is not very valuable. Yet, that is seems to be the default position of those who appear more interested in condemning Jyllands-Posten and the newspapers that republished the cartoons of Mohammed that, according to The New York Times (which refused to publish them), are "relatively mild stuff." (Warning: the website hosting the cartoons is politically objectionable, but I haven't found another site that makes them individually available.)
Before arguing with the right-to-be-inoffensive brigade, let's begin with an antidote to that view from Irshad Manji, winner of Oprah Winfrey's first annual Chutzpah Award for "audacity, nerve, boldness and conviction." Among other things, it makes the point that sometimes humor, even mockery, makes a positive contribution to public discourse. In Impure Islam, Manji writes:
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When Muslims put the Prophet on a pedestal, we're engaging in idolatry of our own. The point of monotheism is to worship one God, not one of God's emissaries. Which is why humility requires people of faith to mock themselves - and each other - every once in a while.
Here's my attempt: A priest, a rabbi, and a mullah meet at a conference about religion, and afterward are sitting around discussing their different faiths. The conversation turns to the topic of taboos.
The priest says to the rabbi and the mullah, "You guys can't tell me that you've never eaten pork."
"Never!" intones the rabbi. "Absolutely not!" insists the mullah.
But the priest is skeptical. "Come on, not even once? Maybe in a fit of rebellion when you were younger?"
"Okay," confesses the rabbi. "When I was young, I once nibbled on bacon."
"I admit it," the mullah laughs (not excessively). "In a fit of youthful arrogance, I sampled a pork chop."
Then the conversation turns to the priest's religious observances.
"You can't tell me you've never had sex," says the mullah.
"Of course not!" the priest protests. "I took a vow of chastity."
The mullah and the rabbi roll their eyes.
"Maybe after a few drinks?" the rabbi teases.
"Perhaps, in a moment of temptation, your faith waned?" the mullah wonders.
"Okay," the priest confesses. "Once, when I was drunk in seminary school, I had sexual relations with a woman."
"Beats pork, huh?" say the rabbi and the mullah.
Clearly, I'm as impure a feminist as I am a Muslim. The difference is, offended feminists won't threaten to kill me. The same can't be said for many of my fellow Muslims.
Jonathan Rauch identified the right-to-be-inoffensive tendency in the response to Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa calling for the murder of Salman Rusdie on account of his book, The Satanic Verses. (As Oliver Kamm puts it, Rushdie was sentenced to death "for the crime of writing a novel.") In Kindly Inquisitors, Rauch wrote:
[T]he Rusdie affair was a defining moment. It showed how Westerners could be backed away from a fundamental principle of intellectual liberalism, namely that there is nothing whatever wrong with offending--hurting people's feelings--in the pursuit of truth. That principle seemed to have been displaced by a belief in the right not to be offended . . .
Against this, Rauch maintains:
If we follow this path, then we accept Khomeini's verdict, and we are merely haggling with him over the sentence. If we follow it, then we accept that in principle what is offensive should be suppressed, and we are fighting over what it is . . . that is offensive.
This is not the right path. Kamm argues:
Free speech does cause hurt, and - other than in cases of incitement to crime (as with the disgraceful demonstrations outside the Danish embassy in London last Friday) - we should accept that there is nothing wrong in this. Those who find their religious beliefs offended may be offered sympathy on a personal level . . . ; they are entitled to no restitution whatsoever in public policy.
(I may be somewhat less absolutist than Kamm [although I don't know his entire position]. On the one hand, I think one should avoid needlessly or gratuitously offending others, and not just in respect of their religious sensibilities. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with public policy affirming that certain kinds of offending speech, e.g., racist slurs, while protected by free speech rights, expresses values that the public abhors.)
Matthew Parris, a columnist in The Times notes that Muslims are not the only ones with thin skins:
Muslims are not alone in this. I really hate the way some Israelis and their apologists become angry and rude whenever the state of Israel is criticised; the interviewees who jump down their interviewer''s throat the moment they dislike a line of questioning about Palestine; the readers who write ---- themselves offensively ---- to allege anti-Semitism when none was felt or intended, or bark at you if you talk about their ""wall"" rather than ""fence"".
[snip]
Many Turks react with similar aggression when the massacre of Armenians is mentioned. One takes care not to say ""genocide"" not because it wasn''t a genocide but because one cannot bear the prospect of all the furious letters from Turkish sympathisers. The Greek Cypriot lobby are equally explosive in their sensitivities. Having shot at, murdered and bombed the British when we were on the island, then oppressed the Turkish Cypriots, they begin the most almighty wail if anyone shows the least sympathy for the Turkish Cypriot cause, let alone says ""Turkish coffee"" instead of ""Greek coffee"". . . .
Parris goes on to provide a cogent argument for why giving offense sometimes is not merely permissible, it's necessary:
[A] conclusion some draw is that for the sake of a quiet life we might as well refrain from voicing criticisms we may feel towards any supersensitive group or cause, because our private thoughts, our private arguments, and those of our readers, remain our own, and uncensored. Others draw the conclusion that we should at least avoid gratuitous insults ---- the ""damn your God"" as opposed to the ""I doubt His existence "" expressions ---- because they hurt real, decent people. . . .
The approach is tempting. It avoids hurt. But it overlooks, in the evolution of belief, the key role played by mockery. Many faiths and ideologies achieve and maintain their predominance partly through fear. They, of course, would call it ""respect"". But whatever you call it, it intimidates. The reverence, the awe ---- even the dread ---- that their gods, their KGB or their priesthoods demand and inspire among the laity are vital to the authority they wield.
Against reverence and awe the best argument is sometimes not logic, but mockery. Structures of oppression that may not be susceptible to rational debate may in the end yield to derision. When people see that a priest, rabbi, imam or uniformed official may be giggled at without lightning striking the impertinent, arguments may be won on a deeper level than logic.
Isn't this the power of John Stewart, The Onion, and others?
Time for another humor break:
Some have argued that Muslims did not expect that the price of admission to the western world "also required them to tolerate the ridicule of their faith." To which Norman Geras replies:
Accepting ridicule of our most cherished beliefs is a price everyone else in a secular democracy has to live with.
In conclusion, let my try to restate my position:
- While gratuitous or needlessly offensive speech is wrong, offensiveness by itself is not a reason to prohibit, punish, or even criticize speech.
- In the case of the "Danish cartoons," what is to be condemned is the violent reaction to their publication, not the publication itself.
- If the intention behind publication of the cartoons had been to make fun of Muslims or to stir up hatred against them, then their publication would be worthy of condemnation, but that would not begin to excuse the violent response.