Month: March 2006

  • Foreign Office on Forced Marriage Unit

    ‘Forced marriage is not a religious or cultural issue – it is a global human rights abuse.’

  • UK Drive to Reduce Forced Marriages

    ‘Forced marriage is a form of domestic violence and a human rights abuse.’

  • Julian Baggini on Treating Nations as Responsible

    What is not ultimately fair or philosophically defensible is sometimes nevertheless indispensable.

  • John Sutherland Talks to Julia Kristeva

    Claims she has ‘patented’ three ideas.

  • Anti-abortion Group Posts People’s Addresses

    Call people ‘baby murderers’ then provide their addresses. Nice.

  • Letters on Wiesltier’s Review of Dennett

    Everyone thinks it’s stupid and bad and awful. Very pleasing.

  • Take That, Leon

    Now this is satisfying. A lot of people telling the infuriating smug NY Times what a crap review that review by Wieseltier was. It would be all the more satisfying to see Wieseltier admit as much and express remorse and embarrassment at the horrible juvenile abusive spittle-flecked tone of it – but this is satisfying all the same.

    Sam Harris:

    Wieseltier writes with triumphal smugness about the “excesses of naturalism” that apparently blight Dennett’s work. He might as well have pointed out the “excesses of historical accuracy” or the “excesses of logical coherence.” If utter naturalism is a sin, it is one only from the point of view of religious faith — a faith that has grown ever more blinkered in Reason’s glare.

    A philosopher at Duke:

    There can be few better examples of the sort of protectionism about religion that Daniel Dennett wrestles with in “Breaking the Spell” than Leon Wieseltier’s shallow but interminable ad hominem rant…Nothing makes plainer the extent of Wieseltier’s protectionism about religion than his willingness to pay the price of treating science as just another optional philosophy…[I]t is a symptom of the millennial protectionism that Dennett so patiently and eloquently urges us to forgo at least long enough to examine religion as a natural phenomenon.

    Dave Barash:

    Asking Leon Wieseltier to review Daniel Dennett on religion is like asking Karl Rove to review Ralph Nader on politics. Wieseltier is one of those who, in Dennett’s terms, has “belief in belief.” Such individuals are hardly likely to provide a balanced — or even interesting — assessment of what it takes to break the spell that holds them in thrall.

    And I love this one – Philip Blond and the millions like him, please note:

    In his review of “Breaking the Spell,” Leon Wieseltier couldn’t resist the reflexive accusation that building a worldview on a scientific base is reductive, and as is often the case, he trotted out the existence of art to capture our sympathies. As a composer, I am weary of being commandeered as evidence of supernatural forces.

    Ha! Yeah. That’s only a sample; read them all; very satisfying.

  • Out of Order

    Not a good day. A frustrating day, a malfunctioning day, an irritating day. Email problems – or perhaps correspondent problems. It can be so hard to tell. When someone ignores several emails, you may decide ‘well, I guess I can take a hint (however belatedly)’ and stop emailing, but then when the same person emails on unrelated subjects, you think ‘Hmm, did my emails not get through?’ so you ask – only to be ignored again. Then you scratch your head until the blood drips onto the floor and the cat squalls in alarm, wondering whether what we have here is an email problem or an irritating correspondent problem. This causes bad temper and a strong desire to be in Norway wandering among the fjords.

    Actually I always have a strong desire to be in Norway wandering among the fjords, but it becomes stronger and sharper when I’m being frustrated and irritated by either 1) email or 2) paralyzed correspondents, or perhaps both. That’s when I start to think dreamily about dear little huts with one chair and one cup and one plate, 749 miles from the nearest neighbour. You didn’t know that about me, did you? You thought I was very gregarious and friendly and even-tempered – and so I am, most of the time, but I have this side, this element, this aspect that is all misanthropic and hostile. Normally, though, I’m very warm and mellow and approachable. Well okay not really warm and mellow and approachable, but frigidly civil, at least. Not savage. Not violent or explosive. Not the type to shout horrible names and fling dishes around the room. Tame, anyway. Sort of.

    Other things are malfunctioning too, of course (well they always are, aren’t they). People asking me if I want to do huge time-consuming jobs for them, and when out of politeness (see? I’m lovely, really) I say okay, they drop the job in my lap with a great thud and say ‘no hurry’ as if the whole thing had been my idea. Very peculiar. People beseeching me to go to a (ohhhhhhhhhh) class reunion. People wearing those ridiculous woolly boots when it’s fifty degrees outside. (It’s worse in California. There they wear them when it’s seventy degrees. Why don’t their feet explode?) People building things and cutting things and polishing things and kind of shaking things up and down and bouncing them around, on all sides of me. Seriously – this neighbourhood is in a permanent state of construction and renovation. Wallop wallop wallop on this side, nerrrrr on that side, mutter mutter shout laugh mutter chat in front. I really ought to move my desk out onto the street, it would be quieter.

    So that’s this day’s malfunctions. Therefore tomorrow will be much better – that’s a law of nature.

  • Sympathetic to Husbands of ‘Difficult’ Women

    Well, after all, she did remove her burqa.

  • Taliban ‘Roving Envoy’ Goes to Yale

    Blames Ministry of Vice and Virtue, though he defended it in the past.

  • Education Ministers Say Silly Things

    Worker needs not vocational knowledge but research skills, imagination, rigour in thought and argument.

  • Eloquence

    Thought for the Day. Via Deborah Lipstadt’s blog History on Trial, from a correspondent…

    Although I am not anti-semitic, your Jewish greed is overbearing and crippling.

  • Cartoons

    The cartoons of the prophet Mohammed were published in the Jyllands-Posten on September 30. On October 17th the Egyptian newspaper al-Fagr reprinted some of the cartoons (calling them a ‘continuing insult’). On October 20th ambassadors from ten majority-Muslim countries complained to the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said, ‘The government refuses to apologize because the government does not control the media or a newspaper outlet; that would be in violation of the freedom of speech.’

    Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Aboul Gheit wrote to the Danish PM and the UN. In December the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, sent a letter to the Organisation of Islamic Conferences, which had complained about the cartoons. She told the OIC she deplored ‘any statement or act showing a lack of respect towards other people’s religion.’ The newspaper Berlingske Tidende reported the letter said ‘Arbour had appointed UN experts in the areas of religious freedom and racism to investigate the matter.’

    A group of Danish imams put together a brochure with the twelve cartoons from the Jyllands-Posten (most of which were quite anodyne), took it to Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey in December and January and showed it around. To enhance the effect, they thoughtfully added three new ones that were nothing to do with the Danish newspaper. (It appears that that fact was not heavily emphasized during the travels of the imams and the brochure, however.) One of the three added cartoons was passed off as a cartoon of the prophet in the guise of a pig, but it turned out to be an Associated Press photograph of a man at a pig-squealing contest at an agricultural fair in southern France in August. The AP was not greatly pleased with this misuse of its photograph.

    The Danish imams got their way, and protests against the cartoons escalated sharply in early February. And then the pressure to submit began. From Sarah Joseph in the Guardian:

    Any depiction of Muhammad, however temperate, is not allowed. There are but a few images of him in Muslim history, and even these are shown with his face veiled. This applies not only to images of Muhammad: no prophet is to be depicted. There are no images of God in Islam either.

    From Paul Vallely in the Independent:

    Images of the Prophet Mohamed have long been discouraged in Islam. The West has little understanding of why this should be so – nor of the intensity of the feelings aroused by non-believers’ attitudes to the founder of Islam…[T]o reject and criticise Mohamed is to reject and criticise Allah himself. Criticism of the Prophet is therefore equated with blasphemy, which is punishable by death in some Muslim states. When Salman Rushdie, in his novel The Satanic Verses, depicted Mohamed as a cynical schemer and his wives as prostitutes, the outcome was – to those with any understanding of Islam – predictable. But understanding of Islam is sorely lacking in the West.

    From Jack Straw:

    There is freedom of speech, we all respect that. But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been insulting, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong. There are taboos in every religion. We have to be very careful about showing the proper respect in this situation.

    From US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack:

    Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images or any other religious belief.

    From the Pope:

    The right of freedom of thought and of expression, as contained in the Declaration of Human Rights, cannot imply the right to offend the religious feelings of believers.

    From EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini, who told the Telegraph that there was a “very real problem” in the EU of balancing “two fundamental freedoms, the freedom of expression and the freedom of religion”:

    The press will give the Muslim world the message: we are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression, we can and we are ready to self-regulate that right.

    From Kofia Annan:

    Annan condemned the drawings…as “insensitive and rather offensive,”…He said the drawings, one of which shows Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, could be seen as vilifying a religion with more than 1 billion adherents. Annan said he defends free speech, but insisted “it has to come with some sense of responsibility and judgment and limits. There are times when you have to challenge taboos,” he said. “But you don’t fool around with other people’s religions and you have to respect what is sacred to other people.”

    From a student union spokeswoman at the University of Cardiff:

    A student union spokeswoman said Tom Wellingham, the editor of the paper, which won newspaper of the year at last year’s Guardian’s Student Media Awards, had been suspended alongside three other journalists. “The editorial team enjoy the normal freedoms and independence associated with the press in the UK, and are expected to exercise those freedoms with responsibility, due care and judgment.”

    From the Guardian:

    The Guardian believes uncompromisingly in freedom of expression, but not in any duty to gratuitously offend…To directly associate the founder of one of the world’s three great monotheistic religions with terrorist violence – the unmistakable meaning of the most explicit of these cartoons – is wrong, even if the intention was satirical rather than blasphemous…The volatile context of this issue, with its echoes of the furore over Salman Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses, cannot be ignored…The extraordinary unanimity of the British press in refraining from publishing the drawings – in contrast to the Nordic countries, Germany, Spain and France – speaks volumes. John Stuart Mill is a better guide to this issue than Voltaire.

    Other people had better sense. Ibn Warraq:

    The cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten raise the most important question of our times: freedom of expression. Are we in the west going to cave into pressure from societies with a medieval mindset, or are we going to defend our most precious freedom — freedom of expression, a freedom for which thousands of people sacrificed their lives? A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend…Unless, we show some solidarity, unashamed, noisy, public solidarity with the Danish cartoonists, then the forces that are trying to impose on the Free West a totalitarian ideology will have won; the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest.

    Matthew Parris:

    I’m afraid we really do have to decide whether the demand is reasonable. I do not think it is. I am not a Muslim. Nor am I a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu…But let us not duck what that “I do not believe” really means. It means I do not believe that there is one God, Allah, or that Muhammad is His Prophet. It means I do not believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, or that no man cometh to the Father except by Him…In my opinion these views are profoundly mistaken, and those who subscribe to them are under a serious misapprehension on a most important matter. Not only are their views not true for me: they are not true for them. They are not true for anyone. They are wrong.

    Christopher Hitchens:

    As well as being a small masterpiece of inarticulacy and self-abnegation, the statement from the State Department about this week’s international Muslim pogrom against the free press was also accidentally accurate…How appalling for the country of the First Amendment to be represented by such an administration. What does he mean “unacceptable”? That it should be forbidden?

    David Pannick QC:

    We respect the right of everyone to believe whatever they like: that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, Muhammad was God’s prophet, the Red Sea was parted for the Children of Israel or L. Ron Hubbard identified the path to total happiness. But there are two important limits to religious tolerance. First, I have no right to legal protection against your scepticism, criticism or ridicule. Religion is too powerful a force, and is too often a cause of injustice or evil, for it to be immune from discussion and debate…But in Europe it is not the role of the law, far less the Government, to prohibit or punish publications that sections of the community (whether Christians, Jews, Muslims or atheists) find offensive.

    And Munira Mirza:

    Censorship in the West bolsters the moral authority of leaders in the Middle East to censor their own citizens. Indeed, the religious leaders in Saudi Arabia and Palestine have been opportunistic in using the story as a way of galvanising support and reinforcing the view that only they can protect Muslims from victimisation. Counter to the claims of unelected ‘community leaders’, Muslims do not benefit from censorship…In Denmark, large numbers of moderate Muslims have sought to oppose the stranglehold of extremist Muslim lobby groups who claim to represent them. In Arhus, they have organised counter-demonstrations. One Muslim city councillor who was involved said: ‘There is a large group of Muslims in this city who want to live in a secular society and adhere to the principle that religion is an issue between them and God and not something that should involve society.’ It turns out that those sympathetic lefty anti-racists who believe censorship will protect Muslims are actually missing the point. Many Muslims want the same freedoms as everyone else to debate, criticise and challenge their religion.

    OB

    Internal Resources

    What are we supposed to understand?

    But how does anyone know the cartoons are of the Prophet?

    Of course you can, except when you can’t

    External Resources

  • The Court Laughed in Their Faces

    Two blunt sentences in Kitzmiller decision punctured an illusion crafted by proponents of ID.

  • Rousseau and Hume

    A book that strives more to amuse than to illuminate.

  • Wieseltier Rebukes Fish

    ‘Not all strongly held faiths are held for reasons worthy of respect.’

  • Dawkins on Selfish Gene’s 30th Anniversary

    ‘Many critics, especially vociferous ones learned in philosophy, prefer to read a book by title only.’

  • South Park’s ‘Inappropriate Ridicule’ of Religion

    Of Scientology, that is. ‘He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion.’

  • No in Between?

    More on free speech and the discussion with Norm, who has said more on the subject.

    If the law does not prohibit people from doing something, then legally – and assuming no restraints created by voluntary contracts etc – they have the right to do that thing. It is what is sometimes called a ‘liberty right’, as opposed to a ‘claim right’…If (where) Holocaust denial is not a criminal offence, consequently, Irving and others have a liberty right to say, to write and to publish that the Holocaust did not happen or that it has been exaggerated.

    Sure. I’ve stipulated that more than once – though without knowing the term ‘liberty right’, which is useful. But on the other hand, that still leaves out what I’ve been wondering about, which is the fact that Irving did more than just write and publish that the Holocaust did not happen or that it has been exaggerated – he also falsified the evidence – and according to Richard Evans (who spent 18 months with two research assistants looking into the matter), he did so very extensively. I don’t even know if Irving in fact has a liberty right to do that or not, but I think and assume he does. I don’t think it is actually against the law to falsify evidence in scholarly or would-be scholarly books. But doing so can probably get one in trouble in certain legal contexts – a libel trial being one. (I think there are some relevant differences between US and UK law here – whether or not it’s libelous to express an opinion that someone is dishonest, wicked, an exploiter, a purveyor of unhealthy food…Let’s not get into that, or we’ll be here all month.) But either way – whether Irving has a liberty right to falsify evidence or not – I think the fact that that is what he did is a major part of the issue, and should be included in discussions of it.

    One might concede, of course, that this is (wherever it is) the legal state of affairs, and go on to argue that it’s a morally bad one: the law should be changed. But as Ophelia herself has repeatedly said that she’s not arguing for criminalization, that can’t be her view.

    Eh? It can’t? Yes it can, surely! That colon there – I dispute that colon. I dispute the colon between ‘it’s a morally bad one’ and ‘the law should be changed’. Because we don’t think everything that’s morally bad should be against the law. Do we? Have I missed the boat here? Have I been spending too long on planet OB and missing what the rest of the world thinks? I could have sworn it was common knowledge that there are lots of things that are morally bad that nevertheless should not be agin the law. Rudeness, meanness, selfishness, egotism, lack of consideration – we think those are morally bad but not police matters – don’t we?

    If she thinks Holocaust-denial shouldn’t be a criminal offence, then it follows that, according to her, Holocaust deniers should have liberty rights to say, to write and to publish that the Holocaust did not happen or that it has been exaggerated.

    Sure. Again, I’ve said as much – saying ‘legal right’ for ‘liberty right’. In other words, I see that my agreeing (without much enthusiasm) that Holocaust-denial shouldn’t be a criminal offence forces me to agree that deniers should have rights, in the thinnest possible sense of rights, to write and to publish that the Holocaust did not happen or that it has been exaggerated. But, also again, what about rights to falsify the evidence? Are we including falsification of evidence in this liberty right? I don’t know. I’m not sure what I think about that. (I don’t think falsified evidence should be taught as genuine evidence in state schools, I can say that much.) But I think in order to discuss it we need to include it. We need to mention it.

    In the next bit I think Norm misrepresents what I’m saying a little (not intentionally, of course). He quotes something I said but starts after the part where I talk about falsification, so that it looks as if I’m saying publishers should shut Irving up, full stop, when in fact I’m saying publishers should refuse to publish falsifications.

    He says my attempt to talk about rights other than legal rights (or liberty rights) won’t do the job.

    None of the points Ophelia makes by way of trying to establish some conceptual ground in between something’s being a criminal offence and its being a right succeed in doing so…But to disapprove of something, think it wrong, decline actively to protect it is perfectly compatible with still holding it to be a right.

    A legal (or liberty) right, yes – but any kind of right? Is a legal right the only kind there is? Isn’t there a pretty common ordinary language usage in which a right is – pretty much whatever we think it is? For instance when we shout at each other ‘You have no right to talk to me that way!’ Or when we earnestly tell each other ‘My boss had no right to make me work Saturday on such short notice.’ Or when we darkly mutter that oil companies have no right to you know the rest. Come on, sure there is, I didn’t just make that up. People say things like that all the time. They don’t think they’re citing case law!

    In a subsequent post, Ophelia brings forward in support of her argument that we hold the press and broadcast media to certain standards that restrain them from hate speech, abusive and foul language, and deliberate lying. I don’t think the example is to the point.

    No, but it wasn’t meant to be to the same point; it was meant to be to a different point. That post was more relevant to the Motoons debate than the Irving debate. I’m just all over the map, that’s what I am.

    We agree on the substance, Norm and I do, but there are some wrinkles in the language that need ironing out.

  • Breaking What Spell?

    “The spell which creates an invisible moat around religion…that whispers, ‘Science Stay Away’.”