Obama could have taken next step on free speech

To most reasonable people — which would leave out much of the American right — Barack Obama struck the correct note at the United Nations this week.

The U.S. president denounced the recent attacks on U.S. embassies in the Middle East; welcomed the progress toward democracy across much of the Arab world over the last two years; declared freedom and self-determination were “universal values,” while cautioning “true” democracy meant more than rule by the majority, but also liberty and tolerance for others. All this, plus a repeat of his oft-stated demand for an end to the Assad regime in Syria, and a vow to stop Iran from getting the Bomb.

I mean no disrespect when I say George W. Bush could have given that speech.

For this, Obama was pilloried on the right as a Neville Chamberlain, accused of equating terrorist violence with Muslim hurt feelings and planning an assault on the First Amendment.

The basis for this, if any, seems to be he cited the infamous Innocence of Muslims video as the spark for much of the unrest in the region in recent weeks, which is true (he did not say it was the cause of the Libyan attack, specifically).

But he did not apologize for it, or suggest the response it engendered was in any way justified. Quite the opposite. While he called it an “insult” to Muslims, he went to some lengths to emphasize “there is no speech that justifies mindless violence.”

While he did utter the phrase, “the future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam,” it was part of a discussion of religious tolerance generally, the preface to a demand equal respect be shown to others: “those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated ... or the Holocaust is denied.”

And far from capitulating to demands such “slanders” be censored, the president offered a stirring defence of freedom of speech. “The strongest weapon against hateful speech,” he noted, with more force than originality, “is not repression, it is more speech.”

Still, I’ll concede I wish he had gone further. Yes, of course, violence is never justified, no matter how great the offence. Yes, certainly, speech must be free, even for — especially for — the speech we find most offensive.

But surely there is a more fundamental question at stake: whether it is even necessary to take offence. The president took it as a given, urging only the offended confine themselves to expressing it in non-violent, non-repressive ways. How I wish he had taken the opportunity to say, in effect, get over yourselves — not just to Islamic extremists, but to everyone.

The fury that erupts at every insult to the Prophet, after all, is only the furthest extension of a more general anger coursing through the world. Rage is all the rage nowadays.

Everyone’s offended, or looking to be, or prodding others in that direction. It is the stuff of half the news and 99 per cent of Twitter. A candidate lets a remark slip; a professional athlete mutters an insult; an advertisement plays on a stereotype; and instantly, always, universally, the response is OUTRAGE. The language of our age is High Dudgeon.

There is no other possible response, apparently: there is only one note in our emotional range. After all, we are offended. To which there is only one sensible response: Don’t be.

Free speech apologists are fond of lecturing their opponents “there is no right not to be offended.” But in fact there is, and it is always open to you to exercise it. Taking offence is a choice. The material in question may be objectively offensive, but it is up to you to decide whether to be offended.

Like any other choice, however, it is bounded by constraints. A civil society, it is often forgotten, imposes mutual obligations on its members: not to give offence needlessly and not to take offence lightly. But I would go further: not merely to ask whether taking offence is reasonable in the circumstances, but whether it is reasonable at all.

To be offended by something — not to disagree with it, or dismiss it, or object to it, but to be borne aloft on a wave of indignation — is simply a form of self-indulgence. It is not about the thing itself but our emotional response to it and, inevitably, our experience of that response.

Most of us are taught early on anger is something we can and should master: a useless emotion, confessing weakness, betraying immaturity. But somewhere along the way, anger was elevated into something more: a spur to action, a badge of authenticity, a ticket to moral authority.

But if, in fact, it is mostly fake, consciously (“angry Opposition MPs”) or otherwise, it loses whatever bona fides it might have claimed.

It is not necessary, in short. We are not helpless to prevent it. It is a choice.