OP-ED
The New York Times
I Am Not Charlie Hebdo
January 8, 2015
The
journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as
martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let’s face it: If they
had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American
university campus over the last two decades it wouldn’t have lasted 30
seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate
speech. The administration would have cut financing and shut them down.
Public
reaction to the attack in Paris has revealed that there are a lot of
people who are quick to lionize those who offend the views of Islamist
terrorists in France but who are a lot less tolerant toward those who
offend their own views at home.
Just look at
all the people who have overreacted to campus micro-aggressions. The
University of Illinois fired a professor who taught the Roman Catholic
view on homosexuality. The University of Kansas suspended a professor
for writing a harsh tweet against the N.R.A. Vanderbilt University
derecognized a Christian group that insisted that it be led by
Christians.
Americans may laud Charlie Hebdo
for being brave enough to publish cartoons ridiculing the Prophet
Muhammad, but, if Ayaan Hirsi Ali is invited to campus, there are often
calls to deny her a podium.
So this might be
a teachable moment. As we are mortified by the slaughter of those
writers and editors in Paris, it’s a good time to come up with a less
hypocritical approach to our own controversial figures, provocateurs and
satirists.
The first thing to say, I
suppose, is that whatever you might have put on your Facebook page
yesterday, it is inaccurate for most of us to claim, Je Suis Charlie
Hebdo, or I Am Charlie Hebdo. Most of us don’t actually engage in the
sort of deliberately offensive humor that that newspaper specializes in.
We might have started out that way. When
you are 13, it seems daring and provocative to “épater la bourgeoisie,”
to stick a finger in the eye of authority, to ridicule other people’s
religious beliefs.
But after a while that
seems puerile. Most of us move toward more complicated views of reality
and more forgiving views of others. (Ridicule becomes less fun as you
become more aware of your own frequent ridiculousness.) Most of us do
try to show a modicum of respect for people of different creeds and
faiths. We do try to open conversations with listening rather than
insult.
Yet, at the same time, most of us
know that provocateurs and other outlandish figures serve useful public
roles. Satirists and ridiculers expose our weakness and vanity when we
are feeling proud. They puncture the self-puffery of the successful.
They level social inequality by bringing the mighty low. When they are
effective they help us address our foibles communally, since laughter is
one of the ultimate bonding experiences.
Moreover,
provocateurs and ridiculers expose the stupidity of the
fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are people who take everything
literally. They are incapable of multiple viewpoints. They are incapable
of seeing that while their religion may be worthy of the deepest
reverence, it is also true that most religions are kind of weird.
Satirists expose those who are incapable of laughing at themselves and
teach the rest of us that we probably should.
In
short, in thinking about provocateurs and insulters, we want to
maintain standards of civility and respect while at the same time
allowing room for those creative and challenging folks who are
uninhibited by good manners and taste.
If you
try to pull off this delicate balance with law, speech codes and banned
speakers, you’ll end up with crude censorship and a strangled
conversation. It’s almost always wrong to try to suppress speech, erect
speech codes and disinvite speakers.
Fortunately,
social manners are more malleable and supple than laws and codes. Most
societies have successfully maintained standards of civility and respect
while keeping open avenues for those who are funny, uncivil and
offensive.
In most societies, there’s the
adults’ table and there’s the kids’ table. The people who read Le Monde
or the establishment organs are at the adults’ table. The jesters, the
holy fools and people like Ann Coulter and Bill Maher are at the kids’
table. They’re not granted complete respectability, but they are heard
because in their unguided missile manner, they sometimes say necessary
things that no one else is saying.
Healthy
societies, in other words, don’t suppress speech, but they do grant
different standing to different sorts of people. Wise and considerate
scholars are heard with high respect. Satirists are heard with bemused
semirespect. Racists and anti-Semites are heard through a filter of
opprobrium and disrespect. People who want to be heard attentively have
to earn it through their conduct.
The massacre at
Charlie Hebdo should be an occasion to end speech codes. And it should
remind us to be legally tolerant toward offensive voices, even as we are
socially discriminating.
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