2008 Woodie Awards
Letter: Danish cartoons show media's double standards
Issue date: 3/23/06 Section: Opinion
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Editor,
Christian Beenfeldt's grandiose letter in the Daily Lobo the week before Spring Break claims the Danish cartoons denigrating the Muslim religion are an expression of free speech.
I claim the opposite - they have nothing to do with free speech. Moreover, there is no connection between the rights of slaves to be subversive or Spartacus, the slave's-rights leader, and these cartoons, as Beenfeldt claims. However, there is indeed a fundamental connection with the principles of democracy, but it's not the one Beenfeldt is drawing.
Democracy does not endorse a "right" to slander, to deny and to distort the truth of history, or to engage in character assassinations. In philosophy, logicians disqualify such conduct as a classical fallacy, the ad hominem argument against the person.
Nor does democracy entail the license to offend, to engage in secular and religious blasphemy by violating the integrity of a person or a whole culture. Hate-mongering incitement to violence has nothing to do with democracy. Democracy aims for truth by providing for the free flow of information. It is not the avenue of misinformation.
No random vilifying thought popping up in someone's dirty mind has the right to make the news. There is no right to deliberately misinform others. Ideas designed to do harm and not promote the common good of enlightenment may have their place in the gutter press.
When spread by the mainstream press, however, we rightfully call such incidents what they are: propaganda and demagogy. Words are not only words, as the critic of pornography Catharine MacKinnon famously says. They can be designed to do harm and often do harm as they are spoken. This insight has led some European countries to institute laws aimed at preventing such harm - Holocaust deniers, for example, face trial and jail time.
Beenfeldt may not realize that the right-wing Danish publication Jyllands-Posten had rejected previous submissions of cartoons poking fun of Jesus Christ, deeming such depictions too offensive to the sensitivities of a Christian audience.
Christian Beenfeldt's grandiose letter in the Daily Lobo the week before Spring Break claims the Danish cartoons denigrating the Muslim religion are an expression of free speech.
I claim the opposite - they have nothing to do with free speech. Moreover, there is no connection between the rights of slaves to be subversive or Spartacus, the slave's-rights leader, and these cartoons, as Beenfeldt claims. However, there is indeed a fundamental connection with the principles of democracy, but it's not the one Beenfeldt is drawing.
Democracy does not endorse a "right" to slander, to deny and to distort the truth of history, or to engage in character assassinations. In philosophy, logicians disqualify such conduct as a classical fallacy, the ad hominem argument against the person.
Nor does democracy entail the license to offend, to engage in secular and religious blasphemy by violating the integrity of a person or a whole culture. Hate-mongering incitement to violence has nothing to do with democracy. Democracy aims for truth by providing for the free flow of information. It is not the avenue of misinformation.
No random vilifying thought popping up in someone's dirty mind has the right to make the news. There is no right to deliberately misinform others. Ideas designed to do harm and not promote the common good of enlightenment may have their place in the gutter press.
When spread by the mainstream press, however, we rightfully call such incidents what they are: propaganda and demagogy. Words are not only words, as the critic of pornography Catharine MacKinnon famously says. They can be designed to do harm and often do harm as they are spoken. This insight has led some European countries to institute laws aimed at preventing such harm - Holocaust deniers, for example, face trial and jail time.
Beenfeldt may not realize that the right-wing Danish publication Jyllands-Posten had rejected previous submissions of cartoons poking fun of Jesus Christ, deeming such depictions too offensive to the sensitivities of a Christian audience.
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