Author: Ophelia Benson

Some further thoughts on ‘offensive’ writing and cartoons and such. One issue is whether or not we know in advance that people will be outraged. I claimed, sweepingly, in comments, that we can’t know, and Jerry S prodded me into acknowledging that sometimes we can. Fair point. It’s easy (he demonstrated!) to come up with something we can be quite confident will outrage some people. True; and I also agreed that I don’t like or value mere abuse, and feel no need to make a principled defense of it. But I do value polemic, including polemic that can be considered harsh or mocking and that thus can be considered very likely to outrage at least some people. The further thoughts are about why I value it and think it can be worth the risk of offending some people.

I value it because even though we can know that polemic X will (almost certainly) offend some people, we can’t know how many, and we also can’t know how many people in the group or ‘community’ likely to be offended will be not offended but amused, surprised, startled, even shocked, without being offended. We can’t know how many people might be surprised or shocked into thinking in a new way, a way which would be beneficial to them. People do change their minds, after all; people do learn new things, and move, and adapt, and grow (or shrink). That does happen, and it seems to me that it is lively, sharp, combative writing or cartooning that is likely to spark such change. I don’t think it is inherently bad for people to have their settled ideas challenged; on the contrary, I think it’s good. I think writers like Dawkins wake people up in a way that politer, more mollifying writers don’t. I think a certain amount of bluntness and even scorn (for ideas or beliefs, not for people) wakes people up in a way that respect doesn’t.

In other words, scorn and mockery can be liberating. They can be and they very often are. We can suddenly realize ‘Oh – we can laugh at that!’ That’s a huge relief for some people. For others it’s an outrage. That’s the difficulty. I suppose one reason the prior restraint by respect idea makes me bristle is that it is biased toward the people who will be outraged, at the expense of the people who will be liberated. And that’s where not knowing comes in – we really don’t know how many there will be of either. I think the respect idea tends to push us in the direction of assuming there will be lots of people outraged and hurt, while forgetting the possibility of other people being liberated. Even more insidiously, perhaps, I think it pushes us in the direction of worrying more about the potentially outraged than we do about the potentially liberated. I’m not sure that’s the right way to allot our concern. It’s bad to hurt people, so it is right to take the risk into account – but then if when taking it into account it seems to us that 1) the people who are hurt are hurt for dubious reasons and 2) the potentially liberated need concern just as much as the potentially hurt do, then – you get the drift.

Our Mutual Friend, Book 1 Chapter 11: ‘Podsnappery’.

A certain institution in Mr Podsnap’s mind which he called ‘the young person’ may be considered to have been embodied in Miss Podsnap, his daughter. It was an inconvenient and exacting institution, as requiring everything in the universe to be filed down and fitted to it. The question about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek of the young person? And the inconvenience of the young person was, that, according to Mr Podsnap, she seemed always liable to burst into blushes when there was no need at all. There appeared to be no line of demarcation between the young person’s excessive innocence, and another person’s guiltiest knowledge. Take Mr Podsnap’s word for it, and the soberest tints of drab, white, lilac, and grey, were all flaming red to this troublesome Bull of a young person.

Remind you of anything?

Nigel Warburton comments on the Secretary General’s advice.

If all those who speak, write, express their views have to respect all religious sensitivities, then what can anyone say? Some religious group is likely to be offended by almost any expression of a view. Does the UN want to stop us watching The Life of Brian, Jerry Springer the Opera, etc? Will atheists have to keep quiet about their beliefs for fear of offending religious sensitivities?

Pub Philosopher does the same.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said that freedom of expression should be exercised in a way that respects religious beliefs. But then it wouldn’t be free speech, would it?

The Thinking Man also speaks up.

Why should religion be off limits? On what basis is someone going to say: don’t speak bad about my religion? Does this mean that Mr. Ki-moon accepts and respects, the right of countries where sharia law is the norm, to kill anyone who tries to convert to Christianity? He must! He obviously can’t speak against it, since that would amount to not respecting the religious beliefs of those people.

I haven’t found anyone talking about not being rude to people at the dinner table. Perhaps they don’t think that’s relevant.

Good, because it’s not. It’s a category mistake to think it is. The norms are different; the customs are different. Ban Ki-moon wasn’t talking about the dinner table, he was talking about free expression, which means public discourse: books, journalism, media, debate, political campaigning. If a friend rebukes another friend for being rude, it is nonsensical to reply ‘I have a right to free expression!’ Of course you do, but that’s not the point. By the same token, if someone writes a book, it is nonsensical for a reader to complain that the book is impolite. Readers don’t get to demand that all books (and all newspapers, all magazines, all tv shows, all songs, all cartoons, all everything) be polite to them personally. That’s not what books are for. It is what personal relations are for (broadly speaking); it is not what books are for.