This morning, the New York Times has something of a special section on its editorial page in which a number of authors debate whether there should be limits on satire. Some snippets below:
Saladin Ahmed
Guns should not be used to silence speech. Governments should not censor art. These things are, or should be, beyond dispute. But are there times when writers, particularly satirists, should check our own tongues? When sensitivities are high, should artists self-censor?
As an American writer, I know that the "right" answer here -- the answer that one is supposed to give, especially in light of the hideous mass murder of cartoonists in Paris -- is a resounding "No!" Art must serve no masters, we are told, and satire can have no sacred cows. ... In practice, however, art is always beholden to forces other than simple truth, and even the most ruthless satirists have their sacred cows. Charlie Hebdo, which fired the cartoonist Sine in 2009 for an antisemitic column, certainly did.
Amos Guiora
To be or not to be? When a despondent Prince Hamlet asked this question he was contemplating death and suicide. The question is relevant to the challenges Western civilization faces. Do we give in to extremism or do we stand up to the murderous jihadists who killed 12 innocent people in Paris? ...
Charlie Hebdo published cartoons deemed offensive to Islam. That is true. So what? Journals publish articles, satire and cartoons that offend other faiths and ethnicities. That is what satirists and cartoonists do.
Unfortunately, if not inexcusably, Charlie Hebdo was largely a lone voice in the wilderness.
Paul Cliteur
Should artists, like cartoonists, stand-up comedians and columnists, but also public intellectuals sometimes restrain themselves in criticizing religion, in particular radical Islam? One thing is certain: they do. And they will continue doing so more persistently after the slaughter of the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo. ...
But then the question is: Should we exercise restraint?
No. If we want to uphold the principles of a free society we certainly should not.
Yousef Munayyer
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from its consequences. The ideal of freedom of speech is one well worth defending but it can only be guaranteed in a perfect world and sadly, as we have seen throughout 2014 and in the early days of 2015, our world is far from perfect.
The heinous attacks and murders in Paris are the responsibility of the killers alone. Freedom of speech, however, is upheld by certain rules and laws in our society and governments and there is always going to be a minority who refuse to play by the rules. This reality means that merely having a public profile and expressing views on contentious issues can put one at risk.
None of these pieces is particularly long, so give them all a try and see if any of them seems persuasive to you.
Then come on inside for more punditry.
Frank Bruni on the limits of religious freedom.
I've been called many unpleasant things in my life, and I’ve deserved no small number of them. But I chafe at this latest label:
A threat to your religious liberty.
I don’t mean me alone. I mean me and my evidently menacing kind: men who have romantic relationships with other men and maybe want to marry them, and women in analogous situations. According to many of the Americans who still cast judgment on us, our “I do” somehow tramples you, not merely running counter to your creed but running roughshod over it.
That’s absurd. And the deference that many politicians show to such thinking is an example not of religion getting the protection it must but of religious people getting a pass that isn’t warranted. It’s an illustration of religion’s favored status in a country that’s still working out this separation-of-church-and-state business and hasn’t yet gotten it quite right.
Bruni's essay goes into the confusing, contradictory, or downright threatening statements from the 2016 GOP contenders. Give it a read.
Ross Douthat looks at mighty France.
The France that endured a vicious terrorist attack last week is a France that has suffered, for decades and centuries, from anxieties about its own decline. And for good reason: Since the 18th century, when it bestrode Europe and seemed poised to dominate the globe, France has seen its relative power diminish, suffering defeats and humiliations at the hands of rival forces, from Britain’s navies to Germany’s jackboots to the invading might of American popular culture.
Now these longstanding anxieties have been thrown into relief by the murderous attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, an attack linked to all the various specters haunting contemporary France: fears of creeping Islamification and rising anti-Semitism, fears of the far right’s growing power and anti-Muslim backlash — and all of it bound up in a larger sense, amid economic stagnation, of betrayal at the hands of the Continent’s elite.
...
Consider the specific issue at the heart of the Hebdo nightmare: the question of whether European nation-states can successfully integrate Muslim immigrants, and what will happen if they don’t.
Douthat reaches no conclusion,but at least deviates somewhat from the cheese-eating surrender-monkey no-freedom-fries-for-you script conservatives generally follow when talking about France. And he does his best Bill Buckley meets Tolkein pastiche. Bestrode. Is there an emoticon for "I'm rolling my eyes"?
The New York Times editorial board supports raising the gas tax.
Gasoline prices have fallen more than 40 percent since the end of June thanks to the collapse of global oil prices. That makes this the perfect time for Congress to overcome its longstanding terror of offending the nation’s motorists and raise the tax on gasoline and diesel fuel. The results could only be beneficial: for the nation’s roads, bridges and transit systems, which badly need repair; for the budget; and, to the extent that higher taxes encourage greater fuel efficiency, for the climate.
The federal excise tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gas and 24.4 cents on diesel has not been increased since 1993. That has severely shortchanged the Highway Trust Fund, which is expected to run out of money in May if Congress does not transfer more into it or raise fuel taxes. If the federal tax on gasoline had simply kept up with inflation, it would be 30 cents today.
to this I say, huzzah. And also a hell yeah. Though I'd raise the tax quite a bit more than suggested here.
Jonathon Turley on free speech in France.
Within an hour of the massacre at the headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, thousands of Parisians spontaneously gathered at the Place de la Republique. Rallying beneath the monumental statues representing Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, they chanted “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”) and “Charlie! Liberty!” It was a rare moment of French unity that was touching and genuine.
Yet one could fairly ask what they were rallying around. The greatest threat to liberty in France has come not from the terrorists who committed such horrific acts this past week but from the French themselves, who have been leading the Western world in a crackdown on free speech.
Indeed, if the French want to memorialize those killed at Charlie Hebdo, they could start by rescinding their laws criminalizing speech that insults, defames or incites hatred, discrimination or violence on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, sex or sexual orientation. These laws have been used to harass the satirical newspaper and threaten its staff for years. Speech has been conditioned on being used “responsibly” in France, suggesting that it is more of a privilege than a right for those who hold controversial views.
Frieda Ghitis also has thoughts on who to blame.
Who is to blame for the massacre at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, the irreverent satirical magazine? ...
A horrific terrorist attack — perpetrated by Muslims — automatically leads many to blame Islam and, with varying degrees of subterfuge, all Muslims.
On the other end of the ideological scale, it sends some into a spirited defense of Islam and of its practitioners, exonerating both with claims that this had nothing to do with Islam and that, as President Obama and other world leaders have said about previous atrocities, the terrorists “are not real Muslims.”
The truth lies somewhere in between. It is absurd and utterly unfair to blame all Muslims for what some members of their religion do. It is just as ridiculous to claim these acts have nothing to do with Islam.
Leonard Pitts is, thankfully, back from vacation.
Dear Terrorists:
OK, you win. We surrender.
Never thought I’d say that, but then, I never thought I’d see gunmen burst into the offices of a satirical magazine as happened last Wednesday in Paris. Never thought I’d see 12 people killed — most were employees, two were police officers — because a magazine published provocative cartoons mocking extremist Islam.
Here in the United States, as in France, as in pretty much every free place on the globe, we’ve cherished this crazy idea that people should be free to say whatever they darn well please. We have particularly believed in the power of humor, not simply as a means of expression, but as a way of puncturing the powerful and pricking the pretentious, of defying those who seek to make us fear.
But the bloodshed at Charlie Hebdo magazine forces us to realize the error of our ways. So I am here to announce that you have achieved your goal. From this moment on, no one on the planet — the entire planet, do you hear? — will ever, ever, ever again make fun of you. This is The End of Satire.
But not the end of the column. Go read the rest.