The execution of the staff at Paris’
Charlie-Hebdo office is creating a
stir. The issue is whether offensive
speech should be allowed in polite society.
It’s a debate that has been going on
for centuries, and America is unique in defending free speech. Our right to free speech is enshrined in the
Constitution. The problem is that if
only inoffensive speech is allowed, only the offended are protected. Our constitutional “equal protection”
provisions end up being not so equally applied.
While I can’t settle the free speech
argument, it is important to look at the other side of the Charlie-Hebdo
violence. That has to do with the twin
pillars of idealism and hate. Those
forces were on display in Paris on January 7, 2015.
When we are born, we are totally dependent
human beings. We need someone to tend to
us in every way.
When we face death, that dependency returns.
Mitch Albom wrote a book about Professor
Morris S. Schwartz, titled “Tuesdays with Morrie.” It covers the art of dying. One of the quotes that sticks with me is
this:
"You know the biggest thing I
dread?" he whispered. "When I can't wipe my own rear end. For some
reason, that really bothers me."
Professor Schwartz was lamenting the
loss of power that comes late in life.
The same thing pertains to knowledge. When we are born, we begin our quest for knowledge.
That search is portrayed in the film WALL-E
where the animated character is in “input mode,” absorbing everything available
in new surroundings.
Unfortunately, late in life we tend to
reach “knowledge satiation.” We no
longer want to learn new things. We are
comfortable with what we already know. (There
is something to that expression: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks!”)
Thus we see a continuum in knowledge
and in power. Humans start with none of
each and end with none of either. What
happens in the middle of the continuum is what is interesting.
Humans come to realize that life has
limitations. Our individual knowledge is
not boundless, and neither is our power.
How do we cope?
We frequently become attracted to
political-religious movements. (Stay
with me on this. It ties with the
massacre in Paris.)
On the religious side, humans find it
attractive to subordinate themselves to a higher being. We can’t know everything, so we accept that
“infinite knowledge” must reside in a spiritual being.
On the political side of things, we
find it attractive to use displacement to accommodate our lack of power. We can’t control everything, so we displace
our feelings. All of our problems can be
replaced with hate toward a particular identity group.
Examples of both of these phenomena are
plentiful in our culture. Political organizations from sports teams to cults
are happy to influence our feelings about entities that we don’t support. We learn to “hate” the Cowboys or the Rams
(football teams). It provides intensity
to our sporting experience.
All of this is right and natural.
What’s disheartening is when a
political-religious movement takes our normal human tendencies and subverts
them. Our desire to limit the search for
knowledge gets replaced with dogmatic idealism.
The Movement tells us we can end our search for truth. We join the Movement and “the truth” is
revealed to us.
The same can be said of power. A political-religious movement replaces our
acceptance of powerlessness with a sense of moral authority. Our powerlessness becomes displaced by hate.
We see these effects day-in and
day-out, but somehow miss the connection until something like the Charlie Hebdo
killings occur, or we see police officers gunned down in New York.
Those organizations that teach us to
hate rarely have our best interests in mind.
UPDATE 1/8/2015:
Claire Berlinski has a first-hand account of the aftermath of the attack.
UPDATE 1/9/2015:
Peggy Noonan has an article in The Wall Street Journal (unfortunately behind the paywall) that goes over the free speech issues associated with the attack. Her conclusion:
A singular feature of extremist Islamists is that they are not at all interested in persuasion. They don’t care about winning you over, only about making you submit. They want to menace and threaten. They want to frighten. They enjoy posing with the severed head.
"The elephant in the room" is that extremist Islamists TEACH PEOPLE TO HATE and Ms. Noonan avoids making that point. Those who eschew the hate need to be heard.
