Author: Ophelia Benson

Dworkin also good. I don’t agree with all of it, but there’s plenty of welcome clarity.

Freedom of speech is not just a special and distinctive emblem of Western culture that might be generously abridged or qualified as a measure of respect for other cultures that reject it…Free speech is a condition of legitimate government…So in a democracy no one, however powerful or impotent, can have a right not to be insulted or offended. That principle is of particular importance in a nation that strives for racial and ethnic fairness…Whatever multiculturalism means – whatever it means to call for increased “respect” for all citizens and groups – these virtues would be self-defeating if they were thought to justify official censorship.

Yes, what does it mean to call for increased ‘respect’ for all groups – and ‘cultures’ and religions and practices and beliefs? It means complete and total abdication of judgment, as far as I can tell, and that seems like a bad idea. It’s disrespectful to people who recognize the need for judgment.

It is often said that religion is special, because people’s religious convictions are so central to their personalities that they should not be asked to tolerate ridicule of their beliefs, and because they might feel a religious duty to strike back at what they take to be sacrilege…But religion must observe the principles of democracy, not the other way around. No religion can be permitted to legislate for everyone about what can or cannot be drawn any more than it can legislate about what may or may not be eaten. No one’s religious convictions can be thought to trump the freedom that makes democracy possible.

That’s the basic point. No religion can be permitted to legislate for everyone – about anything, actually, not just what can or cannot be drawn or eaten or worn or read, but about anything. Religion is the wrong tool for legislation, so it can’t be treated as universally applicable.

Wole Soyinka asks: who is really bringing Islam into disrepute? He mentions the riots and death fatwa over the ‘Miss World’ contest and a journalist’s comment in Nigeria two years ago.

Predictably, I denounced the murderous orgy. To my astonishment, some liberal voices of the Western world, always liberal with the blood of others, and liberal in defense of the aggressor, chose to concentrate on the “impropriety” of importing “Western decadence” to the pristine innocence of and polluting her cultural values…The core of the main discourse was nearly lost – the sanctity of human lives over and above the claims of any icons of faith, however universally revered. Through such distractions is impunity born, and the law of the mob and its manipulators tacitly endorsed by the appeasers of the world.

As we have been seeing for the past several weeks – impunity is born, and the law of the mob and its manipulators is tacitly endorsed by the appeasers of the world. The more violent the protests are, the more bashful mumbling there is about respect and sensitivity. I wonder – were there a lot of liberals wandering around German towns the day after Kristallnacht, saying everyone should be sensitive and respectful about Nazis’ feelings and beliefs?

The Danish government, thank goodness, declined to assume the burden of guilt by succumbing to the call to apologize for the conduct of one of its citizens, an individual who at no time was accused of being its official, representative or spokesman, but a free agent in his own cause, however censurable. The proposition that a government should act as monitor for individual choice within a free society is repugnant.

The Danish government has done some apologizing now, unfortunately – perhaps understandably, in the circs, but unfortunately.

Even more determinedly, however, must we reject the attempt of any sectional authority or quasi-state to foist its will on those who do not subscribe to the mandates of its beliefs, cultures and values.

That’s exactly what we must reject. We must not embrace it or applaud it or sympathize with it or march beside it, we must reject it. Will-foisting is held in oddly high esteem at the moment, and that is a catastrophe. That’s a giant step down the road to theocracy, and we must reject it.

What the atavists of religion have done is to expand the “territory of insult” into a limitless one…More to the point, they have raised questions about the followers of the Prophet and their understanding of the world’s complexity.

And not only their understanding of the world’s complexity, but their priorities, and their compassion – as Soyinka also notes.

Is it in the midst of this rampaging, racist obscenity called Darfur that the world is being invited to shift even its hazy focus, close down shop on vital concerns, wallow in an orgy of remorse, while the United Nations suspends its operations on behalf of traumatized humanity, all on account of some obscure cartoonist possessed by the Muse of irreverence? Clearly the world is askew, but not in the way some see it.

Spot on. Stonings and beheadings, fine; cartoons, the end of the world. Disrepute.

Your time has come at last. Remember last November I did a post called Things Fall Apart about the way bits were dropping off B&W which I couldn’t fix, and great crowds of you came surging forward to offer to help? Yes you do. Come on, of course you do. You said. Come back here right now –

No but really, it’s not much. I promise. It’s just to do with the update, and sending it out. I still keep getting sad emails from people who really liked reading the update every week, and passed it around to other people and discussed it, and miss it terribly. Each one is like a stab from a serrated dagger. So I’m going to send it out by hand. That means I have to put it together by hand, which means a lot of extra copying and pasting, which takes up some time; and after all that, I have to send it to about a thousand addresses, about fifty at a time. That’s twenty sends. If just a few of you dear loyal fans would help with the sending, that would cut down on the extra pasting and clicking at my end, thus freeing up more time for me to write hectoring nagging screeching N&Cs. The webmaster is going to send me the list of addresses, and I hope to send the first resurrected update on Monday, so if any of you would like to volunteer (you there in the back, creeping out the door, I see you, we all see you), email me to that effect. Love and kisses.

I mentioned that interview with Swinburne in What Philosophers Think.

It’s based on a discussion of a paper he gave at a Congress, about God and evil. He says the usual sort of thing –

…it’s a good thing that humans should have free will, not just free will to choose between alternative television channels, but free will to choose significantly between good and bad – good and evil in the terms of the paper. But, they can’t have that unless there is the actual possibility of them bringing about evil The possibility of evil occurring unprevented is the necessary condition for them having a free choice between good and evil.

That’s the same problem we had with his discussion with Dennett. Why is it a good thing that humans should have free will? We don’t even agree that it’s a good thing (for the universe, or the planet, or other biological systems, or anyone or anything other than humans themselves, which doesn’t seem to be what he means, or surely he would have said that, instead of saying ‘objectively’) that humans exist, so why would it be a good thing that, existing, humans should have free will? Why should that be any more of a good thing than that humans should have moles, or teeth, or calf muscles? Never mind – it gets more interesting, when the discussion turns to ‘natural evil’.

Human suffering as the result of disease – very frequent, not the result of free choice, or at any rate not the result of free choice unless there are bad angels at work causing it. That is possible, but it’s not something I would wish to promote very strongly. That sort of suffering is necessary because it gives the sufferer the opportunity to either be sorry for himself or to deal with it courageously. If he didn’t suffer he wouldn’t have the opportunity to deal with his suffering in either a courageous way or in a self-pitying way. It also gives other people – friends, spouse, children etc. – the opportunity to be sympathetic, to try and help him, for showing sympathy, feeling sympathy and doing something about it or not to bother. That is to say this is the grit that makes possible the pearl of different kinds of reaction. If the world was without any natural evil and suffering we wouldn’t have the opportunity, or nearly as much opportunity, to show courage, patience and sympathy. Of course I’m not suggesting that God ought to multiply suffering ad infinitum in order to give us endless opportunity, but I do think the world would be a poorer place if we didn’t have some opportunity to show ourselves at our best in this kind of way.

Actually, that is exactly what you’re suggesting, you simp. You can’t help suggesting that, because of what you’re saying. Because look – if the suffering as a result of disease is not real suffering, if it’s trivial, if it’s a mere mild lassitude or a slight ache in the calf muscle, then courage is beside the point, it’s not needed. For the courage to be actual courage, as opposed to just dramatizing, or downright joking (like howling the place down when you bump your elbow slightly, to make the dog look puzzled), it has to be real suffering. Right? So – the worse the suffering is, the more courage is needed, and the more courageous the courage is. So, if you’re fool enough to think the courage is worth the price of the suffering, then you do indeed think the more the merrier, or ‘that God ought to multiply suffering ad infinitum‘. That’s exactly what you are saying in that revolting passage. You might as well say people should whip their children every few hours so that the children can bear it courageously and the parents can show them sympathy. It makes just that much sense.

We’ve seen this argument before. Some rabbi on Thought for the Day – I think arguing against the legal right to die, on the grounds that he wouldn’t have wanted his father to have had that option, because then he would have missed the opportunity to show his father compassion – during his suffering. So he wanted his father to suffer so that he could show him compassion – badly enough that he was glad his father wasn’t able to choose whether to suffer (and get the compassion) or not. Excuse me, but I think that’s disgusting.

Then there’s a really dreadful passage about being of use to others. ‘I brought out several examples of that, of which, of course, the most striking would be the person who dies for his country in a just war.’ Julian asks about suffering that seems to be of no use to anyone, and cites the Battle of the Somme as an example.

Well, that particular soldier’s life is also of use…someone sent him there, some general high up has taken a decision about this matter…Innumerable people, through negligence, through stirring up hatred, through not bothering, have contributed to war. It’s a great good for them that they are allowed to make big differences to things, and they can only make big differences to things if there are going to be possible victims.

That’s – beyond disgusting. That’s blood-curdling. That’s enough to make you run screaming from the room. As Julian (more politely) notes.

Swinburne had already said that his argument wouldn’t convince the committed atheist and wouldn’t make much difference to the committed believer. Reconciling God and evil is of most value to the undecided or unsure. Leaving the interview, I was unsure as to whether the very precise reconciliation Swinburne describes will have the effect of clearing the way for belief in God or making the very idea of God a more chilling one.

More chilling!