“The right to blaspheme religion is one of the most elemental exercises of political liberalism. One cannot defend the right without defending the practice.” - Jonathan Chait. Since the attack last week at the Paris headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, numerous articles have been written that aim to defend our right to blaspheme as if it were somehow distinct from our usual set of freedoms (of speech, of expression…etc.), which seems to me a bit problematic. Obviously I agree with the principle behind these articles – that the right to defend, critique, or in fact insult any belief is a cornerstone of Western society; but it is exactly because of this that the use of the term “blasphemy” in this context seems so counterproductive. Traditionally the term has been used in the context of believers engaging in acts or utterances that are considered sacrilegious by the religious leaders or texts that the believers follow; however, to extend this term to incorporate the actions of nonbelievers is to suggest that even nonbelievers must show reverence to certain ideas, objects or people, simply because they’re considered sacred to a select group of individuals. The religious are free to believe what they will, but they are certainly not free to force others to do the same; this means that, while blasphemy may exist within the bounds of a religious community, whose members all adhere to the rules and beliefs of their specific sect, it cannot exist outside of this community – in society at large. After all, if an individual doesn’t adhere to the beliefs of a religious sect, then they can’t be held accountable or condemned for breaking the rules of this group – especially when they don’t believe in the existence or sanctity of what they are criticizing in the first place. Differentiating the right to lambaste religious beliefs from our right to critique any other idea is problematic because, implicit within the use of the term “blasphemy”, is the notion that - even for nonbelievers - there are some ideas that are more sacred than others. By continuing to refer to these acts as “blasphemous” we afford religious reproach its very own category of criticism, we suggest that criticizing, satirizing, or even offending religious views is somehow worse than doing the same to secular values; this creates a hierarchy of ideas, thereby allowing some to be attacked while presenting others as immutable. A belief or custom is not worthy of respect merely because it has a long and established history, nor simply because it is held by the multitudes. It is crucial for a secular society to maintain that no idea is immune from rational reflection - no matter how many believe it to be sacred. In short, the separation of our right to blaspheme from freedom of expression in the traditional sense is useless, and it also has the unfortunate result of perpetuating the antiquated belief that religions are innately more worthy of respect than certain other values. Rather than fighting to protect our right to commit blasphemy we should be emphasizing that in a secular society there is no such thing.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:16:45 +0000
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