Category: Politics

Ross Douthat has the best discussion of blaspheme and society I’ve read recently. He offers three premises:

1. The right to blaspheme (and otherwise give offense) is essential to the liberal order.
2. There is no duty to blaspheme, a society’s liberty is not proportional to the quantity of blasphemy it produces, and under many circumstances the choice to give offense (religious and otherwise) can be reasonably criticized as pointlessly antagonizing, needlessly cruel, or simply stupid.
3. The legitimacy and wisdom of such criticism is generally inversely proportional to the level of mortal danger that the blasphemer brings upon himself.

Point 3 is the key one in this case. He writes:

…if publishing something might get you slaughtered and you publish it anyway, by definition you are striking a blow for freedom,

Read the whole thing…

I so rarely see the full poem, you just see the last line. So perhaps a day late…

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”