h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The old-English right of Freedom of Speech is a very important one. But I recall William Cobbett recounting how, at a meeting in which people were attacking his published ideas, he stood up and introduced himself, just so that people might understand the nature of the man that they were talking about with such venom. One can imagine that it had some impact because he had been a professional soldier who had risen to the rank of Sergeant, no doubt in part because of the vigorous physique that he had developed in his peasant childhood and preserved for much of a long and active life.

Well aware himself of English rights and liberties, Cobbett understood that "Freedom of Speech" went right back to the old English "moot" system in which communities and groups, like juries, had this right, in order that the best possible common good acceptable to all might be achieved..It was a right which I felt personally was being violated the last time when I was doing Jury service. One of the other jurors suddenly broke in on the point that I was making and said "I can not hear this": but I accepted this check when I consulted the chairperson we had freely chosen amongst ourselves. Freedom of speech, like all freedoms must only be used with a geniune intent to promote the common good of all, and that means being able to avoid hurting others when it can be avoided.

I was thinking such thoughts a week or so ago when I saw Salman Rushtie being interviewed about his latest book, an autobiography. When asked "Why now?" he replied that he now felt sufficiently "detached" and "objective", and therefore able to write about incidents like the fatwa, etc.

But surely this is what has been fatally wrong about the Book Culture that exploded in a revolution after the Age of Dr. Johnson, who could say that when you are tired of London you are tired of life. Of course there is a great place for "Freedom of Speech" in the heart of London- Speakers Corner, where anyone can get on his Soapbox and start making a speech, facing criticism heckling etc. But that Book Culture aspired to "scientific detachment" and "objectivity" so that "Natural laws" which should guide humankind could be adduced, often by virtual or actual hermits, like Jeremy Bentham, who just published their own thoughts and surrounded themselves with acolytes.

Dr. Jacob Bronowski said, squating in the ashes at Auschwitz, that such things are not produced by Science but by people who aspire to the knowledge of the Gods. Well ! Scientists of the age up to 1945 did have that aspiration- and that included "Scientific History" of the kind that was prevalent in the childhood and adolescence of Adolf Hitler, who seems to have cherished the biography of Frederick the Great written by Thomas Carlyle, by then another virtual hermit handing down vicious and condemnatory judgements on his world.

Obviously these thoughts have all come to a head in this case of the abuse of "Freedom of Speech" in the USA. By definition the right of "Freedom of Speech" should truly belong to those who are not detached and objective, for they are seeing things from a radically different stand-point from those who are fully engaged in the struggle for the Future.

Unfortunately Book Culture was used,as Adam Smith urged, in order to exploit the new wealth-creating opportunities, and thus favour those individuals and groups that were particularly favoured by that environment- that is those who could create and accumulate Material and Intellectual Capital. This has created a divisive dynamic in which the ownership of more or less of both proved more or less destructive of the old-English idea of "The Commonweal". Cobbett saw this happening. Having raised himself by his own efforts, eventually becoming an MP, he was appalled that "the ruling class" no longer talked of "The Common People" but of "The Lower Orders".

Fortunately Londoners in 2012 showd just what can be done by this great city when given the chance to put on a show of how it would like the world to be. The spirit of the London Games spoke louder to the world than any mere words can convey.

Cass

Is there actually a question in there somewhere?

The question is the title?

There seems to be an assumption based upon the domination that the "Middle Class- Western World" achieved a hundred years ago that though we are now questionning the totally unregulated excesses of Capitalism and the Financial System, "avante garde" artists, thinkers etc are still claiming the right to "boldly go where no man has gone before".

But, whereas Thomas More chose to lay out his observations on the world of his time through a fictional tour of various non-existent lands including that nowhere land Utopia, less creative minds find it easier to just create scandal and acrimony by aggravating existing and dangerous "fault lines" within the modern world."The Shock of the New".

This is almost in line with Diane Abbot's comment about White People just using Divide and Rule in order to preserve as much of the WASP world order as possible.. There were signs of this in Obama's speech to the UN.

Cass

"Thomas More chose to lay out his observations on the world of his time through a fictional tour of various non-existent lands including that nowhere land Utopia"

Refresh my memory: which non-existent lands besides Utopia were on the itinerary of this "fictional tour" More presented?

anhaga

The two that come to mind are "Birdyland" and "Cloudyland".. I imagine that Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" may have been inspired by More's "Utopia"- only by Swift's time, after "The Glorious Bloodless Revolution" you did not have to write with quite such a fear of an "off with his head" reaction from an arbitrary Crown.

Cass

PS.. The narrator of the voyage made in Utopia was called something like Ralph Hitholadocas= speaker of nonsense.. Reminds me of my favourite Dumas novel from my childhood "Chico the Jester".. It is often wise to try to say "wise words" "in jest"- especially back in those days when Europe, and the wider world, was being torn asunder by religious fundamentalism.

Cass

TLDR

"Obviously these thoughts have all come to a head in this case of the abuse of "Freedom of Speech" in the USA." [CASSEROLEON]

Do the words "this case" refer to Salman Rushdie's autobiography, or to some other book, or [by extension] to the Internet video which stirred up widespread protests by provocative uses of Mohammed's name?

I haven't read today's news yet [always a depressing prospect], but as far as I know, the Internet video about Mohammed is the most visible freedom-of-space case right now.

sorry "freedom-of-space" should have been "freedom-of-space," though space might be an issue somewhere as well.

speach, not space.

>>Is there actually a question in there somewhere?<<

There was this:

"I was thinking such thoughts a week or so ago when I saw Salman Rushtie being interviewed about his latest book, an autobiography. When asked "Why now?""

... to which I think the answer is because Mr Rushdie wanted more money.

The last time Mr. Rushdie's nationality was mentioned anywhere, he was a British citizen. If his autobiography is controversial, it should be a British matter, yet Casseroleon seems to be saying that it's an example of the U.S.A.'s flaws as regards freedom of the press. Is Rushdie's publisher located in Britain or in the U.S.? It would clear up a lot if someone were to give an answer.

I did have in mind in particular the video that has caused so much trouble in "the Islamic world" : and in particular President Obama's speech to the UN in which he defended "Freedom of Speech" as one of the fundamental and founding rights of the American People.

But, in fact, the so-called "American Revolution" 1776-1783 is just about the best possible example of the action taken by a 'de facto' ruling elite- the chief owners of material and intellectual Capital- seeking to hold on to power and exploit the potential of the moment by free themselves from any kind of restrictions and restraints upon their own freedom to further their own ends, and disregard the rights of others.

For "Freedom of Speech" serves most those who have "word-power", which was what was so great about M.L.King from his first public appearances after the Rosa Parkes incident..

But that "word power" had to be amplified by the backing of money and what money can buy for it to serve any real purpose in the modern world.

Those who drew up the Declaration of Independence were thinking of their own position 'vis a vis' the British Crown when they declared that "All Men are created Equal and are endowed by Their Creator with certain inalienable rights which are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness"..It took almost two hundred years and the backing of the Kennedy Presidency and its power machine for M.L. King to be heard by the world in his great "I have a Dream" speech..

In fact he was lucky that "they" did not "pull the plug".. One of the other speakers, one for the students organisation, had submitted a text that was not accepted. He was forced to submit an acceptable one. And, just in case, the Kennedys had people standing by to disconnect his microphone if he departed from his agreed text.

M.L.King did depart from his approved text and made a true speech that sprang from an interaction with his audience, not just a Media "photo-opportunity" speech like we get in the Party Conference Season..

King was so moved and inspired by the moment and the throng of the people assembled before the Lincoln Memorial that he abandonned his prepared text, and extemporised as the Southern Baptist preacher that he had been brought up to be. And they did not pull the plug- for M.L.King spoke the kind of words that went right to the heart of the Crowd, and a World that wanted to hope that all of Gods Children might join together in the hands of brotherhood and say 'Free At Last'.

The fact that it Obama Presidency only came 50 years later just shows how much of a dream that 1776 idea of Liberty, Equality and the Pursuit of Happiness has been for Americans who were not WASPs.

Was it Peggy Lee who had that hit "It this all there is?"

The link with Rushtie is the clamour of privileged people who gathered round to defend him not in the cause of "Freedom of Speech" but of "Freedom of Expression": the right of their kind of people to continue to provide the backbone of "The Establishment"...

Expressing yourself, however, is pretty much the same as "playing with yourself" and just about as fecund and productive, unless you get the backing of those who think that they can use you.

Cass

Thanks for your illuminating response, Casseroleon.

Another shoe has dropped in the case of the inflammatory video. According to the New York Times, the video in question was blocked by Google [which owns YouTube] in Egypt and Syria. Meanwhile, today's Boston Globe reports that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the maker of the video, has been arrested in Los Angeles for violating terms of his parole for a check-fraud conviction in 2010. Under the terms of his probation, he was not to use computers or the Internet for five years. At noon, I heard on the radio that Nakoula is not even his real name. He apparently has a number of aliases....

I don't know how big or small a group it puts me in, but i haven't actually seen the video, only seen summaries of it//attacks on it - how inflammatory is it towards Islam without any prior knowledge?
Would there actually be a case against it on hate crime laws (on US legal codes) were the man arrested for the video, rather than impinging on his parole conditions (while i would not go for inciting a world wide anger with inflammatory cheap videos, i'm not sure i could obey being off the web for five years - surely that must have been hard to check? How could it be set without a simple way of ensuring it wasn't snuck round (obviously the video made it relatively important to track him, but otherwise?)

apologies for lengthy list of questions

The (admittedly biased) West Wing described the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as "work orders issued under fire"- they were patched together and imperfect to begin with.

Still, they are both exceptional documents, the likes of which the world has hardly ever seen since. That they created a presidential republic that has endured for so long is remarkable: presidential republics generally don't last, it's too easy to create a dictatorship (which, of course, was the ultimate fate of the Roman Republic the Founding Fathers based their creation on) and I think the reason it has endured is because the population really and truly believe in their Constitution. It seems to me that, more than anything else, Americans are united in their belief in the importance of the freedom of speech and generally won't tolerate restrictions upon it. It's an interesting paradox that in one of the most litigious societies in the world, it is almost impossible to win a libel/slander case.

Different countries have different mores: the UK has generally avoided ever being too reactionary. Means there's not much call for censorship but those using their freedom of expression in stupid ways are given short shrift.

>>Would there actually be a case against it on hate crime laws (on US legal codes)<<

Hate crime laws in the USA are few and far between: their freedom of speech guarantee is extremely broad.

It's not hideously difficult to win a libel case in the UK, but slander has always been really hard - the new craze for injunctions in the last few years has added a new twist though to these areas

I hadn't realised that about your comments on suing in libel/slander in the US

Cheers
nbb

"how inflammatory is it towards Islam without any prior knowledge?"

Well I think my only "Offended Muslim" incident as a teacher occurred about ten years ago when in a RE lesson with 11-12 year old girls one put up her hand the first lesson back after Half-Term and asked if we could discuss her trip to the Lebanon over the break. It seemed appropriate to let her tell the class of what had struck her as different about an Islamic Society.

Being a sound man I suggested that she would have heard the regular call to prayer and Chanted it in a very high pitched voice. Then (I have a loud voice at the best of times) I looked around, at the walls and considered the way I might be disturbin my colleagues, and said that I had better stop after a couple of examples.

The Headmistress subsequently received a letter of formal complaint to the effect that I had "mimicked" the call to Prayer in a funny voice, making fun of Islam, and then realising that I was doing wrong, said that I should stop.

In fact the girl in question and her family, I suspect, have become accustomed to miked-up 'Muezzim'. Certainly the amplified assisted call to prayer you hear on TV, or within internal British Mosques is usually much deeper and "manly": and it is possible that neither the girl nor her mother had actually lived in the conditions that we were describing: conditions in which the unaided human voice alone can be used..

Generally it seems to be a law of sound that higher-pitched sound cuts through any ambient noise much better than lower sound. The Headmistress backed me up,and in fact found that I had expressed myself so well that she just sent the parent a copy of my letter to her.

But in terms of "giving offence", surely anyone who wishes to further harmony and understanding, needs to understand just how likely people are to take offence..

And in the case of Islam there is a real problem, that really arose in the Nineteenth Century, when Turkey became increasing moribund, creating Disraeli's "Eastern Question". Turkey had held the leadership of the Islamic World for centuries and had been the modern and most advanced face of Islam.

Then my old school's most famous Old Boy, good old "laughing" Lawrence stirred up the Arab revolt against Turkish rule and leadership of Islam and Turkish rule over its Empire during the First World War. The decline in Turkish authority in North Africa had already led to problems in Egypt and the Sudan, with the "Mad Mahdi" going back to a fundamentalist Islam of the time of the Prophet pboh.

Then after 1918 there was great uncertainty about what the Allies would do over the fate of Turkey, and its "Khalifate" role as the home of the spiritual leader of Islam. Mahatma Gandhi associated his early 1920s campaigns against British rule in India on behalf of the Hindu majority with the concerns of "Muslim brothers" over the possibility that Turkey would lose its role. After all this was a time of the fall of Empires and Emperors. Kaiser of Germany. Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Tsar of Russia. Emperor of China.

But in fact the Turish Revolution of Kemal Attaturk renounced the role of Turkey as an Islamic State in favour of a secular future.

Islam thus became more than ever a huge "headless beast", robbed of its most prosperous, most cultured, most advanced and most Civilized "heart and soul"- and looking back to the expansionist Holy Wars period of about 700-1600ce. During this time Muslims conquered India.

But, as I explained recently to jwf regarding British India, because the essence of Islam is obedience to the will of Allah, in less developed countries, or even in a great Civilization like that of India, it can tolerate huge disparities of wealth and power. Islam treats the slave and the free man as equal before Allah on the prayer mat in the Mosque, and that is enough. So in British India, that has give us not only India, but also Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, the Muslims, who had come as conquerors, settled with a small fabulously rich ruling class of princes and palaces able to "have a good time" by right of conquest, while the rank and file soldiers were given peasant plots on which to eke out a subsistence. Over the years subdivision reduced the size of plots passed down to sons, so that the lives they supported were largely of the most primitive kind.

In my long teaching career in London's inner city the consequences of this history on pupils of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin is very obvious, and comes up in most of the surveys of educational attainment which identify ethnic groups. And attempts to remedy this situation have often been checked by social traditions that force girls into early marriage and refuse them education so that the ideas that are passed down "an their mothers knee" are often very traditional and ancient, and more often than not based upon very restrictive and "unlettered" literal interpretations of the Koran.

Small privileged elites accustomed to wealth and power without need for merit, and huge populations living without hope in grinding poverty makes for a very volatile mix. Bothe groups have nothing worth fighting for except their pride.

Jesus is supposed to have said on the Cross "Forgive them for they know not what they do". When people "do not know any better", it is up to others to show that they do.

"Respect" as we say in Brixton.

Cass

>> >>Would there actually be a case against it on hate crime laws (on US legal codes)<<

>> Hate crime laws in the USA are few and far between: their freedom of speech guarantee is extremely broad.


There are no federal hate crime statutes. A hate crime would fall under federal jurisdiction only if it were investigated and prosecuted as a civil rights violation or as domestic terrorism. Usually if the FBI is investigating a hate crime, they are doing so in support of local law enforcement. Hate crime statutes vary from state to state: forty-five states and D.C. have hate crime laws, and thirty-one and D.C. have statues which allow for civil penalties in addition to criminal ones. As Iago says, though, it's unlikely that the maker(s) of the video would be charged or prosecuted for hate speech as freedom of speech is guaranteed by the First Amendment. (Whether having the right to free speech means individual citizens aren't responsible for using it wisely and civilly will probably always be a point of contention. I, personally, feel my civic responsibilities trump some of my individual rights. But not everyone will feel that way.)

There are no federal defamation statutes in the US, either. Defamation is a civil tort, as opposed to a criminal offense, and individual states codify and enforce their own defamation statutes.