Blasphemy Rocks
Someone should have said this long ago.
Something terribly important has been missing from discussions orbiting around the Mohammed cartoons…What’s been missing has been an acknowledgment that blasphemy isn’t just something that must be tolerated. It’s something that possesses a special political value of its own. Blasphemy, in short, is a good thing. It’s something admirable, noble, and, yes, even respectable.
Actually…now you mention it…somebody ought to start a magazine called Blasphemy. And mean it.
It must be stated and stated unequivocally that it’s no more improper in healthy democratic discourse to ridicule religious figures and ideas (even core ideas) than it is to criticize and mock (other) politically important figures and ideas…Formally speaking, in democratic discourse there’s nothing special about religious doctrines. Like other ideologies, religion instructs and even commands people about what they should value and how they should conduct themselves…Many clerics actually tell their congregations how to vote. It’s simply not acceptable for a participant to enter public debate, have such a powerful effect upon it, and then claim immunity from the sort of treatment to which other participants are subject.
Exactly! They don’t get to mix it up so thoroughly in public debate and then demand immunity. They don’t get to dive head-first into the profane and then demand (with threats and menaces) to be treated as sacred.
The article is in an Open Debate at TPM: you can reply to it, and Peter Fosl will reply to three of the best, which will (I think, although it doesn’t say that on the page) be published in the magazine.
Absolutely. And blasphemy has a great deal to recommend it, really, even *beyond* being noble, admirable ‘n all that. I mean, it’s also:
1) Fun. At least if no one stones you.
2) Easy. Most ‘gods’ and their followers are so incredibly easily annoyed. Mohammed, hell, just draw his picture. Presumably, even a stick man with ‘Mohammed’ beneath it (with props to Fafblog) will do. For Jesus, you can either a) go the more thoughtful road, and point out that he’s probably largely a tormented mosaic of a hanful of other largely forgotten gods with, just possibly, a few traces of an actual historical and largely unremarkable earthly schmuck thrown in, or b) go for the cheap laugh and ask what kind of loser god goes and gets himself crucified by a coupla measly Romans anyway… I mean, what? This creator of the universe hasn’t even got the phone number of a decent lawer?
(Hmm… There’s probably a good lawyer joke in that. Anyway… Where was I… Oh yes…)
3) At least *occasionally* profitable. If the book catches on. And, again, if no one stones you.
4) Great cocktail chatter. Or, at least, it is with the right crowd.
5) And, finally, one of the *best* thing s about blasphemy is that it is, as has been frequently noted, a victimless crime.
Thank you. I’m here all week.
For your information:
Blasphemous Libel
Offence
296. (1) Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
Question of fact
(2) It is a question of fact whether or not any matter that is published is a blasphemous libel.
Saving
(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section for expressing in good faith and in decent language, or attempting to establish by argument used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, an opinion on a religious subject.
R.S., c. C-34, s. 260.
Thus the law in Canada: I fear that Matthew Parris would get short shrift in our courts —
“We should never relinquish, nor lightly value, our right, not to argue in the face of other people’s gods, but to fart.” [Times on Line, 04 Feb. 2006]
A really excellent thing to say! Hurray for Peter Fosl.
I hope these become words heard round the world.
Isn’t that what Mill was getting at in On Liberty?