A cringe-free statement from Charlie Klendjian, Secretary of the Lawyers’ Secular Society:
The Lawyers’ Secular Society condemns unequivocally the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo which has left at least twelve people dead.
But that is the easy part. Equally unequivocally, we affirm the right to free speech even – indeed especially – where this mocks, offends and ridicules religious sensibilities.
The first word we should hear after the statement “free speech is important” is“therefore”. It is not “but”.
Precisely. I’ve been hearing way too many “buts” about Charlie Hebdo. Way too many “but it’s not ok to mock anyone’s sacred figures.” Nonsense. If it’s not ok to mock the sacred, then we’re all stuck in the groveling child role. “Sacred figures” are a scam to coerce money or deference or obedience or submission or all of those out of people who are seen as inferiors to the sacred figure. Satire tells us there are no sacred figures, there are only people.
We are appalled that so many news outlets, in reporting this massacre, have again chosen to self-censor. Their calls for “solidarity” seem hollow at best.
Religious ideas are not immune from scrutiny, criticism or ridicule. The more they seek to be, the more they present a compelling reason why they should not be.
Free speech without the right to mock, offend or ridicule is not free speech. Without free speech there is no freedom.
What we have seen in France is the application of de facto sharia law, for the “crime” of blasphemy. Blasphemy codes, whether informal or formal, have no place whatsoever in a civilised society. The best way to defeat them is to breach them: repeatedly, proudly, defiantly and unapologetically.
Freedom is in grave peril and we must defend it with all our might.
We have to cling hard to the right to blaspheme.
It is yet another case of the frog in the saucepan with the water being slowly brought up to boiling point. The major media are self-censoring already, and slowly and gently, the blinds are coming down on freedom of speech. Do’t say anything that might offend Muslims, Methodists, Mormons….
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Modern media barons are interested in diversity: but of income streams rather than of opinion. A shot journalist or bombed office is not good for their business at all.
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The small fry can be taken out easily. Do it for one, and the rest will probably make a lot of noise; as they fall into line.
And this is why, at the end of the day, I still consider myself an anti-theist. This is why I cannot in any way support the ideas of “accomodationism” and “faitheism”. This is why I just cannot care that it might bring comfort to people. At the end of the day, religion is NOT GOOD. And faith is a BUG, not a feature, of the human condition.
While I no longer accept the idea that religion is “the root of all evil”, and it’s obvious to me, thanks to last four years of Deep Rifts(TM), that bigotry will exist regardless of religion or the lack thereof, I still think that, in many ways, the world would be better off if faith was a thing from the past that we looked on with mild embarrassment and amusement…
“Oh, those silly days when humans believed in invisible sky-daddies. I’m glad we’ve moved past that.”
The day humans, as a whole, can make a statement like that will be a great day indeed for us all.
NH:
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Faith makes the insides of all heads in the community essentially the same. It is not what is believed that is important so much as the fact that what is believed is unique to the community, and is shared by all members of that community, at least without open dissent. Believing is the path to belonging.
The Faith also validates whatever hierarchy there is. So the militant fights not only for the incontestable truth of The Faith, but also for a leadership position within it. The end goal is a world caliphate, with global uniformity of minds,
For the tunnel-visioned and myopic, it will be Paradise, with a bonus of 72 certified virgins for each martyr.
“It is yet another case of the frog in the saucepan with the water being slowly brought up to boiling point.”
That is one of my least favorite sayings. Mainly because it is demonstrably untrue and vast underestimates the resilience of the natural world and reptiles. Fact is that frogs are perfectly capable of noticing small incremental temperature changes and long before the heat of the water does them any harm they simply jump out.
It is the humans who so frequently judge amplitude, in large part, by context. Which is why stores put the expensive products out front so they make the overpriced normal stuff seem like a bargain. That isn’t to say humans are entirely unable to keep track of slowly changing values. Most of us eventually jump out of the potentially fatal pot. As long as drugs, alcohol, and/or religion are not involved.
lorn:
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As guarded a statement as any we are to encounter all day; no, make that all week. And whether or not frogs really behave that way is hardly the point. The metaphor is the message, which despite the guardedness of the above, you arguably concede.