The Limits and Duties of the Distant Observer
There is a peculiar instruction I receive almost daily, and it always arrives in the same imperative tone. Do not interfere in American affairs. Do not interfere in European affairs. And, since I no longer live there, do not interfere in Russian affairs either. The logic, such as it is, runs like this: a person who lives abroad has forfeited the right to an opinion about the countries he watches from a distance, and any judgment he offers is an impertinence at best and a hostile intrusion at worst. I want to take this demand seriously, because beneath its surface lies a genuine question about who is entitled to speak, and about what honesty requires of anyone who does. My answer comes in two parts that may at first seem to pull against each other. The first is that the demand for silence is not modesty but censorship. The second is that the freedom to speak does not license one to say anything at all; it comes attached to duties that are easy to evade and important to honor. ...