right message however.

on the other hand, if one was an immortal institution (say, the church) which had done some seriously questionable acts (e.g. spanish inquisition) then it appears reasonable for the church to say "yup, that was really wrong". On this basis it appears reasonable for another immortal institution (HMG) to state the same.

Unfortunately, unlike victims of the spanish inquisition, same of the victims of HMG might still be alive, in which case if they apologised it would be compensation lawsuit after lawsuit for years to come...

[panzerpenguin.livejournal.com]

Who were these wretched 'people' were suggesting we apologise for finishing off the Corsican Ogre in 1815, to the general relief and rejoicing of all Europe?

Rather, if we are going down that road, we should apologise for saving the bloody French and the bogus Belgian state (a chunk of pillaged Dutch territory, run by a Francophone elite who denied the Flemish majority even official status for their own language until after WW1; a state whose main 'achievement' in less than a century of existence had been to become the most callous and bloodthirsty of all European colonial powers) from their richly deserved humiliation in the First World War (thereby extending the war into a four-year bloodbath of millions that laid waste to civilisation across a whole continent, and gave birth to the Soviet Union, the Second World War and other epic horrors); or indeed for siding with the French and the obscene genocidal Turks in the Crimean War.

Ah, that's better. And breathe...

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

I read a quote from the instigator of the petition who basically said 'I know this isn't going to lead to anything but I did it as a way to get Turing's achievements more widely known' so I'm not sure he considers an actual apology a very important element of it.

I had a problem with the petition too.

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

I do think an apology for the way Turing was treated after his conviction and recognised, is merited in this case and the petition seems to be the only avenue for that pressure to get him 'officially rehabilitated', though civil service rather than government action seems required.

As I explained to a friend, I don't think apologising for the legislation is worthwhile or how I'd like any government to spend its time (they wouldn't get round to much else if I remember old divorce law etc correctly). The apology for legislation and civilised progress lies in the repeal; the business of government is not spending taxpayers' time apologising for the domestic laws enacted and repealed by previous governments, both according to the will of the people of the time. The changed 'will of the people at large' (eventually) led to the minorities being endowed with legal rights in democracies such as ours, but the prevailing culture led to the oppressive legislation; inasmuch as the legislation expressed popular social and religious mores of its time, it doesn't seem appropriate for a democratic government to apologise to it's citizens for since-repealed legislation of a previous democratic parliament which expressed the citizenry's (less laudable) contemporary views.

However, in the end I signed the petition despite its wording, as I don't think there's a rats chance in a cattery of the goverment apologising for the legislation.

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

I've never really seen the point of ritual apologies for historical events. There are a number of things for which Gordon Brown should apologise - things which he personally, or the present government which he represents, have done wrong. But precocious as Brown was, even he couldn't be blamed for a prosecution which occurred when he was a babe in arms; a prosecution which was valid under the laws of the time, even if we now see that those laws were unjust.
Besides, focussing on a apology lets politicians off too lightly - it would be all too easy for them to think "we've apologised, so that's all right then" rather than being forced to take real action to ensure that such injustice is not perpetuated today.

Yes, Alan Turing deserved, and deserves, better of his country - a country whose freedom he played a key role in preserving. We should celebrate his achievements, and recognise the injustice of his treatment. But not by a token apology.

Post dated apologies.

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

Mmmm....I had similar feelings about the desire to get every man and woman in the UK to apologise for slavery 'cos....like... we invented it?

Well yes,but I didn't have anything to do with it. Did I? So why should I apologise?

http://thegreenman.livejournal.com/7764.html

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

As you say, the current government is in some ways responsible for the actions of previous governments, over which it had no control or even influence. There is a continuity of the institution, regardless of the personnel. Just for an extreme example, if this were not the case, then governments would not be able to borrow money with any credibility, because the other party wouldn't have to pay it back.

So an apology "by Gordon Brown", on behalf of the government, is significant inasmuch as the government saying anything about the past is significant. Me apologising for slavery would be rather different - I didn't do it, and neither did any person or institution whom I represent (although arguably I have benefited, so I could somewhat apologise for that).

At some point, some UK government should acknowledge that what happened to Turing was wrong. Quite aside from Turing's nearest and dearest, *I* would draw comfort from knowing that my government is willing to admit firstly that Britain institutionalised homophobia within living memory, and secondly that they're conscious that things should be otherwise. Gordon Brown himself was raised in a society which designated gay men criminals. The established church of this country has great difficulty with the concept of gay men being fit to hold positions of responsibility within it. If Brown can't state an opinion on that, surely it means something whether or not our Prime Minister can even bring himself to describe Turing's prosecution as wrong?

I don't think that changing the law automatically achieves the same as an active effort to address the past. And I don't even know whether any previous government has made statements about Turing. If you're right that the desired apology has already been made, then Number 10 could perhaps respond to the petition saying, "the UK government certainly has apologised and continues to do so - the Act which changed the law made it clear that prosecutions for homosexuality of Turing and others were barbaric and would not continue, and we stand by that". Easy, as long as they really are happy to stand by that position. If they're worried that such strong language would offend governments where homosexuality is still illegal, then IMO all the more reason to at least say something.

Even within the UK, those who actually approve of Turing's prosecution (or other sanctions or prejudices against gay men) can think to themselves, "he broke the law, he was punished, he was not a victim, nothing at all wrong with that, and the government agrees with me". Whereas I feel (granted, largely on the evidence of a sympathetic biography) that Turing was driven to depression and suicide via a drug-based "punishment" for a victimless crime which we now believe to have been criminal only as a reflection of the bigotry of the society of the time.

I think there is something very wrong with that. Interpretations of historical events are normative for how we interpret current events, both regarding homosexuality and regarding the possibility of current laws being considered unjust. The position that "if it's the law, it's OK, if it's illegal it's wrong" abrogates responsibility for trying to change the law where we don't agree with it, and also for disobeying unjust orders and shaking off institutionalised prejudices.

So I do think that it is fair--even a responsibility--to criticise individuals for participating in bigotry, and society for collectively choosing criminal law as the means to enact bigotry. I'm happy to criticise those who participated in systems we now consider unjust, and I'm resigned that I will be criticised in turn by future societies (or, for example, by those Americans who think I'm participating in an oppressive regime which unjustly denies British citizens access to firearms). I just can't be bothered to apply either total moral relativism ("witch-burnings were fine, society just didn't trust women in those days, and such executions were the natural and lawful result") or total moral absolutism ("the current law of the UK is perfect, and it goes without saying that any past differences were unjust"). It shouldn't go without saying.