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I Am Not Charlie Hebdo

(2015-01-09 18:06:19) 下一个

试想你的亲人被杀了,你会是怎么一个感觉?或者你的一族正在与其他部落交战,你死我活,你的一个族人被杀了,而且敌人是用卑鄙手段杀的,你又会怎么感觉?

那咬牙切齿,恨不得将敌人千刀万剐的欲望,也是自然的了。

现代不会千刀万剐了,不过“以人道的”方式将“犯罪者”加以处罚,包括击毙、炸死等方式,是完全合服今天的道德标准的。言论上,我们还会义愤填膺的表达愤怒,我们的无辜和敌人的邪恶,我们的正义和敌人的反人性,我们的道德和敌人的恶魔行径。等等。

此刻能冷静下来追究根源的人不多。想想,美国的无人飞机不是每天都在轰炸、杀人吗?从来没有人觉得是一个问题(自然是指在美国和西方主流媒体了)。以色列和巴勒斯坦呢?即使在美国,难道在平时我们就一点儿责任都没有吗?

巴黎血案,自然让人悲痛、愤怒,极端穆斯林分子的行为令人发指,无法容忍。这是人生悲剧,义愤是正常的。不过人们极少反思自己的行为,很少因为自己是不是道德发愁,大概是每个人都觉得自己是按照”道德标准“来潜移默化地约束自己每天的行为,自然是守道德的了。

我说世人一般是守道德的,但虚伪、双重标准的行为,不是不少,而是基本上伴随着我们的日常行径。冰冻三尺,非一日之寒,巴黎血案,更应该让人反省。

我要是说这话,大家该给我上纲上线了,觉得我没同情心,非人道,甚至邪恶。另一个公开说这话的,是纽约时报专栏作家David Brooks,中偏右,颇受尊敬。这一惨案,实际上是当代人,尤其是西方长期的以自己独断和偏见强加于人的态度的结果。

反思,反思。

Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now


Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now


外交政策杂志:
‘Where’s Our Unity March?’ China Wants to Know
Social media users ask why the West wept for Paris, but not for Kunming, also the site of a deadly attack


I Am Not Charlie Hebdo

David Brooks,纽约时报专栏作家

The journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let’s face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate speech. The administration would have cut financing and shut them down.

Public reaction to the attack in Paris has revealed that there are a lot of people who are quick to lionize those who offend the views of Islamist terrorists in France but who are a lot less tolerant toward those who offend their own views at home.

Just look at all the people who have overreacted to campus micro-aggressions. The University of Illinois fired a professor who taught the Roman Catholic view on homosexuality. The University of Kansas suspended a professor for writing a harsh tweet against the N.R.A. Vanderbilt University derecognized a Christian group that insisted that it be led by Christians.

Americans may laud Charlie Hebdo for being brave enough to publish cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad, but, if Ayaan Hirsi Ali is invited to campus, there are often calls to deny her a podium.

So this might be a teachable moment. As we are mortified by the slaughter of those writers and editors in Paris, it’s a good time to come up with a less hypocritical approach to our own controversial figures, provocateurs and satirists.

The first thing to say, I suppose, is that whatever you might have put on your Facebook page yesterday, it is inaccurate for most of us to claim, Je Suis Charlie Hebdo, or I Am Charlie Hebdo. Most of us don’t actually engage in the sort of deliberately offensive humor that that newspaper specializes in.

We might have started out that way. When you are 13, it seems daring and provocative to “épater la bourgeoisie,” to stick a finger in the eye of authority, to ridicule other people’s religious beliefs.

But after a while that seems puerile. Most of us move toward more complicated views of reality and more forgiving views of others. (Ridicule becomes less fun as you become more aware of your own frequent ridiculousness.) Most of us do try to show a modicum of respect for people of different creeds and faiths. We do try to open conversations with listening rather than insult.

Yet, at the same time, most of us know that provocateurs and other outlandish figures serve useful public roles. Satirists and ridiculers expose our weakness and vanity when we are feeling proud. They puncture the self-puffery of the successful. They level social inequality by bringing the mighty low. When they are effective they help us address our foibles communally, since laughter is one of the ultimate bonding experiences.

Moreover, provocateurs and ridiculers expose the stupidity of the fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are people who take everything literally. They are incapable of multiple viewpoints. They are incapable of seeing that while their religion may be worthy of the deepest reverence, it is also true that most religions are kind of weird. Satirists expose those who are incapable of laughing at themselves and teach the rest of us that we probably should.

In short, in thinking about provocateurs and insulters, we want to maintain standards of civility and respect while at the same time allowing room for those creative and challenging folks who are uninhibited by good manners and taste.

If you try to pull off this delicate balance with law, speech codes and banned speakers, you’ll end up with crude censorship and a strangled conversation. It’s almost always wrong to try to suppress speech, erect speech codes and disinvite speakers.

Fortunately, social manners are more malleable and supple than laws and codes. Most societies have successfully maintained standards of civility and respect while keeping open avenues for those who are funny, uncivil and offensive.

In most societies, there’s the adults’ table and there’s the kids’ table. The people who read Le Monde or the establishment organs are at the adults’ table. The jesters, the holy fools and people like Ann Coulter and Bill Maher are at the kids’ table. They’re not granted complete respectability, but they are heard because in their unguided missile manner, they sometimes say necessary things that no one else is saying.

Healthy societies, in other words, don’t suppress speech, but they do grant different standing to different sorts of people. Wise and considerate scholars are heard with high respect. Satirists are heard with bemused semirespect. Racists and anti-Semites are heard through a filter of opprobrium and disrespect. People who want to be heard attentively have to earn it through their conduct.

The massacre at Charlie Hebdo should be an occasion to end speech codes. And it should remind us to be legally tolerant toward offensive voices, even as we are socially discriminating.
 

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笨狼 回复 悄悄话 回复 '舌尖上的世界' 的评论 :

没什么不妥的。
舌尖上的世界 回复 悄悄话 David Brooks是我尊敬的一位作家,虽然他的观点时常与我相左。

但是,但是,你读懂他了吗?
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