Hate speech
I’ve been closely following the uproar in the Islamic world since the publishing of the cartoons in the Danish newspapers, and today, things reached a new level on my absurdity meter.
For any who haven’t followed the story or who need a brush up on the details, a Danish newspaper tried to open up a local dialogue about how Islam was portrayed in the media. Danish cartoonists were to submit their cartoons, and the newspaper picked a few dozen to showcase in a special section of the newspaper.
Well, one cartoon depicted the prophet Mohammed, only instead of a turban on his head, the cartoonist drew a bomb.
Reaction was swift and harsh. While virtually no protest emerged from the Muslim community in Denmark, all across the Middle East and the Philippines protests erupted in an orgy of property destruction, murders, and disorder. Danish flags were burned by the hundreds. Danish goods were removed from store shelves in Egypt. The Philippines demanded an apology from the Danish government (which gave in and apologized for the actions of a wholly unrelated private newspaper). Danes living in Libya had their homes burned to the ground, and many fled the country.
Well, today in Syria, angry mobs burned down several embassies (the Danish embassy only one among several).
Seriously, people, get a thicker skin. I know I’m a bit of a complainer, but even I don’t create imagined slights this grotesque and react so ridiculously to them.
The debate on the BBC website forums seems to center around basically two positions:
Freedom of speech v. Respect for others
Now, far be it from me to suggest that the ‘respect for others’ camp is ludicrous, but when I wish to point out the foibles of others I can do so in mild jest. Those in the ‘respect for others’ camp seem to be eschewing the mild jest in favor of murder and arson, which clearly show lots of respect for others (whose only crime is coming from the same country as unrelated corporate enterprises).
This discussion is not foreign to the United States, even. In my Law and Human Rights class last semester, the professor of the class-s-s-s-s-s-s-s had us discussing hate speech laws-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s. I said that the idea of hate speech laws ran counter to the concept of freedom of speech and the primary experiment of the United States (freedom of expression and thought).
John Stuart Mill made the most convincing case for freedom of speech I’ve yet read, and he suggested that freedom of thought was necessary because it made all men arrive at truth more quickly than otherwise.
He claimed that if a man says something contrary to your beliefs, there were three possibilities: Either 1) the opposing party is clearly wrong, which gets you closer to understanding truth because you have been able to rule out one proposition from being true, or 2) the opposing party is right, in which case you get closer to truth by abandoning your false belief, or 3) both parties have bits of truth and bits of falsity, in which case both parties benefit by refining their beliefs to eliminate the falsities. Indeed, in a most prescient opinion, Justice Holmes suggested the same idea with much eloquence in a dissent. “But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas - that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.” Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919).
After relating this concept (which is commonly called “the marketplace of ideas”), the professor dismissed the entire argument by suggesting that it is only made by people who faced no oppression, and then pointed out that in this case, it was being made by a middle-class white male (me) in one of the most privileged countries in the world.
Now, aside from the impropriety of a professor engaging in purely ad hominem attacks against one of his students, the allegation is patently untrue. J.S. Mill faced persecution for his writings, and many of the Utilitarians and market-philosophers who followed in his footsteps have been vilified. It was only after getting the ideas enshrined in American jurisprudence (mid-20th century) that the utility of the marketplace of ideas has become widely accepted.
What’s more to the point, though, is the sheer arrogance of those who would do away with the marketplace of ideas in favor of a restrictive system of speech in which only the orthodox speech is tolerated. J.S. Mill’s “marketplace of ideas” is premised on the idea that, however deeply I hold me beliefs, I may be wrong! Because of that chance that my belief in a ‘fighting faith’ could be wrong, I must take into account the arguments of others to ensure that I am as right as I can be.
No such obligation is imposed on those who believe that they have already found ultimate truth, and in no place is this more apparent than in those who would silence opposition to their version of reality. There is a certain uplifting humility in recognizing that you could be wrong, and an abrading type of arrogance in the assumption that you have discovered absolute truth and have captured it perfectly in every nuance and complexity.
If the Muslim nations of the world wish to survive the next few hundred years without facing a Samuel Huntington-style “Clash of Civilizations” World War, they must give up the supreme arrogance of believing that they alone have understood truth it all its vagaries and learn to bear mild criticism as a way of getting closer to understanding Truth.
*EDIT (12:15 am, 2/5/06): And the escalation further mounts... Denmark and Norway have asked their citizens to leave Syria after the burning of their embassies. Chile and Sweden have not yet responded to the burnings (which damaged their embassies).
*EDIT (9:35 am, 2/5/06): As goes Damascus, so goes Beirut. An angry mob in Lebanon burned down the Danish embassy, too.
For any who haven’t followed the story or who need a brush up on the details, a Danish newspaper tried to open up a local dialogue about how Islam was portrayed in the media. Danish cartoonists were to submit their cartoons, and the newspaper picked a few dozen to showcase in a special section of the newspaper.
Well, one cartoon depicted the prophet Mohammed, only instead of a turban on his head, the cartoonist drew a bomb.
Reaction was swift and harsh. While virtually no protest emerged from the Muslim community in Denmark, all across the Middle East and the Philippines protests erupted in an orgy of property destruction, murders, and disorder. Danish flags were burned by the hundreds. Danish goods were removed from store shelves in Egypt. The Philippines demanded an apology from the Danish government (which gave in and apologized for the actions of a wholly unrelated private newspaper). Danes living in Libya had their homes burned to the ground, and many fled the country.
Well, today in Syria, angry mobs burned down several embassies (the Danish embassy only one among several).
Seriously, people, get a thicker skin. I know I’m a bit of a complainer, but even I don’t create imagined slights this grotesque and react so ridiculously to them.
The debate on the BBC website forums seems to center around basically two positions:
Freedom of speech v. Respect for others
Now, far be it from me to suggest that the ‘respect for others’ camp is ludicrous, but when I wish to point out the foibles of others I can do so in mild jest. Those in the ‘respect for others’ camp seem to be eschewing the mild jest in favor of murder and arson, which clearly show lots of respect for others (whose only crime is coming from the same country as unrelated corporate enterprises).
This discussion is not foreign to the United States, even. In my Law and Human Rights class last semester, the professor of the class-s-s-s-s-s-s-s had us discussing hate speech laws-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s. I said that the idea of hate speech laws ran counter to the concept of freedom of speech and the primary experiment of the United States (freedom of expression and thought).
John Stuart Mill made the most convincing case for freedom of speech I’ve yet read, and he suggested that freedom of thought was necessary because it made all men arrive at truth more quickly than otherwise.
He claimed that if a man says something contrary to your beliefs, there were three possibilities: Either 1) the opposing party is clearly wrong, which gets you closer to understanding truth because you have been able to rule out one proposition from being true, or 2) the opposing party is right, in which case you get closer to truth by abandoning your false belief, or 3) both parties have bits of truth and bits of falsity, in which case both parties benefit by refining their beliefs to eliminate the falsities. Indeed, in a most prescient opinion, Justice Holmes suggested the same idea with much eloquence in a dissent. “But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas - that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.” Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919).
After relating this concept (which is commonly called “the marketplace of ideas”), the professor dismissed the entire argument by suggesting that it is only made by people who faced no oppression, and then pointed out that in this case, it was being made by a middle-class white male (me) in one of the most privileged countries in the world.
Now, aside from the impropriety of a professor engaging in purely ad hominem attacks against one of his students, the allegation is patently untrue. J.S. Mill faced persecution for his writings, and many of the Utilitarians and market-philosophers who followed in his footsteps have been vilified. It was only after getting the ideas enshrined in American jurisprudence (mid-20th century) that the utility of the marketplace of ideas has become widely accepted.
What’s more to the point, though, is the sheer arrogance of those who would do away with the marketplace of ideas in favor of a restrictive system of speech in which only the orthodox speech is tolerated. J.S. Mill’s “marketplace of ideas” is premised on the idea that, however deeply I hold me beliefs, I may be wrong! Because of that chance that my belief in a ‘fighting faith’ could be wrong, I must take into account the arguments of others to ensure that I am as right as I can be.
No such obligation is imposed on those who believe that they have already found ultimate truth, and in no place is this more apparent than in those who would silence opposition to their version of reality. There is a certain uplifting humility in recognizing that you could be wrong, and an abrading type of arrogance in the assumption that you have discovered absolute truth and have captured it perfectly in every nuance and complexity.
If the Muslim nations of the world wish to survive the next few hundred years without facing a Samuel Huntington-style “Clash of Civilizations” World War, they must give up the supreme arrogance of believing that they alone have understood truth it all its vagaries and learn to bear mild criticism as a way of getting closer to understanding Truth.
*EDIT (12:15 am, 2/5/06): And the escalation further mounts... Denmark and Norway have asked their citizens to leave Syria after the burning of their embassies. Chile and Sweden have not yet responded to the burnings (which damaged their embassies).
*EDIT (9:35 am, 2/5/06): As goes Damascus, so goes Beirut. An angry mob in Lebanon burned down the Danish embassy, too.
posted by The Academian | 7:56 PM
3 Comments:
Ad hominem arguments aside, you are right to suggest that a free exchange of ideas is the best and easiest way to arrive at the truth. The problem with Mill's argument, however, is that it is made in an objective manner, assuming an objective truth which can be debated and, in the end, agreed on. Thus, in any disagreement between any two sides, one of Mill's three possibilities is of necessity correct, but it is not necessarily true that the sides have enough information to decide which of the three is correct.
More importantly, however, the issue for Muslims is not simply about respect or even being lumped into the broad category of "terrorist." These cartoons are not only disrespectful in their eyes, but blasphemous. This does not excuse violence, of course, or even merit suppression of the cartoons solely on the basis of religious sensitivities, but it's worth noting how quite important an issue this is for Muslims. If you're interested, there's more on that here.
AK, you bring up a common argument against the marketplace of ideas concept; namely, the problem of imperfect information. Yet as much of a theoretical problem as the might be, in practical terms, it never seems to be a particular problem. People use their natural reason to arrive at conclusions based on evidence on a moment-to-moment basis. The American modern trial even assumes the ability of an average lay person to reason their way to the correct answer on the basis of evidence presented to them. What is important is not the ultimate 'who is right' question, but that they used evidence and reason to get to whatever result they finally arrived at.
As for the issue of the rioting Muslims' views being important to them, I would disagree that it is important in the slightest. The content of a person's proposition, and how strongly they hold that proposition, is mainly irrelevant to the ultimate truth or falsity of the proposition. Many people hold strong views. I hold strong views on religion and ethical matters as well. But I must be open to having those beliefs challenged if (and probably when) someone comes along with a better argument.
The only way in which the content of the contested proposition matters, and the only way in which the strength of belief in that proposition matters, is when determining how much of an emotional hurdle people will need to leap to appeal to the natural reason of the opposing party.
Mill noted the real problem with the marketplace of ideas in his 'The Subjection of Women' when he suggested that, "...The difficulty is that which exists in all cases in which there is a mass of feeling to be contended against. So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest; the more persuaded its adherents are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains, it is always thowing up fresh [e]ntrenchments of argument to repair any breach made in the old."
So, perhaps, the real debate (on a deeper level) is the humility of reason versus the arrogance of faith, but I hesitate to take the discussion to that level without doing more epistemological research.
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