Blasphemy is a naturally controversial subject. In modern Western countries there is a tension between the liberal democratic tradition upholding the right to freedom of expression on the one hand and the desire not to offend religious sensibilities on the other. This tension has been highlighted in a number of high profile cases in recent years involving artistic works that satirise images that are held sacred in various faiths. Threats and assaults against artists who have criticised Islam in particular have prompted debate about the limits of freedom of expression. Notable examples include but are not limited to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the violent responses to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons, the murder of Theo van Gogh, attacks on Swedish artist Lars Vilks, and the extraordinary worldwide response to the Innocence of Muslims video clip (which I have previously discussed). A number of recent events suggest that there appears to be a double standard operating in the Western media regarding which religions it is acceptable to offend. I find this particularly interesting considering the results of a recently published study finding that non-religious people were more likely than Christians to endorse a double standard regarding offending Muslims as opposed to Christians with blasphemous artworks. Why this would be the case is not entirely clear, although a number of possibilities deserve further exploration.
In modern art there has long been a custom of artists using
shocking or disturbing images in order to provoke a response from viewers.
Artworks that depict sacred religious images in profane ways seem to elicit the
most controversy. Artists and their supporters defend such works on the grounds
of artistic freedom, while critics complain about the offense to deeply held
beliefs. A striking example is Piss Christ, a 1987
photograph by Andres Serrano depicting a crucifix immersed in what appears to
be the artist’s urine, which still provokes intense criticism today. Although
well received by art critics, the work has provoked death threats and physical
vandalism, while the Catholic Church in Australia attempted to prevent it from
being publicly exhibited in a national gallery in 1997. Artworks depicting
sacred Islamic images in a profane way seem to provoke even more extreme
reactions. For example, Roundabout Dog, a
drawing by Lars Vilks depicting Muhammad with the body of a dog, was refused
for entry in a public exhibition to which Vilks had been invited to contribute
for fear of violent reprisals. These fears were well founded as following
publication of the drawing in a newspaper editorial on freedom of expression
and the right to ridicule religious symbols, death threats were made against
the artist and the editor of the newspaper. An Islamic extremist group has even
offered a bounty of $150,000 for the murder of Vilks. Lars Vilks has since continued
to defend the importance of free
expression, stating: “I'm actually not interested in offending the prophet.
The point is actually to show that you can. There is nothing so holy you can't
offend it.”
Worth dying for? Channel Four broadcast this partially censored image
The question of whether freedom of expression, including
artistic expression, should be curbed in order to avoid offending religious
believers provokes a wide variety of responses, and a recent incident in
Britain is illustrative in this regard. A British political candidate named Maajid
Nawaz became the focus of controversy
in January this year after tweeting a cartoon depicting Jesus and Muhammad
(from the web based series “Jesus and Mo”)
– ironically to demonstrate that as a moderate
tolerant Muslim he did not consider such images to be particularly blasphemous or offensive,
and that the media should not bow to pressure to censor them. Predictably, he
has received death threats,
presumably from those with less moderate views on the subject. Additionally, a
petition calling for his dismissal as a parliamentary candidate was started,
although the leader of his party has supported Mr Nawaz’s right to express his
views. What I found most interesting though was the way the media has chosen to
report the incident. The BBC and the national press have apparently refused to
show the image at the heart of this controversy at all, even though reporting
news is supposed to be their job.[1]
Britain’s Channel 4 decided to compromise by showing a partially censored image
in which the face of Jesus remains visible but the face of Muhammad is
completely obscured by a black oval. The response of one journalist, Nick
Cohen, to this is that it seems that if Christians are offended by the
cartoon they are expected to take it on the chin, but the network will not dare
take the risk of offending Muslim extremists.
The decision by Channel 4 to engage in this partial
censorship is paralleled by the results of a recently published paper (Dunkel & Hillard, 2013) that examined
people’s attitudes to artworks that desecrate sacred images in Christianity and
Islam respectively. One of the studies reported in the paper asked American
participants to complete a questionnaire on their “Views on controversial art”.
The questionnaire had two versions, so that with a simple change of wording
participants could be asked about their views on art that offends either
Christians or Muslims respectively. Sample items include, “Art that upsets Christians/Muslims should not be made
because it is insensitive to their religion,” and for the opposite view,
“People have a right to produce art that insults Christians/Muslims.” Participants were also asked their religious
affiliation and their degree of acceptance of Christian beliefs. In this
particular sample, participants happened to be either Christians or
non-religious; no other religions were represented. One of the findings was
that people with Christian beliefs were equally as willing to censor art that
offended Muslims as well as art that offended Christians. Perhaps this
indicates that Christians tend to feel that sacred images in general should be
respected even if they derive from non-Christians religions. However, what I
found more intriguing was the result for non-religious participants. These
indicated that compared to Christians they were much less willing to censor art
offensive to Christians, but they were equally as willing as Christians to
censor art that offended Muslims. This seems like a very inconsistent stance to
take and the reasons for it are not clear, although a number of explanations
come to mind.
Piss Christ by Andres Serrano. Is it alright for people who are offended by images like this to try to prevent it from being exhibited?
The authors discussed the possibility that non-Christians,
who are a minority group in the USA, might have different attitudes to
Christianity, the mainstream religion, compared to Islam, a minority religion.
Non-religious people might be antagonistic to mainstream religion perhaps
because they feel that their rights as a minority group need to be protected,
and hence they wish to protect their right to criticise Christianity. On the
other hand, the non-religious might feel more sympathy to society’s other
religious minorities, even if they do not share their beliefs. Some tentative
evidence in support of this view is indicated by the fact that some members of
the political left-wing, which traditionally has a secular orientation, have allied with
Islamist groups, in spite of the latter’s right-wing values, in the name of
multiculturalism. (Something which is strongly criticised by other members of
the left though, such as Maryam Namazie, as a step
backwards.) If it is true that non-religious people tend to see Muslims as a
potential political ally against mainstream Christians, then supporting
censorship of anti-Muslim art for this reason might be a futile endeavour. The
results of the study by Dunkel and Hillard indicate that Christians support
such censorship to the same degree, so Muslims would have little to gain from
an alliance with the non-religious in that respect.
Another possibility is that non-religious people are
particularly responsive to intellectual fashions current in modern Western
culture. There is a trend for non-religious people to be somewhat more intelligent than religious
people, and it has been argued that highly intelligent people are better at
detecting and espousing the values that are normative at a particular time (Woodley, 2010). Multiculturalism
has become politically fashionable in Western countries in recent years and
perhaps willingness to censor anti-Islamic art reflects a liberal concern to
uphold respect for “cultural diversity.” Personally, I think this would also be
an unfortunate stance for intelligent people to take as radical Islamists do
not reciprocate the same respect and tolerance and if allowed to have their way
would impose their own values on others. The study by Dunkel and Hillard did
not assess participants’ political views or their attitudes towards
multiculturalism, so further research measuring these would help determine if
inconsistent attitudes towards censorship are related to such social and
political concerns.
On the other hand, inconsistent attitudes to censorship
appear to exist in countries that are much more secular than the USA, such as
those in Western Europe and Australia. Even though Western European countries
are generally nominally Christian, surveys have found that belief in
Christianity has considerably declined in recent decades. As a result,
non-religious people do not have the same kind of minority status they have in
the USA. In spite of increased secularization, there has been a trend in recent
years to stifle freedom of speech in order to prevent offense to religious people.
There have been a number of well-publicised cases in Europe of people actually
being prosecuted for criticising Islam in particular (see this site for examples). An example of a
double standard protecting Islam occurred in Australia in 2013 when a student newspaper
ran a series of satirical infographics criticising Catholicism, Scientology,
Mormonism, Judaism, and Islam respectively. Even though the first four articles
were published without any controversy, when the article satirising Islam was
published the newspaper staff were forced to remove it by university
administrators, who cited concerns that the piece might pose a threat to the
reputation and security of the university. What these cases seem to indicate is
that even in largely secular countries there appears to be an attitude that
offending Muslims is much less acceptable than offending Christians.
Many people, including myself, have become concerned that an
attitude of fear has become prevalent in Western countries in response to multiple
violent incidents involving Muslim extremists seeking to punish anyone who
dares to publish any material they deem disrespectful of Islam. An increasingly
common response by secular authorities to this fear has been to placate
extremists and to chastise anyone who feels bold enough to provoke them.
Perhaps this has seeped into the thinking of even non-religious people who
would not otherwise be inclined to grant respect to “sacred” figures in whom
they do not actually believe. Hence, non-religious people might understandably
feel that at the present time satirising Christianity is a safer way to express
their lack of respect for religion compared to satirising Islam, which is
accompanied by a much higher risk. If correct, this is a very unfortunate situation,
as it sends violent religious bullies the message that standover tactics will
be effective in silencing their critics. It is also an erosion of a fundamental
right at the heart of Western civilisation in the name of placating people who
have no respect for Western values of tolerance and freedom. Dunkel and
Hillard’s study did not examine whether fear actually does play a role in the
thinking of those who would support censorship, so further research would help
determine if this is correct.
Another limitation of Dunkel and Hillard’s study is that it
used a rather small sample of non-religious people from a single country.
Larger samples drawn from other more secular countries such as those in Western
Europe would help determine how broadly their results can be generalised.
Additionally, “non-religious” people are not homogenous, so it would be helpful
to have more fine grained information about what views these people have about
religion and about art. That is, non-religious people have a wide array of
attitudes towards religions, including indifference, hostility, even
sympathy, and it seems likely that these different attitudes would be
associated with differing views on censorship of “blasphemous” art. Many
non-religious people, including famous atheists such as Richard
Dawkins and Sam Harris, are quite outspoken about the
importance of free expression and the right to criticise Islam in
particular. Further research would be needed to identify what characteristics
distinguish those who consistently reject all censorship from those who support
a double standard.
Footnote
[1] Further examples of the BBC’s reluctance to say or do anything that might upset Muslims in any way, even if this means censoring the news, are discussed here.
[1] Further examples of the BBC’s reluctance to say or do anything that might upset Muslims in any way, even if this means censoring the news, are discussed here.
© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided.
This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.
This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.
Further reading
Is
Insulting Religion "Extremism"? My views on how people choose to respond to provocative religious insults.
Pew Research report on Blasphemy, Apostasy, and Defamation of religion laws around the world.
Criticism of blasphemy laws and support for freedom of speech:
On the Freedom to Offend an
Imaginary God by Sam Harris
Pair of articles by PT blogger Gad Saad:
Masturbating With a Crucifix in a
Film… No Riots?
© Scott McGreal. Please do not
reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to
the original article is provided.
This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.
This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.
References
Dunkel CS, & Hillard EE (2014). Blasphemy or art: what art should be censored and who wants to censor it? The Journal of psychology, 148 (1), 1-21 PMID: 24617268
Woodley, M. A. (2010). Are high-IQ individuals deficient in
common sense? A critical examination of the ‘clever sillies’ hypothesis. Intelligence, 38(5), 471-480. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2010.06.002
