Posted on

Offence and Intent

There have been a several incidents recently where a person has caused offence by their actions and language, and been accused of racism. Roger Scruton said that Chinese people were like robots, Danny Baker tweeted a picture of a chimpanzee, Priti Patel used an antisemitic dog-whistle, Louise Ellman faced deselection on Yom Kippur, and Alastair Stewart quoted Shakespeare.1

In each case, when a complaint has been voiced, other people have chimed in to say that the offence caused was unintended.

But this only fans the flames of the row. Those who have taken offence (or those who are offended on their behalf) claim that the intent of the person giving offence doesn’t matter. Rather, our moral judgments should be based on the effect it has on those on the receiving end of the words or actions.

This makes me uneasy. I don’t think that our moral judgments can be based only on how it affects those who are the perceived target. I think intent is indeed part of the moral equation.

Here’s a thought experiment. Continue reading “Offence and Intent”

Posted on

Free Speech Turtles, All The Way Down

I’ve written quite a lot recently on the topic of No Platform and the wider issue of free speech at universities.  And I am not done yet.  If the reader feels as if I am repeating myself, that’s because I am: blogging is an iterative form of discourse where each evolution towards some kind of opinion is published for all to see.

And I have been thinking about iteration in the context of the campus free speech wars.

After reading Emey’s amusing-but-actually-serious Open Letter to People Who Write Open Letters to People Who Write Open Letters, my mind wanders back to the debate of the past few days.  Consider, once more, the the Tatchell pile-on from last week: an internicine debate between left leaning social liberals. Continue reading “Free Speech Turtles, All The Way Down”

Posted on

Blasphemy and Cynical Plays for Power

I really shouldn’t let the weekend start without jotting a few notes about the ongoing unrest in the Middle East, provoked by the YouTube video “The Innocence of Muslims” and fuelled by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The protests have sparked another round of analysis of the the Muslim faith, with the predictable indictment of Islam as uniquely intolerant. The Onion published a very funny NSFW cartoon, blasphemous to all religions except Islam, with the headline ‘No-one Murdered Because of This Image’. Funny, yes, but not actually accurate as satire. The fundamentalist Hindus of India are not above threats and riots when their sacred images are appropriated. The internationally acclaimed artist MF Hussain spent his twilight years in exile because of threats made by his own countrymen, such was their dislike of his Mother India paintings. And Richard Gere’s effigy was burned by an angry mob after he kissed Shilpa Shetty.

The fact that Hindus riot too is instructive. When they do, it is at the encouragement of nationalists groups like Shiv Sena, who seek political power through demonisation and division. When Muslims riot, it is similarly due to local leaders seeking to win political support. Even the Salman Rushdie fatwā (also in the news this week due to the publication of Rushdie’s autobiography, Joseph Anton) was raised by Ayatollah Khomeini as part of a power-play. The old Ayatollah had been losing political support in the months leading up to Valentine’s Day 1989, when the infamous decree was issued. Continue reading “Blasphemy and Cynical Plays for Power”

Posted on

On Secularism and such like…

Earlier this week we had one of those cultural moments when ideas of atheism, secularism and religion were debated. In an obviously provocative manoever, Baroness Warsi spoke of ‘militant secularism’. Militants like Richard Dawkins rose to the bait, apparently affirming her pronouncements, while less militant atheists like Alain De Botton adopted a more conciliatory tone on twitter. Several people pointed out the oxymoronic notion of a ‘militant secularist’ by incorrectly quoting AC Grayling, who last year equated militant atheism with “sleeping furiously”.

There is lots to be said about this perjorative term ‘militant secularism’. It is a form of victimology that social conservatives like propagate. Sayeeda Warsi has form on such issues, naughtily spreading the ‘Winterval’ myth when she knows it is a lie. It enables bigots, who like to use religion to excuse their prejudices, even when those values are very much at odds with the tolerant philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth.

Continue reading “On Secularism and such like…”