Friday 6 March 2009

Free Speech versus Religion: from The Economist

When I read Tuk's essay on censorship, I was reminded of the article "Speech Impediments", which was published in the Economist last month. The writer clearly disagrees very strongly with one of Tuk's main points. In her essay, Tuk, argues that censorship can be appropriate to protect people's religious sensibilities from attack and thereby avoid possible violence. Whilst acknowledging that this is a real danger, "Speech Impediments" argues that such threats are not a good enough reason to restrict the right to free speech. The Economist uses examples relating to Islam, which is the religion that has most often been in the news for its violent reaction to perceived insults over recent years, although there is also one jewish example, but I think exactly the same argument applies to all religions. As you have probably already guessed from my introduction and concluding paragraphs to the censorship question, I agree with the Economist and disagree with Tuk: a genuine committment to the principle of free speech must allow that other people will be legally permitted to say or publish material that we find extremely offensive, and this often happens. I am sometimes very offended, even angered, by comments that I read about, for example, gay men, prostitutes, races or peoples, and other groups of people. It's no longer possible in the US to make derogatory statements about African Americans, but I sometimes read comments in the Nation which seem to me extremely insulting to various groups of people. One example is from last year when the PAD said that the majority of Thai people's votes should not count as much as their own because they were ignorant and foolish farmers! That seemed to me an extremely insulting and ugly comment to make about the majority of Thai people, even worse because other Thai people were making it.

Who do you agree with, Tuk or the Economist? Should the law allow enough freedom of speech that people can publish cartoons such as the infamous ones mocking Islam? Would you feel differently if the cartoons mocked Buddhism or some other religion? Of course, as the article also notes, the Economist itself decided that there were very good reasons not to publish the cartoons that caused such a violent reaction from Muslims, with which decision I also agreed.

References
Speech impediments. (2009, February 14). The Economist. Retrieved March 4, 2009 from https://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13130069&source=features_box_main

9 comments:

  1. I agree with Economist, because too strict cenroship of religion restrict the right of Free Speech, the one of essential right of humanbeing. A few years ago, In a Muslim coutry, a performance of a famous singer were banned because of her sexuality, but in other countries the level was acceptable, therefore, their censorship was too strict. It limited the right of knowing of thier people.

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  2. The opinion of the religion is very sensitive and sometimes have to be careful. Religion reflect the people's mind which belive their god and society, so I understand Tuk's opinion. However, I think, religion is not perfect and sometimes it is unjustice. For example, in Islam, some conservative religional organization didn't permit women to go to school. Not only islam but also Christian, they ujustly traslate the bible and argue opinion which is included many discriminations. It is absolutly true that religions are always right, justice, and fair. Depending on a person, translating the holy script can be differant. Actually, there are many sects in Chrstian and sometimes they fight each other to argue thier saying is right. So at this time, among the religion, we have to criticize, consider about, and accept about it.

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  3. I agree with the economist that the law should allow enough freedom of speech in every topics. I believe that if people have the right to comment or publish or expressing ideas, especially the conflict issues, it would bring other people to share more ideas. And those ideas might be valuable to determine the better solutions to solve the conflict. Otherwise, the conflict would be accumulated without any suitable solution if everyone just keeps quite. Hopefully, it would be better for all to have freedom of speech.

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  4. I think censorship is one of the most controversial to talk about because it deal with freedom and what is right or wrong. I wonder what is the boundary for an "annoying" comment and a "provoking" comment. It is very hard to determine but the result from those two kind of comment are very different. There are always different ideas in every society but the one who hold the highest power usually win. Sometime the winner is the majority, sometime it is just a group pf people. I agree with the freedom to express idea because it "sounds" good, but who will decide what is acceptable to be published. That is what I think it will raise more problem.

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  5. I think that Tuk raises an important point at the end of her comment, where she asks, "who will decide what is acceptable to be published?" But the difficulty in answering her question seems to me a reason why nothing should be banned unless there is a very specific and strong reason to do so. The safer and fairer option is to allow all honestly help opinions to be stated for discussion, rather than to start banning the statement of ideas that are unpopular.
    In the US, the Constitutional protections are strong and when there is an argument, as there often is, the US Supreme Court judges, never politicians, rule on what is or is not acceptable under the constitution, and Americans accept that that is the fairest solution, even though it means, for example, that Christians are upset when atheists say their religion is rubbish, and gays are upset when Christians say god will send them all to hell, and almost everyone (it would anger me, too) is upset when people burn the American flag as a political protest.

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  6. I agree with the economist, although it is a controversial issue. When we discuss about religions, it sometimes comes up with conflict, and when we have a conflict, we all try to think about what the truth is. It stimulates human's moral sense. I think that is the way to understand the religion and it never comes unless we have freedom of speech.

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  7. Some cases that affect stability of the nation, waiting majority of people is too long. (but, I don't know what cases should rapidly ban. "Rohinya?")

    (Where is my first post. Sometime I have lost it when I saved.)

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  8. In her comment above, Soojin wrote that "religion is not perfect and sometimes it is unjustice." There is a good example of this in today's BBC News. In the report "Vatican backs abortion row bishop" , the Vatican, the governing body of Catholicism under the Pope, has supported the Catholic bishop of Brazil for excommunicating people who helped to provide an abortion to a nine-year-old girl who was pregnant as a result of sexual abuse. In this particular case, the Catholic church, the bishop and the Pope are completely wrong, and their actions are immoral. Worse, the official Christian teaching on abortion is itself immoral, and it results in real harm and violations of the human rights of millions of women. The same immoral teaching on this issue is also part of Islam and other religions, which is strong evidence against the idea the religion is a reliable guide to moral behaviour. It isn't.

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  9. Mark,
    I'm sorry you lost your first post.
    And I'm not sure what you meant in the new post. Could you expand it a little more?

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