Now some of our most eminent scientists, including Stephen Hawking, want Turing’s conviction overturned, erased from the record.
Does this do any good? Doesn’t it devalue the battle that has been fought for 40 years by gay rights campaigners, for legality and, later, equality under the law, to suggest that Turing’s case was a grotesque anomaly, an isolated instance of prejudice by a reactionary state, which can be suddenly put right by an emollient statement from the prime minister?
If we pardon Turing retrospectively, shouldn’t we also pardon convicted homosexuals who were not possessed of genius — who were, to put it bluntly, a bit thick, or completely useless? The boring, workaday clerks and the bus drivers and the plumbers and the greengrocers, who were subjected to treatment no less horrible. Should brilliance — and Turing certainly possessed that — make someone a special case under the law, deserving of different treatment?
I fear that this replaces one prejudice with another; I suspect that the scientists who are demanding this pardon think of themselves as exceptions, distinct from the masses, caviar to the general. They believe that, as a consequence of their learning, they stride above the morass and should be dealt with differently...
Rod Liddle, The Sunday Times.
It's rare that I agree with Rod Liddle, but he's quite right in the above.
I can see no good that an official posthumous pardon would do.
Will Turing rise from his grave and say "thank you"?
What happened to Alan was a great crime, but it happened to thousands of other men, their names not known.
You could even argue Turing got special treatment, by not being sent to prison.
It is also unclear if he commited suicide, or if so for what reason.
Here's a link to the Telegraph on the letter that Hawking co-signed - proof that genius can still be vacuous.
I bet Alan Turing would think this was all a bunch of stuff and nonsense that boils no cabbages, and then went back to work.
Posts
