Oct. 30 Fredericton Again

Returned to Fredericton to give a paper at ARPA (Atlantic Region Philosopher's Conference)entitled "Free Speech and the Infamous Cartoons". I'll add this on to the end of this diary.
At the reading of the paper the most interesting point of the discussion concerned the use in Islamic cultures of the concept of 'insult' and 'honor'. One questioner asked what point there was in insulting him by showing the cartoons. The reply was that this concept of insult needs to be abandoned if we are to have a viable democracy: we must be able to discuss things closest to our hearts, we need to be able to discuss our fears, and humor just is our way of breaking the ice about something which we fear. Humor is a useful precursor to serious discussion.

Here, in any case, is the paper I read - it needs some editing but I don't have time at the moment to pretty it up.



Free Speech and Those Infamous Cartoons. Peter March ’06 Fredericton.

Now, all the traditional arguments for free speech are ineffective, in my view. I will argue that free speech is one of the things which is fundamental to our political system so it can’t be justified and it is a big mistake to try to justify it. The point of our system is to provide a number of things and free speech just is one of them.

Of course, because the system also intends to provide truth, peace, prosperity, security etc. we are sorely tempted to spill ink showing how each of these contributes to the others but, the truth of the matter is simple. All of them are deeply, profoundly desired in their own right and none of them need supporting arguments. Maybe we could get richer is we suppressed free speech, maybe, but that’s not what we want. Thank you very much but we just don’t want a rich, closed society, we we really want is a rich open society, and sometimes we have to compromise a bit.

And when I say ‘desired’ I don’t mean that these are things which are morally good, all I mean is that so many of us mortals, the crowd, just do want them that we have the power to insist on them, and we won’t give them up. Heck, we’ll fight for free speech.

Mill argues that free speech has its uses and is crucial for a democracy as the only way of guaranteeing that truth will out. Well, I would reply that that’s nice but we’d want free speech even just for the joy of some good old gossip, a nice argument, words of love, religious talk, etc. Not much truth there. I don’t want to deny that free speech is somehow entangled with the search for the best solutions to political problems, I just think it all goes a hell of a lot deeper. We want it for it’s own sake. We revel in, bleed for freedom: we suffocate without chatter, and there it is. I’m sure the love of truth feeds our desire and ability to speak, but that does not justify our love of truth.

Enough already: we want free speech and that’s that. Fundamental.

On the other side you could list off the terrible problems ‘created’ by free speech. Yes indeed you could. Well, despite those problems we want it unless our life is at stake - as in times of war. At such times then, if our life is at stake, then maybe, for a while, we’ll shut up, or be shut up. But a life in the long run without free speech, no, we’ll fight for it if the long run kicks in. We won’t go without a fight on this one.

“So is it more important than life?” No, life is one of the things we desperately want too. We mustn’t get into the ‘prioritizing’ game. To explain the obvious: sometimes our most basic desires clash. If we can’t have both in the face of a Hitler, then, yes, we’ll have to risk a punch up. That just proves how much we value free-speech. Because if we ourselves can’t have life and free speech then we settle for the second best, that is, making bloody sure our kids do get both! - even though it might cost us our lives. We gamble everything in the hope of our kids getting the good life, a life in which they will enjoy both life and freedom. Our own life we think, is a worthy price.

Would I sacrifice free-speech for life? Of course, that’s what we do when we gird ourselves for war. My free speech is well sacrificed if it secures a good life for my children and yours. Don’t play priorities with fundamental values. We fight for the whole lot collectively. We fight for a way of life.

Now I’ll cut to the chase.


“What about other people’s feelings? Would you run rough-shod over their feelings?” Yes. Can I justify that? Yes. You see, Feelings aren’t FUNDAMENTAL and you can check that. We don’t offer our lives to spare your feelings, or even the feelings of our kids. We think that would be ‘silly’ We can’t think why we would ever choose to die to spare feelings. ‘Ornery, maybe, but give us credit, we can also be charming.

Will we sacrifice feelings to defend life and liberty? Yes we will and that tells you everything. What’s fundamental? What you are willing to die for! Are you willing to die to spare someone’s feelings? NO. So free speech trumps feelings.

This tells us that feelings have to be sacrificed all the time for more important things. Feeling aren’t even near being fundamental, not if you know us..

“Would you ride rough-shod over the self-respect of others, undermine their self-image, devalue their religion, etc. just so you get your vaunted free speech?” Ask me later.

This first. We are a social animal, yes we are. So, yes, we care for the well-being of others. Especially our kids, kids in general, and especially the weak. And you had better prioritize those because if you don’t you don’t understand us.

And I want my kids alive and free to speak their minds. So, I’m sorry, freedom it is - even if someone has adopted a religion or a way of life which my words do thus so deeply offend.

“But humiliation is worse than death!” (See the Qu’ran) Wrong. You can’t get over death.

“Surely humiliation is worse than you having to keep silent, having to be sensitive, having to respect others’ feelings. Surely your silence is a small price to pay for someone’s being able to feel respected.”

No, in a democracy speech is free with very rare exceptions. Therefore everyone in a democracy must develop a thick skin and the ability to defend their ideas and reputation. My silence would only weaken other's ability to live in a democracy. You get a thick skin, courage, by weathering criticism. It's doable.

Ask me now. Would I ride rough-shod over whatever psychological states you care to mention? Yes. And my guess is I hold trumps: I’ve spoken for the crowd.

Well, this crowd, my crowd. Those who follow the Koran at least (there may be others) have something in their holy book which says that ‘oppression’ is worse than death. Translate as ‘Losing your honor is worse than death.’ The message is clear: go out and slay your oppressors (those who would rob you of honour).

What does this mean? The sense that one has lost one’s ‘honor’ is now best understood as a psychological state and they will kill even their own to protect ‘honor’ – think of the honour killings of sisters. So that crowd really does ‘respect’ certain feelings (those associated with ‘honor’) and that crowd really does often care more for their feelings than for (Earthly) life. Well, at least their men do. But not us, and it’s a difference which matters.

I would argue even more firmly that if you make psychological states fundamental then you’d better prepare to see your young people dying. The mechanism is not far to seek. Feelings are hurt all over the place in complex societies, people are being really hurt all the time, so if you make hurt feelings a matter of honour and honour a matter of life and death, then you’ve just made feelings a pretext for killing. Consider how often feelings are hurt, and then prepare for the corresponding level of violence.

The Middle East is a culture suffused with honor codes (read ‘sensitive feelings’ associated with the male ego) and it is no wonder they therefore have deeply violent societies. I think that societies which condone the killing of pregnant unwed daughters by burning them and who give as the only reason for such burnings ‘family honor’, I think it fair to say of such societies that they are deeply violent. They are deeply violent because they make feelings (usually male ego feelings) a matter of life and death.

This then is the heart of the matter when it comes to freedom of speech in the case before us: shall we limit my speech according as it hurts feelings? To do so, I suggest, is to desire a particularly violent society.

Again, the reasoning is this. Freedom of speech is a fundamental value in our social arrangements, to limit it by reference to feelings is to raise feelings on a par with fundamental values. Now, fundamental values are things for which we are willing to give up our life, and this means lives will then be lost in the defense of feelings.

Making feelings a fundamental value is therefore a tragic error.

But it is an understandable error because it is natural to think WRONGLY that respecting each other’s feelings will produce a gentler society, a more accommodating one, one in which people are respected and treated as persons. This is the mistake of the 'sensitivity' gang.

How can this intuition be wrong, one asks? Well, it comes down to who holds the power. If the power holders are men, if they are the superior and privileged members of society – as is recommended by the Koran (and in other religious texts of various religions) - then we must expect that in a toss up between the feelings of men and those of women and children, the men will have their feelings protected. That much is clear, surely. Second, if the dominant group is men and they don’t value women highly, and if the men are the part of their life when they seems designed to go to war and kill, then, when their feelings are hurt we can expect them to go about killing whomever they perceive as having harmed their honor. The result is killing. The result of valuing feelings highly is killing over feelings – typically, of course, women and young people.

Another way to put it is this. The intuition that it is better to respect each other’s feelings even at the cost of free speech is dependent upon the intuition that other people’s powers are equal – when evidently they are not, particularly if we are talking about North African and Middle Eastern cultures. In cultures where men are strongly dominant their feelings take precedence and the result is a disaster for women and children.

Finally, of course, in any culture, even a culture where powers have evolved to some kind of equilibrium, it is a reality that the taking of positions on ‘sensitive topics’ (topics about which we are called upon to be sensitive) is bound to engender anger. It must therefore be very clear that this anger can not be allowed to convert into action since anger driven action is very likely to disturb the peace. This, in effect, is to take the view that free-speech on sensitive issues must be protected – protected from those who would ban it in the defense of feelings. The alternative is that we avoid the discussion of sensitive issues all together.

End