A Tonic
For a restorative, there is this from Delaware.
In the end, the cartoon battle is not about respect or disrespect. The fundamental conflict behind the rioting is over the idea of blasphemy. That requires belief. But you cannot blaspheme what you don’t believe in. Islamists demand that laws punish blasphemers. That cannot be done in secular societies. How can a society be free if the law requires you to believe?
And there is Ayaan, peace, freedom and secularism be upon her.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali said it was “correct to publish the cartoons” in Jyllands Posten and “right to republish them”…Ms Hirsi Ali, speaking in Berlin, said that “today the open society is challenged by Islamism”. She added: “Within Islam exists a hardline Islamist movement that rejects democratic freedoms and wants to destroy them.” Ms Hirsi Ali criticised European leaders for not standing by Denmark and urged politicians to stop appeasing fundamentalists. She also said that although the Prophet Muhammad did a lot of good things, his decree that homosexuals and apostates should be killed was incompatible with democracy…Ms Hirsi Ali said the furore over the cartoons had exposed the fear among artists and journalists in Europe to “analyse or criticise intolerant aspects of Islam”.
Artists, journalists, and politicians. Which is worrying.
>>How can a society be free if the law requires you to believe?<< Sometimes I see something I find very pleasing: the least possible use of words that sum up the exact point to be made. This, to me, is one of those. And, I suspect that those who are trying to silence the rest of us with threats of violence appreciate the point as well. Which is why, I think, that they keep telling us of the ‘responsibilies’ that go with free speech i.e. the responsibility not to be offensive:i.e to counter the problem that otherwise their demands would destroy freedom, they have done us the favour of only modifying an existing one. How thoughtful of them. Thanks guys. Firstly, how the hell do they know anything about free speech anyway. (perhaps that is just a cheap shot, but no apologies from me) Secondly, I was always under the impression that the responsibility was on me not to take offence (or at least deal with it in a civil manner) when someone else speaks. For the simple reason that that is what I am entitlted to expect from them when I speak. This new version of theirs where the burden is back to front is a new one on me. It just cannot work. Can’t they see that? Perhaps they are all blindfolded as well as gagged. Good grief. Blindfolded and gagged delusionsists running around firing off weapons whenever they hear anything offensive. Conclusion. Compulsory earplugs as well for all believers.
“You can’t blaspheme what you don’t believe in.”
Just for the sake of accuracy, let me ask: since when does committing blasphemy require the blasphemer to believe in anything? One assumes that the political will behind blasphemy legislation is religiously motivated, but I guarantee that any atheist who is caught speaking against Mohammed in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia will be put on trial for blasphemy (among other things). Given that we are speaking of making blasphemy a crime, I don’t have to be a believer in order to blaspheme any more than I have to “believe” in the right to property in order to be convicted of theft! In addition, it is ludicrous to think that belief could be legislated. At most, the law can force me to pretend to believe. All that being said, the right to free speech has social costs, but it is worth those costs. The right to criticise and ridicule religion is especially important, given the profoundly oppressive power of religion.
Back when the church in Europe was having its fun torturing and killing unbelievers, it didn’t go around claiming they’d offended anyone’s feelings. They did what they did because they had the power to enforce the claim that their dogma was objective truth and admitting any doubt about that could get you killed.
Maybe today you can get away with claiming you can’t be blaspheming if you don’t believe, but such an idea doesn’t yet have the centuries of tradition behind it that, er, some others do.
As a matter of brute fact, of course, one can commit ‘blasphemy’ without believing. But as a matter of considering what the word is supposed to mean, it’s another matter.
1) According to the online Merriam-Websters (http://www.m-w.com/home.htm), one meaning of blasphemy is “the act of claiming the attributes of deity”. Since Christians believe Jesus to be God, and Muslims believe him to be merely a great prophet, then surely Muslims must think Christianity is blasphemy?
2) M-W also gives another definition: “irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable ” which I think is the sense Muslims use when condemning the famous carottons. Now, suppose I was a Satanist. Must I not consider Christianity and Islam to have blasphmeous attitudes towards my deity? In which case, can I not sue all followers of these religions when a law is passed against insulting my religious feelings?
Remember the Vatican in an eaelier item on this page: “The right of freedom of thought and of expression, as contained in the Declaration of Human Rights, cannot imply the right to offend the religious feelings of believers.” That goes for believers in Satanism too.
Which brings me to Mark Twain: “I have no special regard for Satan; but, I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French. “
Note the careful impersonality of the M-W definition – the same impersonality I pointed at in quoting someone last week. ‘something considered sacred or inviolable’ – yes but considered by whom? That’s the crucial point, obviously, and the M-W simply sidesteps it. The omission of a subject to do the considering simply implies (without stating, so with deniability) that the considering is universal. Well, it isn’t, and it can’t be assumed to be. That’s precisely the problem.
Great Twain quotation.
Ophelia:
I would disagree with you on the universality issue. If you think about it, there is nothing considered sacred or inviolable by everyone, so for the concept to have any utility it should read “”irreverence toward something considered by someone to be sacred or inviolable ” . Of couse that makes it rather obvious that blasphemy is in the eye of the beholder and opens the possibility that it exists only in the eye of the beholder, a frightening possibility to the devout.