Re: Lolita
Paul Kennedy (kennedyp@toronto.cbc.ca)
Mon, 15 Mar 1999 12:07:48 -0500 (EST)
Jim:
We've never formally met, but we're about to lock horns. I hope you know in
advance that it's preceded by a "Hail fellow, well met!" preamble:
You wrote:
>Ah, what I'm complaining about here is the very perception that it's
>leftist to support freedom of expression and rightist to oppose freedom
>of expression. My point was that both sides restrict freedom of
>expression equally. Just for different reasons. The thing is, the only
>people who ever hit the News are the Falwells and the Christian Coalition
I guess it's good to know, off the top, that you're restricting your reading
to overwhelmingly left-of-centre publications. (Not easy to do, I know, in
a republic that was founded NOT on the enlightenment ideals of Voltaire and
Montesquieu, but on the Puritanism of those friendly folks who burned the
"witches" in Salem.... In God, you guys apparently trust--as you so
frequently feel compelled to remind the rest of us, on the back of the money
that doesn't talk. It swears....) I'd be truly interested in some
statistical analysis quantifying exactly WHO is trying to censure WHOM in
your republic of irrationality. Falwell and the Christian Coalition
certainly do make headlines in the vaguely left-of-centre press..... But if
you ever put the shit that they churn out onto a scale with the New York
Review of Books, etc., I'm pretty sure I could predict which side would
weigh most.....
>
>I mean, REALLY, it was a bunch of priggish puritans (or their
>descendants) that came up with the idea of freedom of speech as a
>fundamental right, wasn't it?
Where to begin with the necessary intellectual/historical reading list?
On the literary front, try THE CRUCIBLE, by Arthur Miller. Those guys were
"priggish puritans", but I don't think they were at all interested in
"freedom of speech"..... (The right to bear arms is an absolutely different
matter.... I must remember to give thanks, every morning, that by an
accident of birth my passport has been stamped NORTH of the 49th parallel.)
Other than that, read Lewis Lapham...... If you want to cross the
impenetrable middle-of-the-road barrier, read William Buckley..... From my
(utterly compromised) perspective, Nat Hentoff is particularly good on such
issues..... but I agree that the battle lines get muddled. I'm a
journalist, and I remember interviewing Hentoff at the Village Voice many
years ago. I stepped outside, where I talked for about an hour with a group
of feminists who'd set up a table selling anti-pornography literature....
Hentoff's an old leftie who is adamently opposed to ANY form of censorship.
The feminists were new lefties who seemed keen to cut of almost any access
to expression with which they didn't agree. I sympathized with the
feminists. I empathized with Hentoff.... But to use an old common law
maxim, I think anybody should be allowed--even encouraged!--to say anything,
short of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre.....
>
>I get equally frustrated with my right wing friends when they can't see
>the strengths of the point of view of the left. Myopia is what's
>frustrating to me, not a particular stance on any issue. Let me give you
>an example of that from your reply below:
>
>> I am very
>>sick & tired of those creeps waving their bibles, the most dangerous
>>book in the world, kerosene for ignorant mongoloids everywhere, around
>telling
>>me what's right & what's wrong.
>
>You're complaining about one group exercising their freedom of expression
>on the one hand, then complaining about their complaints about someone
>else's freedom of expression on the other. I'm sorry, but I don't see
>how you're any different from the people you're complaining about. Would
>you push to restrict government funds for artists whose work expressed
>the sentiments of those "Creeps waving their bibles"?
>Don't give me a knee jerk, "No, of course not." I'll give you the
>benefit of the doubt and say you wouldn't, but in reality you wouldn't
>know because they're NOT getting any money anyhow. What does that say?
>Whose freedom of expression is really being restricted, then? At least
>the Mapplethorpes **do** get funding. (and yes, I have seen his work,
>and yes, it is artistically remarkable, and yes, it is pornographic in
>content too).
>
>(as an aside, at least two people have "been inspired" by Catcher in the
>Rye to commit crimes. To me, that's not a reflection of the meaning of
>the book, but the unstability of the people reading it. I'd apply that
>to other books too, even the Bible)
ESPECIALLY the Bible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(.....or the Koran, or whatever) Try to book yourself a ticket for the next
flight to Jerusalem........
>
>There's the text of a talk given by a Dr. Denicola (left leaning himself)
>on one of the websites I maintain that documents this phenomena pretty
>well--that is, the attempt to restrict freedom of expression by the left
>and the right in America. He points out that leftist ideologues are just
>as intolerant as fundamentalists, and from my experience on college
>campuses that's pretty well true. I don't remember the URL for that
>particular document, though, I'll have to look it up.
Please do. I'd be interested in reading what the good doctor has to say....
Basically, the reason that I think we'll be able to hug and make up at the
end of all this is that I think we're BOTH interested in tolerance.
Tolerance, however, is also confusing. I'm confessing my antidiluvian age
when I suggest you check out a concept that made a lot of sense to me, many,
many years ago. It's called "repressive tolerance" (and anything by the
justifiably almost forgotten Herbert Marcuse will tell you all you need to
know.)
>
>Marxism is the opiate of herd.
>
I'll assume that this comment was directed at me, rather than *rick*.... I
was the guy who quoted the appropriate citation from Comrade Karl. As I
mentioned when I quoted it, the world sometimes seems so f**cked up these
days that opium (religious, political, or chemical) could easily become a
personally viable option....
Keep thinking! It hurts, but it's ultimately supposed to be good for all of us.
Cheers,
Paul
PS-- I LOVE the Kafka quote (assuming FK must be Franz Kafka--despite the
obvious fact that it apparently implies a rascist slur against 33% of my
fellow citizens!
OSO-- I've yet to meet a leftie who advocated banning SEYMOUR: AN
INTRODUCTION because of the reactionary religious sentiments contained
therein, although the original reason that I read CATCHER was because a
group of right-wing yahoos in my school district were passionately keen to
ban a book they'd never even accurately read the title of--CATCH HER IN THE
RAW....