2 Responses to Be an Ass or the Terrorists Win?

1. jrbenjamin says:

   January 15, 2015 at 3:50 am

   That isn’t exactly the point. What Murray is saying and what I believe is that we have to claim our right, as free people in free societies, to express ourselves without fear.

   This is not a matter of being an ass or not. It’s about the essential point that free expression necessitates that some people will be offended, some people will look like asses, and some people will be made to look that way by cartoons. It simply has to work this way. There are no easy solutions: even totalitarians can support the free speech of those with whom they agree. It’s only when Dieudonne takes the podium that our meddle is tested.

   What we demand is not to single out Islam for different treatment, it’s to treat Islam the same as all other faiths, and allow those who don’t subscribe to lampoon it in ways they please.

   Reply
   • PaulVK says:

     January 15, 2015 at 4:10 am

     I appreciate the complexity. I just read Douthat’s piece which I think tries to make a similar point. http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/blasphemy-revisited-i/?_r=1. No special treatment for Islam. But are all religions “the same” by way of category? I might think not.

     The irony of the attack is that the new Muhammad cover is getting more press that could have ever been imagined before the attack. So the terrorist lose? I doubt we can, at this point pick winners and losers like a horse race.

     The debate descends into a question of judging the motivation of the other. Does the press decide NOT to post an image out of fear of reprisal (terrorists win) or respect for the sensitivities of another (terrorists lose, because you can’t make me hate you), or do we all just look at each other and try to figure out what we can probably hardly clearly discern in our own hearts.

     What seems clearer is that we imagined we had the “rules” of the secular public space figured out with respect to religious expression but now it is exposed that we have no idea.

     Thanks for comment following back the pingback. Keep up the blogging. pvk

     Reply