I recently returned from a trip to Germany and France, where my husband and I saw many sights, walked many miles, and ate a lot of deliciousness! We visited friends old and new, as well as our daughter, who has recently relocated to Berlin. It was a very active 12 days. No relaxation here! But my mind was engaged on a different plane than usual, so it afforded me a mental getaway.

I grew up hearing about “the Iron Curtain” on a regular basis, so we had to see some East Berlin sights. We walked to Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate, and visited the DDR Museum, billed as “the largest, most interactive and diverse exhibition focusing on the GDR in Berlin.” In a not-quite-large-enough space (was that the point? to make us feel cramped and penned in?) there were many intriguing artifacts, as well as a re-creation of a kitchy East Berlin flat, complete with manual typewriter (which younger people took great delight in).

We walked to the museum after taking the U-Bahn (highly recommend it!) to Alexanderplatz, site of the largest demonstration critical of Soviet rule. This mass gathering on November 4, 1989 was organized by activists and artists—writers, actors directors—who understood the galvanizing power of a few good speeches. Five days later, the Berlin Wall fell.

Words can lead to great change, even regime change! Which is why freedom of expression has been recognized as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. And is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution.

Yet we need to be vigilant, and guard against devious exploitation of this freedom. Because today there are speakers, silver-tongued or fire-breathing, who lead the vulnerable and gullible down dangerous paths to personal and communal ruin. So we must be constantly engaged in the essential, unsexy part of communication—critical listening. Critical, as in: thinking, analyzing, synthesizing.

Ben Franklin said that here in America, we have created for ourselves “a republic, if you can keep it.” It’s a challenge we’re continually living into. But there’s a big world out there—with plenty of lessons to learn from.