I'm not sure what happened but I intended to post a slightly different version of this.<br><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>The real question can't be (as Kristof says):
"Should we curb the freedom to insult religions that are twitchy?" </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>There is no "freedom to insult
religions." Think of the consequences of saying otherwise. Suppose your
son or daughter intentionally insults a school mate, making fun of his or her
religion in front of other school children. How would the argument for free
speech look then? Are you telling me that you wouldn’t scold your child for
that behavior? Of course, you would as you should. You can’t scold someone for
doing something that they have a RIGHT to do. Yet there is no right to offend.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>Here is how I would characterize the
situation. We have freedom of speech, a right to say whatever we please – so
long as our speech does not rub up against other individual rights and moral
obligations. Free speech allows us to say what we want, critique and criticize
whatever we wish, including religions and religious figures.<br>
<br>
How does this differ from Kristof's way of characterizing the situation? Later
he writes: "The freedom to be an imbecile is one of our core values."
But that makes it seem as if the "freedom to offend" belongs on the
list of inalienable rights. It doesn’t.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>This presents a dilemma. If speech can
be limited, then how can there be true freedom of expression? If speech can’t
be limited, then we have the right to be offensive (and worse). Forget about
lecturing your kids about civility since the Bill of Rights allows them to be
jackasses – and you wouldn’t want to limit the absolute freedoms in the Bill of
Rights, would you? Neither option is acceptable.<br>
<br>
Let me climb on my philosophical soapbox for a moment and explain the way out
of this dilemma. The real issue is a logical one: freedoms are not “closed
under entailment,” as the logician would say. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>Entailment is the relationship between
the premises and the conclusion of a valid argument. Thus, if one proposition
entails another, then if the former is true, the latter must also be true.
Example: That Joe is a bachelor entails that Joe is unmarried.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>To better see the point, consider this
argument:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>Joe has the right to criticize religion
X.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>That Joe criticizes religion X entails
that Joe says something offensive.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>Therefore, Joe has the right to say
something offensive.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>If this argument is valid, then
freedoms are closed under entailment: Joe has the right to do X; that he does X
entails that he does Y; therefore, Joe has the right to do Y. Here the right in
the first claim transfers to the (supposed) right in the second claim. My point
is that this is an invalid inference; freedoms are not closed under entailment.
Joe has the right to free speech but no one has a right to offend. Freedoms and
rights are limited to particular cases and do not always logically transfer to
other similar cases for the simple reason that no one has a right to say
something that is intentionally offensive to others. Maybe you have the legal
right, which is to say that no one should stop you. Still, you shouldn’t do it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>Why is this important? We should stop
offending others and stop pretending that we have a right to do so. We wouldn’t
tolerate this behavior from our children, so why tolerate it from other adults?
Again, I’m mostly talking about cases of intentionally offensive speech. Thus,
the insult must be intentional and it must also be offensive, meaning something
that causes (in normal persons) “repugnance, revulsion and shock” (<a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech/">http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech/</a>).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style>Don’t limit free speech. I’m doing ethics
and not suggesting more laws in an already too law-governed society. Clearly some
people (religious and otherwise) are touchy and that shouldn’t stop you from
speaking your mind if you think you have something worth saying. Trying to deliberately
offend another is another matter. That is not “protected” speech. It is merely
a case of someone abusing actual rights in order to do wrong.</span></p>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 9:00 AM, Joe Campbell <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:philosopher.joe@gmail.com" target="_blank">philosopher.joe@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Nice article but I still disagree with the way this debate is sometimes framed. The real question can't be (as Kristof suggests): "Should we curb the freedom to insult religions that are twitchy?" <br><br>I don't think there is a "freedom to insult religions" or a freedom to insult anything for that matter. Here is how I would characterize it: We have freedom of speech. That freedom allows us to critique and criticize whatever we wish, including religions. If the religious find that insulting, too bad for them. My advice: stop listening to what you find insulting.<br>
<br>How does this differ from Kristof's way of characterizing it? Later he writes: "The freedom to be an imbecile is one of our core values." But that makes it seem as if the "freedom to offend" is a positive freedom and with that comes a dilemma: I have the freedom to offend; being intentionally offensive is wrong; therefore I have the right to do wrong.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="h5">On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:15 PM, Art Deco <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div class="h5">
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<br clear="all"><hr align="left" size="1">
<div>September 22, 2012</div>
<h1>Exploiting the Prophet</h1>
<h6>By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/nicholasdkristof/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF" target="_blank"><span>NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF</span></a></span></h6>
<div>
<p>
“PISS CHRIST,” a famous photograph partly financed by taxpayers,
depicted a crucifix immersed in what the artist said was his own urine.
But conservative Christians did not riot on the Washington Mall. </p>
<p>
“The <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444450004578002010241044712.html" target="_blank">Book of Mormon</a>,” a huge hit on Broadway, mocks the church’s beliefs as hocus-pocus. But Mormons haven’t burned down any theaters. </p>
<p>
So why do parts of the Islamic world <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/15/world/middleeast/anti-american-protests-over-film-enter-4th-day.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">erupt in violence</a> over insults to the Prophet Muhammad? </p>
<p>
Let me try to address that indelicate question, and a related one:
Should we curb the freedom to insult religions that are twitchy? </p>
<p>
First, a few caveats. For starters, television images can magnify (and
empower) crazies. In Libya, the few jihadis who killed Ambassador Chris
Stevens were vastly outnumbered by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/benghazi-anti-militia-protest_n_1903846.html" target="_blank">the throngs</a> of Libyan mourners who apologized afterward. </p>
<p>
Remember also that it’s not just Muslims who periodically go berserk,
but everybody — particularly in societies with large numbers of poorly
educated young men. Upheavals are often more about demography than about
religion: the best predictor of civil conflict is the <a href="http://www.prio.no/upload/prio/ISQU_416.PDF" target="_blank">share of a population</a>
that is aged 15 to 24. In the 19th century, when the United States
brimmed with poorly educated young men, Protestants rioted against
Catholics. </p>
<p>
For much of the postwar period, it was the secular nationalists in the
Middle East who were seen as the extremists, while Islam was seen as a
calming influence. That’s why Israel helped nurture Hamas in Gaza.
</p>
<p>
That said, for a self-described “religion of peace,” Islam does claim a lot of lives. </p>
<p>
In conservative Muslim countries, sensitivities sometimes seem
ludicrous. I once covered a Pakistani college teacher who was imprisoned
and threatened with execution for speculating that the Prophet
Muhammad’s parents weren’t Muslims. (They couldn’t have been, since
Islam began with him.) </p>
<p>
I think a few things are going on. The first is that many Muslim
countries lack a tradition of free speech, and see ridicule of the
prophet as part of a larger narrative of the West’s invading or
humiliating the Islamic world. People in these countries sometimes also
have an addled view of how the United States handles blasphemy. </p>
<p>
A <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/21/opinion/watch-what-you-say.html" target="_blank">Pakistani imam</a>,
Abdul Wahid Qasmi, once told me that President Bill Clinton burned to
death scores of Americans for criticizing Jesus. If America can execute
blasphemers, he said, why can’t Pakistan? </p>
<p>
I challenged him, and he plucked an Urdu-language book off his shelf, thumbed through it, and began reading triumphantly about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/20/us/death-waco-overview-scores-die-cult-compound-set-afire-after-fbi-sends-tanks.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm" target="_blank">the 1993 raid</a> on David Koresh’s cult in Waco, Tex. </p>
<p>
More broadly, this is less about offensive videos than about a political
war unfolding in the Muslim world. Extremist Muslims like Salafis see
themselves as unfairly marginalized, and they hope to exploit this issue
to embarrass their governments and win public support. This is a
political struggle, not just a religious battle — and we’re pawns.
</p>
<p>
But it would be a mistake to back off and censor our kooks. The freedom to be an imbecile is one of our core values. </p>
<p>
In any case, there will always be other insults. As some leading Muslims
have noted, Islam has to learn to shrug them off. </p>
<p>
“Why should we feel danger from anything?” <a href="http://vimeo.com/33780689?action=share" target="_blank">Nasr Hamid Abu Zyad</a>,
one of the Islamic world’s greatest theologians, said before his death
in 2010. “Thousands of books are written against Muhammad. Thousands of
books are written against Jesus. O.K., all these thousands of books did
not destroy the faith.” </p>
<p>
A group called Muslims for Progressive Values noted <a href="http://www.mpvusa.org/uploads/Press_Release_Condemnation_of_Riot___Killings__Video__9-12-2012.pdf" target="_blank">a story in Islamic tradition</a>
in which Muhammad was tormented by a woman who put thorns in his path
and went so far as to hurl manure at his head as he prayed. Yet Muhammad
responded patiently and tolerantly. When she fell sick, he visited her
home to wish her well. </p>
<p>
For his time, Muhammad was socially progressive, and that’s a thread that reformers want to recapture. <a href="http://dailynewsegypt.com/2012/09/18/a-country-of-extremists/" target="_blank">Mahmoud Salem</a>,
the Egyptian blogger better known as Sandmonkey, wrote that violent
protests were “more damaging to Islam’s reputation than a thousand
so-called ‘Islam-attacking films.’ ” </p>
<p>
He suggested that Egyptians forthrightly condemn Islamic fundamentalists
as “a bunch of shrill, patriarchal, misogynistic, violent extremists
who are using Islam as a cover for their behavior.” </p>
<p>
Are extremists hijacking the Arab Spring? They’re trying to, but this is
just the opening chapter in a long drama. Some Eastern European
countries, like Romania and Hungary, are still wobbly more than two
decades after their democratic revolutions. Maybe the closest parallel
to the Arab Spring is the 1998 revolution in Indonesia, where it took
years for Islamic extremism to subside. </p>
<p>
My bet is that we’ll see more turbulence in the Arab world, but that
countries like Egypt and Tunisia and Libya won’t fall over a cliff. A
revolution isn’t an event, but a process. </p>
<div>
<p>I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/ontheground" target="_blank">On the Ground</a>. Please also join me on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/kristof" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/102839963139173448834/posts?hl=en" target="_blank">Google+</a>, watch my <a href="http://www.youtube.com/nicholaskristof" target="_blank">YouTube videos</a> and follow me on <a href="http://twitter.com/nickkristof" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</p>
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<div><div><div><br style="clear:both"></div></div></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>
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