• About
  • Photography

The Bully Pulpit

~ (n): An office or position that provides its occupant with an outstanding opportunity to speak out on any issue.

The Bully Pulpit

Tag Archives: Salman Rushdie

Free Speech Is the Whole Ball Game

11 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by jrbenjamin in Current Events, Freedom

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cartoon Crisis, Copenhagen, Danish Free Press Society, Death Sentence, Douglas Murray, Fatwa, Free Speech, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Speech, Henryk Broder, Iran, liberty, Mark Steyn, Muhammad, New York Times, One Thousand Days in a Balloon, religion, Salman Rushdie, Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002

Salman Rushdie

“What is my single life worth? Despair whispers in my ear: ‘Not a lot.’ But I refuse to give in to despair because I know that many people do care, and are appalled by the upside-down logic of the post-fatwa world, in which a novelist can be accused of having savaged or ‘mugged’ a whole community, becoming its tormentor (instead of its victim) and the scapegoat for its discontents. (What minority is smaller and weaker than a minority of one?)

I refuse to give in to despair even though, for a thousand days and more, I’ve been put through a degree course in worthlessness, my own personal and specific worthlessness. My first teachers were the mobs marching down distant boulevards, baying for my blood, and finding, soon enough, their echoes on English streets…

‘Our lives teach us who we are.’ I have learned the hard way that when you permit anyone else’s description of reality to supplant your own — and such descriptions have been raining down on me, from security advisers, governments, journalists, Archbishops, friends, enemies, mullahs — then you might as well be dead. Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I’ve always carried about is rather more vulnerable. Yet I must cling with all my might to my own soul; must hold on to its mischievous, iconoclastic, out-of-step clown-instincts, no matter how great the storm. And if that plunges me into contradiction and paradox, so be it; I’ve lived in that messy ocean all my life. I’ve fished in it for my art. This turbulent sea was the sea outside my bedroom window in Bombay. It is the sea by which I was born, and which I carry within me wherever I go.

‘Free speech is a non-starter,’ says one of my Islamic extremist opponents. No, sir, it is not. Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.”

__________

Excerpts from a speech by Salman Rushdie which was given at Columbia University on December 11th, 1991, and later adapted into his essay “One Thousand Days in a Balloon”. You’ll find the essay in his perfectly titled collection of nonfiction Step Across This Line.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been in touch with the folks at the Danish Free Press Society, who recently hosted the free speech conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the Jyllands-Posten “Cartoon Controversy”. The process is moving slowly — the result of busy schedules, different time zones, and a language barrier — but I’m working to grow their support network into these United States. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I point you to three speeches from the event. The first two are from Douglas Murray and Mark Steyn, two of the feistier bulldogs on this issue. Then there’s Henryk Broder, an imposing Teuton whose vision of the future of continental Europe (summarized in his 20-minute talk) is compelling and scary.

It’s more than symbolic that the three speakers, who addressed an audience of about one hundred, had to convene in the Danish parliament: it’s the only building in Denmark with enough fortification to guarantee some level of security for attendees. (If you think that’s hyperbole, listen to this bone-chilling recording.) We can’t fault the Danes on this one, however, since they can boast that six of their newspapers ran the highly relevant and globally newsworthy cartoons, while only two tiny papers in all of North America had the guts to show the public what all the fuss was about. As a result, we not only conceded to the murderers’ blackmail, but also failed to show the public just how trivial these cartoons were which precipitated the murder of over 200 people around the globe.

This isn’t a joke. The cartoons may’ve been funny, if also crude and rude, but the fact the civilized world now lives under a shoddy, mutant, violently imposed blasphemy law is alarming.

Among the near-endless blessings of the right to free speech, there is perhaps none greater than its individuating power. It’s a freedom that accentuates the identity and dignity of the individual — to challenge popular consensus, think openly, argue candidly; to demarcate her mind against mob opinion and coercion; and to come to accept or reject certain ideas by herself, for herself, and without fear. Rushdie’s opening sentences above are a sure nod to this fact as well as the ways it is chipped away as freedoms disappear.

Read on:

  • Jyllands-Posten editor Flemming Rose coolly explains why liberty is so critical
  • Neil Gaiman discusses how defending free speech will take you out of your comfort zone
  • On life with a death sentence: reflections on 25 years of the Rushdie fatwa

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Breathing

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in Literature

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Breath, Fiction, Laughter, literature, Novels, Salman Rushdie, Song, The Moor's Last Sigh, Writing

Salman Rushdie

“At times I become my breathing. Such force of self as I retain focuses upon the faulty operations of my chest: the coughing, the fishy gulps. I am what breathes. I am what began long ago with an exhaled cry, what will conclude when a glass held to my lips remains clear. It is not thinking that makes us so, but air. Suspiro ergo sum. I sigh, therefore I am…

In the beginning and unto the end was and is the lung: divine afflatus, the baby’s first yowl, shaped air of speech, staccato gusts of laughter, exalted airs of song, happy lover’s groan, unhappy lover’s lament, miser’s whine, crone’s croak, illness’s stench, dying whisper, and beyond and beyond the airless, silent void. A sigh just isn’t a sigh. We inhale the world and breathe out meaning. While we can. While we can.”

__________

A virtuoso passage pulled from chapter 4 of Salman Rushdie’s aptly-titled The Moor’s Last Sigh.

More Salman:

  • An even more beautiful passage from Rushdie, this one about the power of song, pulled from his novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet
  • Rushdie clearly illustrates a simple facet of the open society: in it, no one can claim the right to be immune from being offended
  • I reflect on freedom, fiction, Cat Stevens, and the 25th anniversary of the Rushdie fatwa

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

It’s Alright to Be Offended

16 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in Political Philosophy

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Abraham Lincoln, Enlightenment, First Amendment, Fred Phelps, free expression, Free Speech, Freedom, John Stuart Mill, liberty, politics, Rosa Luxemburg, Salman Rushdie, Steven Hawking, Writing

Salman Rushdie

“The idea that any kind of free society can be constructed in which people will never be offended or insulted is absurd. So too is the notion that people should have the right to call on the law to defend them against being offended or insulted. A fundamental decision needs to be made: do we want to live in a free society or not? Democracy is not a tea party where people sit around making polite conversation. In democracies people get extremely upset with each other. They argue vehemently against each other’s positions. (But they don’t shoot.)

At Cambridge University I was taught a laudable method of argument: you never personalize, but you have absolutely no respect for people’s opinions. You are never rude to the person, but you can be savagely rude about what the person thinks. That seems to me a crucial distinction: people must be protected from discrimination by virtue of their race, but you cannot ring-fence their ideas. The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.”

__________

From Salman Rushdie’s piece “Do We Have to Fight the Battle for the Enlightenment All Over Again?”. You can find it and other great writing in his Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002.

This is an almost complete summation of the trade we make to live in a free society. Oftentimes people will claim to resolutely stand behind the First Amendment, only to flinch when faced with unwelcome or merely objectionable ideas and words. Too frequently we forget that the freedom of speech is worthless unless it means the freedom for those with whom we disagree.

Any totalitarian can uphold the free expression of the speaker whose beliefs he approves. It’s when the 9/11-truther picks up his pen or the Holocaust-denier opens his mouth that we are confronted with the challenge of the Bill of Rights: to allow them to say what they believe without resorting to brutality or the false security offered by a government which can silence whatever is not the popular consensus. Moreover, we should want to hear ideas contrary to our own — as John Stuart Mill so astutely pointed out — because they are the only sieve through which we can affirm or refute our own beliefs. Who would want to live in a society without argument?

The foundational claim here can be encapsulated in a phrase uttered by Rosa Luxemburg: “Freedom is always, and exclusively, freedom for the one who thinks differently.”

Nevertheless — and this is the essential corollary — we must insist on maintaining a society and societal discourse which places a premium on values like decorum, eloquence, and mutual respect. We don’t flout the Fred Phelpses of the world by shouting over them or demanding the government muzzle their harsh cries; we do it through applying reason and moral integrity to their claims, then responding appropriately.

This is why I take issue with Rushdie’s unqualified treatment of the term “respect,” and believe it would be clarified and improved by the adjective “automatic.” It’s a crucial distinction: I should not reflexively approve or trust anyone’s opinions over my own, but I should respect them if the evidence demands. This applies most clearly in realms where credentials matter. For example, it makes sense for me to respect a person’s opinion about a subject (i.e. theoretical physics) if that person is an expert in the field (i.e. Steven Hawking), and I am not. I do not have automatic respect, however, because I first evaluate the proof for their claims, and in the case of someone like Hawking, I can weigh the evidence he provides and arguments he adduces in order to make my judgement.

In this sense, I lead with my reason, which becomes a workable heuristic for deciding how I orient myself to my interlocutor and his speech. Of course, even in the case of someone like Hawking, I still bring a healthy dose of skepticism to the table, but it’s a waste of time to approach the claims of charlatans and scholars with equal levels of cynicism.

Does this work when debating non-scientific or ethical questions? The obvious answer is not as well. But I still can and should respect opinions once I have evaluated them. Such an approach avoids the insouciance of a voice that insists, “I DON’T RESPECT YOUR OPINION.” That sounds like squabbling, not debating, to my ear.

I’ve just added the following, among others, to the quotes page:

“We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.” — Abraham Lincoln

Read more from Salman: the first excerpt concerns anti-Americanism, and comes from an essay written immediately following September 11th, 2001. The second is one of my favorite passages from modern fiction, taken from his novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet.

Salman and Padma

Kissing in Public Places, Bacon Sandwiches

Salman Rushdie

Why Do We Care About Singers?

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Kissing in Public Places, Bacon Sandwiches

08 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by jrbenjamin in Freedom, Politics, Religion

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Freedom, fundamentalism, Islam, Joseph Anton, Salman Rushdie, Terrorism

Salman and Padma

“Let’s be clear about why this bien-pensant anti-American onslaught is such appalling rubbish. Terrorism is the murder of the innocent; this time, it was mass murder. To excuse such an atrocity by blaming US government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individuals are responsible for their actions.

The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women’s rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex.

The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war, but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them.

How to defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorised. Don’t let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.”

Salman Rushdie

__________

From Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie is speaking about his new book Joseph Anton: A Memoirtonight at George Washington University. If you live in Washington, DC, get a ticket.

The photo is of Rushdie and his former wife, Indian-American model Padma Lakshmi. Kissing in public places, indeed.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Why Do We Care About Singers?

08 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by jrbenjamin in Literature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Music, Salman Rushdie, Song, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Salman Rushdie“Why do we care about singers? Wherein lies the power of songs? Maybe it derives from the sheer strangeness of there being singing in the world. The note, the scale, the chord; melodies, harmonies, arrangements; symphonies, ragas, Chinese operas, jazz, the blues: that such things should exist, that we should have discovered the magical intervals and distances that yield the poor cluster of notes, all within the span of a human hand, from which we can build our cathedrals of sound, is as alchemical a mystery as mathematics, or wine, or love. Maybe the birds taught us. Maybe not. Maybe we are just creatures in search of exaltation. We don’t have much of it. Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many painful ways deficient. Song turns them into something else. Song shows us a world that is worthy of our yearning, it shows us our selves as they might be, if we were worthy of the world.

Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song. These are the occasions when the bolts of the universe fly open and we are given a glimpse of what is hidden; an eff of the ineffable. Glory bursts upon us in such hours: the dark glory of earthquakes, the slippery wonder of new life, the radiance of Vina’s singing.”

__________

From the novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Today’s Top Pages

  • Einstein's Daily Routine
    Einstein's Daily Routine
  • "Coming" by Philip Larkin
    "Coming" by Philip Larkin
  • Martin Luther King: What Does the Story of the Good Samaritan Teach Us?
    Martin Luther King: What Does the Story of the Good Samaritan Teach Us?
  • "Immortality Ode" by William Wordsworth
    "Immortality Ode" by William Wordsworth
  • "Provide, Provide" by Robert Frost
    "Provide, Provide" by Robert Frost

Enter your email address to follow The Bully Pulpit - you'll receive notifications of new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Recent Posts

  • The Other Side of Feynman
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald on Succeeding Early in Life
  • The Man Who Most Believed in Himself
  • What ’60s Colleges Did Right
  • Dostoyevsky’s Example of a Good Kid

Archives

  • April 2018 (2)
  • March 2018 (2)
  • February 2018 (3)
  • January 2018 (3)
  • December 2017 (1)
  • November 2017 (3)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (2)
  • August 2017 (1)
  • July 2017 (2)
  • June 2017 (2)
  • May 2017 (2)
  • April 2017 (2)
  • March 2017 (1)
  • February 2017 (1)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • December 2016 (2)
  • November 2016 (1)
  • October 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (4)
  • July 2016 (1)
  • June 2016 (2)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (2)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • January 2016 (4)
  • December 2015 (4)
  • November 2015 (8)
  • October 2015 (7)
  • September 2015 (11)
  • August 2015 (10)
  • July 2015 (7)
  • June 2015 (12)
  • May 2015 (7)
  • April 2015 (17)
  • March 2015 (23)
  • February 2015 (17)
  • January 2015 (22)
  • December 2014 (5)
  • November 2014 (17)
  • October 2014 (13)
  • September 2014 (9)
  • August 2014 (2)
  • July 2014 (1)
  • June 2014 (20)
  • May 2014 (17)
  • April 2014 (24)
  • March 2014 (19)
  • February 2014 (12)
  • January 2014 (21)
  • December 2013 (13)
  • November 2013 (15)
  • October 2013 (9)
  • September 2013 (10)
  • August 2013 (17)
  • July 2013 (28)
  • June 2013 (28)
  • May 2013 (23)
  • April 2013 (22)
  • March 2013 (12)
  • February 2013 (21)
  • January 2013 (21)
  • December 2012 (9)
  • November 2012 (18)
  • October 2012 (22)
  • September 2012 (28)

Categories

  • Biography (51)
  • Current Events (47)
  • Debate (7)
  • Essay (10)
  • Film (10)
  • Freedom (40)
  • History (122)
  • Humor (15)
  • Interview (71)
  • Journalism (16)
  • Literature (82)
  • Music (1)
  • Original (1)
  • Personal (3)
  • Philosophy (87)
  • Photography (4)
  • Poetry (114)
  • Political Philosophy (41)
  • Politics (108)
  • Psychology (35)
  • Religion (74)
  • Science (27)
  • Speeches (52)
  • Sports (12)
  • War (57)
  • Writing (11)

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
%d bloggers like this: