Benedict, Albert and Carl

Good Company Indeed

The concept of spirituality embraced by such luminaries as Benedict Spinoza, Albert Einstein, and Carl Sagan is well worth considering. All three believed that the discoveries of natural philosophy and science could be sources of deep spiritual nourishment. In addition to the fields of expertise for which they are respectively well known, each of these men was a poetic dreamer and a philosopher. Philosophy was actually Spinoza’s field; Einstein was of course the 20^th century’s greatest physicist, while Sagan was best known for his work in cosmology.

These pioneers of human endeavor (and others like them) recommended awe in the face of the Universe as revealed by empirical inquiry. The sense of the numinous we get from reading great poetry. Transcendence experienced through the voice of a symphony or the view of a landscape. These are some of the treasures of true humanism.

It is certainly awe-inspiring to look into the night sky and realize that we are the result of exploded stars. (As Sagan was fond of saying, “We’re star stuff.”) Considering the staggering scope of evolution on this planet, our kinship with other species can give us a sense of belonging more profound than any supernatural doctrine. This is what Carl Sagan had to say about this dichotomy:

“In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe barely tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.”

When Einstein was asked about his religious beliefs, he replied that he believed in “Spinoza’s God.” Highly simplified, he was talking about nature deified or divinity naturalized. This is what he had to say in his essay, The World as I See It:           

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It is the experience of mystery—even if mixed with fear—that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only in this sense, I am a deeply religious man.”

Indeed, it is precisely when we are caught up in the truly numinous and transcendent that the relative poverty of supernatural religion (and other forms of certitude) is most clearly revealed. Having thrilled to the insights of Spinoza, Einstein and Sagan, we are instructed to return to primitive tribal myths and told that these are the “word of God.” After vicariously wrestling with real moral dilemmas through the characters of great fiction, we are presented with crude atonement doctrines masquerading as absolute truth. This is the point (for some of us, at least) at which all sense of the sacred temporarily dissolves. Confronted with stultifying certainty, we sense a moral imperative to defend doubt, both for the discoveries in provides and for its own sake.

True philosophy begins where traditional religion ends, as we know from reading Spinoza. How impoverished humanity would be if he had remained Baruch Spinoza, merely parroting the Torah in the safety of the synagogue. The fact that he had the moral courage to become Benedict Spinoza (facing excommunication for his heretical beliefs) is the reason we have treasures like The Ethics and the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect.

Taking our cue from giants like Spinoza, Einstein and Sagan, we should be open to taking our chances with free inquiry and thought. The fruits of both are much sweeter than anything absolute certainty has to offer.

Copyright © 2012 by William K. Ferro

All rights reserved

Stolen Lives

Part of the pathology that nearly all the "shooters" of our increasingly regular school massacres seem to share is the desire to transform themselves from insignificant nobodies into postmortem media stars. Their feelings of powerlessness cause them to imbibe deeply of our culture's gunslinger mythology and to embrace the romanticized view of "going out in a blaze of glory." 

Ideally, more accessible and proactive mental health services could help convince these individuals not to kill themselves at all. Failing that, one does wish we could convince them to make their suicides solo acts. The fact that the innocents pictured here (and others) died violently at the hands of a sick young man with a gun nut mother is an atrocity that makes me physically ill.

Thoroughly Enjoying...

We humanists and other secularists believe that being an imperfectly evolved primate is not a capital crime. Our imperfections are not worthy of death, eternal torture, or the torture of someone else in our stead. There is nothing for us to be "saved" from (in the sense that word is usually employed).

All that being said, many of us thoroughly enjoy every aspect of the Christmas story as mythology. We love the music, the devotional poetry, the art, everything. The idea of the birth of a child on the darkest night of the year as the light of the world is a wonderful idea. It builds on the myths of all the other gods (and sons of gods) who were believed to have been born on or near the winter solstice in pagan times. It only breaks down and becomes meaningless when we are told we must interpret the story literally and read it as history-- something the gospels were never intended to be.

The Darkest Night of the Year

Some Thoughts on the Winter Solstice

The darkest night of the year is coming right up.

At the Winter Solstice (December 21 this year), we have the shortest period of daylight of the entire year, and hence the longest, darkest night. In Neolithic times, the Winter Solstice was marked by midwinter celebrations that were highly significant culturally. These early agricultural communities depended on the previous nine months of the year to survive deep winter; starvation between January and March (often called “the famine months” by those communities) was not uncommon.

To avoid having to feed domestic animals such as cows, goats and sheep, most of these were slaughtered just before the Winter Solstice. This was also the time when most of the fermented beverages were ready for consumption. As a result of this sudden availability of fresh meat, beer, and wine, there would be large feasts on or around the year’s darkest night.

Pagan societies saw this as evidence of the sun’s vanishing presence, and the view of the birth (and rebirth) of various sun gods became associated with these feasts. The people had a sense of the world itself dying, to be reborn in the spring. After Roman conquest of the majority of Europe, these concepts were subsumed into the Saturnalia celebration.

After the emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, Winter Solstice celebrations underwent yet another cultural and religious shift. Now the emphasis was on the birth of Christ; the idea of Jesus as the light of the world entering the world on the darkest night of the year (to die and be reborn in the spring) dovetailed easily with existing traditions. Thus Saturnalia and other midwinter pagan celebrations were gradually edged out by Christmas in the new, Christianized Europe. Nonetheless, many of the aspects of the Christmas celebration carried over from pagan times: the Yule log, the decorated tree, mistletoe, caroling, and so on. The caroling tradition can be traced back to the pagan practice of a community’s poorest children going from dwelling to dwelling, singing for cakes and other treats. (In Christian times, the children would beg for “soul cakes,” promising to help release people’s recently dead relatives from purgatory with their singing.)

Interestingly, the idea of a god being born of a virgin, dying, and being reborn, was quite common in the ancient world. It was applied in the case of Jesus, having already been believed to have been the case with the Roman god Dionysus. 

The Ultimate Emancipation

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More than at any other time in human history, superstition has given way to rationality as the primary means of understanding our lives and explaining the world in which we live. Before our species understood the germ theory of disease, illnesses and plagues were typically perceived as punishments from the gods. Similarly, before we understood meteorology and seismology, we interpreted events such as storms, floods, volcanoes and earthquakes as signs of divine disfavor. Our ancestors felt an ongoing imperative to make propitiation to spirits, saints, and gods to avoid incurring their wrath.

Thanks to scientific inquiry and the philosophical Enlightenment, humans have learned to think empirically; to study cause and effect, to test hypotheses and find scientific explanations for natural phenomena that filled our ancestors with dread. This has led to rapid advances in medicine, science and technology, ethical inquiry, and other breakthroughs that have steadily improved our lives. As rationality and empirical inquiry have spread worldwide, religious traditions have been reinterpreted, abandoned, or replaced with wholly natural forms of spirituality.

Our sense of the numinous outlasts our belief in the supernatural; by no means do those of us who are increasingly secular compelled to live dry, dispirited lives. The joy of an excellent yoga routine, the deep connectedness to all sentient beings (and self-transcendence) we experience in meditation, a sense of kinship with our fellow human beings—all these can be deeply spiritual experiences. Thus, the loss of traditional religion need not be perceived as a loss at all, but rather a great liberation—perhaps the ultimate emancipation of the human mind.

The trend toward secularism can be seen in the rise of the “Nones” (people who claim no religious affiliation) in North America. It is evident in the religions that are practiced (by some) more as ways of preserving community and passing on cultural norms than as supernatural faiths. It can be seen in the steady emptying of the churches of Europe that has been a steady trend since the early 20^th century. Churches that once ruled by inculcating a dread of hell (along with the promise that they alone possessed the keys to heaven) have lost their hold on a great many people. Theocratic monarchies—long the norm in Europe—have given way to liberal democracies; huge life-affirming results have flowed from the personal autonomy that democracy enables. Even in the United States, easily the most religious country in the West, a fundamentally nontheistic worldview has lost much of the opprobrium it once incurred. Humanists and other secularists are becoming politically active and must now be taken into account as a voting bloc. They, together with the above-mentioned “Nones,” now make up 20% of the U.S. electorate; politicians can no longer afford to ignore or alienate them.

We by no means seek to convert the religious to humanism. Instead, we seek interfaith/secular dialogue and church/state separation, so that no one’s freedom of conscience is threatened. We realize that what we experience as an emancipation may present to others as a devastating loss. With that in mind, the secularization of others is not our goal. It is to enable the religious and secular alike to pursue transcendence and fulfillment in the manner that works best for them, free of persecution or coercion.

Copyright © 2012 by William K. Ferro

All rights reserved

Civility Rules

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Enjoying Holiday Dinners without Friction

A humanist and a priest sit down for a holiday meal. No, this is not the setup for a joke, as much as it may sound like one! It actually describes what happened at our recent Thanksgiving celebration. These ceremonial feasts can be tricky; sometimes they’re the only time certain family members and friends of widely differing stripes sit down to share a meal together.  There are bound to be a variety of political, religious, and ideological views represented.

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, I saw an amusing Facebook post that read, “’Tis the season to have your life choices questioned at the dinner table.” I hope it’s not as bad as that for you! (it sure isn’t for me). In fact I consider myself incredibly fortunate in this regard. My mother and sister are still at least nominally Catholic; I’m the only member of the family who officially left the church. At the Thanksgiving family meal that just past, my wife and I had the wonderful opportunity to drive the priest who married us to my sister’s house to celebrate. Even at the time of our engagement, I had ceased being a practicing Catholic, and this wonderfully witty and friendly man had no problem with that. He was our family priest when my sister and I were growing up, and he’s the real deal. (I think it says a lot about the tolerance of this time in our culture that a priest can remain a lifelong friend of someone who in times past might have been shunned as an “apostate.”)

When we get together, we don’t discuss theology or the Vatican (the latter in particular would be a non-starter); we talk about life. My critiques of the Catholic Church are voluble and deeply felt, but I don’t get into these with him. He’s such a thoroughly decent person that I can’t help believing he would agree with my judgments of the moral failings of the institution to which he is tethered by a lifetime commitment. He’s a deeply humane individual who has never uttered a misogynist word in his life and who would no sooner molest a child than I would fly an aircraft into a building.

Is my family priest, thoroughly decent individual that he is, responsible to answer for the Vatican’s culpability in things like the subjugation of women, child abuse, and denial of birth control to the developing world? Of course not! No more than I, as an American citizen, can be held personally responsible for wars of opportunity my country prosecutes in defiance of international law. I would be quite surprised if I were to learn if this gentleman hasn’t registered his personal protest of the way the Vatican covered up its rampant child abuse scandal, for instance, just as I resisted (as best I could) my country’s devastation of Iraq. We’re all limited in our influence over world events.

Anyway, he said the grace at the meal, and it was as genial and inclusive a prayer as one is likely to hear. There is great wisdom in the age-old prescription for avoiding politics and religion at mixed-company gatherings. These topics cause people to ‘think with the blood” as no others do; avoiding them and simply enjoying each others’ company is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, I would be ashamed of myself if I were to start a war by lobbing a politics-or-religion grenade into a family gathering. If someone asks my philosophical position, I put it in thoroughly positive terms: “I’m a humanist; I believe in the Enlightenment values of democracy, personal autonomy, human rights and the separation of church and state.” It would be puerile and downright rude to wade in with something like “I believe organized religion is largely responsible for the subjugation of women, the abuse of children, and panoramic needless human suffering.” These are sentiments suited to a rigorous one-on-one debate, not a holiday gathering. Civility rules!

Copyright © 2012 by William K. Ferro

All rights reserved

Prizing the Life of the Mind

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Any time a civic, religious, or spiritual leader asks you to surrender your intellect or check your mind at the door, it is wise to question his motives. Giving up one’s critical faculties is a kind of suicide; the self-abnegation it represents is not virtuous, but inexcusably lazy.

Extinction, apocalypse, the end of days. There’s something both seductive and sinister about these concepts. From the suicide bomber to the messianic crusader to the apocalyptic evangelical, there seems to be a nearly-universal desire to bring the whole human project to a close. If only the end of the world could somehow be brought about, we could be done with the whole difficult, thorny problem of being human. In my view, even the “nirvana” concept—the extinction of self—is (or can be) a strain of this kind of thinking. Life for us humans--as far as we know, the only animals aware of our own imminent demise and forced to consider ethical and philosophical problems--is indeed difficult. There seems to be an innate part of us that longs for it all to be brought to an end. I think this is among the more contemptible parts of our makeup, one that demands continual resistance.

What is evolution’s unique gift to us if not our highly-developed cerebral cortex? The ability to think, to weigh and consider arguments, to retain the good and discard the rest? Any religion, philosophy, or party line that demands that you surrender your critical thinking capacity is more than suspect; those who make such requirements are usually up to something. They may have a genuinely sinister agenda, such as those who propagandize young people into throwing away their lives as suicide murderers. Or their motives may be plainly larcenous, like the televangelist who uses a false prospectus to separate credulous retirees from their meager savings. In any case, these and others like them are to be resisted by all those who prize the life of the mind.

An appreciation of art, literature, music, and irony is a superior means of developing an ethical and moral compass; it brings one face-to-face with moral and ethical dilemmas and offers no easy out. Fiction and mythology tells us truths that are otherwise inaccessible, and music expresses human feelings for which no words exist. Philosophy invites us to think deeply about the beautiful, the true, and the transcendent. Humanists are no strangers to the numinous; in fact, we relish it. The stunning beauty of a painting, the transcendent voice of a symphony, and the treasures of literature and poetry-- these are all of inexpressible value to us. It is precisely because we do not entertain fantasies of living forever that we find the consolations of philosophy (and the other humanities) so precious.

Goya famously declared that “the sleep of reason breeds monsters.” We have certainly seen that maxim borne out throughout human history. It is our reason, our capacity for free inquiry and thought, that makes us distinctly human. It is too precious a commodity to be surrendered, no matter how seductively the offer is made.

Copyright © 2012 by William K. Ferro

All rights reserved

  

Pepe Miguel

Anniversary 2012

Awesome Sky at Chesapeake Beach

Bavarian Inn Royal Suite

Suite Two

Suite 3

Suite Four

Clocktower, Shepherdstown

Clocktower 2

Bavarian Inn 

Bavarian Exterior

Overlook

Outdoor

Bavarian Exterior 2

Shepherdstown University

S.U. 2

Meckelberg Inn

Old Town painter

Words of the Week

Censorious-- Harshly critical, as in, "His letter to the editor was quite censorious of the party line."

Extirpation-- To destroy totally, as in, "The Religious Right's censorious attack on the First Amendment may yet lead to the extirpation of religious liberty."

Anodyne-- A source of soothing comfort, as in, "Her censorious writing functioned as an anodyne for the barely literate even as it contributed to the extirpation of scholarship in the mainstream press."

An Experiment in Balance

Image from afistfuloftalent.com

Those of us who make our living as writers almost entirely on the web are even more prone than most to become “addicted” to online life. After all, our careers depend to a large extent on being constantly connected. To remain relevant, we need to alert people by way of social media of our latest contributions to blogs and websites. In the process, we tend to become absorbed in our colleagues’ posts and the lively back-and-forth they produce. If we want people to follow our own blogs, we must keep them current. As we write articles, bid on new projects, and submit query letters (all via electronic media), we inevitably become distracted by the hundreds of online news sources available. As a result, it becomes quite easy and natural to be online more or less constantly during our waking hours.

There’s both an upside and a downside to this perpetual connectedness. On the positive side, we have all of the world’s information at our fingertips at any given time; we can research the pieces we write in a fraction of the time it took in our pre-Internet days. We also have the marvelous ability to connect with people all over the globe and benefit from their take on everything from current events to cultural norms to philosophy and religion. However, having multiple sources of information constantly competing for our attention inevitably leads to a shorter attention span. We soon find ourselves needing to have a secondary screen open even while watching television. If we’re watching something substantive and informative, we naturally miss a great deal of content as our eyes move back and forth from one screen to another. (Although the practice of muting the TV and reading online during loud, obnoxious commercials has much to recommend it.) There have been times when there was something I wanted to watch on TV while a deadline simultaneously loomed. At those times, I’ve occasionally had the TV screen, my laptop, and my phone all competing for my attention at the same time!

The forthcoming DSM-V (the manual of mental health disorders that serves as a guide to every mental health professional) is about to provisionally list “Internet-Use Disorder” as a new health concern. In a fascinating series of studies, neurologists have discovered that serious consumers of electronic media—the sort that always have at least one screen open and often more—have brain wave patterns that scan almost exactly like those of cocaine addicts. They need more or less constant stimulation from media in the same way a serious addict always needs the next hit of his drug of choice. I’m ambivalent about naming new disorders all the time; I think it tends to erode the public’s confidence in psychiatry as the serious field of inquiry that it is. Nonetheless, my own experience with the addictive quality of electronic media leads me to believe it can be an enemy of mindfulness. I’m at least as serious about maintaining ongoing mindful awareness as I am about remaining connected to sources of information. I therefore intend to try to observe a weekly “unplugged day” as an experiment in nurturing greater mindfulness.

My wife is skeptical. When I told her about the topic of this article, she replied, “You can’t go a single hour unplugged; how can you write an article on the importance of having a weekly ‘unplugged day?’” She has a good point. It would be intellectually dishonest to write about the topic as if I’d already discovered its benefits; hence the provisional tone of this post. I want to give it a try and see what happens, and to check my results against other writers on this blog and others. If the analogy to chemical dependency holds, I suspect to experience withdrawal symptoms before I realize benefits.

My first scheduled “unplugged day” is scheduled for tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it affects me! I’m quite interested in learning how other people negotiate the perpetually-available sources of information while remaining intellectually and emotionally balanced.

Copyright © 2012 by William K. Ferro
All rights reserved

Words of the Week (a little early)

Image from mtsu.edu

Anathematize-- To pronounce an anathema upon; as in, “The synagogue of Amsterdam did its best to anathematize Benedict Spinoza.”

Lapidary-- Having the elegance and precision associated with inscriptions on
monumental stone; as in “The lapidary words on Descartes’ tombstone anathematize the times in which the philosopher lived.”

Mimetic-- Imitative; as in, “Despite their tendency to anathematize him, future generations of Greek thinkers were nonetheless mimetic of Socrates' lapidary pronouncements.”

Words of the Week

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Athwart -- In opposition to; as in, "I stand athwart the distinguished gentleman's ill-advised legislation."

Meretricious -- Tawdry, falsely attractive; as in, "The majority stood athwart the the proposal, saying it was at best meretricious and at worst a threat to liberty."

Discrepant -- At variance; as in, "Analyses from the panel of medical ethicists were highly discrepant. Some supported the measure wholeheartedly, others found it ethically neutral; still others stood strongly athwart it, judging it to be meretricious." 

Ten Life Lessons from My Feline Companions

Empress Polly Rae and the Mercurial Pepe Miguel are my twin muses. They sit beside me all day while I work, often walking across my keyboard hfi96tw83j6 to make content suggestions and hfi96tw83j6 editorial revisions. (Pausing now to ask Polly Rae to hold further revisions until after the first draft is complete. I cannot promise she will concur.)

In addition to lending me support and encouragement in my work, they are also a source of great wisdom for living. I offer these ten life lessons I've gleaned from observing them over the years.

1) Be flexible.

   The ability of these beautiful animals to stretch, move, and leap about gracefully reminds me that a lithe spine is a thing of beauty. So is a flexible mind.

2) Sleep when you're tired.

   Cats know the importance of good quality sleep. They are masters of the art of napping, because they get a lot of practice.

3) Don't be afraid to demand ask for what you want.    

  Pepe and his sister are not in the least bit circumspect when there's something they need or want. They think nothing of standing on top of us at 4:00 a.m., pawing at our faces and making their demands known. These usually involve one or more of the following: a) Pet me. b) Chase me. c) Refresh my water bowl. d) Clean my facilities. e) Remember that fresh tuna you gave me a few nights ago? I'll have another serving. No, not later, now. Get up.

4) Engage in play whenever you feel like it.

   If cats worked, they definitely wouldn't be workaholics. They take play time seriously.

5) Enjoy your family and friends.

   Cats love to hang. Literally and figuratively.

6. Stay clean.

   Cats are seriously devoted to their personal ablutions. Fastidious, clean, and well-groomed, they take pride in maintaining a dignified personal appearance. They insist on privacy when performing these ablutions; interruptions are met with ironic expressions. "Thanks so much for picking me up in the middle of my bath. Now I have to start over."

7. Embrace self-determination.

   Cats enjoy the company of humans, but are above demeaning themselves by fawning over them or seeking their approval. They have a strong sense of self and enjoy their independence. Their motto is, Civility, yes; servility, no. 

8. Indulge your curiosity in the wider world.

  Whoever first said, “Curiosity killed the cat” knew nothing about them. They are curious, and their devotion to free inquiry cannot be quenched. They also temper their fearless curiosity by taking the proper precautions; they’re survivors.

9. Don’t be afraid to try new things.

  Cats are intrepid explorers. Never content to get stuck in a rut, they are constantly evolving, discovering new and exciting things to get into. Like sock drawers, laundry baskets, etc., etc.

10. Find rituals that work for you and stick with them.

While maintaining a healthy skepticism about “received wisdom” and tradition, they are highly creative in fashioning their own rituals to enhance and enrich their lives. Pepe never tires of being brushed in his box, and Polly assumes my raison d’etre is to chase her throughout the house. And of course she's quite right.

(We're Polly Rae and Pepe Miguel, and we approved this message.)

Copyright ©  2012 by William K. Ferro
All rights reserved

Lift-Off

Image from indiancountrymedianetwork.org

Apparently my first campaign speechwriting gig achieved lift-off. The client won the office he was seeking. Congratulations, Mr. President!

Eliot Poems

Rereading T.S. Eliot's Selected Poems tonight. I totally dig on The Hollow Men and Ash Wednesday. From the former:

    Between the conception
    And the creation
    Between the emotion
    And the response
    Falls the Shadow

And from the latter:

    Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain,
    Spirit of the garden,
    Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
    Teach us to care and not to care
    Teach us to sit still.

Brilliant, if somewhat obscure, poetry from a 20th century master.

Creeping Totalitarianism vs. the Open Society

I just had a disturbing encounter with someone whose stated aim in life is to prevent nonbelievers from accidentally blaspheming. He believes he can save unwitting blasphemers from being cast into hell by an angry god. They've been hurting his feelings all their lives by believing and saying the wrong things about him, you see.

I support this individual's right to hold this belief system as an animating principle. I also categorize it right beside the certainty that one is receiving secret messages from aliens.

For those whose worldview is essentially nontheistic, blasphemy is the ultimate victimless crime. Those with the traditional theistic view must consider this reality: a god who lacks a sufficient sense of self to absorb everything from moronic attacks to nuanced critiques needs to evolve in a major way. Think about it: if god is all-powerful (as believers repeatedly state), what defense does he need against criticism from mere mortals?

There's a corollary point, one I haven't heard expressed much, having to do with a huge disconnect regarding nonbelievers and blasphemy. The fact is, it is impossible for a nonbeliever to blaspheme. To commit actual blasphemy, a person must believe in the deity (s)he is defaming; must know (s)he is falsely ascribing attributes to that deity. When the faithless speak against a god, they are making statements about someone who is, to them, a mental construct or fictional character. In accusing nonbelievers of blasphemy, the faithful must abandon all reason and logic (obviously not much of a leap). Those who incite people to violence and murder in response to “blasphemous” statements take advantage of this logical disconnect. They cynically fan the flames of outrage, then use the hatred they've manufactured to further their own political agendas. The notion that the attacks on American embassies in the Middle East were sparked by an obscure, third-rate video is preposterous. Religious extremists just happened to become outraged by this film on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks? Nonsense. Professionals in the art of inciting violence know exactly how to inflame the passions of any given population; in this case, "insults" to religion work very well. By reacting violently on cue, protesters make puppets of themselves.

The United Nations recently embarked on a thoroughly misguided campaign to stamp out speech that may be offensive to religious individuals. While the intent may have been benign--there's nothing wrong with favoring civil discourse over insults--the effect may be the abandonment of the very freedoms on which Western liberal democracies are founded.

In the open society, everyone’s religious or philosophical beliefs are protected, but so is everyone else’s freedom to critique those beliefs. While we all have the right to believe and express ourselves freely; none of us has the right not to be offended by those who disagree with us. That’s a “right” extended only by theocracies in which all citizens share the same religion. The price of living in a liberal democracy is that you will have your most cherished beliefs critiqued by those who do not share them, sometimes vehemently. If your belief system cannot withstand criticism, a free country in which conscientious liberty is the norm may not be your society of choice.

Slate.com just lost considerable credibility (in my view) by publishing an 

Eric Posner article subtitled The Vile Anti-Muslim Film Shows that Americans Overvalue Free Speech. At first, I thought this was meant ironically. As it turns out, not so much. Mr. Posner apparently thinks we need to modulate our freedom of expression because "the world doesn't love the First Amendment." What an astonishingly craven act of capitulation that would be. There's a difference between making measured statements to calm a rioting mob and simply handing the totalitarian-minded our most cherished liberties on a plate. 

If you consider something vile and contemptible (be it a book, a video, or whatever), you should criticize it and demonstrate why you consider it so. Attempting to censor forms of expression is ill-advised and often backfires. The subtitle of the Posner article is itself contemptible in my view; it tramples on what I consider sacred ground. Is it incumbent on Slate to censor itself in the future, to avoid offending me and my fellow First Amendment fundamentalists? No, the onus is on us to strike down the article's argument. 

September 30 is International Blasphemy Rights Day. The Day was not dreamed up by a bunch of radical atheists to shock the religious; it is a challenge to all societies--but to liberal democracies in particular--to protect free speech for all. The true measure of the value any given society places on freedom of expression is whether or not it protects the rights of individuals to say things that may be considered offensive—even blasphemous—to others. The United Nations would do well to consider the likely long-term ramifications of its measures to protect groups from being “offended” by the views of others. The mindset that says, “We must outlaw certain kinds of expression; someone may take offense” represents creeping totalitarianism; it is antithetical to the open, democratic society. 

Happy International Blasphemy Rights Day, everyone. I invite you to join in defending the rights of all human beings to think, believe, speak, read and write according to the dictates of their own consciences; to do so without fear of reprisals from ideologues. Personal liberties, once surrendered, are rarely regained without costly--even bloody--struggle. I trust the majority of Americans, and human rights supporters worldwide, will continue "overvaluing" their freedom of speech.

Copyright 2012 by William K. Ferro
All rights reserved