http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/03/art.religion?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
[...]
Doughty defenders of free speech will have no truck with such
quibbling. They insist on a right to offend, wheeling out John Stuart
Mill's venerable "harm principle" to clinch the case: "The only
purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of
a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
others." And, no, "mere offence" does not constitute harm.
There are two problems with this simple view. Saying that we have a
right to offend skips over the question of whether we are right to
offend. I have a right to tell random strangers that I think they're
ugly, or that they have terrible taste in clothes, but it would be
wrong of me to exercise that right, and not just because of the pots
and kettles principle.
But isn't mockery good, and any belief system incapable of putting up
with it deficient in some way? That's true, but you can't just ignore
the background against which lampooning takes place. Christians, for
example, are not oppressed, despite what some wannabe martyrs would
have us believe. British Muslims, in contrast, are a somewhat
beleaguered minority. We should think twice before mocking them
because, while comedy speaking truth to power is funny, the powerful
laughing at the weak is not. The difference is only subtle to those
too dunderheaded to spot the obvious. Witness Alan Partridge asking a
Jewish comedian who uses Jewish humour to "tell us a joke about Jews".
That does not mean that we should never do anything that causes
Muslims offence, or that shows Islam in a bad light, of course; only
that we should not do so lightly. The choice is not between an all-out
offence offensive and craven silence.
The other reason absolutist claims for speech acts are misguided is
that we don't just utter words, we do things with them, as the Oxford
philosopher JL Austin put it. When words belittle or mock, they can
reinforce prejudice and hierarchies that have very real effects on
people's lives. Mockery of those already on the margins can shore up
the very barriers that limit their life chances.
Free speech is indeed precious, but that doesn't mean that we have to
defend without qualification every moron who abuses it.
[...]
--ravi
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