by Tom Pantera
Columnist
Between what is happening in the Arab world and the usual rhetorical garbage of our quadrennial presidential election, this is a difficult time for those of us who make our living through free speech.
When we look at the rioting that’s going on around the world over a Youtube video, our first impulse is bafflement. How, we wonder, can a simple – and very, very bad, in every sense of the word – video actually result in violence and death? Don’t these people get it? Sticks and stones and all that.
And when we watch our politicians use speech to accomplish the opposite of honest communication, from Harry Reid on Mitt Romney’s taxes to Paul Ryan on his marathon time, we wonder: How can these people just brazenly lie like that? Don’t these people get it? Free speech is all well and good, but you’re supposed to use it to tell the truth.
It’s a very complicated thing. In both cases, we are looking at it as outsiders. We are outside Middle Eastern and Muslim culture. And most of us are outside national political culture. That’s the problem. This is not just a matter of free speech; this is a matter of basic assumptions about almost everything, including the nature of one’s relationship with the almighty and the government (in the Arab/Muslim case) and the ultimate purpose of certain kinds of speech (in the election case).
The Arab/Muslim case actually is a bit easier to understand, because we in the West live in a different culture in nearly every aspect. To cite a rather crass example (and not to be shocking, because it’s true) in the Arab Muslim world, there actually are rules about how one performs the most intimate bathroom functions. There actually is religious advice on how to do that; it’s not something we in the west generally consult Pastor Martin or Father O’Malley about.
And there actually are two separate issues there, the political and the religious. And from a practical matter, the political actually is more troublesome.
It’s important to remember that the people rioting over the bad video have historically lived under potentates and dictators. Such people always kept a tight control over public speech. The basic assumption in those cultures is that any speech is at least approved by the government, if not originating with it. The average Arab guy has no concept of what we in the West take for granted, that you can say anything you damned well please and the government has nothing to do with it. It might seem highly irrational to us that Egyptians can think the government is behind a video that would make a high school drama student blush. But look at it through their eyes; when your entire history involves government approval of anything you say, you’re not going to suddenly buy into the Enlightenment.
The religious problem is somewhat more intractable. Muslims have a different, more personal view of one’s relationship not just with God, but with scripture. We can hope that Arab political understanding of free speech grows, but it’s a much harder job to bridge gaps in assumptions that underlie religious teachings.
And it’s really hard to do that if you don’t have firsthand access to people who believe differently. One of my best friends among my classmates is Aida, a relatively Westernized Egyptian woman (her mother actually is American). I have often asked for explanations from her, and they’re always interesting and really, if you’re open-minded, understandable. Aida is a very intelligent, reasonable woman, and also very articulate. When she explains Islam to me, she makes me understand things I wouldn’t have otherwise. I may still find the reasoning questionable, but that has to do more with my view of organized religion, period, than my view of Islam in particular.
The free speech problems with the American political system are more vexing, if not insoluble. The lies our politicians tell are told for the most cynical of reasons. These people know better. But they also know, as Josef Goebbels knew, that if you repeat a lie long enough and loud enough it becomes the truth. Politicians are like professional athletes; their job, ultimately, is to win. A politician who isn’t in office is useless. The big difference is that athletes are constrained by the rules of the game, while there really are no constraints on politicians. Joe McCarthy, arguably the most odious politician in American history, got a long way on lies before he fell and nothing much really happened to him until he took on the U.S. Army. Cynical as it may be, there really isn’t anything we can do but live with politicians’ lies and call them out on them when and how we can.
Speaking as someone who’s made a living through free speech — my chosen profession is the only one mentioned in the U.S. Constitution – problems like these have a special meaning. I have never consciously, intentionally told a lie in anything I’ve written for public consumption. I’ve been pedantic, wrong, dull and sometimes stupid in things I’ve written, but I’ve never been dishonest. What’s scary is that I can understand people who are. There are people out there for whom the truth simply doesn’t matter, because they have what they feel are larger goals and if those goals can be served by a lie, then it’s all good.
Most of us know you can’t live your life that way without at some point having a massive bite taken out of your backside. It would be nice to think that truth always wins out and that liars never prosper. Unfortunately, that isn’t the way the world works. The best we can do is to do what we can to make the world more like that.
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tpantera@yahoo.com