So Thomas Friedman has a telling editorial in the NY Times today. (You probably need to be a registered user of NYTimes.com to access the story, but I recommend that you become a registered user. Last I checked, it was free.)
The article, "Giving the Hatemongers No Place to Hide," is an attack on international "hatespeech." Friedman writes:
Guess what: words matter. Bookstores matter. Video games matter. But here is our challenge: If the primary terrorism problem we face today can effectively be addressed only by a war of ideas within Islam - a war between life-affirming Muslims against those who want to turn one of the world's great religions into a death cult - what can the rest of us do?
His proposal? The State Dept, along with its annual human-rights report, "should also produce a quarterly War of Ideas Report, which would focus on those religious leaders and writers who are inciting violence against others."
Friedman identifies two other categories along with the "hatemongers" to be listed in this report. First, the top 10 "excusemakers," those with the audacity to "come out to tell us why imperialism, Zionism, colonialism or Iraq explains why the terrorists acted." According to him, these "excuse makers are just one notch less despicable than the terrorists and also deserve to be exposed."
The last category is the "truth-tellers," the "courageous Arab or Muslim intellectual, cleric or columnist publishes an essay in his or her media calling on fellow Muslims to deal with the cancer in their midst." These individuals, obviously, are to be commended.
Friedman ends his article with this: "[This report] would be a message to the extremists: you are free to say what you want, but we are free to listen, to let the whole world know what you are saying and to protect every free society from hate spreaders like you. Words matter."
A few points:
1) Once free societies seek to suppress ideas as "hate," it becomes necessary to make a judgment on what constitutes it. This is shaky territory. It is not the category of "hate" I am critiquing; instead, it is the determination of the boundaries of that category I find problematic. Essentially, it will come down to the dominant cultural force designating its speech acts as normative ("Axis of Evil" is not inciting violence against others) in opposition to those of the "hatemongers" ("The Great Satan," obviously, is). Clearly, it is not the speech acts themselves that are the problem -- it is the side of the fence on which the speaker sits that becomes the determinate factor.
2) The category of "excusemakers" is also quite conducive for eliminating opposition. It is a quick and easy way to de-politicize these terrorist acts. Terrorism is defined as the (unlawful) use of violence to influence governments usually for political or ideological reasons (I am paraphrasing the Amer. Heritage Dictionary here). By claiming that anyone who would raise these political considerations is simply an "excusemaker" who should be targeted for special attention is saying that these political issues are not and should not be part of the debate.
Listen carefully to what I am saying: I am not condoning terrorism, and I would argue that saying these acts are somehow politically "legitimate" is excusing them. But one can point out that something has a political, social, historical reason without excusing it. I can say that someone like Jeffery Dahmer had a miserable and abusive childhood that probably led to his becoming a serial killer. But that doesn't make him any less responsible for being a serial killer, nor does it make serial killing ok. And, moreover, if social workers, school teachers, and psychologists ignored the factors that made a person like Jeffery Dahmer who he was, how many more serial killers would only be stopped after it is too late? When we see children experiencing similar things, we recognize that those things can lead to dangerous behaviors down the road and we try to step in. If, however, we acted like those factors didn't matter, that anyone who brought them up was only an "excusemaker" who was apologizing for evil, then we would be making, I believe, a grave error.
(Of course, the exact nature, source, and effectiveness of all of those political factors in contemporary terrorism is another issue. See, for example, this article in the NY Times._
1) and 2) lead me to 3), which I can sum up by paraphrasing a line from the film Crimson Tide: "we are here to defend democracy, not practice it." In a globalized "War on Terrorism," this is exactly the situation we have gotten ourselves into, and this article from a somewhat moderate voice like Friedman reflects that. We are seeking to defend free societies by willingly adopting tactics of oppression; we are encouraging free speech by silencing it; we are liberating people by locking down on their behavior. This is a dilemma and I, for one, see no real way out of it. Why? Because it has always been nascent in Western versions of democracy. We only can do what we want to do by suppressing ourselves and expecting others to suppress themselves. We can only legitimize ourselves through illegitimate actions.
I'm not really sure where to go with this. My thoughts always come out incomplete.
I once realized that my life can be characterized as a battle between the aesthetic and the ascetic. On the one hand, I think that the beautiful, good, and even holy things of human experience are all very much worth celebrating. And I spend a good deal of my time celebrating those very things. On the other hand, I am equally attracted to the austere and believe firmly that our culture is characterized by a ridiculous lack of discipline. Thus, I tend to keep a tight schedule, set rather high demands on myself in terms of output and achievement, and try to look for all of the things that I am not doing which I ought to be doing so that I can start doing them. The result of both of these things is that I tend to experience a lot of personal crisis.
One of those happened yesterday. My first three weeks of French class wrapped up in the morning and I was faced with almost a week of break during which I planned to prep for the next round and, more importantly, read some stuff for my pending Master’s essay. So I’m sitting in my apartment, drinking a cup of coffee, watching the skylight make sun rectangles on the floor, and reading Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida, a book subtitled “Reflections on Photography.” It’s a beautiful book, one that combines great critical concepts with light and pleasurable prose. So, needless to say, I am thoroughly enjoying myself.
And then it hits me: what right do I have to be here enjoying this? From our culture’s strategic perspective, one could say I have every right: I’ve worked hard to get to grad school, I’ve sacrificed other things, I have been careful with my wife’s money, etc., etc. “I should have the right to enjoy what I have [sortof] earned.” But “rights” do not always include responsibilities. And by choosing to spend this afternoon on my couch, I am choosing to NOT alleviate some one else’s suffering, I am choosing to NOT give cups of cold water and visit those in prison.
My Catholic friend Artur calls it a case of classic Protestant guilt. He claims to have had other friends who, like me, thought that if they were enjoying themselves it wasn’t what they were supposed to be doing.
I told him Protestants didn’t inspire the phrase “self-flagellation.” But I suppose we internalize the practice in our own special way.
Another thing I realized yesterday: I think my problem is a problem of the general culture, namely, that the real questions we ask ourselves are “which pastel plastic bracelet defines my values? From which cause do I derive my moral identity? Who, ultimately, do I claim to be the most victimized of victims?” Not five minutes after I wrote those questions in my notebook, I kid you not, the guy in front of me at the post office purchased some pink teddy bear and asked if some of the money went to breast cancer research. The post office lady was happy to inform him that yes, $1 from the sale of this $10 stuffed animal would be used for this cause.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not trivializing breast cancer. My problem is that our moral reasoning is, like everything else, nothing more than a series of sound bytes and marketing clichés. And my problem was a) a Sartrean nausea brought on by the cultural failure to think morally and the reality of my own necessarily unfulfilled responsibility and b) realizing that I was using the same simplistic moral thinking and acting like it was somehow superior. I can’t say how, exactly, but I felt like I was.
Another thing my friend Artur said, paraphrasing Wendall Berry and echoing Capria Jaussen, is that our problem is that we see neither the concrete reality in front of us nor do we see the larger reality outside our immediate vision. That is, to put it eco-ethical terms, we miss both the dandelion plant growing through the city sidewalk and the devastation of corporate monocultures on the soil halfway around the world. And the thing I had never thought of before was that the one informs the other: it is by living concretely in the everyday that we, somehow, affect that which is outside of our daily experience. I need more of that.
I own a pastel plastic bracelet. It’s pale blue and it says something like “I’m working to fight prostate cancer!”
Soooooo. . .
Things have been well. Two weekends back the Martins and one Millette (Chauncy) were in town. It was too brief. I didn't sleep much. It was very enjoyable.
I think when you spend most of your waking moments studying another language, particularly at my age, you lose some of the finer stylistic points of your mother tongue. So if this post doesn't have the subtle prose you are used to, forgive me.
This summer has been going well. I am reading 6 books simultaneously, including Peter Burger's Theory of the Avant-Garde, Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire, Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, Hans Urs Von Balthasar's Mysterium Paschale, Lemony Snickett's The Reptile Room, and a French mystery novel from the 60s the name of which eludes me. The pending list is also long. Once I finish the Calvino I will turn to Danielewski's House of Leaves, and Karl Barth's Dogmatics in Outline is waiting after Mysterium.
There is a simple reason for this madness, but I will spare you the story.
I am also searching (en francais: inf. chercher) for a new apartment. The plan is to find something that will last us for the remainder of our stay in Seattle (4 years) so we want something cool. Last night we checked out a building built in 1913 that is above one of my favorite bookstores and favorite coffee shops. It was cool, but not quite what we were looking for. So I'll keep you posted.
The Quiet One's are playing in Seattle on Sat. And no one told me. Or maybe I forgot.