Irony Meet Gratuitous Offence
Aren’t philosophers supposed to avoid contradictions? Or do I have that wrong.
Now of course it is wrong to give gratuitous offence to people of other faiths; it is right to respect people’s beliefs, when these beliefs pose no threat to civil order…
I disagree with that, to the extent that it’s meant to apply to public discourse as opposed to private conversation; but accept it for the sake of argument. But then –
Whenever I consider this matter I am struck by a singular fact about the Christian religion, a fact noticed by Kierkegaard and Hegel but rarely commented upon today, which is that it is informed by a spirit of irony…Such irony is a long way from the humorless incantations of the Koran. Yet it is from a posture of irony that every real negotiation, every offer of peace, every acceptance of the other, begins. The way forward, it seems to me, is to encourage the re-emergence of an ironical Islam, of the kind you find in the philosophy of Averroës, in Persian poetry and in “The Thousand and One Nights.” We should also encourage those ethnic and religious jokes which did so much to defuse tension in the days before political correctness. And maybe, one day, the rigid face of some puritanical mullah will crack open in a hesitant smile, and negotiations can at last begin.
Well which is it?
I hope it’s the second; I go with the second; but it doesn’t mesh seamlessly with the first. Actually the first simply seems to contradict the second, and quite thoroughly. Did Scruton just lose track of his own thought in the course of the article?
Scruton must have met a very peculiar subset of the Christians I’ve met. Some certainly have a sense of irony and humour about their religion, but a rather large segment don’t. Generally the ones who are most certain in their faith.
I was thinking he meant the religion itself rather than its adherents. There is a joky side to Jesus in places. An ironic side, if you prefer. No doubt part of his appeal.
What does he mean by irony? Like if some pro-Hezbollah marchers got blown up by terrorists?
Or one priest commenting to another: “Isn’t it ironic that all these people on their knees ardently believe that they’ll go to heaven when they die, and yet they won’t because it’s all made up nonsense?”
I thought the cartoon where Mohammad says to stop the suicide bombings because they’re running out of virgins was pretty ironic, but that didn’t go down too well, did it?
Does he want Rowan Atkinson to dress up as a Mullah and tell jokes or something? That could be the kind of thing he’s talking about with regard to Christianity, but I doubt there’d be many Muslims laughing.
What do you say to a Muslim woman with two black eyes? Nothing! You told her twice already!
Did you hear about the Muslim strip club? It features full facial nudity!
Why do Palestinians find it convenient to live on the West Bank? Because just a stone’s throw from Israel!
And maybe, one day, the rigid face of some puritanical mullah will crack open in a hesitant smile, and negotiations can at last begin.
Or alternatively, fatwas will be issued and riots will ensue and western governments will pass even more draconian legisltation. One of those two.
I hate to agree with Roger Scrotum on anything, but I think he has a semi-valid point at least.
I also note on important Jesus-quote, which should be used against any USA christian supremacist (or even the pope)…
“My kingdom is not of this world.”
Well, then, what are you doing trying to build a christian kingdom?
Because that means you are not christians …..
Erm ….
Note also the usual conservative assertion – “ordinary Christians” it would seem “suffer a daily diet of ridicule and skepticism”. Perhaps one day the UK and the US will elect christian leaders and ordinary christians will at last be able to profess their faith by openly wearing christian symbols. I should note that there is no paradox here as Roger Scruton doesn’t count as an ordinary christian. Personally I regard ridicule and skepticism as essential parts of a balanced diet.
Is there really no middle way between “gratuitous offence” and humorless irony-free PC tolerance? I think what Scruton is proposing, and what I can imagine, is such a middle way: a dialogue among faiths where each party respects his/her counterpart but has room to make jokes, as well as negotiate and constructively criticize (as opposed to threaten and terrorize). Perhaps I’m reading too much between the lines, but if one believes as I do that inter-faith dialogue is possible, then these seem like the conditions that would be required: holding out the possibility, even just for the sake of the discussion, that I Might Turn Out to Be Wrong.
Obviously lots of so-called Christians don’t have much sense of the ironic, but many people who’ve reflected carefully on Jewish and Chriatian faith see that it is loaded with paradox. Start with the Old Testament theme of finding meaning in exile and captivity. Later the premise that the son of God gets killed in a most painful and humiliating manner.
I’m no expert but I’d point out that Hegel and Kierkegaard pre-dated the current era of fundamentalism in which all sides take themselves with such murderous un-ironic seriousness. (A mark in H & K’s favor.)
Note also the usual conservative assertion – “ordinary Christians” it would seem “suffer a daily diet of ridicule and skepticism”.
That’s interesting – I didn’t in fact notice that the first time through, but it’s interesting. It’s quite tricky. Has a very tricky use of words going on.
Jerry S tells me I got Scruton wrong, that he’s not actually contradicting himself, because he said “it is wrong to give gratuitous offence” (emphasis mine) and that he’s arguing that jokes about Islam are useful and not gratuitous; also that he said “it is right to respect people’s beliefs, when these beliefs pose no threat to civil order” and he thinks the beliefs do pose a threat to civil order. Hmmmmm. Maybe, maybe; but maybe not. It depends on what he means by ‘gratuitous.’ And I think that’s probably deliberate – it’s a sort of having it both ways device. Because – oh the hell with it, I’ll just do a Comment on it, there’s too much there.
But he’s doing the same thing in the ordinary Xians comment. ‘Suffer’ – that’s a very tricksy word. He’s using it both ways, I think. Sly bastard.
Cross-post.
“Is there really no middle way between “gratuitous offence” and humorless irony-free PC tolerance?”
That is the question, all right!
And if there is, Scruton wasn’t actually contradicting himself, and I did him wrong. I probably did. I kind of think he was deliberately ambiguous – in the sense that different readers would read ‘gratuitous’ differently – but that’s not the same as a contradiction.
there is no contradiction whatever there; I don’t in general agree with Scruton but this was quite a good piece. He’s saying that it would be a much better thing if the Muzzies in general did not take such huge offence at mild-mannered, well-intentioned critical jibes, but given that they in fact do, it is silly and nasty to make such jibes. This seems to me to be broadly correct.
One might say, for example, of a maiden aunt, that it is a real shame that she faints at the utterance of a naughty word, that hopefully over time she will toughen up and she should be encouraged to do so, but that in the meantime one shouldn’t swear in her presence.
“but that in the meantime one shouldn’t swear in her presence.”
And also that no swear word should ever appear anywhere in any newspaper or other mass medium on the planet lest aunty burn the house down?
You know, I don’t think that is what Scruton is saying. As a matter of fact I think he’s saying the opposite. Did you overlook this bit?
“This readiness to take offense is not yet terrorism–but it is a sign of the deep-down insecurity of the Muslim psyche in the modern world. In the presence of Islam, we all feel, you have to tread carefully, as though humoring a dangerous animal. The Koran must never be questioned; Islam must be described as a religion of peace–isn’t that the meaning of the word?–and jokes about the prophet are an absolute no-no. If religion comes up in conversation, best to slip quietly away, accompanying your departure with abject apologies for the Crusades. And in Europe this pussyfooting is now being transcribed into law, with “Islamophobia” already a crime in Belgium and movements across the continent to censor everything at which a Muslim might take offence, including articles like this one.”
He’s not saying it’s silly and nasty to write an article like this one, is he.
Well exactly; he’s saying in that passage that there is a difference between good faith criticism of Islam and transparent attempts to be offensive for the sake of it, and that although attempts to dress the latter up in the clothes of “free speech” might fool several influential bloggers, they don’t fool Scruton.
In the specific case of those Danish cartoons (which is after all what we are implicitly talking about here), I think Scruton is right on the money here; given that one of the actual cartoonists managed to spot that Jyllens-Posten were not actually as much interested in a serious critique as in acting the asshole for the sake of it, it amazed me that it somehow became evidence of dhimmitude or closet apologism to point this out on blogs.
“Jyllens-Posten were not actually as much interested in a serious critique as in acting the asshole for the sake of it”
And you know that how exactly?
“there is a difference between good faith criticism of Islam and transparent attempts to be offensive for the sake of it”
Meaning, I take it, that Scruton’s article is an example of the first and the J-P cartoons are an example of the second? On what grounds, exactly?
“I don’t think that there are any Muslims in Denmark who couldn’t recognise a cartoon of a stereotypic Arab with a bomb on his head, captioned “Mohammed” as an attempted insult to Muslims.”
But it’s not about what you think; it’s a fact that there are Muslims in Denmark who were not bothered by the cartoons and were very bothered by the coercive fuss about them. This was reported during the fuss, but of course it wasn’t the dominant story: apparently you missed it, and now you expect me to take your word for it on the basis of what you “think”.
And then there’s the little matter of “recognizing” the bomb cartoon as an attempted insult to Muslims, which of course presupposes that that is what it is, but it is not self-evident that that is what it is.
You suspect I regretted writing what I wrote. That’s your third attempt at mind-reading in one short comment, and like the others it’s wrong.
“You asked on what grounds I had made a statement and I told you.”
I don’t suspect you regretted writing that as soon as you wrote it, partly because I’m not a mind-reader, and partly because I suspect you’re too brazen to regret anything; but you should have, because that’s flat inaccurate. Look up. Look at your comment where you quote my question, look at my comment where I ask the question.
“[And you know that how exactly?]
Same way as one of the actual cartoonists did…it was reasonable to assume that they were doing so on this occasion too.”
I asked how you knew. The question about grounds was the next one, the one you didn’t bother answering.
it is perhaps a bit rich of you talking about “mind-reading”, when you are accusing me of “siding with” people who set fire to embassies (which could actually be a criminal charge in the UK of glorifying terrorism, so perhaps think a bit more carefully before you make it). But in any case, here’s a fourth bit of mind-reading; I don’t think you’re making much of an effort to understand.
If I were to set up a joke blog called, say “Butterflies and Sneers: Because Knowing What You’re Talking About Isn’t An Enlightenment Value”, then it would be sensible to assume I was doing so in order to have a dig at Butterflies & Wheels. Even if two of you thought it was quite funny and one of you was offended, it would still be true to say “Davies was attempting to insult the contributors to Butterflies & Wheels”, and one would expect that even the two contributors who weren’t actually offended would recognise that it was an attempt to offend.
If I then said that I was actually making a serious point about philosophical discourse rather than trying to be offensive, then we would look at my past statements about Butterflies & Wheels, and if these included things like “God I hate that blog” and “what a bunch of arseholes”, it would be sensible to conclude that, yes indeed, I was trying to offend.
If someone then tried to defend me by saying “you can’t *know* he was trying to offend”, then I hope they would be told that the room for Pyrronic scepticism was next door and not to be unreasonable. If they said that by noting that I had tried to offend, people were “siding with” the minority of Butterflies & Wheels contributors who were offended then … well, as I note above, one would hopefully say that they didn’t appear to be making much of an effort to keep up.
“I don’t think you’re making much of an effort to understand.”
With all due flat-footed literalness – I don’t think you’re making much of an effort to argue. You shift your ground, ignore questions, change the subject, quote me saying what I didn’t say, ignore corrections – and so on.
I seriously disagree with you about the cartoons, for one thing because I think one obvious reading of the bomb-hat one is that bombers misappropriate Islam. Cartoons are often ambiguous; I think that one is; so I in fact don’t think it’s reasonable to assume it was meant to be an insult to Muslims in general. So I don’t think I am being “unreasonable” because I don’t think the meaning is as stark and single as you either do or claim to. So yes, I do think you’re “siding with” the people who over-react rather than with the people who don’t, and I do think that is a peculiar choice. Do you, for instance, prefer Christian Voice to Christians who don’t get frantic about Jerry Springer the Opera? If so, why? If not, why do you have special standards?
I have not shifted my ground at all. I have consistently maintained that the reason I think that those cartoons were meant as an insult is that they were commissioned and published by a newspaper with a history of carrying out immigrant-baiting stunts. As I have repeatedly pointed out, one of the *actual cartoonists* agreed with me on this subject (he drew the cartoon of the boy pointing to the blackboard).
If someone commissions cartoons because he wants to insult Danish Muslims, and gets cartoons which offend a lot of Danish Muslims, then it is reasonable to assume that he got what he paid for; I would be the last to deny that texts are susceptible to multiple interpretations, but if that is your view then I think that you and your co-authors were perhaps a bit too hard on Derrida in “Fashionable Nonsense”, because you appear to be taking an extremist American-postStructuralist position here that the fact that these cartoons were commissioned by Jyllens-Posten and Jyllens-Posten is an anti-immigrant newspaper is completely irrelevant to assessing them. That’s not really what Derrida meant by “il n’y a pas de hors-texte”, IMO, but it’s a common interpretation in American universtities for some reason.
I don’t see why you’ve just left me “siding” with the embassy-burners; you could have had so much more. Agreeing that those cartoons were, in fact, offensive to Muslims and meant as such also means that I am “siding” with Jack Straw, Peter Hitchens and the US State Department.
This rather brings into sharp relief the fact that I can only accurately be described as “siding” with anyone who agrees with me about the cartoons on the answer to a specific question about the cartoons and this does not imply that I am “siding” with them in any other way. In context, “siding with” is clearly a wrong way to think about it as it leads you into lots of other mistakes; for example, you apparently think I am “siding” with Christian Voice (and presumably also with the drama critic of the Morning Star, who also didn’t like JSTO).
For what it’s worth, since I am apparently obliged to reply directly to any question, no matter how rhetorical or ill-founded, I thought that Jerry Springer was a profoundly moral work, but that it could hardly be denied that the portrayal of Jesus Christ as a coprophile was intended to be shocking, and basically involved making a crude sexual slur against Jesus Christ. If I said that someone’s father gained sexual excitment from soiling himself I would probably expect them to be offended so it is hardly surprising that people who take Jesus Christ seriously were also offended. This does not mean that I “prefer” Christian Voice, or that I thought Jerry Springer should have been censored (buying a ticket for it would have been a curious way to express that view); simply that I’m not going to pretend that black is white, and on the specific question of whether it was offensive to devout Christians, the devout Christians were right and the opera’s more ludicrous defenders were wrong.