It is a sad commentary on sad times.
The King’s English Bookshop, a center of Salt Lake City’s literary and cultural life for almost 50 years, had planned a promotion of a new book by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. Customers were to be offered the opportunity to preorder an autographed copy of “Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt” and the store would donate up to $500 to Operation Literacy.
The owners, apparently pressured by some of their small but devoted clientele, felt the need to cancel the promotion.
As a private business, the bookshop can make whatever arrangements it wants. It is not a taxpayer-funded public institution, like the state universities that have embarrassed us all by canceling or driving away speakers who offended the state’s conservative political class. The store must think about pleasing its customer base and ensuring the safety of its staff and property.
The shop will still stock the book for sale to anyone who is interested. Just no special promotion.
For any book store to publicly back away from any opportunity to promote a local author has to be seen as a setback for the freedom of speech and a lost opportunity for people to encounter ideas they may not agree with.
The irony mounts when considering what Cox’s book — which none of us has yet read — is about.
“Off Ramp” is presented as the governor’s thoughts about ending the disquieting trend of Americans seeing other Americans as mortal enemies just because they disagree on political and cultural issues.
Cox has been thinking, and talking, about this important issue a great deal in recent years. He has had some useful ideas that have drawn attention in the national media, especially in the wake of the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk last year in Orem.
The objections to the book rollout event were apparently based on feelings that, as the governor who signed the bill that has led to the banning of dozens of books from public school libraries, and as the man who angrily dismissed as “the dumbest thing ever” the public’s legitimate concerns about the giant data center planned for Box Elder County, he has no claim to being a champion of reasonable public discourse.
Maybe. But that doesn’t mean Cox has nothing to add to the conversation.
Does he fall short of his own ideals? Clearly. It sometimes seems as though there are two Spencer Coxes out there, the Jekyll and the Hyde versions. But if we are only to take advice from people who have reached perfection in their own lives, there would be little for any of us to say. Or learn.
It is not only booksellers and universities that have to negotiate the fraught questions of polarization and the far-too-common desire, all along the political spectrum, to silence those with whom we disagree.
Hopefully, next time, when we find ourselves on the horns of such a First Amendment dilemma, we will act differently and invite all, regardless of political persuasion, to participate, listen, learn and engage.
Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.