Some of the most senior staff are utterly distraught and disgusted
It’s the end of the world! It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened! It’s a catastrophe! It’s an outrage! It’s vile, evil, abhorrent, shocking, disgusting, terrifying, oh, hell, am I hysterical enough yet? Aaaaaaaaah!
Wassup? you ask. A student at Clare College, Cambridge ‘is at the centre of a race-hate probe after printing anti-Islamic material in a magazine’. That’s what. No words can begin to express the – the – the –
The 19-year-old second year student at Clare College was in hiding today (Friday, 09 February) after printing the racist cartoon and other vile material. The article is said to be so inflammatory the undergraduate has been taken to a secret location for his own safety…[S]enior college officials were locked in urgent talks about how the material came to be published and what action to take against the student at the centre of the scandal. A university spokesman said police had been made aware of the incident.
What action to take – quiet execution perhaps?
The student magazine, Clareification, printed a cropped copy of the cartoon of the prophet Mohammed next to a photo of the president of the Union of Clare Students. The cartoon was captioned with the president’s name and vice versa. There was also comment suggesting one was a “violent paedophile” and the other was “a prophet of God, great leader and an example to us all.” The cartoon was the same one which caused riots across the world when it was printed in a Danish newspaper.
No, the cartoon did not ’cause’ riots, some people chose to engage in riots in reaction to the cartoon. There’s a difference.
Enraged students have bombarded the Union of Clare Students with complaints…Clare College fellows have called a Court of Discipline which will sit in judgment on the youth responsible for sparking what is being regarded as one the most embarrassing incidents for the university in years…In a statement issued by Clare College, senior tutor Patricia Fara said: “Clare is an open and inclusive college. A student produced satirical publication has caused widespread distress throughout the Clare community. The college finds the publication and the views expressed abhorrent. Reflecting the gravity of the situation, the college immediately began an investigation and disciplinary procedures are in train.”
Quiet execution after torture, perhaps?
There’s a whole lot more of the same kind of thing. I find it absolutely staggering. You would think the guy had opened a local branch of Auschwitz. You would also think he’d broken a law. Publishing cartoons, even cartoons about the prophet, is not against the law. Do the officials of Clare College realize that? Do they even know the difference between ‘race-hate’ and religion-teasing? Do they know anything?
Oh yeah, I noticed it Andy. But there was so much off the wall lunacy in that piece I couldn’t comment on every bit of it – especially since I should have left this desk at least an hour ago!
I’m going, I’m going.
hmmm,
perhaps you could publish where / how we could write to support the student?
And also where to write to criticise a)the univerity’s actions so far.
b) Their silly misuse of the word “racism”.
(To me it looks like the university has an own “Institute for concept evacuation”?)
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
When I read something like this from a university that represents our best and brightest I get that awful feeling that the west is slowly commiting suicide!
Reading some of that article I thought it was a satirical piece itself!
The new conservativism of the PC left rulz! If this what the best universities are coming to then “the saints preserve us”,… oops, I mean, …er.
I understand that the National Secular Society are preparing a formal protest to the principal of Clare College.
And, of course, they don’t seem to have heard of “Jesusand Mo” do they?
It would be pathetic, if it wasn’t so craven.
This is a newspaper, is it? So how does it justify the paragraph that reads, ‘The 19-year-old second year student at Clare College was in hiding today (Friday, 09 February) after printing the racist cartoon and other vile material‘? (Emphasis mine.) It’s not even bylined, so it’s a news story, not a feature, in which one is allowed to comment, because the piece is going under a byline. So it’s an indisputable fact, is it, that whatever the ‘other’ material was is ‘vile’?
Not only that, but we also learn that the paper had been renamed Crucification for that issue, because it was a bloody religious-satire special, for goodness’ sake!
What are these people on, apart from high salaries.
Can I say ‘fuckers’ on here? Oh, good, thanks. They’re fuckers. And Ophelia’s intro is well justified. This is the stuff of farce. Someone ought to script it, put on it the telly.
Hmm, interesting, I have a pal over there on the editorial team… (Cambridge Evening News that is) Will be forwarding a selection of these comments later for her delectation !!!
I suspect its the paedophile bit that got their knickers i a twist. Some brands of god bothers realy don’t like that.
Can anyone remind me how old that young bride of Mohammeds was?
“Someone ought to script it, put on it the telly.”
Yeah, I agree we could use a new ‘History Man’ (Malcolm Bradbury) about the faculty.
Aisha was at least (!) Nine years old, but some “authorities” claim she was twelve ……..
But, since there is no god, what does it matter?
Mahmud made it up as he went along, just like all the other evil bastards like “saints” Dominic and Bernard …..
“the paedophile bit”
Got to admit that I don’t much like it either. Mainly because this is the trope that the BNP, NF, etc., use over and over again.
Also, it is effectively an ad hominem. It’s very easy to criticise and satirise Islam without resorting to ad hominen.
There’s an interesting point. How far does an individual have to be held up as being, in fact, perfect, and an example to the rest of us, before it becomes no longer illegitimate to mention their personal qualities in debating their philosophy?
Yeah, actually “the paedophile bit” just gives ’em all the ammo they want. It’s not satire, which could be claimed for what else I’ve read.
I heard about this on the BBC TV news, and they took a similarly outraged position about it – ripe from an organisation that claims it needs tons of public money so it can stay neutral and independent – and made no attempt to field someone (G Tingey would be good) to suggest that the whole thing was hyperventilated nonsense.
Can I volunteer?
Pretty please?
“something like this from a university that represents our best and brightest”
I know. I kept shaking my head as if I had water in my ears – this is Cambridge for crying out loud.
But Cardiff staged exactly the same kind of conniption last year at the height of the fuss – recalling the entire issue of the paper, censuring everyone in all directions, the head of the student union expressing shock horror outrage grief panic anguish. It was an amazing display. Cardiff and Clare College should twin.
Cool about pal, Nick! Let us know what she says.
“Got to admit that I don’t much like it either.”
I don’t like it particularly either – but I take that to be a somewhat different matter. The good people of Clare College are (apparently) treating the student as a criminal.
“Also, it is effectively an ad hominem. It’s very easy to criticise and satirise Islam without resorting to ad hominem.”
Hmmmyeah but…if part of the taboo aspect of Islam is that the prophet is above or beyond criticism, maybe ad hominems are in order, especially if they’re true.
If you want to write to Clare College, the relevant emails are at the end of this post:
http://pubphilosopher.blogs.com/pub_philosopher/2007/02/student_discipl.html
Great post. Minor point of order but can Mohammed be known as ‘a prophet’ rather than always ‘the prophet’? This coinage has become part of the Islamo-cringe reportage that gives us, say, the ‘holy city of Najaf’ as opposed to mere ‘Canterbury’…
Good point. I dislike ‘the prophet’ but I also dislike Mohammed – both have the same pious whiff. I usually go for the former as the least whiffy, but I don’t like it. It’s the same with ol’ Jesus. Jesus sounds awful, Christ sounds awful. We’re stuck.
I’m enough of a utilitarian to think that one should choose one’s battles carefully if one knows that one’s actions are going to hurt people.
Calling M. a paedophile just doesn’t do it for me. Especially since that is something you’ll find posted almost everyday on the NF and BNP discussion boards.
It’s just not classy enough. (And it also instantly closes down any possibility of discussion.)
But if we’re talking about whether the calculation is different were we putting together a critique say of the change in tone between M’s Meccan and Medinan writings, then I would say that it were. (It would be worth upsetting people, in other words.)
That’s not to say that Clare college has responded appropriately, of course.
The kid is in hiding because he yelled fire in a burning building. His case is a classic example of freedom of speech under assault. It will go very far.
Mohammed may well have had a very young wife but why do we single out this particular historical figure? How old do we reckon Mary (“Mother of God”) was?
We have to be careful getting too outraged here – Cambridge Colleges are not exactly known for their democratic and liberal governance – they’ll stomp on anything their undergrads do that pisses them off, consistency, legality, morality, and freedom of expression be damned!
“I’m enough of a utilitarian to think that one should choose one’s battles carefully if one knows that one’s actions are going to hurt people.”
But at that rate (and it often is pretty much the current rate) everyone could just pitch fits about everything and before long we would all know that all our actions and sayings and writings are going to hurt people, and no one will say anything.
Or perhaps the idea is just that potentially ‘offensive’ jokes should at least be funny. I’ll buy that. I’d much rather defend Jesus and Mo than what the Clareification sounds like. But it’s not J and M that Clare is planning to Discipline.
Jeremy S,
I tend to agree with your thoughts on the “paedophile argument”. I do on the other hand find some of the more “controversial” cartoons very good indeed, and find the arguments against them weak.
Islam is not *entirely* violent, but both historical and current violent *praxis* can hardly be said to be without explicit justification in the scripture. The suicide bombers and jihadists are making direct reference to the scripture, and the attempts to describe their actions rather as a “social justice/poverty” -issue seems very little convincing.
I suspect that those cartoons in themselves would have been enough to
a) whip up possibly violent reactions
b) hence possibly force the editor into hiding
c) force the college to some sort of official atonement for the faculty staff.
I find these facts worrying enough.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust.
Whilst the peadophile bit does get used by the BNP and the like I am not sure that that is a good reason for excluding it from consideration.
There is of course the simple argument that one can’t formulate views simply in opposition to those held by someone one despises. The Nazi’s were big fans of hiking and forests – which of itself does not strike me as a very good reason for banning the former and felling the latter.
But in the more particular case of Mohamed’s pedophilia and it’s relation to Islam it is something quite a bit more than an Historical curio, or slur taken out of context – like Solomon’s philandering. To begin with, unlike many of the flaws in Biblical characters – for example – Mohamed is treated as a perfect example for his followers, and nowhere is the age at which Mohamed consummated his marriage to Aisha treated as in any way a flaw or failing. The result is that there is persistent pressure by Islamist’s the world over to lower the age of consent for females (actually consent does not really come into it – it is the marriage age which is lowered). In Iran it already has been lowered to 9, also in Yemen, KSA other states apply Sharia – which means that marriage can occur as young as 6 years of age (for girls) and can be consummated when the husband determines the first period has occurred, but fondling is permitted before this. For me this makes Mohameds personal life fair game – given that a whole body of law is established on the basis of it. And that agitation is underway for this law to be applicable everywhere Muslims live. Even the Hijab and purdah is based on the tradition about the prophet commanding his own wives to be covered up and hidden.
Sorry to make you head shake with my brightest and best comment O.B.but I left school at 15 without even one 0 level so Cambridge seems prety lofty to me.J.S. it may be hurtfull but if mohamed had a wife of 6 years old(the mariage wasnt consumated untill she was 9)isnt calling him a peadophile at least reasonable.Mo also had about 12 other wives as well by the way!
“But at that rate (and it often is pretty much the current rate) everyone could just pitch fits about everything “
Well no because the offence would have to be genuine.
But, at any rate, in that situation the moral calculus would change. My point was simply that one should choose one’s battles carefully. In a world where everybody pitched a fit about everything this choice would be so curtailed that one could not avoid causing offence. Consequently, the demand not to do so would be highly circumscribed.
Some things are worth causing offence over, some things aren’t.
My argument wasn’t that one shouldn’t do anything that causes a person to pitch a fit. That’s why I gave the example at the end where I might judge it was worth it.
Richard
I guess I think there’s a difference about using the paodeophile thing in a fashion that functions as an ad hominem (i.e., as abuse), and as part of an argument about the way in which Islam treats young women (see Johan W’s comments).
For me, one over-steps the mark, the other doesn’t.
Actually, I’m not even arguing that satire is isn’t permissible. Of course it is. It’s just that the bare statement that Muhammad was “a violent paedophile” isn’t satire. Well maybe bad satire. Certainly not good enough to warrant causing genuine offence.
But these things are judgement calls, of course. Other people disagree.
Sorry JS but I think Ophelia’s right on this one. It’s the slippery slope/thin end of the wedge thingy – if we don’t resist the “easy” ones then we’ll be expected to roll over every time. This is a comments box, not a book, so I won’t quote examples but it seems to me they are myriad of late.
Yeah, sorry I don’t buy the slippery slope argument, Chris.
Also, remember I haven’t said that Clare College are right in disciplining the student.
I am simply making a utilitarian argument about whether or not the paper was right to publish the paedophile statement. (I don’t – necessarily – think that these kinds of things should be censored. It is perfectly consistent to argue that we should be able to publish anything we want, but that sometimes one should make the judgement not to publish.)
“I am simply making a utilitarian argument about whether or not the paper was right to publish the paedophile statement. “
A utlititarian attitude to the rights and wrongs of publishing is pretty treacherous for the interests of free speech, I’d have thought. Surely the utilitarian position on Darwin, for example, would have been not to publish, since far more people have been made unhappy than happy through the publication of On the origin of Specuies.
“It’s the same with ol’ Jesus. Jesus sounds awful, Christ sounds awful. We’re stuck.”
How ’bout referring to him (or Him) when we must as “Joshua ben Joseph, surnamed ‘The Annointed One'” ?
Richard, no, I meant I was agreeing with you about the best and brightest comment! I was shaking my head like a dog after a swim at Cambridge, not at your comment. I expected them to do better. (Mind you, so did the Offended People the Cambridge Evening News talked to, but they meant ‘do better’ in the opposite way – they meant that a student at Cambridge should have Known Better than to publish such a satire.)
No, wait – I wasn’t shaking my head like a dog after a swim at Cambridge – I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a dog shake its head after a swim at Cambridge, and I don’t know that there’s anything special about the way a dog shake its head after a swim there as opposed to a swim at, say, Garfield High School in Seattle. I don’t even know where a dog would swim at Cambridge. I’m not absolutely sure dogs are quite welcome to swim at Cambridge. I meant, of course, that I was shaking my head about the actions of Cambridge.
Dogs are strange. They shake themselves while they’re still in the water, which always makes me fall down laughing. I might as well take my towel into the shower with me.
“Well no because the offence would have to be genuine.”
But how is that determined? That’s a real question, not a pretend-puzzled one. It seems to me that’s the rock on which a lot of these disputes founder – there is no real way to determine that, and the concept does open the door to a lot of, well, whining, along with rioting and threatening and retreating and other bad stuff.
I agree that as satire it doesn’t sound much good. But everyone could have just shrugged and ignored it as a piece of crap satire.
“A utlititarian attitude to the rights and wrongs of publishing is pretty treacherous for the interests of free speech”
I just don’t believe that people are free speech absolutists. For example, are we really saying that if we knew that if we published a cartoon of Muhammad a million people would die (and if we didn’t they wouldn’t) that we’d go ahead and publish on free speech grounds?
Also, that just sounds like a version of Chris’s slippery slope argument. One can believe in free speech, defend the right to it, and yet not believe – perhaps on utilitarian grounds – that everything should be published.
I tend to think that we should have good reasons for upsetting people. I believe that the upset over the Muhammad paedophile thing is in all likelihood genuine. And *in this particular case*, I don’t think the reasons are good enough.
“But how is that determined?”
Well it’s a judgement call, obviously. But I think there are good reasons to suppose that calling Muhammad a paedophile will result in genuine distress. (As you will have surmised from chap 1 of my identity book!)
But, in a way, the principle I’m articulating here isn’t threatened by this – since the utilitarian argument doesn’t apply in the same way if it isn’t genuine distress. Ethical decisions often have these unknown elements.
“Well it’s a judgement call, obviously.”
Yeah. But I think that’s part of the problem – why many of us are balking at what you’re saying. That very fact helps to enable the blackmailing aspect, and it also helps to prompt all this self-silencing. For instance, we can’t know that a million people will die if we publish a cartoon (I know you know that, obviously) – so all this second-guessing becomes very…tricky, and at risk of erring on the side of self-censorship. It seems like a worrying line of argument. It seems almost like ‘when in doubt shut up’. And I say that as someone who has been well aware for years that she’s not a free speech absolutist, and who has gotten in many arguments with people who think they are and that everyone should be.
But I don’t want to be obtuse. Let’s see if I can rephrase it in such a way as to convince myself…I agree (sort of) about having good reasons to upset people – and given what we know happened a year ago, it’s a safe bet that paedophile cartoons will upset people; and from what we’ve read, this particular bit of satire didn’t add anything, it just recycled existing and not particularly amusing or thought-provoking stuff (that is also popular with the BNP etc), so on the whole it seems not worth upsetting people.
I can buy that. But (as I think you’ve noted) what I’ve been saying doesn’t depend on the quality or wisdom of the satire, at least not beyond a minimum.
Also…I suppose I have a counter thought. You tend to think that we should have good reasons for upsetting people, I tend to think people should have good reasons for being upset (except me of course, I get to have bad ones). I don’t think this reaches the threshold for good reasons for being upset. It’s like tantrums, and positive reinforcement. If we make these calculations, ‘X will get terribly upset if we do Y so we won’t do Y’ then X is rewarded for being terribly upset no matter how wrong X’s reasons for being upset are. It’s rather as if all Turkish journalists and intellectuals decided never to mention the Armenian genocide again, because they know it’s upsetting to nationalists. I know, your good reasons are the answer to that. But…but I think there’s a real difficulty.
Do you think that somebody doing something that they know will offend or upset (even if for bad reasons) is a good reason to get upset?
I guess I think that there are good reasons to be upset when the BNP do this kind of thing (because one knows they are doing it precisely to offend). (I’m not saying that what’s happening here is equivalent, though.)
I suspect with the Muhammad thing, as you know, that the reason people get upset is because it is experienced as a personal attack. So it’s just part of the facticity of the world that people will get upset about it.
Do I think that’s unfortunate? Yes, I do. But crucially I still think it should be factored into the moral calculus when determining whether to do this kind of thing. It doesn’t trump everything else. But it is a factor. We should be concerned with how our actions affect other people, even if (in a sense) they choose how to be affected, and even if in the end we decide that the effect doesn’t warrant altering our behaviour.
Agreed. (Especially given how often I notice that personal disagreements boil down to ‘My reaction may not have been particularly rational but I think it was understandable – reactions are like that sometimes.’ If the other party sees the point, the disagreement fades away like the morning dew. The difference between rational and understandable is crucial, I think.)
At least formally agreed. I may have a bias here which causes the factor to be always trumped by the thought that the reaction is mistaken (as well as harmful). Or maybe not. I don’t suppose I would have urged anyone to publish the content as described. Just recycling a known irritant that isn’t funny anyway doesn’t accomplish much – although it has exposed some weirdness at Clare College.
Jery I agree with you on the causing ofence for the sake of it argument,but some of us are getting mighty tired of self apointed islamic speech police(who themselves have the multi cultural bona-fides of Vlad the impaler)telling the non moslem population what we can or cannot say about mohamed. I think the words were probably ill chosen but the alternative to standing up for these guys is to join the lynch mob by being silent.O.B.wet cats are even worse.
Ah well, Richard – I agree that it is essential to challenge radical Islam – I’m doing exactly that in big chunks of my book on identity – but I just think there are more effective ways of doing that than calling Muhammed a paedophile.
OB and I are also writing a book on the way that religion sujugates women, so again, a big part of that will be directed against Islam.
Take care if you are writing a book on that subject you know how the R.O.P. reacts to critisism.
Bonne chance! You will, of course, be picking your words extremely carefully, as ever…
I wonder if there is a career-opening out there for a fatwa-avoidance advisor? Oh wait, silly me, there are plenty already…. They just say ‘Shut up!’
Still, you take your chances these days…
to Jerry S:
Your arguments about causing offense needlessly/casually are well made. However there is an aspect of Islam you might be missing. It is the duty of Muslims to imitate Muhammed. All strands of Islam that I’ve heard about agree on this. He is held up as *the* exemplar of how to live the morally good life. Therefore his marriage to a child, and in particular its consummation while she was still a child, cannot be ignored. We must be able to discuss this in public without death threats coming our way. One can say that the outpourings of the likes of the BNP are vile without conceding one’s right to point out that if someone were to do today what Muhammed did, then he’d be considered evil.
Indeed there is an irony here, because many of the more extreme Muslims are intent on “cleaning up” what they see as the sexual “filth” of Western society.
“For example, are we really saying that if we knew that if we published a cartoon of Muhammad a million people would die (and if we didn’t they wouldn’t) that we’d go ahead and publish on free speech grounds?”
Well, no. If the threat was so massive and real, I would definitely be intimidated into silence, but that would be a shocking state of affairs. It seems to me all you are saying is that if your opponent is aggresssive enough, you should appease him (or her, but usually him).
“It seems to me all you are saying is that if your opponent is aggresssive enough”
No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying we should choose our battles carefully.
I say what I mean – so when I talk about publishing a cartoon of Muhammed I mean just that. There might be incidences where I’d think that publishing something was worth loss of life.
My argument is simply that one takes these things into account. And that sometimes one ought to judge that not publishing is the best thing to do. In my opinion, this was one of those occasions.
Paul Power
“We must be able to discuss this in public without death threats coming our way.”
Absolutely, I agree with this (see my comments above about Johan W’s post).
But I say again – I’m talking quite specifically about the cartoon of Muhammad here.
Also, I haven’t anywhere said that death threats are acceptable (of course they’re not).
to Jerry S:
I was responding to your point that “…. it is effectively an ad hominem. It’s very easy to criticise and satirise Islam without resorting to ad hominem” in your first post.
“My argument is simply that one takes these things into account. And that sometimes one ought to judge that not publishing is the best thing to do. In my opinion, this was one of those occasions.”
But doesn’t this mean in effect that sometimes ‘the best thing to do’ is to moderate our behaviour according to the threats of others? I can see that that might be the only practical or realistic thing to do, but the ‘best’?
Paul
“It’s very easy to criticise and satirise Islam without resorting to ad hominem”
Yes, but there are ad hominems and there are ad hominems. There’s a big difference between Johan W’s post and the Muhammad cartoon, for example.
John M
Well depending exactly what you mean by “best” – absolutely it is sometimes best to moderate our behaviour on the basis of threats.
In a hostage situation, if the villains ask for a milkshake saying that they’ll kill people otherwise, then you give it to them.
But if they demand the release of a dangerous prisoner, you don’t.
It depends. Again the point is clear – one takes these things into account, and makes decisions accordingly.
(Also, there is a kind of “order effect” thing here in terms of how I’d look at this. If prior to publication of this Clare College thing, threats were made, then I think that changes the calculus [because they the principle that all other things being equal – which they’re not in the hostage situation, obviously – one should not respond to threats comes into play]; I’m not saying that the calculus would necessarily come out in favour of publishing then – because one still has to add in the fact that the offence is genuine – but in advance threats would be a factor in my thinking about it.)
Is there a reliable description anywhere of the contents of the cartoon?
There’s an interesting post at Harry’s Place that suggests that there might be more to it than simply the Muhammad/Islam stuff.
“In a hostage situation, if the villains ask for a milkshake saying that they’ll kill people otherwise, then you give it to them.”
This is only the ‘best’ response if there is no other option. If the kidnapper demands a milkshake but you have the power to deny him it and save the hostage anyway, it is best to do that, even if it really, really upsets the kidnapper. You just shouldn’t feel that you have to take the kidnapper’s sensibilities into acount. That is a closer analogy to the case in hand, I would have thought.
But John – in all that you *are* taking their sensibilities into account!
How can you do that kind of calculation if you don’t?! And you’re precisely being utilitarian about it all.
Of course you don’t always do exactly as they wish. But I’ve never argued that. Not once.
And it’s nothing like the case in hand, anyway.
If I were you, I’d quit while you’re behind. Because – with all due respect, etc – this is now daft!
“And it’s nothing like the case in hand, anyway”
Well, granted, but it was your analogy.
The point is that there is a difference between avoiding a course of action because you wish to avoid hurting someone’s feelings and avoiding it because you are concerned that their hurt feelings may be translated into violence towards you. You seem to be conflating these different things. In both cases you take into account the way someone feels or thinks, of course, but that is only a trivial similarity, as you must realise.
Yes, it was my analogy, but the anology had nothing to do with the Clare College case. It was a response to your:
“But doesn’t this mean in effect that sometimes ‘the best thing to do’ is to moderate our behaviour according to the threats of others?”
And it is the case that sometimes the best thing to do is to moderate our behaviour according to the threats of others. (Not always. But sometimes.)
As the hostage example demonstrated.
“You seem to be conflating these different things.”
I have conflated nothing. I have nowhere suggested that I had any thought of their hurt feelings being translated into violence. You talked about “threats” (in your message 10:47:22); I had simply shown that utilitarian arguments are in play in free speech issues. (I didn’t say anywhere that people were going to die because of people being offended, or that there were threats that people were going to die.)
As I say, John, give it up.
“I had simply shown that utilitarian arguments are in play in free speech issues.”
This is uncontroversial, of course. You have made utilitarian arguments and so they are in play.
I was pointing out the dangers of applying a utlitarian argument except in very particular desperate circumstances where there is no choice but to accede to threats in order to prtect lives (kidnappers demanding a milkshake in order to spare a million hostages etc). Much of what we most value in free speech has caused more misery than happiness and should, therefore, according to utilitarian arguments, have been suppressed (even if only voluntarily). A utilitarian argument for the suppresion of anti-Muslim abuse can be just as easily applied to Richard Dawkins: keep quiet it is too upsetting for people to read what you have to say. But we don’t really think Richard D should sit and ponder the possible hurt feelings of hostile readers before setting about or that he should consider withdrawing his works in the light of hiostile criticism. In fact, we only tend to think hurt feelings should be taen into account when the feelings that are hurt are translated into violence (‘angry’ Muslims in this case).
“You have made utilitarian arguments and so they are in play.”
No, they are not in play because I made them. They just are in play. People are not free speech absolutists.
“I was pointing out the dangers of applying a utlitarian argument except in very particular desperate circumstances”
Yes, to which I replied:
“…that just sounds like a version of Chris’s slippery slope argument. One can believe in free speech, defend the right to it, and yet not believe – perhaps on utilitarian grounds – that everything should be published.”
Free speech isn’t threatened because occasionally we don’t publish things in order to avoid offence. (The BBC news for example, as a matter of practice, censors on the grounds of taste.)
John – I anticipated this line of argument right back at the beginning. Why do you think I phrased my second post like this?
*I’m enough of a utilitarian* to think that one should choose one’s battles carefully…
(It’s peculiar phraseology if it wasn’t deliberate – which it was.)
Sometimes utilitarian considerations hold sway, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes publication is justified despite the offence, despite the upset, and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes this will be determined by utilitarian considerations, and sometimes not. As I have said, several times, it’s a judgement call.
If your point is that by making this kind of judgement call, by allowing that utilitarian arguments sometimes come into play, free speech is threatened, then I just don’t buy it (hence my original comments about slippery slopes).
This should be entirely non-controversial. Free-speech is not threatened just because occasionally we decide that whatever good comes of publishing something, we wouldn’t be justified in doing so because of the hurt that it will cause.
Hmm. At risk of being inconsistent (or perhaps not, since I ended up seeing the point), I don’t think that’s what Jerry S is saying, because Dawkins doesn’t recycle unfunny cartoons, he does things that are more substantive than that. (Though there are people who think at least bits of TGD are somewhat too much like unfunny cartoons; but never mind that.) JS talked of choosing your battles. An argument that Mo had sex with a very young girl and that that’s a bad thing is one kind of thing, and a caption that says ‘violent paedophile’ is another.
I think actually we probably would have strong reservations if Dawkins published cartoons with silly abusive captions on them – it would seem beneath him; childish; not worth doing.
Actually come to think of it I expressed a reservation or thought that was somewhat similar a year ago, during the cartoon fuss – having to do with the fact that caricatures are different from arguments, so that reactions to them may be different, so that our reactions to the reactions could leave room for some difference. I didn’t feel much like pressing it at the time, with all the apologizers falling all over themselves to say you have free speech but of course that doesn’t mean you can insult anyone. But…I think there was something to it.
Sorry, that was a cross post. I thought perhaps JS was busy unloading lorries. Well but also I wanted to point out the difference.
“This should be entirely non-controversial. Free-speech is not threatened just because occasionally we decide that whatever good comes of publishing something, we wouldn’t be justified in doing so because of the hurt that it will cause.”
I’m not absolutely sure of that though. (Sorry to be difficult.) As a general principle, sure, but in some particular circumstances, maybe not. In an existing context in which noisy death threats have been made, and people have been killed in riots, and so on, I’m not sure it’s entirely true that free speech is not threatened if we pay extra heed to the potential hurt feelings of the threateners. Would we feel more free to ignore or shrug off the hurt feelings (to think ‘deal with it’ or ‘grow up’ or ‘have a sense of proportion already’) in the absence of all the violence? I think we might. I think I would be less likely to agree with your points. If there were a silly unfunny childish cartoon about Jesus in a satirical magazine, I wouldn’t worry about Christian hurt feelings. I just wouldn’t – I wouldn’t think they would be overpowering enough to worry about (overpowering to the people who have them, I mean). I wouldn’t believe in the intensity and power of the hurt feelings – they would seem small and trivial and easily dealt with even by the people who might have them.
So if that’s right, the hurt feelings of Muslims are impressed on our minds precisely by the violence. So if that’s right, the violence achieves its end. Which does seem unfortunate, even if relatively trivial branches of free speech (such as unfunny cartoons) are all that’s affected.
Obviously OB is spot on. I’m now returning to my lorries…
That was a cross post too.
Yes to all the second post, though. I think what it amounts to is that one must be very careful not to take a step too far down the slippery slope because violence has sensitised us in a way that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise.
I guess the thing is that if it had been a cartoon of Jesus masturbating over a picture of the Virgin Mary then I would have also found that unwarranted on the grounds of the upset it would cause.
(Part of the problem here is that one suspects that Christians just aren’t going to be as offended by this kind of thing. But that’s just part of the facticity of the world. Obviously, one has to be very careful that one doesn’t simply pander to Muslim offence. But, you know, recycled, abusive cartoons of Muhammad – for me, publication in this instance just wasn’t justified even allowing for all the considerations you mention.)
This came up once, you know, with our Top of the Pops show. Some artist burned a Bible, and the response was – yes, very radical, but I bet you wouldn’t have dared burned a Qu’ran.
I do think violence and threats change the calculus (as I said earlier).
Yeah. I can see all that.
That’s why I love Jesus and Mo – it’s the opposite of mere abuse; it’s very much worth doing.
“it’s very much worth doing.”
Absolutely. A completely different thing.
“Some artist burned a Bible, and the response was – yes, very radical, but I bet you wouldn’t have dared burned a Qu’ran.
I do think violence and threats change the calculus (as I said earlier).”
I’m not sure. I mean I wouldn’t have published those Danish cartoons even though one (the running-out of virgins one) was quite funny – and that one could have made the same punchline without any pictures of Mohammed – because they just seemed to me pointlessly offensive, and would distress a lot of harmless people. But the stress is on “pointlessly offensive” as distinct from, say, the writings of Ayaan Ali Hirsi, whom many Muslims presumably find offensive but who is offensive with a point.
I would think the same about obscene pictures of Buddha, Jesus Christ etc – knowing that someone is trying to be woundingly offensive or is ignorantly offensive – even about knowingly peeing over a tree that some animists revere.
KB Player
Well (obviously) I tend to agree with you.
But supposing a whole series of Islamic leaders had popped up on tv before the Danish cartoons thing saying that there would be hell to pay if any cartoons were published.
I think things become interesting then. Because suddenly the principle of free speech is centre stage.
So the moral calculus is different.
So if a bunch of animists popped up and said, you shouldn’t pee on that tree because a god lives there, and if you do we’ll turn nasty, you would think you should be duty bound to pee on the tree out of principle?
Well I don’t think there’s a principle of free peeing, as such…
If they popped up, and said, look if you write about peeing on trees, or publish cartoons about peeing on trees, or go on television saying we should be able to pee on trees, we’re going to riot and pee everywhere, then yes, it gets interesting in terms of the free speech principle.
Not all principle are born equal. Free speech is vital because of its link to critical enquiry, rationality, the accumulation of knowledge, challenges to authoritarianism, etc, etc,
Principles about a right to pee… not so much.
“If your point is that by making this kind of judgement call, by allowing that utilitarian arguments sometimes come into play, free speech is threatened, then I just don’t buy it (hence my original comments about slippery slopes).”
I realise that my continued posting on this thread is irritating Jerry and possibly some others so I will make this the last.
My position isn’t that utilitarian arguments are necessarily a threat to free speech, only that when they recommend a response of a certain type (capitulatiopn) to threats of physical violence they are. If the utlitarian position is ‘don’t say whatever it is because those other peple will hurt you if you do and that will be a worse outcome than self censorship’ that threatens free speech. There are cases where the utilitarian argument will hold sway but they will nearly always be situations where liberal freedoms have already been lost, or temporary situations where we will wait until th threat is dealt with before saying what we want to say. It is quite different from the situation where someone persuades you to modify your speech because they may be offended by what you say. That is simply persuasion and a good thing all round. But nonetheless the right to offend people with what you say is what freedom of speech is all about.
You weren’t irritating me John – I just didn’t (don’t) see that your argument really works.
You seem to be distinguishing between self-censorship and… well I suppose an unthinking utilitarianism.
But my point was only that one might occasionally wish to self-censor on utilitarian grounds; that what would be involved in your persuasion case is precisely that utilitarian arguments are in play on a particular occasion.
I have consistently stated that I’m not disputing the *right* to free speech.
Part of the problem here may be that in some ways (but not all) your argument (Jerry’s) sounds like what Jack Straw, Cardinal Whatsit, Scott Whatsit the State Department spokesfella and others said: that formula ‘Of course you have the right to free speech but that doesn’t mean you can insult people.’ Oh and Queen Beatrix more recently; she said exactly the same thing. It amounts to ‘you have it but you don’t’ – to ‘you have it unless someone really really minds, and then you don’t’ – which renders it pretty much worthless. But you’re making a much more qualified argument. But the resemblance is there – it took me awhile to get past it.
I wonder if all or some of those people also had something more qualified and hedged in mind, but were required to give simpler blunter versions. News conference versions.
My argument is a good deal more qualified, especially since I could be fully in favour of people being insulted.
I just don’t think it should be done carelessly, or without good reason (where this might be determined in utilitarian terms, but might not), etc.
Basically, I think that people are moral agents. If what we do causes them distress, whether that is justified or not, then we should take that into account. And sometimes we’ll judge that maybe we should keep quiet. But perhaps only rarely. It’s a judgement call (and obviously the implications of our silence for free speech is part of the judgement – hence my remarks about how things change if threats of violence are articulated).
Yeah. Understood.
So one could quite reasonably argue that all things taken into account J-P would have done better not to publish the cartoons, on the grounds that they were neither good enough nor substantive enough to justify the taunting aspect, while at the same time arguing that once they were published and all the threats were in play, the media would have done better [bracketing security concerns for the sake of argument] to publish the cartoons, on the grounds that 1) they were part of the story and seeing them was part of understanding the story and 2) the threats needed to be resisted. Then for a third item one could still argue that merely recycling them a year later is also not worth doing.
That’s the difference between Clareification and whatever mag or paper it was at Cardiff, I think: the Cardiff paper published when the cartoons were part of the news but were not published in the major media.
Yes, about the J-P thing. That would be almost exactly my position (except I’m not sure that I would have opposed publication in the first place.)
Yes, so basically, I agree with everything you say. As always, of course! :)
I’m not a bit sure I would have opposed publication in the first place – in fact I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have. But I think one could reasonably argue that. As I mentioned, I think I edged toward that view last year, with the meditation on the nature of caricature and the way it is inherently provocative and insulting. I edged toward it but was undermotivated to do more than that because of the nature of the fuss.
Well done agreeing with everything I say! Much the best policy; otherwise I howl and threaten.
cackle
I think the point is being missed a bit here, the poop is now out of the horse and it is more of a case whether or not to defend rather ugly free speech or not