Mixed Signals
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Thursday 10 September 2009, 11:36 PM
Why Turing matters
The story, of course, is that Alan Turing has received an official posthumous apology from Gordon Brown. The crime of what happened to Turing cannot be righted by this or any other act, but the symbolism goes a long way to turning a single — if very deep — tragedy into something that can do a great deal of good for a long time.
It is tremendous that as a result of this, more people will know of and perhaps come to understand the importance of intellect in the service of a greater good. The story of Bletchley Park is still new and somewhat raw, but it shows the resilience and capabilities of a free society dedicated to its cause, in the face of a ferocious enemy utterly devoted to injustice and the ascendency of self-serving power.
That this story should be so intimately coupled to the subsequent injustice and abuse of power perpetrated on Turing is both ironic and important. As we approach 2010, it can be hard to imagine a society where homosexuality is criminalised and, by common consent, rightly so — but it takes very little effort to see that such ideas are still widely held, even celebrated, and by groups who claim to support the very principles of freedom, tolerance and justice that Turing helped to defend.
By officially recognising the injustice, the UK government has said what cannot be said enough: that homophobia is a terrible force that hurts those who hold it — and destroys those against whom it is aimed. We will never be free of prejudice, but we can choose not to follow it, to recognise it for what it is and to fight it. We may not have the genius of Turing to help us or the dangers of wartime to sharpen our resolve, yet we have his example and his fate to remind us why such things are utterly necessary.
With luck, the story of Turing will become part of the body of national myth which celebrates the best of our culture, warns against the worst, and so helps us decide how to behave towards ourselves and others. It's hard to think what could have more potential or lasting importance.
You don't often get to report on that.
A good day.
PreviousComments on this post
"By common consent"? Maybe, just maybe, we've got to that point here in the UK. There are plenty of countries in the world, including some that we count as our strongest allies (like the US), where the consent is a long way from common, and plenty that we seem happy to sell weapons to where the consensus is clearly that homosexuality=evil.
I just hope that we can continue our progress away from bigotry - it's got some way to go.
Is it also notable that we decided to destroy all trace of the achievements at Bletchley Park in the cause of secrecy, whereas the Americans turned their cryptography achievements into a multi-gadzillion dollar business?
Rather than bogging down this comment field with my overly-wordy reply, here's a link to the full text:
http://www.cultureghost.org/viewtopic.php?p=8569#p8569
Regards,
Fausty | www.cultureghost.org
The 'common consent' was that which powered the indecency laws, rather than the change in that consent which has happened subsequently. I do think that there is a huge cultural change - and one, moreover, that was led by the actions of people like Roy Jenkins as Home Secretary (who was also at Bletchley, curiously enough). That's worth remembering in the face of the passivity and demagogery which seems to define politics these days.
As for secrecy - Bernard Lovell was of the opinion that the secrecy surrounding the magnetron was unjustified and actively harmful (PDF), although I'm not sure I'd have been prepared to take that risk without his hindsight. But this seems to be a common theme: pace Bletchley, so much of the Cold War secrecy -- in which I think we can bundle the destruction of Collossus -- was damaging and pointless, and it's only been of late that this has been recognised.
