Random House Publishers has pulled a book about the Prophet Md.'s child bride due to fears that it would be perceived as an insult to Islam and could spark violence.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0736008820080807
What a load of shit!!!
Lots of books are insulting... even meant to be insulting.
As a Catholic, I find James McCarthy's, "The Gospel According to Rome," to be deeply offensive. Similarly, Lorraine Boettner's, "Roman Catholicism" is about as awful as I can imagine. And who can forget Dan Brown's, "The Da Vinci Code?" (Lets face it, if Catholics needed proof that the popular media hated us and wanted our church dead, the hoopla and attention this book and movie generated should have been sufficient. I still can't bring myself to watch any Tom Hanks because of it.)
But, writing offensive stuff has been the hallmark of Western literature for many centuries. In one sense, I think it could be fairly said that it is the awful, the poorly researched, the intentionally deceptive, the hateful that molded our concepts of Free Speech.
The State will always support that which affirms the common culture. It is the offensive that needs protection. So, while it is often prudent to self-censor- not too much- and appropriate to refuse support to that which is designed to bring discredit to your beliefs, it is important that there be easily accessed vehicles for publishing the outrageous and awful.
This is one of the reasons that I favor the unregulated internet.
It is probably fair to say that the internet is the first publishing vehicle that is easily accessible to virtually everyone. There is virtually no evaluation of content- hell, they let ME publish- and the cost of publishing, is, for most in developed nations, pretty low. Have computer, will publish.
This is why the refusal of a publishing house to publish a work on the basis of fear alone is so dangerous and disturbing.
If Random House pulled it because they didn't think it was good enough or because they didn't believe it would sell enough copies, I would have no problem with it. Private company, private rules. But, to pull the work out of fear or because it would offend strikes at the core of Free Speech.
It also sends a bad message that terrorism can stifle ideas. So, if you want your group treated fairly, you should threaten and terrify. Random House, in effect, is saying that it will cave to strong and injure the meek.
This is hardly a formula for supporting Free Speech.
I should note that I am not advancing the notion that private companies should endanger their interests to propel larger Western ideals. Each board, like each individual, has to decide how much risk they are willing to take to support the society that makes their standards of life possible. However, I think less of Random House for having made this decision.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Self-censorship is the worst kind.
I agree that writing offensive stuff has been a hallmark of Western civilization. In fact, I’m offended by Janet’s characterization of slum gulleon as “disgusting and vile”, but I’m not going to put a hit out on him…at least, not now that I have made myself a suspect in any future investigation into his sudden passing.
But this Random House self-censorship episode is not about offensiveness. It is about power. Power, violence, intimidation, and a world-wild theocratic conspiracy.
Note how the victims of anti-Western violence are often fellow Muslims rather than western Christians or Jews. (Yes, the 9/11 went a great way towards evening out the ratio, but it was more the exception than the rule.) Rioting in your own neighborhood is just not an effective way to strike at outsiders. I suspect that the aftermath of such riots is blamed on the West, though.
Note also that the reaction seems seldom to be in response to the actual claimed provocation. I remember hearing interviews with Muslims who were vigorously arguing for Salman Rushdie’s murder, even though they had never read “Satanic Verses” nor even knew anyone who had. In fact, they wouldn’t even talk to anyone who had read Rushdie’s book, because such an act was a heresy that would place the reader himself at jeopardy. I also remember hearing a news report that the Danish political cartoon depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban did not arouse widespread ire until it was republished months later in a slim volume by Muslim radicals. The book sandwiched the Mohammed cartoon between blatantly anti-Muslim tracts and grossly racist cartoons, and was compiled in such a way as to imply that all the material appeared along with the actual Danish cartoon. If I remember correctly, some of the tracts and cartoons were over a century old. The French law banning all religious symbols in school, including not just Muslim headscarves but also Christian crucifixes and Jewish yamakas, but it was widely reported in the Muslim world only as a ban on headscarves.
The decision by Random House to exercise self-censorship is a victory to the violent, coercive extremists who wish to impose an Islamic theocracy on all the peoples of the world. They tap into the misery and frustration of millions of Muslims who have been oppressed and mistreated by their own governments for generations but taught that all their suffering have their roots in the Western civilization.
Don’t ever be fooled into thinking that the roots anti-Western violence in the Islamic world is a spontaneous response to Western offensiveness. Such violence has its roots in frustration springing from homegrown poverty and oppression manipulated by cunning, self-interested, theocratic fanatics. No, this is not a case of slum gulleon or even peanut butter and sauerkraut, but of pretext and intimidation.
"Self-censorship is the worst kind."
OK... I'll bite. Why?
Post a Comment