Is the weight of it on their shoulders?
Try a thought experiment. Suppose a newspaper publishes some satirical cartoons about neo-Nazism, the BNP, and other far-right nationalist and/or anti-Semitic groups. One cartoon has Hitler wearing a military cap in the shape of a crematorium labeled Auschwitz, with smoke rising out of it. Nothing much happens, then after a few months a couple of neo-Nazis travel around Europe with the cartoons plus three new ones, one of which is Hitler in drag being sodomized by a donkey – no, by a Jewish donkey. The neo-Nazis show this collection to other neo-Nazis, and with persistent effort get them worked up enough to go out into the streets and cause riots. Some people are killed in the riots. Death threats are made against the cartoonists. A group of neo-Nazis is arrested for plotting to murder the cartoonist who drew the Hitler cartoon; the cartoonist and his wife are forced to leave their home, then told to leave the hotel they move to; the cartoonist’s wife is told to stay away from her job at a kindergarten.
Would you say that the cartoonists put other people at risk by drawing the cartoons? Would you call the cartoons trivial exercises of the right to free speech? Would you say the deaths were predictable and that the cartoonists’ action led to the deaths and therefore they are accountable? Would you say it’s not precisely as if they had done that thing, but the weight of it is on their shoulders? Would you point out that the vast majority of people think neo-Nazis are violent people, that that’s just conventional wisdom, and that the cartoons just reinforce it, instead of saying something brave and new and eye-opening? Or would you think that we don’t want neo-Nazis telling us what we can and can’t draw, can and can’t publish, can and can’t laugh at? Would you think that the neo-Nazis who worked people up to rioting and the rioters themselves were to blame while the cartoonists were not, on the grounds that the cartoonists had in fact done nothing wrong? Would you cringe at the very idea of blaming the cartoonists?
You probably know that I agree with you 100% about the Mohammad cartoon “causing” violence etc. But I think that it’s still a valid philosophical question to ask whether one should be held at least a tiny bit (as opposed to entirely!) responsible for performing an otherwise perfectly legitimate action, when one knows that it will bring about dire (albeit illegitimate) consequences.
I for example think that, in the Mohammad cartoon case, the ends do justify the means. But what if one had good reasons to believe that 10 millions of innocent people will die if and only if one publishes a certain cartoon? What if, furthermore, one also had other, less costly means of reaching the ends the cartoons are supposed to reach? I mean, we all agree that a woman does not *cause* being raped by wearing skimpy clothes, but we will still criticize a mother who lets her young daughter run around naked in an area full of sexual predators – we’ll accuse of the mother of doing something morally wrong, without thereby implying that she *caused* the rape or is responsible *for* it.
In other words, while I disagree with Jean about this specific cartoon case, I think she raises an interesting, and important, moral question.
Tea–in your hypothetical situation 10 millions of people will die “if and only if” one publishes a certain cartoon. Why would that be? And what makes you think young girls are raped “if and only if” they run around naked near sexual predators?
In fact, let’s make the argument even milder. Forget the “if and only if” part. What makes you think young girls are more likely to be raped if they run around naked near sexual predators? Do we have evidence supporting that belief? Likewise, in your hypothetical, what evidence could we have that people will be more likely to die if a specific cartoon gets published?
See, I think young girls are raped because there are sexual predators around. Some may be “provoked” by naked girls, but if there are no naked girls around, the predators will just find something else to be “provoked” by, because that’s what predators do. I don’t think young girls are protected from rape by modest dress.
Similarly, I think people who kill other people because of a cartoon aren’t really doing it because of the cartoon. I think they’re doing it because they’re hateful murderous brats. And if there were no more offensive cartoons published ever again, then these hateful murderous brats will just find something else to murder people about.
I find the argument from respect for non-violent religious people to be far stronger (though still a bit tenuous) than the argument from fear of violence. The latter is just cowardice, and useless cowardice to boot.
(Not calling you a coward, Tea–I hope that’s clear. Just saying that full acceptance of the argument you put forth would be cowardice.)
Serafina,
We don’t need evidence for hypothetical cases. We just make things up – that’s why they’re called hypotheticals. I made it the case (by saying “if and only if”) that these girls wouldn’t have been raped if they were wearing clothes, AND that they would necessarily be raped if they were not (although I think my point would still apply even if their chance of being raped if naked was only 50%). The question is what moral implications would follow from such a case, not whether it is an adequate description of the world as it is. So no evidence is needed.
The implications on which we all agree are that nakedness is no excuse for rape, that rapists are responsible for their actions, and that rapists’ actions are morally wrong. What we don’t seem to agree on (because the answer is far from obvious) is whether the child’s mother should be criticized for being an irresponsible parent, or even partially guilty for not preventing her daughter from being raped, given the knowledge and options she had. If she acts prudently and makes sure that her daughter is fully clothed before she leaves the house, are you seriously going to accuse her of cowardice??
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You say “I think people who kill other people because of a cartoon aren’t really doing it because of the cartoon. I think they’re doing it because they’re hateful murderous brats.”
I couldn’t agree more.
But I couldn’t agree *less* when you say “I find the argument from respect for non-violent religious people to be far stronger (though still a bit tenuous) than the argument from fear of violence.”
It’s cowardice to remove a cartoon on the grounds that you don’t want innocent people to die, but it’s understandable to remove it on the grounds that it might hurt someone’s feelings? Please.
Tea the responsibility for the 10 million deaths would be on the killers no one else a cartoon cant cause anything it is just a form of art!
Art can provoke thought G.T. just not cause things to happen.
Old Wives proverb is useful here: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me.’. The thugs who allow themselves to be whipped up into a frenzy about a drawing should bear that in mind. As to the point about a mother who allows her daughter to go out scantily clad, unfortunately, in Britain this week, we have been ‘gripped’ by a murder case in Goa, India, where exactly that happened. A young girl, aged 15, on holiday with her family, was left by her mother with a 25-year old man. On her last night in the resort, she went out on her own, her drink was spiked and she was raped and left to die in the sea. The mother refuses to accept any moral responsibility for her daughter’s death. I must admit I am unsure as to whether she should or not. The moral responsibility is obviously greater on the boyfriend and the rapist/murderer, but surely, the mother must bear some? Does the girl carry any responsibility too, for insisting on staying with her boyfriend and not accompanying the rest of her family? I don’t know. What does Tea think?
Tea, I understand the point of your hypothetical. But I think that it–like many other hypotheticals–serves to obscure reality. It’s like the “ticking time bomb” hypothetical that’s often used to justify torture. In real life, that situation simply doesn’t happen. Similarly, in real life, I’m not sure we could ever know that a cartoon is the cause of somebody’s murderous violence (the STATED cause, yes, but not the real cause). If somebody claims he murdered because of a cartoon, I don’t see how we could know he wouldn’t have jumped on any other excuse to murder in the absence of the cartoon. So I don’t get the point of such hypotheticals.
If she acts prudently and makes sure that her daughter is fully clothed before she leaves the house, are you seriously going to accuse her of cowardice??
Of course not, because I don’t want girls running around naked. But I wouldn’t say the mother was acting “prudently.” I think she was acting conventionally, and rightly so in this instance, but not “prudently.” I don’t see modesty as any more prudent than immodesty because I don’t see ANY evidence of a correlation in real life between level of immodesty and rape. And I think assuming the existence of such a correlation in a hypothetical only serves to dodge the real-life issue at hand: why are these predators really committing rape? And why are these murderers really committing murder? I don’t think either the nakedness or the cartoon makes it more likely.
It’s cowardice to remove a cartoon on the grounds that you don’t want innocent people to die, but it’s understandable to remove it on the grounds that it might hurt someone’s feelings? Please.
Of course. We all have to think about each other’s feelings. What’s so ridiculous about that? Concern for others’ feelings is NOT an overriding imperative, but it is something that we should keep in mind. Though I don’t know what you mean about “removing” the cartoon, as I don’t advocate government censorship to avoid hurting people’s feelings.
Accepting the murderers’ logic when they say “I’m only doing this because of the cartoon! Really!” is cowardice. Accepting the murderers’ logic that it’s the cartoon that causes those innocent lives to be endangered–rather than the murderers’ own tendency to murder, which will exist with or without the cartoon–is cowardice. Maybe in your hypothetical the murderers will kill if and only if there’s such a cartoon–but in that case your hypothetical has little resemblance to real life, where I’m convinced they’ll find some reason to kill no matter what.
I suppose you could argue that when Paine published Rights of Man he became a tiny bit responsible for many deaths, should he have considered the possible consequences and refrained?
Moving from the hypothetical to the actual, bear in mind that the cartoons were published after the displays of homicidal rage which followed the publication of a serious literary novel, and before the displays of homicidal rage which followed the naming of a teddy bear.
They are covering all the bases here, there is nothing you could refrain from (even if you were so inclined) which would stop the rage. Novels, films, cartoons, spoken comments, cuddly toys … . All grist to the mill.
Once you begin to self-censor out of fear you have sold the pass.
Tea,
“it’s still a valid philosophical question to ask whether one should be held at least a tiny bit (as opposed to entirely!) responsible for performing an otherwise perfectly legitimate action, when one knows that it will bring about dire (albeit illegitimate) consequences.”
Sure. But the key phrase there is “when one knows.” It’s just factually wrong to say that anyone knew the Motoons would bring about dire consequences. It’s even factually wrong to say that the violence was predictable; it wasn’t. It didn’t happen until a bunch of people worked very hard to make it happen. It was predictable that there would be irritation, anger, resentment of some unknown quantity and degree, it was almost equally predictable that there would be threats, but it was not predictable that there would be violence or death. Violence and death were possible but they were far from certain and they weren’t even particularly likely. That’s partly because of the nature of the Motoons themselves; as I keep repeating (but Motoon-bashers don’t seem to take it in), they were mostly very innocuous, and the putatively most offensive one could easily be read as defending Mo against bombers. In September 2005 there was no reason to predict that cartoons as bland as that would trigger riots and deaths – and in fact they didn’t; it took effort and extra, fake cartoons to accomplish that.
I would even argue that, in this case, the action of publishing the cartoons may have been the right thing to do (or at least permissible) even if we could have predicted the consequences – because the long term consequences may override these concerns.
Well, I might too, although in that circumstance I would have far more sympathy for the idea that this particular exercise would not be worth those consequences. But I have zero sympathy for that argument in a situation where no one knew and no one could have known. I also have zero sympathy for that argument when it’s being made with so many salient facts omitted, and with such an air of contempt – for the side that did nothing wrong.
In civilized places, NOBODY should have the right to NOT be offended. There have always been uncivilized nations/provinces/cities/towns/etc. where this notion was not supported. In civilized places, there are usually just a few locals who insist that they DO have a right to not be offended, usually about their religion. The leavening effect of civilization is that most people ignore them.
Thus I do insist that such proclamations — you CAN’T insult because she/he/it is wonderful/holy/whatever — are always made by uncivilized people.
If a majority of such people are Muslims and Christians today, wait a few hundred or thousand years. Sometimes the concept of geologic time (aka deep time) is remarkably comforting.
Long live civilization.
Ahhh, yes, here, we the civilized are, sitting in our glass houses resting upon the pillars of unknown construction firing vitriol at the uncivilized in our virtual world. The disconnect between the two states of collective conscious could not be more apparent, while the manifestation of aggression moves from the physically palpable to the ambient regions of the psyche. I guess there is at least a degree of honesty attributable to which form will eventually triumph. Are the pillars of civilization constructed on the principle of offense? Wouldn’t that be sad.
No, but they are constructed on the basis of you not being allowed to kill someone just because they disagree with you, regardless of how ‘profound’ that disagreement is. And before any charges of hypocrisy are flung, I would point out that my definition of ‘civilisation’ excludes the making of wars of aggression. I do not speak for the US Govt, or Israel, or Iran, or any other plaything of polemic, and they do not speak for me.