There are matters of which no jest can be made –Edgar Poe
My reputation, my reputation! I’ve lost my reputation, the longest living and truest part of myself! Everything else in me is just animal-like –Shakespeare
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Sophisticated, freedom-loving, Westerners, waving their flag of David Letterman Grin to the sound of sitcom sexual humor laugh-track laughter, are as sensitive as any to the pain of inappropriate lampooning—even if it is only teasing; even if it is only humor.
What happened in Paris on January 7th has elicited the usual rhetoric of hand-wringing, caution, outrage, sympathy and platitude from the pundits.
Here’s a typical sample from The New Yorker:
A religion is not just a set of texts but the living beliefs and practices of its adherents. Islam today includes a substantial minority of believers who countenance, if they don’t actually carry out, a degree of violence in the application of their convictions that is currently unique. Charlie Hebdo had been nondenominational in its satire, sticking its finger into the sensitivities of Jews and Christians, too—but only Muslims responded with threats and acts of terrorism. For some believers, the violence serves a will to absolute power in the name of God, which is a form of totalitarianism called Islamism—politics as religion, religion as politics. “Allahu Akbar!” the killers shouted in the street outside Charlie Hebdo. They, at any rate, know what they’re about.
These thoughts don’t offer a guide to mitigating the astonishing surge in Islamist killing around the world. Rage and condemnation don’t do the job, nor is it helpful to alienate the millions of Muslims who dislike what’s being done in the name of their religion. Many of them immediately condemned the attack on Charlie Hebdo, in tones of anguish particular to those whose deepest beliefs have been tainted. The answer always has to be careful, thoughtful, and tailored to particular circumstances. In France, it will need to include a renewed debate about how the republic can prevent more of its young Muslim citizens from giving up their minds to a murderous ideology—how more of them might come to consider Mustapha Ourrad, a Charlie Hebdo copy editor of Algerian descent who was among the victims, a hero. In other places, the responses have to be different, with higher levels of counter-violence.
But the murders in Paris were so specific and so brazen as to make their meaning quite clear. The cartoonists died for an idea. The killers are soldiers in a war against freedom of thought and speech, against tolerance, pluralism, and the right to offend—against everything decent in a democratic society. So we must all try to be Charlie, not just today but every day.
Here—from New Yorker staff writer George Packer—is a string of careful, factual, sentences earnestly saying “the right thing” about the tragedy. This is not the argument of a mind trying to understand the tragedy.
When one puts together a string of sentences like this, one sentence, one passage, invariably contradicts the next: Mr. Packer says we must not “alienate the millions of Muslims,” but at the same time points out that “only Muslims (not “Jews and Christians”) responded with threats and acts of terrorism.” The implication is that Christians and Jews have never killed to send a message.
Mr. Packer also says “the killers” are “against everything decent” and “against the right to offend.”
We must be decent and offend?
No, say Packer’s defenders—it’s more complicated!
Of course it is.
It is too complicated to understand.
You “get it” or you don’t.
The words of Mr. Packer finally don’t matter.
Mr. Packer has made the right gestures. He feels his platitudes-full-of-contradictions. And we, who are sincere, feel them, too.
Mr. Packer has given the signs that he is 1) sufficiently aware of the complexity and that 2) he is sincere.
Now we can go on with our lives.
Understanding, however, is very different.
Will no mind in the West try to understand?
Simply because to truly understand will be seen as “support for terrorism?”
Supporting the terrorists would be a horrific, unconscionable, thing to do.
In public, we wear platitudes for all to see.
To be safe.
Let us attempt, however, just as an experiment, to understand the matter.
All of us know humor as two things:
1) a gift, a joy, a release, a comfort, a witty surprise, a sparkling insight.
2) a weapon which can demoralize, hurt, and dismantle reputations.
How can the same thing have these two opposing attributes?
What are we doing exactly, when we lampoon?
And what exactly, do we mean, by the sacred?
Is the sacred truly something we (an individual, a tribe, a nation) can point to and identify?
Or by the sacred can we say generally: whatever it is that cannot, or should not, be lampooned?
Does lampooning have a limit?
Is there ever a reason not to lampoon?
What is that reason?
How far are we willing to pursue the idea that “nothing is sacred?”
Why should we reasonably lampoon something? Just because we can?
Or, for another more—relevant—reason: to hurt or injure what we are lampooning—for a purpose? Are we allowed to reasonably ask this: why are we attempting to injure, pain, or hurt? “Freedom” is great, but “freedom” always implies “freedom to do…what? And why? Should we ever do something—just to be “free?”
Now arises the great principle: in a free society, I don’t have to respect what you respect, and if what you respect disrespects me, I have a right to disrespect what you respect, in turn. Not only in individual cases, but on principle. And so we have the shootings in Paris. Disrespect in the abstract (cartoons) gave way to disrespect concretely. (violence)
Disrespect in the abstract = Good.
Disrespect in the concrete = Bad.
Hurt my Respect = Okay.
Hurt my Body = Not okay.
Is this all we’re talking about, finally? Is this the distinction that we either ‘get’ or do not?
Love a movie star in the abstract = okay
Meet the movie star and somehow get them to fall in love with you = okay
Stalk the movie star = not okay
If we remove all the religious and social and political aspects, is this all it really is?
Or, even more simply: Use your words
So, if we are “merely” dealing with the simple and the dangerous (like fire), prevention should be the first priority.
There will always be those who are not good with words, but are good with weapons. They will always exist.
With this in mind, does it make sense for the educated to lampoon the uneducated?
If the whole matter is really something which is 1) beyond words and is all about 2) preventing wordless danger, shouldn’t caution rather than freedom, be the watchword?
We can yell Liberte’! from the rooftops of Paris all we want, but shouldn’t a calmer judgment prevail in assessing what happened in Paris several days ago?
The hot-headed Mark Steyn fears that “a lot of people will retreat even further into self-censorship,” but what does this even mean? Should we now offend Muslims even more? Will that make things better? Should we start killing more Muslims? Is that the answer? Give offense. The offense is taken. Now give more offense. Somehow we think this is not going to help. Somehow we think this is not civilized.
Is self-censorship working out the truth for ourselves in secret? Or does it mean not thinking about the issue at all?
Common sense says we ought to punish a wrong. But who exactly should be punished? All Muslims?
There are plans to publish more of the offending material. Is this what Mark Steyn means when he talks of a “retreat even further into self-censorship?”
The trouble with spreading offensive material in the name of “freedom,” is that the true target will only be offended, not enlightened; and those already enlightened will not need the offensive material to be enlightened. So what, exactly, is the point? To breed more zealots?
The emotions attending the whole issue is such that we really are in a situation beyond words.
Here’s the danger.
As a driver, have you ever accidentally cut someone off and tried to apologize with sign language alone to the offended driver in the other car? You can’t do it. It’s impossible. How easy it is to give someone the finger, shake your fist, to express anger without words. There are universal signs to express anger, hatred, rage, disgust. We need no words to express the worst of human emotions. But you cannot quickly tell someone in a clear manner, without using words, “I’m sorry I cut you off; I didn’t mean to cut you off! I’m so sorry!” There is no universal sign for this. You can smile or shake your head or shrug, but they will not understand: What?? Are you making light of what you just did to me???
Whenever we enter a realm in which the debate becomes a series of gestures, pro and con, where arguments of words are no longer effective, even though we are still using them, mere brutality prevails, and the repair of a wrong becomes impossible, no matter how sincerely it is desired.
To offend with a broad brush is not freedom.
It is lack of reason.
