The Daily Tar Heel Fans the Flames of the Cartoon Jihad
The DTH is an oddity; a campus newspaper that's actually worth reading much of the time. Now they're in trouble for publishing a cartoon including a depiction of Mohammed. Their cartoon actually seems to me to be rather more clever and well-motivated than the original cartoons that sparked this whole thing.
The Tarheel conservative reports (see link above) that the UNC Muslim Students Association published a letter of complaint concerning the cartoon, and that Vice Chancellor Margaret Jablonski co-authored the letter. And The DTH has fired back.
If anybody knows of an analysis of this situation (the larger situation, not the DTH dust-up) that makes a plausible argument on behalf of the protesters I encourage you to point it out to me.
The DTH is an oddity; a campus newspaper that's actually worth reading much of the time. Now they're in trouble for publishing a cartoon including a depiction of Mohammed. Their cartoon actually seems to me to be rather more clever and well-motivated than the original cartoons that sparked this whole thing.
The Tarheel conservative reports (see link above) that the UNC Muslim Students Association published a letter of complaint concerning the cartoon, and that Vice Chancellor Margaret Jablonski co-authored the letter. And The DTH has fired back.
If anybody knows of an analysis of this situation (the larger situation, not the DTH dust-up) that makes a plausible argument on behalf of the protesters I encourage you to point it out to me.
posted by Winston Smith at
12:44 PM
20 Comments:
This "you have to honor our provincial religious dictates in your newspaper, even though you don't believe in your religion" shit has got to stop.
This article from the dreaded National Review points out that Muhammed has been shown in portraits all through Muslim history. That should be the counterargument, not an insistence of the "right" to bait someone else with cartoons. (Let's be frank---offense was definitely intended by them.) It's one thing to have some respect for a religion (which is really to the people who believe in it), quite another to give relativistic tolerance to the crazies' own interpretations of it.
(That DTH cartoon was quite good, BTW.)
If this clash of civilizations (and it indeed is one) is going to be kept from becoming a full-scale war, it's going to be up to those in the West to study up and engage Islam on its own terms. Hopefully, there's enough liberalism in its history to build on and enable it to turn the corner from the implacable enemy of Western Civilization to something that won't kill us or necessitate us killing them.
(A new scholarly approach to the Qur'an is discussed here. It is imperative that it or something like it succeed.)
My favorite Chesterton quote is "reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it."
Beating Muslims about the head to teach them the value of free speech rights shows a lack of prudence if not outright brutishness. If Muslims are willing to die for their faith (and they are), then faith is a matter of life and death, on a higher plane than the exercise of "rights." (I say this because I myself am not inclined to die for the right to publish cartoons, but more importantly, I am certainly not willing to kill for it.)
The West's exercise of the right to publish unflattering cartoons of Muhammed is consistent with its worship of reason, but to the Muslim mind, where faith is more important than life itself, it is an unspeakable violence, as real as any violence in this world.
One need not respect faith to respect the reality of the situation. The West uses pictures of Muhammed as a truncheon at its own peril. Better to learn the language of Islam, and find out if there's any other way.
Well, you asked for a try at it, WS, so I complied, and to the best of my ability.
I liked the result enough (at least it got long enough) to round it out and post it over at my groupblog. Thanks for the inspiration. It occurs to me that the philosopher's job isn't so much to provide answers, but to use his insight to kick over the rocks that are most likely to have gold under them, then letting everyone have a go.
(Yes, that's how gold prospecting really works. I did it for a week once. Some rocks are more likely than others. Turning over every single one is the province of fools. We do not live forever, and that's a good thing.)
"If this clash of civilizations (and it indeed is one) is going to be kept from becoming a full-scale war, it's going to be up to those in the West to study up and engage Islam on its own terms. Hopefully, there's enough liberalism in its history to build on and enable it to turn the corner from the implacable enemy of Western Civilization to something that won't kill us or necessitate us killing them."
Tom,
One question:
Why is it that Muslims in the U.S. and Europe didn't riot because of the cartoons, but some in the M.E. did?
I don't think that western liberalism and Islam are necessarily incompatible, although I do think that western liberalism and Islamic fundamentalism are, in much the same way that western liberalism and Christian fundamentalism are.
Are you referring to the Western liberalism of the Founders or what it has mutated into?
As for your question, I suppose it's because the European governments were against riots instead of encouraging them.
As for the US, a) fewer Muslims and b) perhaps a greater liberalism toward their sensibilities, a liberalism not as greatly in evidence toward Christian fundamentalists, or Christians in general.
"Are you referring to the Western liberalism of the Founders or what it has mutated into?"
I fail to see the distinction, but just so that we can at least debate on common ground, would you at least agree that the internalization of the principle that someone's drawings, no matter how offensive to one's sensibilities or blasphemous of one's religion, is not grounds for phsical violence? This is but one example of what I would call a *western liberal* sensibility. I'm not so sure it always even holds here, but I'll get to that in a minute.
Because I think one can trace a straight line from Voltaire's quote about the worthiness of defending the expression of even loathsome views to the liberalism of *the founders*.
You really don't think that the inability to appreciate these enlightened values is something that inheres in Muslims, do you?
Which also leads to my puzzlement over:
"As for your question, I suppose it's because the European governments were against riots instead of encouraging them."
So then it's attributable to the government under which they live, rather than the internalization of the values represented by those governments?
From a prudential point of view, I think most commenters miss the larger point that the cartoons published in Denmark depict Muslims as dangerous fanatics. The purpose of these cartoons (overtly or not) is to encourages ill treatment of these groups. The cartoons and their racist message have no place in a pluralistic society and should be roundly denounced by everyone committed to pluralism.
Anyone who knows anything about Europe knows about the racial tensions between Europeans and Muslim immigrants. And it's instructive to remember that in the early 1900s, US newspapers commonly published racial cartoons about blacks, Irish, Italians, Jews and other groups. Fortunately, we in the US have come to our senses and the public more or less no longer tolerates cartoons depicting racial stereotypes of these groups.
But even here, I wonder what the actual reaction would be.
If a newspaper today published a racist cartoon depicting any one of the above groups as a threat to the rest of society and implied it was OK to attack these groups, the newspaper would be the subject of boycotts, protests and probably see large readership declines. Given the right circumstances it could even touch off a riot. Maybe people in the US are so used to riots after football and basketball games that they think all riots should be sports related?
I'm sorry you don't appreciate the distinction between the "classical liberalism" of, say, Adam Smith, whom you find obsolete, and whatever it is you and your like-minded fellows propose to replace him with.
"Modern liberalism," for lack of a better term.
It's the key to your dilemma between backing free speech or pluralism.
No, there's no 'dilemma' whatsoever. The point is that I don't see a contradiction between how a 'classical liberal', modern liberal or any other such iteration would treat this case.
There's no contradiction whatsoever between free speech and pluralism. The question is one of freedom of speech and freedom from coercion.
The issues of some publisher's RIGHT to publish something and my judgment of his ACTUALLY publishing it are completely different. This is where someone who harbors the mistaken assumption that the government or the market or ANY other institution is supposed to stand in moral judgment of someone's behavior wanders into the philosophical graveyard.
I can be opposed, morally, to someone's judgment about what they do or don't say, write or draw, without thinking that it should be proscribed using the coercive power of government. That's why *morality* is defined as a norm of PERSONAL BEHAVIOR.
And that's a beautiful strawman you've constructed about Smith, since nowhere did I mention that he's 'obsolete'. I just don't think that, as much as he has to offer, he isn't the only voice to speak regarding the allocation of resources. I'm joined in that opinion, by the way, by most of today's economists. All those guys who diss your hero, like this one:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/09/adam_smith_foun.html
Are the utilitarians like Bentham, Mill and Hume puerile thinkers? You think maybe they have something worthwhile to say too? Certainly not in the cult of belief you've apparently built. But if you want to go on distorting my opinion about things which I can assure you I know quite well, you just go ahead.
Bentham and Mill are the beginning of the end of classical liberalism. Utilitarianism ushers in positivism, where the state goes from guarantor of liberty to the agent of the relief of man's estate. (This is why modern liberalism cannot appropriate Hume and Smith.)
To the point, Islam is compatible with classical liberalism, which leaves room between society and government.
But both modern liberalism and theocracy refuse any separation between society and state. Opposite sides of the same coin and fundamentally incompatable.
The US was founded during classical liberalism; by the time Europe got around to (re-)founding its institutions, modern liberalism was its foundation. This is why nations like France are unequipped to deal with a significant minority of those who are un-French in philosophy. So they try to ban Muslim headscarves.
I detect a strong classical liberalism in your own thought; above you properly delineate the difference between state and society, an acknowledgement that all desirable Goods are not achievable by laws, governments, or even constitutions.
I'm a classical liberal, too. So is Jonah Goldberg (see end). ;-)
(Thanks for the always-nourishing colloquy. Makes me do my homework.)
"Bentham and Mill are the beginning of the end of classical liberalism. Utilitarianism ushers in positivism, where the state goes from guarantor of liberty to the agent of the relief of man's estate. (This is why modern liberalism cannot appropriate Hume and Smith.)"
The point is that there is something worthwhile in many of these theories. My belief, Tom, is that any economic theory, morality or social construct, taken to its logical end, results in absurdity. The respectable deconstructionism leads to the sometimes ridiculous post-modernism. Leibniz' rationalism leads to the intellectually excruciating modal realism.
The possibility that a theory has great merit is compatible with its overextension by others to the point of uselessness. Which is why I've no beef with Darwin just because his theory of natural selection has been used to justify all kinds of nonsense.
"To the point, Islam is compatible with classical liberalism, which leaves room between society and government."
I don't claim to be an expert on Islam, but what little I know about its undistorted core beliefs is that it is compatible with any liberal government, and you have adduced no evidence whatsoever that it is indeed incompatible.
The irritant, once again, is the attempt to conflate personal moral or religious beliefs onto a population VIA GOVERNMENT. That is why fundamentalism of any sort is the problem. It demands that appeal to a higher authority always trumps whatever rights we're entitled to here on earth. It asks not only that men do what their morality demands of them, but also that that duty of conscsience receive government imprimatur. Where liberal government fundamentally disagrees is that the final arbiter in the here and now are things like law, rules and rights. The social contract dictates that, though they may often be in harmony, when there is a conflict, the person of enduring morality must accept the punishment our laws dictate. Kindly show me how about Islam, not Osama bin Laden's Islam, is uniquely incompatible with this.
That's why, while I can criticize some newspaper on a moral basis for printing some hateful and inflammatory cartoons, I would criticize even more vehemently a government that attempted to proscribe the publication of such cartoons.
What's more, you seem to want to conflate modern day *liberalism* with 'political correctness', for which I carry no brief. No, I don't generally think it's virtuous or wise or *nice* to go around offending other people, but I'll be damned if I give the government the power to correct the harm of someone getting their feelings hurt.
There is a difference between classical and modern liberalism. I conflate nothing. At least here. :-)
So why not take the model that has worked in America and apply it globally?
My point exactly: America is the last bastion of classical liberalism. Europe, being founded on modern liberalism, where society and the state are synonymous, is unequipped to deal with the need for true pluralism. That's why they try to ban Muslim headscarves.
(As for anti-globalism, it's reminiscent of Williams Jennings Bryan's "cross of gold." There's a book out about him now, and many reviews, one of which called him the father of 20th century liberalism. I find that persuasive.
But to rail against globalism strikes me like King Canute trying to order the tides to roll back. As for what Adam Smith says or might say about the current age, let's wait for a less murky starting point. I had only tried to cite him as part of the tapestry of classical liberalism, which begins what what is and not what ought to be.)
"Europe, being founded on modern liberalism, where society and the state are synonymous, is unequipped to deal with the need for true pluralism."
Careful. Reductionist logic run amok. Where is your evidence that today's European states are completely statist? Is free enterprise not permitted? Most important in this instance, are the media an arm of the state? For example, was it a GOVERNMENT newspaper in Denmark which published the cartoons?
It was exactly because they believe in free expression that censorship of the images did not take place.
I do agree with you that the Europeans have done a terrible job of promoting the assimilation of Middle Easterners and Africans into their society. But again, it's worth noting that in this instance the violent unrest has taken place elsewhere in the world, the Europeans' lousy job of assimilating immigrants notwithstanding.
And terming Korten's essay 'anti-globalism' is a huge distortion and oversimplification of his argument. Just because he's not for your type of globalism (the un-Smith globalism - check out Smith's comments on the British East India Company), doesn't mean he's anti-globalization in toto. His analysis of the 'betrayal of Adam Smith' is spot on.
And your King Canute argument runs smack into Hume's demolition of the is --> ought argument. There is simply no logical connection.
Yes, you've demolished the argument, but it's not the one I'm making: There is a difference between classical and modern liberalism.
I was speaking of positivist political philosophy. No, Europe is not composed of totalitarian, fascist states. Yet. However society and government are far more heavily intertwined than here. So far.
As for Mr. Korten, I admit I barely skimmed his essay, as it made my eyes glaze over. To engage his thought requires engaging his thought, and that is impossible.
"Healthy societies depend on healthy empowered
local communities that build caring relationships
among people and help us connect to a
particular piece of the living earth with which our
lives are intertwined....[We need to] take back
responsiblity for our lives, and reweave the basic
fabric of caring families and communities to
create places for people and other living things."
(Korten, pp. 234 of something or another)
Utter tripe.
No, I demolished your original point, which was that Islam was inherently not compatible with liberal democracy. When you realized you had no EVIDENCE for this, you attempted to obfuscate with some diatribe against what you consider to be *modern* liberals.
The other point was regarding your advocacy of simply accepting things the way they are because that's the way they are - your earlier comment that "corporations are us and we are them" or something to that effect, and your comment about the tide or something. It's a weak argument.
And you seem to want to selectively quote some part of Korten's exposition of the ideal actualization of a market economy; my impression is that you really don't have a counterargument to the substantive points he makes here:
"The theory of market economics, in contrast to free-market ideology, specifies a number of basic conditions needed for a market to set prices efficiently in the public interest. The greater the deviation from these conditions, the less socially efficient the market system becomes. Most basic is the condition that markets must be competitive. I recall the professor in my elementary economics course using the example of small wheat farmers selling to small grain millers to illustrate the idea of perfect market competition. Today, four companies--Conagra, ADM Milling, Cargill, and Pillsbury--mill nearly 60 percent of all flour produced in the United States, and two of them--Conagra and Cargill--control 50 percent of grain exports.
In the real world of unregulated markets, successful players get larger and, in many instances, use the resulting economic power to drive or buy out weaker players to gain control of even larger shares of the market. In other instances, "competitors" collude through cartels or strategic alliances to increase profits by setting market prices above the level of optimal efficiency. The larger and more collusive individual market players become, the more difficult it is for newcomers and small independent firms to survive, the more monopolisitic and less competitive the market becomes, and the more political power the biggest firms can wield to demand concessions from governments that allow them to externalize even more of their costs to the community.
Given this reality, one might expect the neoliberal economists who claim Smith's tradition as their own to be outspoken in arguing for the need to restrict mergers and acquisitions and break up monopolistic firms to restore market competition. More often, they argue exactly the opposite position--that to "compete" in today's global markets, firms must merge into larger combinations. In other words, they use a theory that assumes small firms to advocate policies that favor large firms.
Market theory also specifies that for a market to allocate efficiently, the full costs of each product must be born by the producer and be included in the selling price. Economists call it cost internalization. Externalizing some part of a product's cost to others not a party to the transaction is a form of subsidy that encourages excessive production and use of the product at the expense of others. When, for example, a forest products corporation is allowed to clear-cut government lands at giveaway prices, it lowers the cost of timber products, thus encouraging their wasteful use and discouraging their recycling. While profitable for the company and a bargain for consumers, the public is forced, without its consent, to bear a host of costs relating to water shed destruction, loss of natural habitat and recreational areas, global warming, and diminished future timber production.
...Corporate libertarians tirelessly inform us of the benefits of trade based on the theories of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. What they don't mention is that the benefits the trade theories predict assume the local or national ownership of capital by persons directly engaged in its management. Indeed, these same conditions are fundamental to Adam Smith's famous assertion in The Wealth of Nations that the invisible hand of the market translates the pursuit of self-interest into a public benefit. Note that the following is the only mention of the famous invisible hand in the entire 1,000 pages of The Wealth of Nations.
By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he [the entrepreneur] intends only his own security, and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Smith assumed a natural preference on the part of the entrepreneur to invest at home where he could keep a close eye on his holdings. Of course, this was long before jet travel, telephones, fax machines, and the Internet. Because local investment provides local employment and produces local goods for local consumption using local resources, the entrepreneur's natural inclination contributes to the vitality of the local economy. And because the owner and the enterprise are both local they are more readily held to local standards. Even on pure business logic, Smith firmly opposed the absentee ownership of companies.
The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own .... Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less in the management of the affairs of such a company?
Smith believed the efficient market is composed of small, owner-managed enterprises located in the communities where the owners reside. Such owners normally share in the community's values and have a personal stake in the future of both the community and the enterprise. In the global corporate economy, footloose money moves across national borders at the speed of light, society's assets are entrusted to massive corporations lacking any local or national allegiance, and management is removed from real owners by layers of investment institutions and holding companies.
...Adam Smith was as acutely aware of issues of power and class as he was of the dynamics of competitive markets. However, the neoclassical economists and the neo-Marxist economists bifurcated his holistic perspective on the political economy, one taking those portions of the analysis that favored the owners of property, and the other taking those that favored the sellers of labor. Thus, the neoclassical economists left out Smith's considerations of the destructive role of power and class, and the neo-Marxists left out the beneficial functions of the market. Both advanced extremist social experiments on a massive scale that embodied a partial vision of society, with disastrous consequences....If corporate libertarians had a serious allegiance to market principles and human rights, they would be calling for policies aimed at achieving the conditions under which markets function in a democratic fashion in the public interest. They would be calling for an end to corporate welfare, the breakup of corporate monopolies, the equitable distribution of property ownership, the internalization of social and environmental costs, local ownership, a living wage for working people, rooted capital, and a progressive tax system. Corporate libertarianism is not about creating the conditions that market theory argues will optimize the public interest, because its real concern is with private, not public, interests."
and that therefore you can derisively dismiss his work as 'tripe'. I'd suggest that if you performed an analysis of the work of Smith, whom you claim to admire, you'd see that Korten's principles of political economy are a lot closer to Smith's than today's corporate libertarians.
Montesquieu wrote that a government must reflect the mores of its people. You wrote:
I don't think that western liberalism and Islam are necessarily incompatible, although I do think that western liberalism and Islamic fundamentalism are, in much the same way that western liberalism and Christian fundamentalism are.
# posted by Lewis Carroll : 10:23 PM
A sneaky conflation of Falwell and bin Laden, to which I object. Christian fundamentalism co-existed quite peaceably with the Founders' government for over 100 years, including the era of William Jennings Bryan's Christian populism.
But when mores are decided by a holy book-like interpretation of the Constitution by a minority which rides roughshod over the mores of the majority, yes, problems arise.
A review of the relevant passage from Adam Smith, a similar conflation of monopoly and corporatism by Mr. Korten emerges.
"The equitable distribution of property ownership"? Statist tripe.
If you want to discuss Smith, I'll be happy to. Please don't ask me to penetrate any more of Korten's sophistic nonsense. Restrict the conversation to your own.
;-)
You're deliberately distorting what he's saying via selective quoting, a favorite pastime of those without a cogent counterargument; and attempting to capitalize on the visceral reaction to coded words and phrases.
A careful reading of Smith reveals that he labored to elucidate what naturally IS about markets, and how that led to beneficial results SUCH AS 'the equitable distribution of property ownership', something which would be a form of justice, an ideal that our founders held in quite high regard. It doesn't mean an EQUAL division of property or some other such proto-Marxist extreme.
The fact that the imposition of disproportionate market and government power by large corporations distorts the system Smith described appears to be lost on you.
And for someone who seeks my own opinion only, you seem to have a strangely reflexive tendency to link to Smith, whose writing contradicts the very anti-competitive corporatism you defend.
You have no argument against the internalization of costs for producers and manufacturers, since it's implicitly embedded in Smith's discussion of the parts of the cost of a commodity. It's also the basis of rational choice theory, whereby each consumer seeks to maximize his or her own utility. Such choices should include all information about the TOTAL costs and benefits which his choice confers upon him, only a small amount of which are actually known to the typical consumer because of the insidious nature of externalization. An example is the higher medical costs we all bear via taxes because of WalMart's failure to provide adequate insurance for its employees.
Distortions like government subsidies or selective tax breaks to particular companies or entire industries represent externalization of corporate costs on a grand scale. These costs are a) often unknown to the consumer as market participant or b) too far removed from their day-to-day decision making process to have substantial effect.
Ardent corporatists also consistently argue against merely increasing taxes on cigarettes and tobacco companies to compensate all of us for the indirect costs their products impose on us. The similar campaigns to relieve companies from the obligation of cleaning up after they shit the bed are yet another example. Witness the relentless twenty year campaign to gut the Superfund program.
And since the marketplace becomes more competitive and thusly more just as the number of participants increases, the reduction in the number of say, banks or insurance companies (via M & A) erodes the beneficial effects of the market.
None of this is in any way consistent with Smith's or Ricardo's marketplace.
"A sneaky conflation of Falwell and bin Laden, to which I object. Christian fundamentalism co-existed quite peaceably with the Founders' government for over 100 years, including the era of William Jennings Bryan's Christian populism."
You're ignoring the history of the American political system. Compare geographic Congressional representation up until Bryan's time and now. The electoral balance has shifted, resulting in newfound political power for the Christian right; never before have they been as tied in to the levers of power as they are now.
And so I assume that since you can imply a huge slippery slope and say that Europe isn't a mass of statist societies YET, I can also say that we're not a Christian Fundamentalist theocracy YET. Or a fascist state YET:
http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm
"But when mores are decided by a holy book-like interpretation of the Constitution by a minority which rides roughshod over the mores of the majority, yes, problems arise."
Exhibit A: Antonin Scalia.
And the greatest protection against either a minority or majority riding roughshod over the other is the existence of a strong central government, dependent upon the approval of as many parties as possible. Alas, this is anathema to today's *conservative*.
A principle straight from Federalist #10.
I should clarify that the most powerful check on a majority tyrannizing a minority is the republican form of government, as opposed to pure democracy. This, along with the above-mentioned centralized government answerable to many disparate parties works to frustrate the efforts of majority factions working together to oppress the minority. The smaller the unit of government, however, from the state on down to local communities, the ability of the majority to forcefully express its will is ever greater.
The Bill of Rights provides protection for the minority too, as well as the less likely concern that a minority can tyrannize the majority.
I would also point out that the closest current analog to minority rule we have is the Senate, where the 44 Democratic Senators received about 2.4 million more votes than the 56 Republican Senators, and Democrats are routinely left out of legislation writing and inter-chamber reconciliation conferences. As well as the Supreme Court, where six of the nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents, despite registration being roughly fifty-fifty.
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