Well said, as usual. > On Jan 9, 2015, at 8:43 AM, BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical > Centrist Community <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > NYT > The Blasphemy We Need > > January 7, 2015 > In the wake of the vicious murders > <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=span-ab-top-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news> > at the offices of the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo today, let me > offer three tentative premises about blasphemy in a free society. > > 1) The right to blaspheme (and otherwise give offense) is essential to the > liberal order. > > 2) There is no duty to blaspheme, a society’s liberty is not proportional to > the quantity of blasphemy it produces, and under many circumstances the > choice to give offense (religious and otherwise) can be reasonably criticized > as pointlessly antagonizing, needlessly cruel, or simply stupid. > > 3) The legitimacy and wisdom of criticism directed at offensive speech is > generally inversely proportional to the level of mortal danger that the > blasphemer brings upon himself. > > The first point means that laws against blasphemy (usually described these > days as “restrictions on hate speech”) are inherently illiberal. The second > point means that a certain cultural restraint about trafficking in blasphemy > is perfectly compatible with liberal norms, and that there’s nothing > illiberal about questioning the wisdom or propriety or decency of cartoons or > articles or anything else that takes a crude or bigoted swing at something > that a portion of the population holds sacred. Such questioning can certainly > shade into illiberal territory — and does > <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/opinion/sunday/ross-douthat-north-korea-and-the-speech-police.html>, > all-too-frequently — depending on exactly how much pressure is exerted and > how elastic the definition of “offensiveness” becomes. But our basic > liberties are not necessarily endangered when, say, the Anti-Defamation > League criticizes Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the Sanhedrin in “The Passion of > the Christ” or the Catholic League denounces art exhibits in the style of > “Piss Christ,” any more than they’re endangered by the absence of grotesque > caricatures of Moses or the Virgin Mary from the pages of the Washington Post > and New York Times. Liberty requires accepting the freedom to offend, yes, > but it also allows people, institutions and communities to both call for and > exercise restraint. > > In this sense I disagree slightly with Jonathan Chait’s formulation today > <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-and-the-right-to-commit-blasphemy.html> > that “one cannot defend the right [to blaspheme] without defending the > practice.” If I devoted my next blog post to a scabrous, profanity-laced > satire of the Buddha, I would not expect Chait or anyone else to immediately > leap to my defense if the Times decided to delete the post and dismiss me > from its ranks of columnists. If I ran a reactionary website that devoted > itself to recycling pre-modern calumnies against Jewish law and ritual, my > rights as an American would not be traduced if people picketed my offices and > other journalists told me I had a moral obligation to desist. And similarly, > in a cultural and political vacuum, it would be okay to think that some of > the images (anti-Islamic and otherwise) that Charlie Hebdo regularly > published, especially those chosen entirely for their shock value, > contributed little enough to public discussion that the world would not > suffer from their absence. > > But we are not in a vacuum. We are in a situation where my third point > applies, because the kind of blasphemy that Charlie Hebdo engaged in had > deadly consequences, as everyone knew it could … and that kind of blasphemy > is precisely the kind that needs to be defended, because it’s the kind that > clearly serves a free society’s greater good. If a large enough group of > someones is willing to kill you for saying something, then it’s something > that almost certainly needs to be said, because otherwise the violent have > veto power over liberal civilization, and when that scenario obtains it isn’t > really a liberal civilization any more. Again, liberalism doesn’t depend on > everyone offending everyone else all the time, and it’s okay to prefer a > society where offense for its own sake is limited rather than pervasive. But > when offenses are policed by murder, that’s when we need more of them, not > less, because the murderers cannot be allowed for a single moment to think > that their strategy can succeed. > > In this sense, many of the Western voices criticizing the editors of Hebdo > have had things exactly backward: Whether it’s the Obama White House > <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/19/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-91912> > or Time Magazine > <http://world.time.com/2011/11/02/firebombed-french-paper-a-victim-of-islamistsor-its-own-obnoxious-islamophobia/> > in the past or the Financial Times > <http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9f90f482-9672-11e4-a40b-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3O9Xo9vKk> > and (God help us) the Catholic League > <http://www.catholicleague.org/muslims-right-angry/> today, they’ve > criticized the paper for provoking violence by being needlessly offensive and > “inflammatory” (Jay Carney’s phrase), when the reality is that it’s precisely > the violence that justifies the inflammatory content. In a different context, > a context where the cartoons and other provocations only inspired angry press > releases and furious blog comments, I might sympathize with the FT’s Tony > Barber when he writes that publications like Hebdo “purport to strike a blow > for freedom when they provoke Muslims, but are actually just being stupid.” > (If all you have to fear is a religious group’s fax machine, what you’re > doing might not be as truth-to-power-ish as you think.) But if publishing > something might get you slaughtered and you publish it anyway, by definition > you are striking a blow for freedom, and that’s precisely the context when > you need your fellow citizens to set aside their squeamishness and rise to > your defense. > > Whereas far too often in the West today the situation is basically reversed: > People will invoke free speech to justify just about any kind of offense or > provocation or simple exploitation (“if we don’t go full-frontal seven times > on ‘Game of Thrones’ tonight, man, the First Amendment dies”), and then > scurry for cover as soon as there’s a whiff of actual danger > <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opinion/26douthat.html>, a hint that > “bold” envelope-pushing might require actual bravery after all. > > It’s safe to say that the late Christopher Hitchens had a more positive view > of blasphemy than the one I’ve sketched above, and a more capacious view of > the situations in which it’s worth praising and defending. But on this point > I’m in complete agreement with these words of his, from a 2006 column > <http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/02/cartoon_debate.html> > that’s made the rounds today: > > When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in 1988, he did so in the > hope of forwarding a discussion that was already opening in the Muslim world, > between extreme Quranic literalists and those who hoped that the text could > be interpreted. We know what his own reward was, and we sometimes forget that > the fatwa was directed not just against him but against “all those involved > in its publication,” which led to the murder of the book’s Japanese > translator and the near-deaths of another translator and one publisher. I > went on Crossfire at one point, to debate some spokesman for outraged faith, > and said that we on our side would happily debate the propriety of using holy > writ for literary and artistic purposes. But that we would not exchange a > word until the person on the other side of the podium had put away his gun. > > The emphasis is my own, because that’s the crucial point. Must all deliberate > offense-giving, in any context, be celebrated, honored, praised? I think not. > But in the presence of the gun — or, as in the darker chapters of my own > faith’s history, the rack or the stake — both liberalism and liberty require > that it be welcomed and defended. > > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > <http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism> > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > <http://radicalcentrism.org/> > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>.
-- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
