|
S |
uppose I told you that Mr. Jay Bennish reminded me of a serial rapist. That, of course, would be just plain wrong. I suspect that Mr. Bennish is certainly not a rapist, serial or otherwise. But, then again, I did not say that he is one. What I said, in fact, is “Suppose . . . that Mr. Jay Bennish reminded me of a serial rapist,” which is quite different from actually saying that he is one. Still, asserting such a thing would be a very, very nasty remark.
|
|
As is well-know, Mr. Bennish who, with pay, has been momentarily relieved from his teaching is suing on the grounds that his First Amendment rights have been violated. Now, being the big support of free speech that I am, one might naturally ask: How on earth can have any objections to Mr. Bennish claiming before his students that George Bush is comparable to Adolph Hitler. The answer is quite simple: Context. Students are a captive audience. And that fact makes a difference.
I do not suppose that free speech gives one the right to say anything anywhere. Not at all. If you invite me to your synagogue, this would not be the moment to claim that Hitler was right in wanting to exterminate Jews; and it would be foolish of me to think that my right to free speech entitled me to defend such a view in a synagogue. By contrast, I do hold that a person is entitled to get up on a soapbox in a part and make such declarations about Jews or blacks or any other group of individuals. But then not a soul has to listen to him; and I would very much hope that no one would.
For the right to free speech is not also a write to be listened to, just as freedom of the press is by no means a right to having one’s published materials read by another.
|
|
The substantive point is that Bennish can be quite effectively criticized on purely procedural grounds. If students were free to come and go without reprisal, then on my view Bennish could make also sorts of statements. But “without reprisal” is key here. For all sorts of people say that they are open to hearing diverse views, but do not in fact mean it. And students should not be in the position of having to worry about their grade owing to whether or not they agree with a professor’s point of view.
It seems to me that liberals and conservatives are equally at fault here, though there is a very straightforward sense in which liberals are more at fault precisely they make more of fuss about being open-minded. Indeed, liberals tend to characterize conservatives as narrow-minded bigots. And the contrast in this regard is supposed to be that liberals are open-minded. What strikes me as a more apt of the difference between the two groups is not that conservatives are close-minded and liberals are open-minded, but that the two are open-minded and closed-minded about different views.
My favorite example comes from two years ago when, in a meeting evaluation applications for a rather prestigious scholarship, a professor became livid that a potential student claimed on his application form that his faith in God made it possible for him press on despite discouraging moments in his life.
But I digress. I attach enormous importance to propriety. What I might say on a website and the way in which I might say it, can very well be absolutely out of place if I am talking to that person face-to-face. And it is utterly naïve to hide behind free speech as an excuse or justification for ignoring this reality. Worse, to think otherwise reveals a fulsome and sanctimoniousness attitude, which often masquerades behind that claim that one is just telling the truth as one sees it.
Now, let me assume for the sake of argument that it was an utter mistake on the part of George Bush to go into Iraq. This could be for any number of reasons. But one of them would not be that Saddam Hussein was not, himself, a despicable person on all sorts of fronts who was absolutely brutal in his treatment of others.
The point is that being wrong about going into Iraq would not in the least make George Bush a Hitler. For one can be wrong about choosing to go into Iraq without thinking for even a moment that one group of people are inferior to others and, therefore, this group needs to be wiped off the face of the earth.
|
|
A strategic error is one thing. The belief that a group of people is morally inferior and, therefore, needs to be exterminated is quite another entirely. I could easily accept the former assessment of Bush on the part of Bennish. But it takes a very long and unobvious argument to get from that assessment to the conclusion that Bush’s moral character is rather like Hitler’s. And if are going that route, then we might as well include Saddam Hussein, too. And few things are more intriguing to me than that people who are so committed to pointing out the truth can readily see that Bush is Hitler the Second, while passing right over the brutality of Saddam Hussein, who actually did kill thousands upon thousands of his very own citizens.
True, if Bush is Hittler the Second, then it is morally irrelevant that Hussein is Hitler the Third, since this would not make Bush any less evil. But there is a credibility issue here. If Jack gets to be a serial rapist for committing certain acts, and it is widely known that Jesse committed roughly the very same acts, then the rush to call Jack a serial killer but not Jesse cries out for an explanation. Indeed, this way of behaving would suggest that one’s rush to call Jack a serial killer, whilst remaining ever so silent about Jesse, would suggest that one’s motives to label Jack serial killer are rather unsavory. Just because a person is guilty of wrongdoing, it does not at all follow that one’s motives for drawing attention to this are salutary. And to flip out over Jack being a serial killer while roundly ignoring the fact that Jesse is, too, invites just such an interpretation of one’s motives.
This is how I can know that Mr. Bennish is hardly the man of integrity that he takes himself to be.
Now, I think it is no accident that people can readily see that Bush is Hitler the Second, but miss the possibility that Hussein is Hitler the Third. For two mention in the same breath, and with utter sincerity, that both of them are rather like Hitler is to make an utterance so incongruous that one would have to be all but brain dead not to suffer from some sort of psychological trauma on account of the utterance.
It may very well have been a strategic mistake to go after Saddam Hussein. However, blithely passing over the despicable wrongs of Saddam in order to criticize George Bush is a display of inexcusable meanness. Mr. Bennish: Would you like a mirror?
