The resolution recently passed by the UN’s entertaingly mis-labeled Human Rights Council on the topic of “religious defamation” is, of course, nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. The Economist does a good job here of explaining why, but one particular point cannot be emphasized enough:
The [UN] resolution says “defamation of religions” is a “serious affront to human dignity” which can “restrict the freedom” of those who are defamed, and may also lead to the incitement of violence. But there is an insidious blurring of categories here, which becomes plain when you compare this resolution with the more rigorous language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 in a spirit of revulsion over the evils of fascism. This asserts the right of human beings in ways that are now entrenched in the theory and (most of the time) the practice of liberal democracy. It upholds the right of people to live in freedom from persecution and arbitrary arrest; to hold any faith or none; to change religion; and to enjoy freedom of expression, which by any fair definition includes freedom to agree or disagree with the tenets of any religion. In other words, it protects individuals—not religions, or any other set of beliefs. And this is a vital distinction. For it is not possible systematically to protect religions or their followers from offence without infringing the right of individuals.
No it’s not. And nor should governments (let alone the ‘international community’) even try to do so.
It’s certainly to be hoped that (at least when it is deserved) some degree of good manners be shown when discussing matters of religion, but the essence of good manners are that they are voluntary. The increasing effort by some groups (and Islamists are not the only ones to blame in this respect) to pressure governments to legislate in defense of those groups’ ‘rights’ not to be ‘offended’ at affronts to their particular versions of the sacred is a cancer eating away at the principle of free speech, a cancer that is, quite clearly, metastasizing fast.
I agree that Islamists aren’t solely to blame for this, but I do think the U.N. resolution was crafted specifically with Islamists in mind.
A few months ago there was an interesting article in one of the British papers about an artist who had made a reputation for creating works that offended devout Christians. The interviewer asked him why he didn’t also produce works offensive to Islam, and he replied, quite bluntly, “It’s too dangerous.”
And of course that’s the root of the matter. If you title your photograph “Piss Christ,” you’re going to enrage a lot of Christians, but the pope (or Jerry Falwell) isn’t going to mobilize a holy hit squad to track you down and assassinate you. On the other hand, write and publish “The Satanic Verses” or draw and publish a cartoon about Mohammed, and spend the rest of your life living in a bunker surrounded by armed guards.
First of all, Amen to the content of the post. As a religious believer I am a firm advocate of free speech in matters of faith. The religous have a right — an absolute right to evangelize for their views. And the non-religous have a right to evangelize for their views.
Of course, part of the problem is that among some religious and many non-religious, there is precious little love for the free expression of ideas. Show up at a biology department and say the words “intelligent design” and see how much reasoned response respectful of free speech you find. Sorry to point that out but it is true. Non-religionists oftentimes are just as dogmatic and censorous and dangerous as the religiously fanatical. Dawkins in particular, with his assertion that religious instruction is a form of child abuse (and hence something that the State should prevent) is simply a slighly milder form of bigot than a crazed Middle Eastern cleric issuing a fatwa against Rushdie.
That said, though, I’m an absolutist here. The right to spread the word is also the right to attack it. Freedom for faith means freedom for unfaith as well — and any attack on the right of village atheists, agnostics, Voltaire wanna-bees, and their ilk to oppose religion — any religion — is a very bad precedent to embrace. Bad not just for the non-religious, but (perhaps most importantly) for the religious as well.
“Show up at a biology department and say the words “intelligent design” and see how much reasoned response respectful of free speech you find.”
That’s not a very good example. You have a right to speak your mind, but we don’t have to listen… and Intelligent Design Creationism is as appropriate in a biology department as Timecube is in a physics department.
An absolute right to evangelize for their views? What is an absolute right? My view of rights holds that none are absolute because that implies infringement of other rights.
Caledonian,
Quite right — we don’t have to listen to views we disagree with. But in the public square (and higher education is part of the public square for the most part), viewpoint discrimination is constitutionally prohibited. This doesn’t mean that biologists or anyone else has to endorse ideas that they don’t agree with. In fact, they have a duty to uphold their professional views and challenge ideas that they believe to be incorrect. I don’t dispute that. The point I was making is that for most Darwinists, their objections to ID (objections which may be very well justified) are objections based on dogma, not on reason. Most Darwinists I know (and I know a bunch) didn’t give ID the time of day not because of the scientific failings of ID but because they simply didn’t like the idea. That isn’t really reasoned discourse.
Donna,
Well, when it comes to the right to speech (and I mean real speech here, not symbolic speech, etc.), I don’t see how there can be a conflict of rights. The right of the imam to preach, the right of Christopher Hitchens to speak, the right of the pope to speak, etc. doesn’t infringe on the rights of anyone. I guess I’m not following your point…
“The point I was making is that for most Darwinists, their objections to ID (objections which may be very well justified) are objections based on dogma, not on reason. Most Darwinists I know (and I know a bunch) didn’t give ID the time of day not because of the scientific failings of ID but because they simply didn’t like the idea. That isn’t really reasoned discourse.”
I don’t think many people “believe” in evolution just because they like the idea. Even if they don’t understand the theory, they know the scientific consensus.
By your reasoning, almost every scientific knowledge we defer to tried-and-tested results by experts. Take the antibiotic to cure you, or trust a witch-doctor’s spell? Surely most people don’t use reasoned discourse, since most people don’t study biochemistry enough to understand why the drug works to prefer it over the spell. Are they acting on dogma?
Sorry I meant to write “… almost every scientific knowledge we defer to tried-and-tested results by experts is dogmatic.”
Absolute means without condition or encumbrance and free speech as practiced in the USA has never been that, and likely won’t. While speech may be the purest of rights, it too has it’s encumbrances.
Prohibiting viewpoint discrimination is itself viewpoint discrimination.
Anyone supporting such a self-contradictory position is a fool, and should probably be executed for the good of everyone.