Lamentable Disrespect and Raving Lunacy
Charles Taylor joins the flock.
“The publishing of these caricatures shows a lamentable disrespect,” said Taylor, who elaborated on his views to an audience of nearly 200 people at an event organized by the Heinrich Boell Foundation. “Freedom of speech means you can’t outlaw the printing of these cartoons,” acknowledged Taylor, “but in order to get through this difficult time, we need an informal code where that kind of gratuitous insult can not take place.”
Well doesn’t that sound just like Jack Straw and Sean McCormack and Franco Frattini and the pope and Kofi Annan and that student union spokeswoman at the U of Cardiff – doesn’t that sound just like all of them saying No you may not say that. Not because it’s a lie, or fraudulent, or a falsification, or dangerous, but because – it shows a ‘lamentable disrespect’. Well does it? Does publication of these caricatures show a lamentable disrespect? Some people certainly think so; other people claim to think so because that sounds better than saying they are afraid of getting beaten up or killed; but other people again don’t think so, and think on the contrary that the very idea that it does is more disrespectful than the publication of the caricatures could ever be. But not Taylor, it appears.
Taylor questioned why the editors of the Jyllands-Posten didn’t consider the 100,000 Muslims living in Denmark before they printed the caricatures and the reactionary responses to them.
Um – because that’s not how editors do things? Because they don’t look at material they plan to publish and run through a mental list of the national population complete with figures for each, wondering what they will think of the material in question? Could that be why? Because if that were the way editors did things newspapers would be a little on the empty side? Would have, like, nothing in them? Does Charles Taylor not know that? And has he even looked at the dang cartoons? Has he even asked himself where the lamentable disrespect comes in?
Taylor defended his position against the printing and reprinting of the caricatures, and refuted [she means rebutted] the argument that printing them was somehow a defense of a free press. “Who can take away your press freedom? The German government can, not the government in Damascus. I don’t understand why [people here] are so hypnotized by this idea of press freedom. It’s just raving lunacy,” he said.
Is it. Valuing press freedom is raving lunacy. Is it indeed. Charles Taylor is a name philosopher. Dear oh dear.
Here’s something else on the same theme, OB. Apparently the UN’s “Special Rapporteur on Contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance” has leaked his report on the cartoon saga to the press in Denmark, or somebody has done that for him. :)
Roundly condemning the Danish government, he says something really extraordinary: “Finally, the Danish government’s first reaction – rejecting to take an official position on the nature and publication of the cartoons while referring to Freedom of Speech as well as rejecting to meet with the ambassadors from the Moslem countries – is symptomatic not only for the political trivialisation of Islamophobia but also, due to its consequences, to the central role those politically responsible have for the national extent and the international consequences in the shape of demonstrations and…expressions of Islamophobia.” Buildings burned, people trampled on and killed, and the UN Special Repporteur condemns, what? Islam o fucking phobia!
This story is not in the msm, at least not in English, and you will have to go to a conservative’s blog to get it. But nowadays, on this issue, certainly, I’m finding friends on the right as well as on the left (and finding enemies on the left, uh, lots of them).
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/931
Aarrggh. That rapporteur looks like one of those enemies on the left. How I am beginning to despise people like that. The Danish government was supposed to take an official position on something an independent newspaper did! And we know what official position it was supposed to take, too. Aarrgh.
It has been years since I’ve been able to take the UN seriously. I was going to explain further…but document quoted by Juan really says it.
Oh, Christ almighty. It gets worse and worse. “Their uncompromising defense of a Freedom of Speech without limits or restrictions is not in accordance with the international rules which are based on a necessary balance between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion”
‘Freedom of Religion’ defined as being able to prevent the publication anywhere on earth of any cartoons some adherents of one particular religion don’t like. That’s a pretty peculiar idea of freedom! That’s the old freedom for me and bondage for everyone else routine. Freedom my ass.
Mr Taylor may be misinformed about the timeline of the affair. The initial reaction of Muslims in Denmark was hardly excessive. The Middle East erupted only after some other – and far more offensive – cartoons were added to the portfolio several months later by a Muslim cleric.
Also, in the spirit of charity, Mr Taylor may have meant that it is people being “hypnotized by this idea” that is lunacy, not the idea of the free press itself. I know it’s not much of an improvement, but at least it’s not totally stupid.
Why does it appear that everyone in the West is rushing to throw away the vital element that allows us live in our relativly free democracies. Really these pseudo lefties should be ashamed, freedom of speach is empowering for the people.Calls for government censure of the press is even more misguided. Governement censoring of the press is a big chuck of authoritarian states surely? Once governments start saying which opinions you can and cannot publish, you have censorship.
OB: Charles Taylor is a name philosopher
In fact, Charles Taylor is a moral philosopher.
Moral philosophers can justify anything — infanticide, FGM, genocide, torture.
Banning free speech is just for starters.
Juan,
Glad to learn I’m not the only B&W fan who reads the Brussels Journal.
I don’t know what to make of Charles Taylor. Perhaps I’ll have some idea if I ever finish his _Sources of the Self_, a book I bought in 2004, and still haven’t read. The first sentence of his preface goes,”I’ve had a difficult time writing this book,” to the which my rejoinder is, “Dinna fash thyself, laddie; I’ve had a difficult time reading it.”
Any suggestions for readings on “the modern identity” that would make Taylor more approachable?
Yes, the same Charles Taylor. I’ve been meaning to read him on communitarianism for some time – but haven’t done it yet! Also been meaning to at least look at Sources of the Self but haven’t done that either. No suggestions, Elliott – other than blaming Canada. Haaa!
Blame Canada? Down in Quebec, where Charles Taylor comes from, they sing,
“C’est la faute du Federal . . .”