Rights of Holocaust Deniers
In this superb editorial, Ronald Dworkin reminds us that free speech is an essential democratic right worth defending, but that the West's commitment to it has been contingent at best. If it were truly committed to the principle it would eliminate the prohibition on Holocaust-denying. At the moment, it appears that the West only defends the right to free speech when it offends a few Muslims, but not when it offends mainstream multicultural sensitivities. This creates an odd situation in which Iran's major newspaper can play the same game as Danish newspapers: solicit Holocaust cartoons in the name of free speech. As we argued before, the real problem illustrated in this whole affair is not radical Islamist antipathy towards free speech, but the West's own lukewarm appreciation of its value. Here is an excerpt from Dworkin's editorial:
"Ridicule is a distinct kind of expression; its substance cannot be repackaged in a less offensive rhetorical form without expressing something very different from what was intended. That is why cartoons and other forms of ridicule have for centuries, even when illegal, been among the most important weapons of both noble and wicked political movements. So in a democracy no one, however powerful or impotent, can have a right not to be insulted or offended...
...Muslims who are outraged by the Danish cartoons point out that in several European countries it is a crime publicly to deny, as the president of Iran has denied, that the Holocaust ever took place. They say that western concern for free speech is therefore only self-serving hypocrisy, and they have a point. But of course the remedy is not to make the compromise of democratic legitimacy even greater than it already is but to work toward a new understanding of the European convention on human rights that would strike down the Holocaust-denial law and similar laws across Europe for what they are: violations of the freedom of speech that that convention demands."
"Ridicule is a distinct kind of expression; its substance cannot be repackaged in a less offensive rhetorical form without expressing something very different from what was intended. That is why cartoons and other forms of ridicule have for centuries, even when illegal, been among the most important weapons of both noble and wicked political movements. So in a democracy no one, however powerful or impotent, can have a right not to be insulted or offended...
...Muslims who are outraged by the Danish cartoons point out that in several European countries it is a crime publicly to deny, as the president of Iran has denied, that the Holocaust ever took place. They say that western concern for free speech is therefore only self-serving hypocrisy, and they have a point. But of course the remedy is not to make the compromise of democratic legitimacy even greater than it already is but to work toward a new understanding of the European convention on human rights that would strike down the Holocaust-denial law and similar laws across Europe for what they are: violations of the freedom of speech that that convention demands."
2 Comments:
Dworkin writes: Free speech is a condition of legitimate government. Laws and policies are not legitimate unless they have been adopted through a democratic process, and a process is not democratic if government has prevented anyone from expressing his convictions about what those laws and policies should be. Yes, but not all speech is an expression of "convictions about what ... laws and policies should be." The argument over limiting speech acts is therefore a question of deciding what kinds of speech act count as expressions of conviction directed at "what laws and policies should be" and what kinds do not. That is a political argument, not, as Dworkin would have it, a deductive consequence of the principles of democracy. It is nevertheless consistent for Dworkin, who would replace as much of politics as possible with argument before an idealized constitutional court, to argue in this vein. It is inconsistent for you, as advocates of political assertiveness and opponents of judicial review, to pretend that there is no difficulty here. One can agree with Dworkin, as I do, that laws against holocaust denial are mistaken as a matter of political judgment and yet hold that the power to ban such speech is a matter of politics, not principle.
We fail to see how it's inconsistent to defend political assertiveness and free speech. Goldie is setting up an opposition between political argument/decision and principle that is difficult to follow. How do you know something is a mistaken political judgment if you don't know the principles at stake? No doubt, in exceptional situatoins, one must suspend one's principles - but one first must know what principles one is suspending. Our point above is that the West isn't even clear about its own principles, and isn't serious about its commitment to free speech. Its political judgments reflect this shallow commitment - when push comes to shove, it only defends free speech when it offends relatively powerless minorities, not when it comes in conflict with its multicultural consensus.
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