A few hours after Wednesday’s Charlie Hebdo massacre, New York magazine blogger Jonathan Chait took many of his fellow liberals to task for, essentially, wimpiness and difference-splitting when confronted with threats of violence, or even actual violence, from jihadists.
Here’s Chait’s characterization of how liberals typically view such situations: “The right to blasphemy should exist but only in theory. [Liberals] do not believe religious extremists should be able to impose censorship by issuing threats, but given the existence of those threats, the rest of us should have the good sense not to risk triggering them.”
Chait contends that “the line separating these two positions is perilously thin. The Muslim radical argues that the ban on blasphemy is morally right and should be followed; the Western liberal insists it is morally wrong but should be followed. Theoretical distinctions aside, both positions yield an identical outcome.”
From Chait’s post (emphasis added):
Just over three years ago, the office of Charlie Hebdo…was firebombed. Time’s Paris bureau chief, Bruce Crumley, responded to the attack at the time with an outpouring of anger and contempt — mostly aimed at the target of the attack…[Crumley wrote that] “not only are such Islamophobic antics futile and childish, but they also openly beg for the very violent responses from extremists their authors claim to proudly defy in the name of common good”…
…In the wake of actual (and not merely potential) bloodshed, few of us are willing to blame the staff of [Charlie Hebdo] for provoking their own murders. The trouble is that Crumley’s 2011 outburst is not just embarrassing today, it also lies uncomfortably close to the mainstream Western liberal view.
Consider, for instance, the official view of the Obama administration, as expressed by White House spokesman Jay Carney in 2012, when asked about Charlie Hebdo’s blasphemous cartoons depicting Mohammed:
[O]bviously, we have questions about the judgment of publishing something like this. We know that these images will be deeply offensive to many and have the potential to be inflammatory. But we’ve spoken repeatedly about the importance of upholding the freedom of expression that is enshrined in our Constitution.
In other words, we don’t question the right of something like this to be published; we just question the judgment behind the decision to publish it…
Now, it has to be said, and I’ll say it again, that no matter how offensive something like this is, it is not in any way justification for violence — not in any way justification for violence...
Carney put it more delicately, but his actual line did not stray very far from Crumley’s:
It’s obvious free societies cannot simply give in to hysterical demands made by members of any beyond-the-pale group. And it’s just as clear that intimidation and violence must be condemned and combated for whatever reason they’re committed — especially if their goal is to undermine freedoms and liberties of open societies. But it’s just evident members of those same free societies have to exercise a minimum of intelligence, calculation, civility and decency in practicing their rights and liberties—and that isn’t happening when a newspaper decides to mock an entire faith on the logic that it can claim to make a politically noble statement by gratuitously pissing people off.
[Liberals often argue that] on the one hand, religious extremists should not threaten people who offend their beliefs. On the other hand, [liberals also argue that] nobody should offend [the religious extremists’] beliefs. The right to blasphemy should exist but only in theory. They do not believe religious extremists should be able to impose censorship by issuing threats, but given the existence of those threats, the rest of us should have the good sense not to risk triggering them.
The line separating these two positions is perilously thin. The Muslim radical argues that the ban on blasphemy is morally right and should be followed; the Western liberal insists it is morally wrong but should be followed. Theoretical distinctions aside, both positions yield an identical outcome.
The right to blaspheme religion is one of the most elemental exercises of political liberalism. One cannot defend the right without defending the practice.
See also Tim Graham’s November 2011 post about Bruce Crumley’s article.
