January 20, 2015 at 6:09 p.m.
True freedom requires tolerance
Editorial
Pope Francis was right the other day.
And he was wrong.
The pontiff rightly pointed out that people shouldn’t engage in words or actions that insult and ridicule another religion or race. Whether such comments or images attack Christians or Jews or Muslims or people of another culture or another ethnicity, they are offensive.
But he was wrong to suggest that simply because they are offensive they should be prohibited or silenced. And it was a mistake to imply that because such offensive speech is provocative, it can in any way excuse violence on the part of those who might be provoked.
Freedom is messy, and it’s seldom messier than when issues of free expression are concerned.
The horrific attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo is a reminder of that fact.
Few publications could be more offensive than the French satirical journal. Its cartoons ridiculed every target imaginable. They were anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-Islam and routinely racist.
In contrast, a typical editorial cartoon in any U.S. newspaper would have to be considered mild and understated.
In a way, you might say American journalists agree with the pope’s first point. Limits to civil conversation are pretty much recognized, at least in print and on the airwaves; the Internet is another story entirely.
Yet virtually all American journalists would agree that in a free society even the most provocative speech needs to be tolerated and violence is always an unacceptable response.
This conversation is nothing new.
If you think the U.S. is immune from anti-press violence in response to provocative ideas, then consider Elijah Lovejoy, the abolitionist editor from Alton, Illinois, killed by a mob because they didn’t like what he had published. Presses have been smashed, editors jailed or beaten, for much of our history as a nation.
And the conversation isn’t going to end any time soon.
Witness the contradictory — some would say hypocritical — reactions in France, where “hate speech” laws have been used to rein in comments in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo assault even though “hate speech” itself was a factor in that assault.
Tolerance isn’t easy, and the urge to silence those with whom we disagree or who offend us or who we find overly provocative will always be with us.
But that urge to silence must always be resisted. —J.R.
And he was wrong.
The pontiff rightly pointed out that people shouldn’t engage in words or actions that insult and ridicule another religion or race. Whether such comments or images attack Christians or Jews or Muslims or people of another culture or another ethnicity, they are offensive.
But he was wrong to suggest that simply because they are offensive they should be prohibited or silenced. And it was a mistake to imply that because such offensive speech is provocative, it can in any way excuse violence on the part of those who might be provoked.
Freedom is messy, and it’s seldom messier than when issues of free expression are concerned.
The horrific attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo is a reminder of that fact.
Few publications could be more offensive than the French satirical journal. Its cartoons ridiculed every target imaginable. They were anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-Islam and routinely racist.
In contrast, a typical editorial cartoon in any U.S. newspaper would have to be considered mild and understated.
In a way, you might say American journalists agree with the pope’s first point. Limits to civil conversation are pretty much recognized, at least in print and on the airwaves; the Internet is another story entirely.
Yet virtually all American journalists would agree that in a free society even the most provocative speech needs to be tolerated and violence is always an unacceptable response.
This conversation is nothing new.
If you think the U.S. is immune from anti-press violence in response to provocative ideas, then consider Elijah Lovejoy, the abolitionist editor from Alton, Illinois, killed by a mob because they didn’t like what he had published. Presses have been smashed, editors jailed or beaten, for much of our history as a nation.
And the conversation isn’t going to end any time soon.
Witness the contradictory — some would say hypocritical — reactions in France, where “hate speech” laws have been used to rein in comments in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo assault even though “hate speech” itself was a factor in that assault.
Tolerance isn’t easy, and the urge to silence those with whom we disagree or who offend us or who we find overly provocative will always be with us.
But that urge to silence must always be resisted. —J.R.
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