Dr. Christian Müller-Straten wrote:

"Before getting into another discussion about a wonderful chaotic idea, I
would like to remind all in favour of unauthorized tours that such group
tours by real persons from the outside are forbidden in many museums
allover the world to prevent the worst..." 

Really? Where are these tours forbidden? How do you forbid them? How can you be certain that what is being forbidden in such museums is not what is provably wrong, but rather opinions that the authorities don't want to be aired (and how do you stop the one sliding inexorably into the other)? I'm not trying to be critical here, but this really surprised me.

"Have you forgotten the conflicts with the museums missions?"

I'm not sure what is meant here, but I certainly don't see it as part of any museum's mission to be policing what their visitors say or think.

Diane G. wrote:
"Perhaps this is a particularly American attitude..."

Maybe particularly American, but not exclusively so!

I think I'm with Woodrow Wilson on this question:
"I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking. It cannot be so easily discovered if you allow him to remain silent and look wise, but if you let him speak, the secret is out and the world knows that he is a fool. So it is by the exposure of folly that it is defeated; not by the seclusion of folly, and in this free air of free speech men get into that sort of communication with one another which constitutes the basis of all common achievement."

Best wishes

Pete
-- 
Peter M Gray
Museums Officer


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