Jan 9, 2015 05:07 AM
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/en...religious/
EXCERPT (Stephen Law): [...] The Hans Christian Anderson story The Emperor’s New Clothes ends with much mocking of the Emperor as he parades pompously around town while stark naked. The hilarity begins with that small boy who points and laughs. His laughter has a revelatory effect on those around him. Suddenly, as a result of that one boy pointing and laughing, everyone else realizes they’ve been duped. The spell that held them captive is broken. They recognize the truth.
Laughter may not be the only way of getting people to recognise the truth, but it’s sometimes the quickest and most effective way. Satire and mockery are tools that can be employed entirely appropriately, particularly if we’re criticising figures and institutions that maintain a faithful following in part by fostering attitudes of immense reverence and deference. What the pompous and self-aggrandizing fear most is that small boy who points and laughs - and whose name, in this case, is Charlie Hebdo.
Religions and religious figures are mocked and lampooned for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it’s sometimes done for no other reason than to upset the religious. Let me be clear that I don’t approve of that (though I do defend the right of others to do it).
However, more often than not, the lampooning is done with the intention of shattering, if only for a moment, the protective façade of reverence and deference that has been erected around some iconic figure or belief, so that we can all catch a glimpse of how things really are. At such times, lampooning can become great art.
Here’s a second reason for lampooning those demanding overweening ‘respect’ for some religious figure or institution. What do the armed clowns who marched into the Charlie Hebdo offices want? They want to create fear, so that no one will ever dare lampoon their Prophet again. Many of us were already self-censoring for fear of such reprisals. Now even more of us will do so. Freedom of expression is being eroded.
But there’s an obvious way we can quickly reclaim that lost freedom. We can, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali nicely put it, ‘spread the risk’. If we all stand up and repeat what caused the supposed ‘offence’, then tomorrow any individual who might have self-censored out of fear will realize they’re not an isolated target, but just one target amongst countless thousands. The risk is spread between us to the point where the danger faced by any one individual becomes negligable again....
EXCERPT (Stephen Law): [...] The Hans Christian Anderson story The Emperor’s New Clothes ends with much mocking of the Emperor as he parades pompously around town while stark naked. The hilarity begins with that small boy who points and laughs. His laughter has a revelatory effect on those around him. Suddenly, as a result of that one boy pointing and laughing, everyone else realizes they’ve been duped. The spell that held them captive is broken. They recognize the truth.
Laughter may not be the only way of getting people to recognise the truth, but it’s sometimes the quickest and most effective way. Satire and mockery are tools that can be employed entirely appropriately, particularly if we’re criticising figures and institutions that maintain a faithful following in part by fostering attitudes of immense reverence and deference. What the pompous and self-aggrandizing fear most is that small boy who points and laughs - and whose name, in this case, is Charlie Hebdo.
Religions and religious figures are mocked and lampooned for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it’s sometimes done for no other reason than to upset the religious. Let me be clear that I don’t approve of that (though I do defend the right of others to do it).
However, more often than not, the lampooning is done with the intention of shattering, if only for a moment, the protective façade of reverence and deference that has been erected around some iconic figure or belief, so that we can all catch a glimpse of how things really are. At such times, lampooning can become great art.
Here’s a second reason for lampooning those demanding overweening ‘respect’ for some religious figure or institution. What do the armed clowns who marched into the Charlie Hebdo offices want? They want to create fear, so that no one will ever dare lampoon their Prophet again. Many of us were already self-censoring for fear of such reprisals. Now even more of us will do so. Freedom of expression is being eroded.
But there’s an obvious way we can quickly reclaim that lost freedom. We can, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali nicely put it, ‘spread the risk’. If we all stand up and repeat what caused the supposed ‘offence’, then tomorrow any individual who might have self-censored out of fear will realize they’re not an isolated target, but just one target amongst countless thousands. The risk is spread between us to the point where the danger faced by any one individual becomes negligable again....