Villainous Company

« Priceless | Main | Still No WMDs? »

February 06, 2006

Freedom, Tolerance, and the Double Standard

As I noted a few days ago, the recent controversies over the limits of self-expression in a free society are rife with hypocrisy on both sides. This is not surprising, for arguments about free speech expose the underlying conflict between two cherished pillars of Western society: individual freedom and tolerance. The unpleasant truth is that a society which places no limits on free expression must tolerate even ideas that are profoundly intolerant, and however much Americans may revere the 'right' to free speech in the abstract, what most of us really want is the right to offend our ideological opponents with impugnity. Our lofty principles rarely outlive the realization that our own sacred ox has just been gored.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than the Danish cartoon kerfuffle. But for all the overwrought fulmination about freedom of expression, what the Coalition of the Outraged hate to admit is that unfettered speech in the Western world is more sentimental fiction than reality. By law and by custom, Western society has always recognized all sorts of limits on the right to speak freely. A notable example is the fighting words exception to the First Amendment, which recognizes that certain words and ideas are so inflammatory that society's interest in maintaining order outweighs the individual's right to express himself without limitation. Another, the criminalization of 'hate speech', places paramount value on the feelings of certain identity groups while allowing others to be insulted or attacked with impugnity. A third, cultural bugaboos, are equally problematic in that they allow rappers to casually drop words like 'nigger' but mandate that everyone else use silly euphenisms like 'the n-word' as surrogates for an appellation so shocking that only the pigmentally gifted may utter it without rending the fabric of the universe in twain.

So it would appear that protestations to the contrary, our own tolerance for free speech has definite limits. The question then becomes not, "Does a free society recognize any limitation on speech?". Of course it does. The sticking point becomes "Where do we draw the line, and who gets to draw it?" And therein lies the rub. The mainstream media regularly exercise self-restraint... but only when it suits them. As I observed earlier regarding the JCS controversy, media self-censorship is at best a hypocritical exercise:

...counter to Fred Hiatt's lofty pronouncements that he "does not censor" Mr. Toles, it is hard to imagine the Post running a cartoon that was viewed as offensive by any of the identity groups that continually paralyze American discourse by throwing the race or hate speech card.

Apparently it's not so much a question of the freedom to offend everyone equally as the freedom to offend certain "safe" groups...such as the folks who guarantee your First Amendment rights.

Apologists for the violent reaction to the Danish cartoons maintain that Muslim outrage is warranted because Islam universally reveres the religious symbols of other faiths as much as their own. If that were true, this cartoon should have outraged Muslims worldwide. The fact is, however, that it did not.

Reader NB sends this thought, when Muslims worldwide burn or trample the Danish flag underfoot, have they not just desecrated one of the oldest symbols of Christianity?

Among the independent nations recognised by the UN, the Danish flag is generally considered as the oldest continuously used national flag in the world. Regions, counts, kings and the like have had flags or banners older than Dannebrog, but no sovereign nation has used the same flag as long as Denmark.

Legend relates that the "Dannebrog" fell from the skies on 15 June 1219, the day in which King Waldemar II defeated the Estonians in battle.

The cross represents, unsurprisingly, Christianity.

As Grim notes, the Danish flag is identical to that flown by the Knights Hospitaller:

It won't be forever before the wrathful of the Muslim world notice this. Fate has brought us to where we thought we would not go: we now openly ride under a Crusader's flag.

Deus vult, must we not say? This was unplanned, and not even imagined: but here we are. There will be no going back from this.

TigerHawk notes the comparative silence of the Left blogosphere on this struggle:

The real reason the left is quiet is that this crisis is a lance at the heart of modern identity politics. It has exposed the stupidity of hate crimes legislation, and made us all aware that our devotion to "tolerance" -- the true god of the Western lefty -- cannot be reconciled with an allegedly victimized group that is itself intolerant. The only solution is surrender, and the left does not want to admit that. So it pretends the story isn't happening. We'll let them know when its over.

I agree with TigerHawk, but I would expand on his comment by noting that the squeamishness of the Left arises from the profoundly disturbing realization that a significant part of the Muslim world has reacted to appeasement with violence. The implications must be shattering for them. Establishing a dialogue is pretty much impossible when your opponents demand as a precondition the right to kill anyone who disagrees with them. Could it be that both free speech and tolerance are values worth fighting for? The alternative is anathema to the Left: the tyrannical domination of the weak by the strong. The gaping flaws in their own ideology logically lead to a world where they will be marginalized and treated as Other.

This is a fight we cannot run from, but the question of the day is this: under what banner will the West fight? Unfettered freedom of expression is the wrong standard, for all Muslims need do is examine our own lack of consistency on this issue and they will rightly dismiss it as hypocritical. The right principle may be even more disturbing to those both on the Right and Left: to uphold the primacy of the rule of law over individual freedom of action and expression. But this is the only banner that makes sense and the only one which guarantees our freedoms.

So long as individuals or identity groups maintain their "right" to break the law whenever their individual sense of grievance conflicts with societal consensus, individual freedom of action will be held hostage to the threat of violent retribution. Ironically, the West may finally have to come to grips with several disturbing realizations. The first is that freedom is indeed divisible and we must often surrender the smaller part of our freedoms to preserve the greater, as the only long-term guarantor of our cherished rights occurs when individuals willingly subordinate themselves to the larger interests of society.

Of course this insight itself leads to another distressing realization: all forms of government are not created equal and the spread of democracy, even with all its imperfections, is the only antidote to a world where individual rights are crushed by whoever happens to hold the whip hand. The vital difference with democracy is that government is us and we hold the power, through persuasion and the exercise of lawful protest, to guarantee our own freedoms. But these guarantees are worth only the paper they are written unless we have the courage to uphold our own laws - with force if need be. The undeniable tension between freedom and tolerance demands that the rule of law be upheld, even when it paradoxically limits our freedoms and refuses to tolerate the 'rights' of minorities to ignore prevailing community standards.

Posted by Cassandra at February 6, 2006 08:10 AM

Comments

Posted by: camojack at February 6, 2006 10:44 AM

Posted by: Carrie at February 6, 2006 10:46 AM

Posted by: Cassandra at February 6, 2006 11:57 AM

Posted by: Frodo at February 6, 2006 11:34 PM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)