By Lars Harhoff Andersen
In recent years, the Danish far-right activist Rasmus Paludan has held a long series of demonstrations in which he (successfully) attempted to incite Danish Muslims into a violent response. To stop these demonstrations (under rising pressure from the “Organization of Islamic Cooperation” (OIC)) the Danish government has recently chosen to make it illegal to treat “objects of significant meaning in an unseemly manner”. While the proposed restriction has led to an uproar among intellectuals – at home and abroad – it seems that neither the government implementing the ban, nor the Danish people are much worried about limiting the freedom of expression.
I suspect the reason that the public and politicians - who otherwise seem committed to the value of free expression – are not more bothered is that the form of expressions banned under the new law are not arguments, but rather the ability to ridicule. After all, if the ideal of free speech in a democracy is rational discourse, what would we lose by outlawing (primitive) sacrilegious acts against religious objects? While this line of argument might sound ensnaring, it is fundamentally mistaken. The value of sacrilege and ridicule is not that it makes for good arguments, but that it provides a space – intellectually and politically – in which such arguments can take place.
Censorship is not about protecting the feelings of the powerless. It is about protecting the ideas of the powerful.
The Intellectual Value of Ridicule
When I studied philosophy, it was hard not to be both awestruck by the great ideas of the old masters, and simultaneously puzzled by the many truly silly arguments they would make. This is perhaps not surprising - if modern people see further because they stand on the shoulders of giants, we should not be surprised that those giants did not see as far as we.
But there seems to be more to the story. It is arrogant to assume that when great thinkers of the Middle Ages and early modern period spent the better parts of their lives thinking up elaborate defenses of one absurd religious doctrine after another, it was because they lacked the intellectual wherewithal of an r/atheism user. The idea of the Christian Trinity was not defended because the philosophers of its time did not see its absurdity, but because the idea was a sacred one, literally and intellectually.
It is no coincidence that it was during the rise of free expression during the Age of Enlightenment that these zombie ideas began to be weeded out in serious philosophical discussions. Assuming that this was simply because people were allowed to say what they really thought was implausible. It is hard to imagine that a significant degree of self-censorship did not happen in such discussions, but it seems equally implausible to imagine the great philosophers of their time spend the majority of their waking hours making arguments they themselves found irrelevant.
If we assume it was the increased freedom of expression that allowed philosophy to move on, what was it then that made the difference? I think it’s plausible that the ridicule of religious ideas that was allowed to blossom at the time played a critical role in freeing philosophy from its shackles.
A classic problem in philosophy is the so-called “problem of evil” (or theodicy), which tries to find explanations for why evil can exist in a world in which there is an all-knowing and all-powerful deity. Although this problem has a very obvious solution, it has puzzled some of the greatest philosophers culminating in the works of Leibniz, who argued that the solution had to be that we lived in the best of all (logically) possible worlds. In what is arguably his most famous work, Candide, ou l'Optimisme, Voltaire mocks the silliness of supposing that a world better than the one we live in is a possibility, as the philosopher Pangloss, upon witnessing one horror after another, declares that we do indeed live in the best of all possible worlds.
The (implicit) argument in Candide is not very profound, but it is a good one. But what is more important, after one has laughed at the idea, the burden of proof implicitly shifts. Instead of proving why something sacred is wrong, it needs to be proven that something silly is true.
Of course, the conclusions of arguments should be decided on their intellectual merits, and not by who can be the best at ridicule, but this does not preclude that ridicule might be needed to level the playing field between the sacred and the profane. Once an idea is taken down from its pedestal, we might be better able to tackle it on merit.
The Political Value of Ridicule
In 2013 Xi Jinping, then leader and now dictator of China, was visiting the white house. During this visit a picture was taken of Jinping walking with Barack Obama, in which someone on the internet pointed out that the pair showed a resemblance to Winnie the Poof and Tigger; the tall and loose Obama, contrasting with the little potbellied Jinping. Thus, a meme was born and as so many times before, the internet had a little harmless laugh at someone in power. If China was a democracy, this is where the story would have ended. But China is not a democracy.
Since criticism of the government is illegal in China, people are constantly looking for ways to criticize the government without directly doing so. The rather infantile comparison thus became a way of showing disrespect to the leader. A picture comparing Xi sticking his head out of a car to a Winnie toy became the most censored picture of 2015.
Of course, judging by normal standards of human interaction it might seem like Xi made a mistake. To look like Winnie the Pooh might be slightly embarrassing but using the full might of the second most powerful country in the world so that people don’t make fun of you is very embarrassing. Besides, there is not any substantive criticism in the image. It is not like it is an important argument against the regime that Xi is slightly overweight or that he is consuming too much honey. It is hard to see why the fact that he looks like a sweet teddy bear should convince anybody to overthrow his dictatorship.
But there is of course method to the madness. In a democracy, the leader will tend to be seen as legitimate simply because of the process through which they become the leader. The reason the law is respected is (at least partly) that citizens see the law as legitimate because it was enacted by a democratically elected ruler, even if they disagree with the law. The same thing goes for leaders. Obama was not hurt by the comparison to Tigger, because his legitimacy does not come from fear or forced respectfulness. But in the case of a dictatorship like China, there is little to no procedural legitimacy and in order for the leader to be seen as legitimate, he needs to personally be above criticism. He needs to be seen as running an effective government and being personally capable. But in most cases, dictators are neither. When respect is not earned, it needs to be forced. By forcing people to show respect, they implicitly force people to send the signal to other people that the person is worthy of respect. If they are allowed to be laughed at, it becomes clear that the respect they are shown is not genuine but forced. It becomes clear that people are not inspired by their leaders. They are simply fearful of them. And while people tend to listen to prestigious people, they only do what dominant people say when someone is looking.
Laughing at the Great Dictator in the Sky
It has been argued that one of the reasons Christianity originally spread, was because of the impressive actions of early Christian martyrs and missionaries.1 Christians chose to die rather than give up their faith. Rich people gave up their earthly possessions to live lives of poverty in monasteries. This lent credence to the idea that these people really meant it. That they knew something other people did not. That their values were worth following, not because you had to, but because people who earned personal prestige through their actions said that it was the right thing to do.
Of course, eventually, Christianity took over the Roman Empire and went from a persecuted minority to persecuting minorities, with unprecedented vigor. The split between force and persuasion, between dominance and prestige was shifting. Perhaps it was safer to be feared than to be loved. But something else was also going on. The Romans demanded that you showed respect towards the emperor, but in general, did not care if you believed in their gods. This changed with Christianity. Not only was Yahwe the Lord thy God, but thou shalt have no God before him. With the Great Monotheistic religions, all the world needed to bow before the same God. Nothing is outside the realm of the Great Dictator in the Sky.
When the OIC demands that the Quran be respected in other countries, when the Chinese government demands that images that insult them may not be printed on the other side of the world, they are not asking to be respected. Respect is something one gives freely. Respect is the recognition of worth, coming from merit or the fundamental dignity of mankind. We already have a word for respect that flows from the barrel of a gun. It is called submission.
When the OIC demands that one respects the Quran it is not from a fear that Muslims in foreign lands will be persecuted. Muslims are and will continue to be freer to practice their religion in Denmark and Sweden than they are in Egypt, Iran, or Saudi Arabia. The purpose is not to protect Muslim citizens from harm but to protect the ideas of Islam from reason and freedom.
OIC is not concerned that their Muslim brothers might weep. They are afraid they will begin to laugh.
Lars Harhoff Andersen is an editor and writer at Unreasonable Doubt, where he writes about Culture, Politics, and Philosophy. Lars is a Ph.D. fellow at the Department of Economics at the University of Copenhagen where his research centers on Economic History and the impact of culture on societal development. Lars is also the host of the (Danish language) podcast Historien Fortsætter.
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This has, among others, been argued by Joe Henrich in the excellent “The Secret of Our Success”.