When the truth hurts…
…What responsibility does the bearer hold?
In a way, this is the question addressed by Lee Harris’ essay at TCS today. He observes where Madeleine Bunting, writing in The Guardian, chooses to lay blame:
“An elderly Catholic nun has already been killed in Somalia, perhaps in retaliation for the pope’s remarks; churches have been attacked in the West Bank. How is this papal stupidity going to play out in countries such as Nigeria, where the tensions between Catholics and Muslims frequently flare into riots and deaths? Or other countries such as Pakistan, where tiny Catholic communities are already beleaguered?”
In other words, the Pope is directly responsible for the violence committed by people who don’t like his words.
In Robert Heinlein’s story, Coventry, the main character is explaining why he’s in prison. He cited a “fighting words” scenario. The girl, born to someone who had been exiled to this prison, was not sympathetic.
(Quoting — very approximately — from memory)
“He made a noise with his mouth, and you punched him? That’s not justice, or reasonable. If it’s true, punching him won’t make it any less true, and if it’s false, it doesn’t apply to you anyway.”
Benedict’s words are either true or false, and killing nuns and burning down churches won’t change that. Indeed, since his words are taken as an accusation that Islam is violent, burning down nuns and killing churches only reinforces his point.
Harris notes that we do have some responsibility for the effect our words will have. Thus our laws concern themselves with slander and libel, and even supports varieties of “fighting words” doctrines. As one example of a person who weighed his words very carefully before publishing them, he cites Charles Darwin.
when Charles Darwin published The Origins of Species, he was painfully aware of the consequences that his revolutionary theory would have on other people. Indeed, this awareness led him into delaying the publication of his theory for many years, and his moral seriousness does him no dishonor. Yet, ultimately, Darwin knew that he also had a duty to his own intellectual conscience. He could not simply suppress his theory, because in his mind that would be suppressing the truth.
Harris now invites the reader to consider the same story, only instead of Benedict XVI, the main character is Richard Dawkins, and he refers to creationists as “ignorant boobs”. Now imagine Christian fundamentalists reacting the same way Islamic Jihadists have been — rioting, burning down universities, killing some professors, intimidating others into silence.
What kind of article would Madeleine Bunting write about such a hypothetical incident? Do you think she would violently condemn Richard Dawkins, writing something along the lines of:
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“Even the most cursory knowledge of dialogue with Creationists teaches…that reverence for the Biblical account of man’s creation is non-negotiable. What unites all Christian fundamentalists is a passionate devotion and commitment to the inerrancy of the Holy Bible.”
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Would Madeleine Bunting refer to Dawkins’ speech as illustrating professorial stupidity? Would she imply that he was personally responsible for the death of the elderly American professor of biology, and describe the brutal murder as having been done “in retaliation” for Dawkins’ remarks?
Sometimes the truth hurts. Should a temper tantrum be a defense against having to face it?
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In the US the 1st Amendment is so respected, that while defamation, libel, and slander is actionable, what constitutes the tort is so limited that most awards for libel in the British, Australian, and Canadian courts are unenforceable in the American courts.
Truth is an absolute defense to a claim of libel, this is due to the 1st Amendment being motivated by the concept of “seditious libel” where truth is not a defense when the person being badmouthed is a high government official.
Another limitation on the tort as recognized in American courts is that only a living person can be injured by a libel. Thus Walt Disney Corporation and make a silly animated movie about Powhaton, Pocahontas, John Smith, and Governor Ratigan, and none of their descendents can do anything about it in court! All such characters may have been real persons who lived at one time, but being dead, they cannot suffer any actionable injury no matter how the Disney movie portrays them.
The descendents of General George Custer and Crazy Horse can empathize, no doubt.
Now Mohammed is dead. Though he is said to have risen to heaven on a winged horse. Jesus was nailed to a cross, and witnesses stated that he was indeed dead. Yet he vanished from his tomb and people claimed to have seen him alive and to have risen to heaven from the Mount of Olives.
Still, until Jesus or Mohammed show up alive, neither can sue anyone for libel no matter what they said about them!
Furthermore, any commentary on either Jesus or Mohammed, or both, is the expression of a religious opinion, which is ABSOLUTELY protected, no matter how hurtful some may be by it.
The fault for the rioting and the violence lies not with Pope Joe Ratzinger or with the Danish cartoonists, the fault lies with those who riot and commit the violence.
As far as I am concerned, any person, including Reginald of YAAFM 12, has the right to say “Mohammed can suck my big purple cock!” and to say that those who riot in response to Danish cartoons are “F##king Morons”.
Dawkins is indeed smug, and for all his disdain of religion, he himself is a devout atheist.
Doesn’t mean everything he says is wrong. Furthermore, point that when he speaks, we don’t see riots, burnings, murders, death threats, and the like still stands.
In another venue, I made a related point. Remember Andre Serrano’s “Piss Christ”? He took a crucifix and immersed it in urine.
I can imagine painting “Allah” on a piece of tile and immersing that in urine. It would be called “Pisslam”. I can also imagine Andre Serrano would never create such a piece, and if he did, no museum would go anywhere near it.
Dawkins is a smug Brit with a particular disdain for religion. I watched a documentary a couple of years ago (post 911) in which he made a case that religion was the root of all evil – but he spent most of the program on easy targets like U.S.-based Christian conservatives rather than crazy-eyed Muslims.
Come to think of it… have you ever noticed that when media “progressives” criticize religion, fat Christians with blemishes often get the lion’s share of close-ups? … but when Islam is portrayed, it’s usually a longshot – such a panorama of an Islamic city or an aerial shot of some famous Mosque against a grand skyline. It’s progressive film school’s version of Dhimmitude.
UCLA film school. Smug. Dawkins. Huh.