cartoons controversy
Having had a lot of time to watch events unfold, and to hear some of the arguments put forward on all sides, I thought I'd comment in a slightly more detailed way on the current controversy about the Danish cartoons of Muhammad.
Speaking personally, the arguments offered by many of the Islamic protestors in support of their case for censorship have struck me as extremely questionable, if not perverse.
There seem to be at least four objections that can reasonably be made against the argument for censorship. Two of those arguments have a lot of elements to them so for ease of reference I shall call them the right to offend argument, and the cultural prohibition argument. The other two arguments are less complex and deal with history, and the manufactured nature of the current protests respectively.
The right to offend
To begin with the right to offend. Something that's been affirmed in freedom of speech judgments and in numerous thoughtful commentaries is that the right to free speech has to include the right to be gratuitously offensive. What separates gratuitous offence from mild offence is far too subjective to even attempt to define in law. This has what might be regarded as unfortunate consequences, it means that commentary which is grossly offensive but falls short of a clear incitement to violence is likely to be permissible. However, this seems more desirable than attempting to exclude commentary that's 'gratuitously offensive'. The expression of atheist views, literary or news media descriptions of sexual acts or violence, and a whole range of other unexceptional activities could fall foul of such a law.
A worrying development has been UK and EU politicians suggesting that while a culture of free speech exists, newspapers were to be praised for not publishing the cartoons. This is extremely objectionable. Of course there is no obligation for papers to cause offence, but it's not the place of politicians any more than it is of religious leaders to tell newspapers what not to publish. If it's not against the law to publish something then they have no right to interfere.
My personal opinion is that when freedom of speech is endangered there may well be an obligation to cause offence, to ensure that the endangered rights are asserted.
Cultural prohibitions
A major part of the argument of the protestors, and a large strand of what some UK and EU politicians have said, is to suggest that religion should somehow be a special case. It is clearly unacceptable to create unique protections for religions. Worse than that, one can envisage situations in which protection to religions, if enacted in law, might cause irreconcilable conflicts. For instance where the very existence of a religion, or the specifics of its teachings and practices could be interpreted as causing offence to the adherents of another faith. Likewise it would be perverse and undesirable to, for instance, expose teaching of evolution to the malicious objections of Christian or other religious groups who claim it's an offence against their faith. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual communities would also be vulnerable if such a concession were allowed.
In effect what is being suggested is that within secular democracies non-faith, and the variety of faith communities should be asked to conform to a particular cultural interpretation of the religious observances of a single faith community. The absurdity of such a proposal hardly needs commenting on.
History
In recent centuries, and especially in the last fifty years, the right to a free press and to freedom of speech has been asserted many times. Work by James Joyce, DH Lawrence, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lenny Bruce and others have all faced challenges. To begin to roll back this freedom would be a retrograde step. Nor would it be acceptable to claim particular works as having 'artistic merit' and try to segregate them from 'undesirable' work. For instance, how could one make a sound legal distinction between pornography, some ancient classical paintings and sculptures, and fine art which utilises the methods and images of pornography? As individuals we cannot prohibit everything which causes personal offence to us, nor should we ask the state to act in this role.
Manufactured protest
The history of these protests is very instructive. Following publication of the cartoons, a group of radical Imams compiled a dossier of these and other cartoons which they then showed to Muslims in a number of other countries. The result was that protests only began to make an impact around three months after initial publication of the cartoons. The protests have been entirely manufactured for the specific political purposes of certain marginal Muslims.
Finally
In conclusion it seems utterly unreasonable to either expect anyone to self-censor for fear of offending extremists of any faith, or to attempt to enact laws offering special protection to religious beliefs.
Speaking personally, the arguments offered by many of the Islamic protestors in support of their case for censorship have struck me as extremely questionable, if not perverse.
There seem to be at least four objections that can reasonably be made against the argument for censorship. Two of those arguments have a lot of elements to them so for ease of reference I shall call them the right to offend argument, and the cultural prohibition argument. The other two arguments are less complex and deal with history, and the manufactured nature of the current protests respectively.
The right to offend
To begin with the right to offend. Something that's been affirmed in freedom of speech judgments and in numerous thoughtful commentaries is that the right to free speech has to include the right to be gratuitously offensive. What separates gratuitous offence from mild offence is far too subjective to even attempt to define in law. This has what might be regarded as unfortunate consequences, it means that commentary which is grossly offensive but falls short of a clear incitement to violence is likely to be permissible. However, this seems more desirable than attempting to exclude commentary that's 'gratuitously offensive'. The expression of atheist views, literary or news media descriptions of sexual acts or violence, and a whole range of other unexceptional activities could fall foul of such a law.
A worrying development has been UK and EU politicians suggesting that while a culture of free speech exists, newspapers were to be praised for not publishing the cartoons. This is extremely objectionable. Of course there is no obligation for papers to cause offence, but it's not the place of politicians any more than it is of religious leaders to tell newspapers what not to publish. If it's not against the law to publish something then they have no right to interfere.
My personal opinion is that when freedom of speech is endangered there may well be an obligation to cause offence, to ensure that the endangered rights are asserted.
Cultural prohibitions
A major part of the argument of the protestors, and a large strand of what some UK and EU politicians have said, is to suggest that religion should somehow be a special case. It is clearly unacceptable to create unique protections for religions. Worse than that, one can envisage situations in which protection to religions, if enacted in law, might cause irreconcilable conflicts. For instance where the very existence of a religion, or the specifics of its teachings and practices could be interpreted as causing offence to the adherents of another faith. Likewise it would be perverse and undesirable to, for instance, expose teaching of evolution to the malicious objections of Christian or other religious groups who claim it's an offence against their faith. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual communities would also be vulnerable if such a concession were allowed.
In effect what is being suggested is that within secular democracies non-faith, and the variety of faith communities should be asked to conform to a particular cultural interpretation of the religious observances of a single faith community. The absurdity of such a proposal hardly needs commenting on.
History
In recent centuries, and especially in the last fifty years, the right to a free press and to freedom of speech has been asserted many times. Work by James Joyce, DH Lawrence, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lenny Bruce and others have all faced challenges. To begin to roll back this freedom would be a retrograde step. Nor would it be acceptable to claim particular works as having 'artistic merit' and try to segregate them from 'undesirable' work. For instance, how could one make a sound legal distinction between pornography, some ancient classical paintings and sculptures, and fine art which utilises the methods and images of pornography? As individuals we cannot prohibit everything which causes personal offence to us, nor should we ask the state to act in this role.
Manufactured protest
The history of these protests is very instructive. Following publication of the cartoons, a group of radical Imams compiled a dossier of these and other cartoons which they then showed to Muslims in a number of other countries. The result was that protests only began to make an impact around three months after initial publication of the cartoons. The protests have been entirely manufactured for the specific political purposes of certain marginal Muslims.
Finally
In conclusion it seems utterly unreasonable to either expect anyone to self-censor for fear of offending extremists of any faith, or to attempt to enact laws offering special protection to religious beliefs.
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