Say what you like provided you respect beliefs
Hitchens ponders the UN resolution ‘Combating defamation of religions.’
Paragraph 5 “expresses its deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism,” while Paragraph 6 “[n]otes with deep concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001.”…In Paragraph 6, an obvious attempt is being made to confuse ethnicity with confessional allegiance. Indeed this insinuation (incidentally dismissing the faith-based criminality of 9/11 as merely “tragic”) is in fact essential to the entire scheme. If religion and race can be run together, then the condemnations that racism axiomatically attracts can be surreptitiously extended to religion, too. This is clumsy, but it works: The useless and meaningless term Islamophobia, now widely used as a bludgeon of moral blackmail, is testimony to its success.
Well maybe we should try the same tactic then. Maybe we should start complaining about atheophobia and secularophobia and rightsophobia. Catchy? No?
[T]he U.N. resolution seeks to extend the whole area of denial from its existing homeland in the Islamic world into the heartland of post-Enlightenment democracy where it is still individuals who have rights, not religions. See where the language of Paragraph 10 of the resolution is taking us. Having briefly offered lip service to the rights of free expression, it goes on to say that “the exercise of these rights carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to limitations as are provided for by law and are necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others, protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals and respect for religions and beliefs.” The thought buried in this awful, wooden prose is as ugly as the language in which it is expressed: Watch what you say, because our declared intention is to criminalize opinions that differ with the one true faith.
Yes, and furthermore, note carefully that rights of free expression which are subject to limitations as are provided for by law and are necessary for respect for religions and beliefs are not rights of free expression at all. That last phrase simply makes a nonsense of the very idea. A right of free expression that is subject to limitation by respect for religions and beliefs is a thoroughgoing oxymoron.
Not to mention the fact that this seems to conflict with the Universal Decaration of Human Rights, which the United Nations is charged with upholding.
Preamble:
“Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms”
“the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief … has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people”
Article 2:
“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
(http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html)
Speaking of atheophobia, don’t think you’ve run anything on this initiative yet: http://atheophobia.blogspot.com/
Can I join a group that is *not* embracing victimhood?
Er, I don’t think any of those are accepting new memberships right now. Best to wait until.. the tables turn.
It’s interesting to see Ophelia claiming to support freedom of expression. Here’s what she deleted from my post yesterday. It’s not my words, it’s from wikipedia!
[Random paragraph by Bernard Williams deleted along with irrelevant comment about Williams by Martha Nussbaum – Ed.]
Are you happy to have Ophelia deciding you shouldn’t read criticism of her position, when it comes from “the most important British moral philosopher of his time”? She sets herself up as a universal moral arbiter. Do you want her censoring what you read? How does this fit in with her commitment to freedom of expression?
Kees: Do you understand what you cut and paste? Do we have good reason to accept an abstruse philosophical point which you do not even remotely understand (with many excellent arguments against it, and no decisive arguments either way) as a proved conclusion based on your cut-n-paste citation of it? Should we accept Wikipedia as an authority on philosophical disputes or other technical matters? Can any argument be settled by appeal to authority? Does OB have any obligation whatsoever to prove her free speech bona fides to rude, self-important trolls?
The answers to all of these questions are “No.” Thanks for playing. Goodbye.
G,
Do I understand what I cut and pasted? Well, it seems to be what I have been saying throughout this discussion:
“No single objective standard exists by which one can assess the truth of a moral proposition.”
I’m not citing Bernard Williams (“arguably the greatest British philosopher of his era”) as an authority, I’m pointing out what our Little Ms Junior Goebbels is censoring, how deceitful she is in identifying it as my “trollery”, how hypocritical she is when she sermonises about freedom of expression.
I did not realise that Kees had posted his note here (which he emailed directly to a number of us, I think). I sent him an answer, and also posted it on an earlier thread. Perhaps it is worthwhile reposting it here, since the man clearly thinks he has been inappropriately silenced. I disagree, as I told him, and as I told him again in his reponse to my direct email, which follows. Sorry to subject you to it again, if you’ve already read it, you can, of course, skip it, but since Kees insists on riding into the valley of death oblivious to cannons to the right of him, cannons to the left of him, perhaps it bears repeating:
No Kees,
I do not object to Ophelia editing your messages, since you seem to be so impervious to argument. You cannot simply repeat yourself over and over, without meeting some objections to this wearying procedure.
If you want to base yourself on Bernard Williams, for example, you must read Bernard Williams, for he is not a ‘crude relativist’ in the way that you are suggesting. While he understands, and so does Ophelia, that our moral beliefs are rooted in social relations, and social constructions, this does not mean that they are completely relative to a society or a scrap of society.
Moral beliefs of different societies are related by the function that they perform, which is similar (if not wholly identical) in all societies or social systems. The reason for this probably lies the way that humans have evolved, and how societies are formed.
For example, In his book “Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy”, Williams says that “Social practices could never come forward with a certificate saying that they belonged to a genuinely different culture, so that they were guaranteed immunity to alien judgments and reactions. {para] So instant relativism is excluded. For similar reasons, strict relational relativism in ethics is excluded altogether. It has had able defenders, but it is implausible to suppose that ethical conceptions of right and wrong have a logically inherent relativity to a given society.” (158)
In other words, societies are not hermetically sealed off from one another, and, besides, human beings, as a species, have many characteristics that are arguably innate, in the sense that they belong to us as a species, Amongst these characteristics is the tendency to use evaluative language for actions, cognates for the English words ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, say. And relativism is not an inbuilt characteristic of this language. So when one society meets another, the tendency is to continue to use words in an evaluative way, and the need will arise, since we can’t live together effectively without using these words consistently, to find some modus vivendi so that agreement is sought over the use of evaluative terms. It would be both unreasonable and ineffective, as you should be now have seen, to continue to insist that you can use evaluative words any way that you like. This continued idiosyncratic way of using language will soon cause ostracism, and eventually hostility, if you continue the process too long. The whole point of evaluative language is to come to arrive at norms which will be considered socially acceptable in human groups. Those who insist on standing outside, claiming that they will use whatever norms they choose, and that there is nothing to choose between them, will find themselves left outside for good, unless they are prepared to find meanings for these terms on which others can agree.
One of the reasons why the present stance of the Roman Catholic Church regarding abortion is thought to be so deeply immoral, is that it does not seem to be able to do this. It stands outside a widespread and growing consensus upon these things, and thunders its disapproval, but it cannot give reasons why we should listen. In the same way, so long as you continue to act in the way that you are doing, all you can do is to stand outside and squeak your disapproval.
As Bernard Williams further says: “… while it is true that nonobjectivity does not imply any relativistic attitude, there does seem something blank and unresponsive in merely stopping at that truth. … Some people have thought that [confronted with another group, we should just turn off our ethical reactions], believing that a properly relativistic view requires you to be equally well disposed to everyone else’s ethical beliefs. This is seriously confused, since it take relativism to issue in a nonrelativistic morality of universal toleration.” (159) And then he goes on to say that we could, if we liked, simply go on to say that everyone else is wrong, which, as he says, “seems a remarkably inadequate response.” (160) But it does suggest a way out of the impasse, and lead us to reflect on whether we must respond relativistically or whether that is impossible, and this may show us a way out.
Now, I’m not going to argue the whole thing here, but he does conclude that something like the freer societies of the west, where we can carry out experiments in living, and find what values really do lead to the best possibilities for human flourishing, are better than closed societies, no matter how apparently happy they may be, where values language is coerced instead of freely chosen and amended as time and change indicate that it must be.
But read Bernard Williams chapter “Relativism and Reflection” in the books cited above, and begin to work out what rational moral discussion might look like, then come back, and perhaps Ophelia will not be so heavy with her red pencil!
Regards,
Eric MacDonald
I have just heard again from Kees. He doesn’t think he needs to read any more, because he prefers “to think about things myself for a long time before I look to see what other people have said. That’s always been my way of doing things, and it has worked very well for me for several decades.”
Since I am not prepared, and I daresay others aren’t either, to argue with Kees for decades, Ophelia, you take over. I’m finished with this guy.
Not that this was in any sense relevant to the present discussion. Christopher Hitchens raises concerns of great importance. I suspect, for what it’s worth, that blood will be spilt over this one. Freedom has been an expensive commodity. I suspect its cost in the future will be no less than in the past. If democracies do not hold firm on this, we will have to fight longer and harder to get back our lost freedoms. I hope this does not happen. Let’s not pretend that these are not life and death issues. They are, as the recent idiocy in Brazil should remind us. Islam is not the only offender here, especially when the Vatican is using the present weakened economic situation in Europe to play religious games. These people really make me sick.
Eric, thank you for explaining (for the benefit of others, if not Kees himself, who is ineducable) why Kees did not in fact understand what he cut-n-pasted. You have far more patience than I do – at least on the interwebs.
Kees
Wait a minute. By exactly what standard would you consider it “wrong” for Ophelia to censor what we read?
Presumably it wouldn’t be the law of non-contradiction.
“Since I am not prepared, and I daresay others aren’t either, to argue with Kees for decades, Ophelia, you take over.”
No, quite, Eric, hence the deleting. Kees is over.
It’s pretty funny that the moral skeptic is in such a fury at “our Little Ms Junior Goebbels” though. As we’ve been pointing out for days: children tortured, morally neutral; Kees told to take a hike, outrage!!! What a spectacle.
This misconception about freedom of expression is quite widespread, by the way – confusing belief in the right to free expression with an obligation to provide all and sundry with a free platform to say whatever damn fool thing they feel like saying. I of course think Kees has a right to free expression, but I certainly do not think that means I’m obliged to host his repetitive incoherent rants forever. I think I was enormously generous to give him more than a week to try to say something sensible. Time’s up.
Surely O.B as a moral arbiter you are duty bound to use this sites limited funds to host Kees contrary opinions?
(Just to clarify: I don’t think I’m obliged to host Kees’s repetitive incoherent rants at all; I moderate comments any way I want to, because this is my site and there are certain kinds of dreck that I don’t want here. I just added the ‘forever’ because in fact I did host Kees’s rants for [under the circs] quite a long time.)
I am joking by the way.
Heh. You bet, Richard. That’s what I’m here for.
(You must be up hell’s early! Or late!)
B.k it doesnt conflict with the U.N declaration because none of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the declaration can be actioned if they conflict with the goals and purpose of the U.N.If the goal of the U.N is to stamp out defemation of islam then there is no conflict?
Insomnia!
Wait another minute.
Why are you trying to help us against our oppressor? What about the standards by which you judged the Tanna? The oppressed here are irrelevant – we don’t count. Don’t you remember?
As long as Little Ms Junior Goebbels “seems happy”, that is the final word.
“By exactly what standard would you consider it “wrong” for Ophelia to censor what we read?”
And this is where protestations of relativism break down. It’s morality-for-other-people. I’m reminded of Berlin on determinism: people who claim to believe it don’t act like they believe it.
Censorship is a product of the state, its agents or laws. Deleting comments on a blog is not censorship.
Deny the possible existence of right or wrong, or of better and worse and the first thing you’ve lost is the right to complain that anything isn’t as it ought to be.
dirigible
“Censorship is a product of the state, its agents or laws.” That’s a narrow interpretation of censorship. Kenan Malik & Jo Glanville have interesting comments about a more insidious type of control: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6019
and
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2009/03/02/modern-liberty-free-speech-must-be-for-all/#more-1707.
The latter article has an interesting comment (No. 3: Alessandro Cima) on a form of blog censorship which he describes as “blog comment moderation”, which is what you get when your comments have a time delay before they are published. I have experienced this with most blog/chat forums.
There is no such time delay on Butterflies & Wheels.
Yes but censorship and control are not interchangeable. (Kenan’s piece and Jo Glanville’s piece were both linked in B&W News when they first appeared; I’m publishing an excerpt from Kenan’s new Rushdie book soon.) There really is an important difference between what, for instance, publishers and magazine editors do and what the state does, and between the law and various principles of selection. I’m not interfering with Kees’s legal right to say what he likes, but I make absolutely no claim that I will publish anything anyone chooses to send me here. I have pretensions to quality, and I also have a subject matter, so I do indeed control the content of B&W.
I could decide that comments are completely different – and they are different in the sense that I do accept (that is, I don’t delete) the vast majority of what is posted. But they’re not so different that I refuse ever to delete anything. Websites and blogs can be ruined by being taken over by drecky comments. I don’t let that happen here.
Kees,
No, I don’t object to OB deleting your comments before I can read them. On the contrary, I would chide her for letting any more of them through.