IT IS easy to say, free speech. It can be difficult to accept. Yet, accept it we must. The alternative is Stalinist Russia or, in more contemporary terms, Saudi Arabia, with its beheadings, hand-choppings and lashings for the exercise of freedom of speech in the field of religion.
Feel free to substitute for Saudi Arabia other Islamist regimes in which it is punishable by death to convert from Islam to another religion.
Even under the specter of Stalinist Russia and radical Islam, free speech can be difficult to accept. It means defending the purveyors of obscenity, of insults, of bad taste, of the lowest in human expression.
The Intermountain Jewish News goes to great lengths not to print visual or written matter that crosses the line into bad taste and worse. Yet, we live under the First Amendment, and if we cannot defend it we die, and free society dies along with it.
Tolerance is inherently a double-edged sword. The test of tolerance is whether one is tolerant of the intolerant. It is easy to be tolerant of people like you; it is difficult to be tolerant of people who reject you or your ideas. Yet, that is what free speech demands.
If I may digress, religious pluralism, to be genuine, requires the tolerance of those who reject religious pluralism. Religious pluralism isnt only you do your religious thing and Ill do mine, its you do your thing even if it rejects the religious thing I do.
Free speech is a paradox. Though I have never once read the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, 12 of whose staff were murdered last January by Muslim terrorists in France, I surmise, from what I read, that I would be greatly offended by what this magazine often prints.
Yet, I must defend its right to publish. I must regard its murdered staff members as heroes for free speech. If I dont, then all publications, even those of the highest merit, will quickly cease to exist. Witness the attempted mass murder in Garland, Texas this week at an exhibit of caricatures of Mohammed. The attempted murder was emblematic of the Stalins and Hitlers and their ilk, whose first order of business upon taking power was, and is, to stifle the press. When it is said that the press is mightier than the sword, it is not a cliche.
It would not be my choice to publish cartoons that caricature Mohammed. I was deeply offended by the art some years ago that had Jesus depicted in a latrine. I subscribe to neither Mohammed nor Jesus, yet why this gratuitous insult? I need not believe in non-Jewish religious figures to regard their degradation as beyond the pale.
Beyond the pale of what? Of decency. Of taste. Of common sense. Of religious discourse. Of literary merit. But not beyond the pale of free expression. Not beyond the pale of the law.
No society has yet been devised that publishes only matters of the highest merit. The choices, far from wholly palatable, are either the denial of liberty or virtually unrestricted free speech (the famous fire in a crowded theater exception).
FREE SPEECH can have negative consequences. It can damage reputations, slander whole groups of people and inculcate sympathy for bad public policies.
The answer to bad speech, as Justice Brandeis put it, is more speech. If an idea is bad, counter it. Do not suppress the original expression; add another and a better one.
Those who slander public figures are generally exempt from legal action. Jewish law is different, in two senses.
First, under the civil law, to slander someone is to tell untruths about them. That is not protected under free speech, unless one is writing about a public figure. Under Jewish law, however, to slander someone is, yes, to tell untruths about someone, but also to tell unpleasant but true information about someone. But its true! is not a defense under the Jewish laws of leshon ha-ra, or forbidden speech.
Add this to the levels of uncomfortable defense. It is not only the right to publish unseemly material that, under the value of free speech, one has no choice but to defend. The right to publish ugly truths must also be defended, though most of the Jewish journalists I know try to impose on themselves the rather complicated rules in Jewish law against leshon ha-ra.
These rules include exceptions. If a distinct good will come from the publication of uncomplimentary information, one may do so. The reportage of unseemly information often sets in motion societal reforms. One thinks of the reportage of sexual abuse, for example. Another exception to the restrictions of leshon ha-ra, though less cut-and-dried, is when the information is already known by three people.
The second difference between Jewish and civil law on slander is, under Jewish law, there is no distinction between public and private figures. To slander either via lies or unpleasant truths is not allowed.
FREE SPEECH is a paradox, both a guarantee against oppression, of which the Jewish people has known far more than its share, and a necessary evil, enabling the degradation of standards in society.
As I say, no free society has yet been devised that publishes only material of merit. To adapt Churchill, free speech represents the peak of liberty, after all of the alternatives have been exhausted.
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg may be reached at hillel@ijn.com.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
