My New Republic piece on Charlie Hebdo, the Pope, and free speech

January 16, 2015 • 11:40 am

I’ve extensively rewritten and also lengthened the short piece I wrote the other day on Pope Francis’s dumb claim that mocking religion doesn’t count as free speech; it’s essentially a new piece, and has just been published in The New Republic as “Pope Francis is wrong about Charlie Hebdo. We have a right to make fun of religion.”

If you feel so inclined, go read the new piece and give the journal, which has just been revamped, a few clicks. It’s a small price to pay for all my free content!

48 thoughts on “My New Republic piece on Charlie Hebdo, the Pope, and free speech”

  4. “The price of coddling tender minds offended by disagreement is the dissolution of democracy. For free speech, which includes the right to mock or excoriate views we find offensive, is the arsenal of democracy, and satire one of its most effective weapons.”

    My favorite section from an extremely well crafted essay. Bravo!

  6. Nice combo of earlier and later material. Best of both. Bringing in your own student paper is a nice ending touch. My only quibble is that I wish you’d used Donahue’s later comments rather than his earlier ones. You say this:

    Others, like Bill Donohue, president of America’s Catholic League, argued that “Muslims are right to be angry” about the cartoons, coming perilously close to excusing the Charlie Hebdo murders

    But in fact Donohue actually did excuse the murders, later on, on Friday (1/9/15). See here. Donohue quoted from that later interview, with my emphasis:

    “Artists must stop producing “filth,” he declared, saying that while he would be opposed to someone killing Serrano for his “Piss Christ” image, it would be Serrano’s own fault were that to happen.“

    That’s excusing the murders. No two ways about it: Donohue is saying that the authors of the material are at fault for their own murders.

    So, you inadvertently gave him a bye. No problem, its still a good article. Just wanted to let you know he’s even a worse authoritarian bigot than you thought.

  8. Misplaced “not”!

    The cartoons … are meant not to insult religious people or designed only to give offense

    Take out the “insult” clause and you’re saying something you don’t mean to be saying!

    /@

      1. So, you should be able to swap the order then:

        The cartoons … are designed only to give offense or meant not to insult religious people

        Is that what Jerry meant?

        /@

  10. Nicely written. I like this the best:

    Charlie Hebdo wasn’t calling Muslims names; it was calling Islam names, and it’s time that everyone, including Pope Francis, grasped the difference. Insulting people is different from criticizing their beliefs, even if the latter leads to the former. Just as political views can cause harm, so can religious views, and to argue that religion is off limits while politics is not is to confer on faith an unwarranted privilege.

  12. How the hell some people’s reasoning can separate these terrorists from the religion is really crazy reasoning. Where do they think that stuff grows from, some magic fertilizer?

    Great article and the unwarranted privilege goes right back to the pope and his absolute monarchy. Too bad it does not work on us.

  13. Insult my deeply held beliefs, insult me.

    That said, what’s wrong with insulting people, including me?

    1. Good point. There is nothing wrong with insulting people. It’s a good way to make enemies, and can get one banned for violating Da Roolz, but insults are free speech, too. Also free speech is condemning insults! I wish Bill Donohoe would STFU, but I do appreciate that the same system which permits his blather also protects the rights of people who agree with me (aka, people who are right)!

  14. Maybe one should resort to clickbait-style headlines.

    Pope recommends using violence to resolve personal differences. You’ll never guess what happened next.

    Oh, plus about 5 or 6 exclamation points.

    1. And a picture of the pope that shows he is pugnacious bit is probably just ahim being surprised.

  16. Thanks so much for The New Republic article, which is especially well-written and cogently argued. Thanks for speaking up for all of us. I am a liberal who feels deserted by the left on this issue, so I am thankful that you joined your voice to those who support free speech. I do not want my freedom circumscribed by religious fanatics.

  19. Dr. Coyne, congrats on a brave and inspiring article. I especially like how you called out individual media corporations for their hypocrisy in the very ideal to which they owe their existence and their duty. It is also always nice to see religion rightly called on their self-proclaimed privileges.

    For the sake of conversation, I only question one clause.

    “. . .free speech: the right to criticize or make fun of anything so long as you’re not directly inciting violence.”

    It sounds right, and reasonable, and responsible. I would even say it is both morally and ethically correct, under most circumstances. However:
    1. This seems to limit free speech, which is what we are trying to avoid.
    2. This in a way is part of the despicably sympathetic argument given by the Pope to limit free speech. In other words, If you know that an act is considered a capital offense by some, then isn’t deliberately taking that action inciting violence, even if it that violence is against yourself?
    3. The haters who incite violence actually do us a service by hanging themselves in a noose of free speech by highlighting themselves, their followers, and their doctrines and inviting social condemnation and censure of them. Any time the KKK, Westboro Baptist Church, Ken Ham, or Bill Donohue opens their mouths they only lower everyone’s opinion of them and we can criticize what they say and do that is true about their wrongs.
    4. Since we live in a world where violence is sometimes justified, what of cases where speech incites justified violence? For example, one could argue the propaganda posters of WWII were justified in inciting direct violence against an enemy nation.

    Sanity in a world of free speech has always required an educated audience with thicker spines who use reason and sound judgment to ignore the trash or respond intelligently to it and extract the truth from all of the misinformation, disinformation, and lies.

    More agreeable are reasonable penalties and fines for speech that is actually a behavior causing direct harm, such as in the case of school bullies. More agreeable too, are reasonable penalties and fines for speech that is deemed defamation.

    1. I like your description of the cowards in the media: “hypocrisy in the very ideal to which they owe their existence and their duty.”

      The rest seems a bit argumentative.

  20. While I agree with free speech in principle, a problem I have with it is that it presupposes that listeners are going to check up on the facts. Unfortunately most people don’t have the time or inclination. This means that, as they say, if you tell a lie often enough people will think it is the truth.

    I’ve often thought that it would be nice if hackers would create a useful virus, one that either converted everyone’s keyboard to DVORAK, or hunted down and removed false information from emails, etc. so we won’t have to receive another one telling us that “a duck’s quack doesn’t echo”, etc. Of course the problem with that idea is who gets to decide what gets deleted as being false?

  22. “The price of coddling tender minds offended by disagreement is the dissolution of democracy.” Beautifully and powerfully said.

  23. One of the best pieces you’ve ever written, Jerry.

    I was about to comment on the quote, “The price of coddling tender minds offended by disagreement is the dissolution of democracy.” when I noticed the post above mine already did.

    Beautiful.

  24. Excellent article, Jerry, it needs to be said many times. I know a few folks who need to read this.

  26. Ironically, by the very act of speaking as a “regular guy” to his flock and “punching the air” to show how he would respond to anyone dissing his Momma, the Pope puts the lie to the sincerity of his own sparkling white vestments.

    All at once it becomes just a costume, along with the “holy” water.

    1. It happens here and there that a Momma cusses out her adult child. (No doubt happens to wee ones too.) Would the adult child Pontiff similarly respond to being “dissed” by his own mother? (How about that “turn the other cheek” thang?)

  28. What a superb article!

    Unfortunately I had a look at some of the comments; a very large majority entirely disagree with you! So disappointing…One hopes they keep thinking about the subject and revisiting your explication; but it doesn’t seem likely.

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