Alright, back to the matters at hand. Last time, we were addressing the issue of what to do about things like the Danish cartoons of Muhammad and The Innocence of Muslims. What we were specifically interested in is whether we ought to allow these things, by law. In order to address that question, I was examining the role of free speech in a democratic society, its importance for rational and critical dialogue, and more specifically the joint responsibility of all parties in a dialogue to listen to the other parties without breaking off dialogue prematurely, as well as to make their point clearly without offending the other parties and thereby forcing them to break off the dialogue.
Another very good friend of mine talked about the role that power dynamics plays in this dialogue: it is one thing for a newspaper in the Islamic world to run blasphemous cartoons against Christian laws, but quite another for a newspaper in the West to run analogous cartoons against Islamic laws. A dominant power can use free speech to sanction acts of oppression against a lesser power, whereas the converse is not the case.
Cultural critique is important; we really should be reflecting on our culture and the values that underpin it. It is also very important that we not segregate ourselves along cultural lines, and on that basis prohibit any cultural critique "from the outside." Critical reflection upon culture (including the historical narratives we construct for our cultures and ourselves) is fundamental, lest fundamentalism take hold unchecked. Freedom of speech is an important component of this: cultural critique sometimes needs to speak against the powers that be or the dominant ideology, and restrictions on free speech impede that. However, it seems to me that we can use the insights from my previous post to understand the need to restrict hate speech: as individuals participating in a common dialogue about our culture (which is all to uncommon in North America these days) we have a responsibility not to offend the sensibilities of our interlocutors to the breaking point, forcing them to abandon the dialogue.
This need to restrict hate speech is particularly acute for something like the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad. As I discussed some months ago, these cartoons are a symbolic act of domination, as to depict God (or the Prophet) is to claim power over him, and thereby to claim the subservience of the entire culture that worships him. So the cultural critique that is being leveled here is boot-strapping: it is not a criticism of any particular facet of the culture, but instead a wholesale criticism. Furthermore, it is a criticism arising from without rather than from within. These cartoons symbolize the West's complete rejection of Islam.
Or at least they can symbolize this. Many in the West of course did not agree with the spirit expressed by these cartoons. But we must strive to make that clear. If the editor and cartoonists responsible for these cartoons are making a statement that we don't agree with, a deep-cutting and wholesale rejection of an entire religion that we feel is inappropriate, we cannot simply let their statement become a representative for the views of the West as a whole. One way to do that is to restrict free speech through legal means. If indeed we are committed to refraining from such legal limitations, that is acceptable. However, it puts the onus on us as individuals to dissociate our views from those that are being expressed.
There are important cultural criticisms to be made, both about other cultures and about our own. However, it strikes me as untrue that any culture is so distorted and warped that it is beyond repair, and these wholesale rejections suggest just such a thing to me: "Your culture is fatally damaged, and the situation can only be repaired by abandoning the culture, wiping the slate clean and starting again." It also strikes me as unfruitful to approach anyone with this sort of cultural critique. Who would listen to that sort of thing anyway?
Wholesale cultural rejection is unnecessary, it's unhelpful, and in the case of the criticism originating from a dominant power and being leveled against a lesser power, it is oppressive. Should we allow such criticisms under our laws of free speech? If we had a reasonable prospect of such critiques being widely disowned by members of the dominant culture, of these critiques not being allowed to speak for our culture as a whole, I'd say that we should allow them under the law. However, that would require a much more prevalent practice of cultural dialogue than is currently the case in North America, and so I feel that leaving these statements legally unchecked is dangerous. If freedom of speech is indeed so important to us, then we must make more of an effort to speak. To leave speech unchecked, either by legal means or by means of dissociation in the public sphere, leaves open the possibility that some would act as representatives of our culture as a whole, and do so irresponsibly.
