Censorship and censorship

There's been much discussion in the news and on the web about the famous/infamous Danish cartoons and the mob violence of fanatical Islamists who demand worldwide censorship powers over them and all other publications in all nations everywhere in the world.

Whether the cartoons are any good, in terms of artistic or humorous merit, is entirely beside the point. The demands for censorship, and the mob violence, are the only political issues here. There are several theories about the reason for these riots.

One: Muslims (or at least the ones involved in rioting or instigating riots) believe that they have the right to censor any idea, anywhere, that they dislike because Muslims are divinely ordained to rule the world. It goes without saying that anyone who wishes to live in any other type of society than a Taliban-style theocracy must categorically reject such demands just as they must reject similar claims coming from self-styled "Christian" theocrats and all other would-be absolute dictators.

Two: Radical Islamist imams and cynical politicos in Islamic countries have deliberately whipped up a demagogic frenzy in order to promote themselves and keep the attention of the discontented mob focused on something other than the dismal social, intellectual and economic failures of Islamist societies. As Eric Hoffer argued in the True Believer, mass movements can arise without belief in God, but never without a belief in a Devil. Hatred is a great unifier. "And slime had they for mortar...."

Three: The Islamist mindset is simply incapable of understanding the concept of intellectual freedom. Like the dogmatic Marxists of the twentieth century or the Inquisitors of the medieval Christian church, they can see only whether a particular publication is useful to their party or not, and assume that anything that is published must represent the political agenda of some kind of ruling class. This theory is supported by the actions of Islamic governments in condemning the Danish government. They appear to be completely ignorant of the possibility that anything could be published which does not represent the views of the government in power. Islam's historical insistence on religious control of government, like the old-style Communist insistence on the worship of the Party to the exclusion of all other religions, may create a mindset which is simply incapable of understanding that freedom can exist in other cultures. (Those who wish to apply this dismal analysis to the Bush Administration's foreign policy are free to do so, but that's just too depressing for me to address at the moment.)

Those who know me will not be surprised that I'm no more inclined to give Islamist demagogues veto power over my mind, or anyone else's mind, than I'm inclined to give such power to purportedly "Christian" demagogues or to secular censors.

Quite simply, a civilized society that wishes to have any intellectual freedom or tolerance of any kind cannot afford to surrender to thuggery. Rewarding thuggery leads to more of the same. And more. And more. And more. If fanatical Islamists can successfully silence newspapers or cartoonists by threatening mob violence, why shouldn't fanatical "Christian" fundamentalists do the same? Or fanatical devotees of any other sect or political faction? Or, for that matter, political parties or business corporations that find certain facts or ideas to be contrary to their interests? After all, they'll be left behind in the war for absolute supremacy if they fail to use every weapon at their disposal.

This is not a hypothetical question. There are any number of individuals and groups that would happily use such power to intimidate and silence others. Consider the Eric Rudolphs of the world, as well as the Osama Bin Ladens. Consider all the potential Unabomers and EarthFirsters and Operation Rescue-ers and Weathermen and Timothy McVeighs and Fred Phelpses out there.

Does anyone, other than bloodthirsty fanatics and would-be dictators, really want a society in which anyone who threatens to incite violence is rewarded with the power of censorship? A world in which the most violent fanatics set the rules for everybody else?

It's freedom, or censorship. A pretty simple choice. The only real question is whether the civilized part of the world has the guts to stand up to the fanatics who demand censorship of all thoughts other than their own.

Meanwhile, in Austria....

Unfortunately, it's not only would-be Islamist censors that have made the news lately. Consider David Irving, who was recently sentenced to three years in an Austrian prison for stating in 1989 that the Nazis did not murder Jews at Auschwitz. (Note: Irving has since changed his position, according to the current version of Wikipedia's entry about him. He apparently continues to claim that the Holocaust was exaggerated. He's widely regarded as a racist loon, although some more generous interpreters think he just wants attention.)

Censorship of dingbat conspiracy theories is just as misguided as censorship based on religious fanaticism. Worse, it gives ammunition to the slippery-tongued apologists for Islamist demagoguery, who argue that European censorship of Holocaust-deniers justifes Islamist censorship of anything and everything else.

A bad show all 'round, except for the saving grace that European governments have, so far, refused to cave in to the would-be Islamist bullies. Let's hope that Europe someday manages to embrace intellectual freedom consistently. Letting the loons have their say, and be openly debunked, is healthier than letting them fester in secret and cultivate an insular, self-referential sense of apocalyptic, "righteous" martyrdom.

Another flavor of censorship

... may be on its way to your Internet connection if your freindly telecom conglomerates get their way and eradicate the principle of "net neutrality". It'll be interesting to see how this works out. Will the telecom conglomerates succeed in holding Internet content hostage for ransom payments? Will the mega-corporations succeed in using a pay-for-play Internet to block everybody else's content but their own? Wait and see. Or not, if you're so inclined.