Richard Rorty has died. The pragmatist philosopher was one of the most prominent American philosophers of the past several decades. A relativist (in the sense that he did not think that the systems of thought of any historical or cultural context could be conclusively shown superior to others) without being a nihilist, attacked by critics on the left and right, he was an important proponent of liberal democracy and the possibilities of critical and moral judgement. Above all, he was an always engaging thinker.
This link is to an obituary in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/obituaries/11rorty.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Monday, June 11, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Vitriol and Jazz
I recently discussed Clive James’ book Cultural Amnesia . It’s a book I admire for its pithy and engaging discussions of many important cultural figures in all areas of human activity. There is one part of the book, though, that’s been bugging me, and that’s his occasional discussions of music, jazz especially.
I don’t take issue with James’ taste in jazz, though they differ from mine. James has a clear preference for 1930s and early 1940s swing, with an especial fondness for the Duke Ellington band of 1940-41. He’s ambivalent about mid-1940s bebop, in some ways expressing fondness for Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and in other ways taking issue with them. He clearly loathes what came after, Miles Davis and John Coltrane especially. I, too, like the early stuff – the Ellington crew of the early 1940s is one of the best, swingingest bands of all time, but for me the mid-1940s through the mid-1960s was the golden era of jazz, and the following decade up through the mid-1970s was great, too. For that matter, there’s a boatload of current jazz I’m quite fond of. But I figure, to each their own.
What I take issue with in James’ discussion of the beboppers and of Davis and Coltrane is not his preferences but some of his claims about them and the vitriol with which he rejects Davis and Coltrane.
Parker and Gillespie stand accused of taking the spontaneous joy out of jazz and of producing music without clearly discernible rhythm. The rhythm question first – sometimes James clarifies that they didn’t play danceable rhythms. That’s true to some extent. Certainly bebop wasn’t dance music in the way that swing was. I’m not sure how that devalues bebop, though – that’s a bit like claiming that Mozart and Beethoven produced inferior music as they moved away from the tradition of courtly dance music. Other times, though, James claims that bebop was characterized by rhythm sections that didn’t keep the time, being freed up instead for melodic improvisation. It was the case that some rhythm instruments, e.g. the bass, were more freed up for improvisation than in earlier forms of jazz. But listen to a recording like the May, 1945 recording of “Salt Peanuts” by Dizzy Gillespie and His All Star Quintet (Gillespie: trumpet; Parker: alto sax; Al Haig: piano; Curly Russell: bass; Sid Catlett: drums). Curly Russell’s bass lays down a rhythm that’s loud and clear and can’t be missed.
The notion that Parker, Gillespie and the other beboppers took the joy and spontaneity out of music is simply baffling to me. These were musicians who played and recorded songs with titles like “Salt Peanuts,” “Scrapple from the Apple,” “Pickin’ the Cabbage,” “Disorder at the Border,” and “He Beeped when he Shoulda Bopped.” They took their musicianship seriously, but they also had a sense of humor. The expression of joy and spontaneity might have been different than in swing, but it was there – and not so subtly there either.
James seems to see no merit at all in the work of Davis or Coltrane. He is most vitriolic in his discussion of Coltane (located in his essay on Ellington). Again there is the charge of lack of discernible rhythm. There is also a claim for Coltrane’s having committed ritual murder on helpless standards – which is really a bit much, even while James’ writing is always engaging.
There are many instances when Coltrane’s playing was loud or gruff or not pretty (though it was usually beautiful in its own way). At the same time, there was much that was lyrical and tender in Coltrane’s music. “In a Sentimental Mood” (on the Duke Ellington and John Coltrane album) and “Lush Life” (on the John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman album) are two of the most lyrical and conventionally beautiful versions of jazz standards ever recorded. The 1963 recording of “Alabama” (on the Live at Birdland album – even though “Alabama” was actually a studio recording added to the mostly live album) does more to evoke the simultaneous melancholy, tragedy, and hopefulness of the Civil Rights era South than any other music I’ve heard through the at times strong, at times fragile and quavering tone of Coltrane’s horn.
I would disagree with the claim that Coltrane’s music lacked rhythm as strongly as I disagree with the same claim for the beboppers. The claim is simply not true. Much of Coltrane’s music is largely about rhythmic exploration. In his later music (say 1965-1967), the rhythm is often highly complex and diffuse. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea to be sure, but there’s a definite propulsion to recordings like “Sun Ship.” Or take the example of “Ascension.” “Ascension” is an album length free improvisation for eleven musicians – think of it as a big band where everyone’s freely improvising. It’s not easy or background listening. It’s definitely not dance music. It really doesn’t have any easily discernible rhythm. Still, the first time I ever listened to this recording I was riveted. By the time it was half way through, I was possessed, unable to restrain myself from jumping up and down and yelling. This music literally moved me, and any music that can do that is powerfully communicating. It won’t communicate to everyone, or even many people perhaps, but then simple popularity is no good way to weigh the worth of a work of art.
James’ sometimes vitriolic reaction to Coltrane reminds me of the similarly strong reactions and rejections that are common with regard to Miles Davis’ “electric period” of the late 1960s through mid-1970s (when Davis’ band included multiple electric instruments, often including electronic modification of his trumpet’s sound), as well as to other developments in jazz in the 1960s and 1970s, such as free jazz and/or jazz-rock fusion.
A few examples:
1. On the DVD Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue, about half of which is documentary footage of Davis’ band’s performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival (which alone is more than worth watching the video for), and about half of which is a documentary about Davis’ electric period, one of the interviewees is Stanley Crouch, who is almost always insightful and always entertaining. He likens his attempts to listen to the album Bitches Brew as a young man to being hit repeatedly in the head with a hammer over and over and over. It’s a quite amusing bit, but it’s also a bit much.
2. In Episode Ten (the final episode) of Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary, cultural critic Gerald Early (who I had found one of the most insightful commentators throughout the ten part series up until that point) makes a number of problematic comments, again about Miles Davis’ electric bands. As with James, I don’t take issue with Early’s taste. If he, or Crouch for that matter, don’t care for Davis’ electric period, that’s fine. However, like James (but actually not like Crouch), some of Early’s characterization is simply inaccurate. He claims that the music of the Davis electric bands tended to “fall apart” musically. I would direct anyone interested again to the Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue video, specifically to the performance footage from the Isle of Wight Festival. The rhythm section of Dave Holland on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drum kit, and Airto Moreira on percussion present one of the tightest performances I’ve seen. No one has to like Davis’ music from this period, but he always insisted on musicianship of highest caliber. Early’s other claim that the music was like “tennis without a net,” i.e. Davis had set his standards lower than before, seems to me similarly groundless.
3. Episode Ten of Ken Burns' Jazz in general represents one big slap at avant-garde or electric jazz in general. Many others have critiqued this episode. One particularly insightful commentary is that of David R. Adler on the All About Jazz website.The episode left a bad taste in my mouth after the highly enjoyable first nine episodes.
Fusion is written off as if it didn’t exist at all, but Cecil Taylor, the avant-garde pianist, takes a mauling. As Adler points out, he’s the only artist in the entire ten episode arc who is systematically attacked with no balance. Most egregiously, Branford Marsalis accuses him of engaging in “self-indulgent bullshit.”
I understand that not everyone likes the same music. As I’ve written before (See my earlier posts: "Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and the Experience of Art" and "Reading, Looking, Listening"), I also understand that when people encounter music they don’t like, they often have a visceral reaction against it. Music affects us bodily in a way that other art doesn’t tend to do, and if it’s music you don’t like, it can be a highly unpleasant experience.
Still, there’s something more at play. Jazz is a musical genre that’s also highly invested with identity. There are not only many people who are highly passionate about jazz (count me in that category, obviously) but whose identity is wrapped up in jazz. For some, when jazz musicians begin to play in ways that don’t fit a certain notion of jazz (and arguments about what jazz is can be as engaging and endless as arguments about what barbecue is), beyond not liking the music, they clearly feel betrayed – and that seems to be a big part of the sometimes vitriolic reactions to Coltrane, Davis, Taylor, Ornette Coleman or others.
Even so, I’m unable to understand the continuing extreme reactions now to music that was performed or recorded thirty or forty years ago. I can understand the visceral rejection of Ornette Coleman in 1959 or of Miles Davis’ electric music in 1969. But at this point, if listening to Bitches Brew is like being hit in the head with a hammer, turn it off. It’s not like we’re bombarded with constant John Coltrane or Cecil Taylor recordings everywhere we go these days (and it wasn’t the case in 1965 either).
I’d like to close by calling attention to a post on Reginald Shepherd’s blog calling for more civility and less vitriol in public and online discourse generally. He’s addressing this issue with regard to online poetry discourse, but his general points apply to discussions of jazz, arts and culture in general, and a variety of other topics. Here I’ll quote his final paragraph:
“The situation I discuss is but a minor and marginal example of the general degradation of discourse in contemporary American culture (what Al Gore calls the assault on reason), a process seemingly designed to disengage people from sociality. In this case, however, I would like to point out that the enemy, if an enemy is required (as it seems to be), is not other poets, however different their aesthetic dispositions (I am opposed to John Barr, for example, not as a poet but as a polemicist with, as he put it in The New Yorker, a bully pulpit), but a culture and an economy of scarcity—of money, of resources, of attention, of recognition professional and personal—that pits people in the society as a whole and in any given social subset against one another in a zero-sum competition for crumbs of a shrinking economic and social pie precisely in order to prevent them from cooperating in changing the reward/withhold/punish system some profit from, some rail against (some of these are actually suffering and some just don’t want to admit that they’re profiting too), and most are actively harmed by. Those engaged in the constant turf wars with which the online poetry world in particular is rife might do well to recognize that their mock battles in tempestuous teapots are the direct result, indeed can accurately be described as symptoms of, this economy of scarcity. The energy expended in these toy gladiator contests might be put to more productive uses .”
I don’t take issue with James’ taste in jazz, though they differ from mine. James has a clear preference for 1930s and early 1940s swing, with an especial fondness for the Duke Ellington band of 1940-41. He’s ambivalent about mid-1940s bebop, in some ways expressing fondness for Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and in other ways taking issue with them. He clearly loathes what came after, Miles Davis and John Coltrane especially. I, too, like the early stuff – the Ellington crew of the early 1940s is one of the best, swingingest bands of all time, but for me the mid-1940s through the mid-1960s was the golden era of jazz, and the following decade up through the mid-1970s was great, too. For that matter, there’s a boatload of current jazz I’m quite fond of. But I figure, to each their own.
What I take issue with in James’ discussion of the beboppers and of Davis and Coltrane is not his preferences but some of his claims about them and the vitriol with which he rejects Davis and Coltrane.
Parker and Gillespie stand accused of taking the spontaneous joy out of jazz and of producing music without clearly discernible rhythm. The rhythm question first – sometimes James clarifies that they didn’t play danceable rhythms. That’s true to some extent. Certainly bebop wasn’t dance music in the way that swing was. I’m not sure how that devalues bebop, though – that’s a bit like claiming that Mozart and Beethoven produced inferior music as they moved away from the tradition of courtly dance music. Other times, though, James claims that bebop was characterized by rhythm sections that didn’t keep the time, being freed up instead for melodic improvisation. It was the case that some rhythm instruments, e.g. the bass, were more freed up for improvisation than in earlier forms of jazz. But listen to a recording like the May, 1945 recording of “Salt Peanuts” by Dizzy Gillespie and His All Star Quintet (Gillespie: trumpet; Parker: alto sax; Al Haig: piano; Curly Russell: bass; Sid Catlett: drums). Curly Russell’s bass lays down a rhythm that’s loud and clear and can’t be missed.
The notion that Parker, Gillespie and the other beboppers took the joy and spontaneity out of music is simply baffling to me. These were musicians who played and recorded songs with titles like “Salt Peanuts,” “Scrapple from the Apple,” “Pickin’ the Cabbage,” “Disorder at the Border,” and “He Beeped when he Shoulda Bopped.” They took their musicianship seriously, but they also had a sense of humor. The expression of joy and spontaneity might have been different than in swing, but it was there – and not so subtly there either.
James seems to see no merit at all in the work of Davis or Coltrane. He is most vitriolic in his discussion of Coltane (located in his essay on Ellington). Again there is the charge of lack of discernible rhythm. There is also a claim for Coltrane’s having committed ritual murder on helpless standards – which is really a bit much, even while James’ writing is always engaging.
There are many instances when Coltrane’s playing was loud or gruff or not pretty (though it was usually beautiful in its own way). At the same time, there was much that was lyrical and tender in Coltrane’s music. “In a Sentimental Mood” (on the Duke Ellington and John Coltrane album) and “Lush Life” (on the John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman album) are two of the most lyrical and conventionally beautiful versions of jazz standards ever recorded. The 1963 recording of “Alabama” (on the Live at Birdland album – even though “Alabama” was actually a studio recording added to the mostly live album) does more to evoke the simultaneous melancholy, tragedy, and hopefulness of the Civil Rights era South than any other music I’ve heard through the at times strong, at times fragile and quavering tone of Coltrane’s horn.
I would disagree with the claim that Coltrane’s music lacked rhythm as strongly as I disagree with the same claim for the beboppers. The claim is simply not true. Much of Coltrane’s music is largely about rhythmic exploration. In his later music (say 1965-1967), the rhythm is often highly complex and diffuse. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea to be sure, but there’s a definite propulsion to recordings like “Sun Ship.” Or take the example of “Ascension.” “Ascension” is an album length free improvisation for eleven musicians – think of it as a big band where everyone’s freely improvising. It’s not easy or background listening. It’s definitely not dance music. It really doesn’t have any easily discernible rhythm. Still, the first time I ever listened to this recording I was riveted. By the time it was half way through, I was possessed, unable to restrain myself from jumping up and down and yelling. This music literally moved me, and any music that can do that is powerfully communicating. It won’t communicate to everyone, or even many people perhaps, but then simple popularity is no good way to weigh the worth of a work of art.
James’ sometimes vitriolic reaction to Coltrane reminds me of the similarly strong reactions and rejections that are common with regard to Miles Davis’ “electric period” of the late 1960s through mid-1970s (when Davis’ band included multiple electric instruments, often including electronic modification of his trumpet’s sound), as well as to other developments in jazz in the 1960s and 1970s, such as free jazz and/or jazz-rock fusion.
A few examples:
1. On the DVD Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue, about half of which is documentary footage of Davis’ band’s performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival (which alone is more than worth watching the video for), and about half of which is a documentary about Davis’ electric period, one of the interviewees is Stanley Crouch, who is almost always insightful and always entertaining. He likens his attempts to listen to the album Bitches Brew as a young man to being hit repeatedly in the head with a hammer over and over and over. It’s a quite amusing bit, but it’s also a bit much.
2. In Episode Ten (the final episode) of Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary, cultural critic Gerald Early (who I had found one of the most insightful commentators throughout the ten part series up until that point) makes a number of problematic comments, again about Miles Davis’ electric bands. As with James, I don’t take issue with Early’s taste. If he, or Crouch for that matter, don’t care for Davis’ electric period, that’s fine. However, like James (but actually not like Crouch), some of Early’s characterization is simply inaccurate. He claims that the music of the Davis electric bands tended to “fall apart” musically. I would direct anyone interested again to the Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue video, specifically to the performance footage from the Isle of Wight Festival. The rhythm section of Dave Holland on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drum kit, and Airto Moreira on percussion present one of the tightest performances I’ve seen. No one has to like Davis’ music from this period, but he always insisted on musicianship of highest caliber. Early’s other claim that the music was like “tennis without a net,” i.e. Davis had set his standards lower than before, seems to me similarly groundless.
3. Episode Ten of Ken Burns' Jazz in general represents one big slap at avant-garde or electric jazz in general. Many others have critiqued this episode. One particularly insightful commentary is that of David R. Adler on the All About Jazz website.The episode left a bad taste in my mouth after the highly enjoyable first nine episodes.
Fusion is written off as if it didn’t exist at all, but Cecil Taylor, the avant-garde pianist, takes a mauling. As Adler points out, he’s the only artist in the entire ten episode arc who is systematically attacked with no balance. Most egregiously, Branford Marsalis accuses him of engaging in “self-indulgent bullshit.”
I understand that not everyone likes the same music. As I’ve written before (See my earlier posts: "Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and the Experience of Art" and "Reading, Looking, Listening"), I also understand that when people encounter music they don’t like, they often have a visceral reaction against it. Music affects us bodily in a way that other art doesn’t tend to do, and if it’s music you don’t like, it can be a highly unpleasant experience.
Still, there’s something more at play. Jazz is a musical genre that’s also highly invested with identity. There are not only many people who are highly passionate about jazz (count me in that category, obviously) but whose identity is wrapped up in jazz. For some, when jazz musicians begin to play in ways that don’t fit a certain notion of jazz (and arguments about what jazz is can be as engaging and endless as arguments about what barbecue is), beyond not liking the music, they clearly feel betrayed – and that seems to be a big part of the sometimes vitriolic reactions to Coltrane, Davis, Taylor, Ornette Coleman or others.
Even so, I’m unable to understand the continuing extreme reactions now to music that was performed or recorded thirty or forty years ago. I can understand the visceral rejection of Ornette Coleman in 1959 or of Miles Davis’ electric music in 1969. But at this point, if listening to Bitches Brew is like being hit in the head with a hammer, turn it off. It’s not like we’re bombarded with constant John Coltrane or Cecil Taylor recordings everywhere we go these days (and it wasn’t the case in 1965 either).
I’d like to close by calling attention to a post on Reginald Shepherd’s blog calling for more civility and less vitriol in public and online discourse generally. He’s addressing this issue with regard to online poetry discourse, but his general points apply to discussions of jazz, arts and culture in general, and a variety of other topics. Here I’ll quote his final paragraph:
“The situation I discuss is but a minor and marginal example of the general degradation of discourse in contemporary American culture (what Al Gore calls the assault on reason), a process seemingly designed to disengage people from sociality. In this case, however, I would like to point out that the enemy, if an enemy is required (as it seems to be), is not other poets, however different their aesthetic dispositions (I am opposed to John Barr, for example, not as a poet but as a polemicist with, as he put it in The New Yorker, a bully pulpit), but a culture and an economy of scarcity—of money, of resources, of attention, of recognition professional and personal—that pits people in the society as a whole and in any given social subset against one another in a zero-sum competition for crumbs of a shrinking economic and social pie precisely in order to prevent them from cooperating in changing the reward/withhold/punish system some profit from, some rail against (some of these are actually suffering and some just don’t want to admit that they’re profiting too), and most are actively harmed by. Those engaged in the constant turf wars with which the online poetry world in particular is rife might do well to recognize that their mock battles in tempestuous teapots are the direct result, indeed can accurately be described as symptoms of, this economy of scarcity. The energy expended in these toy gladiator contests might be put to more productive uses .”
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Racism and Free Speech: Part III
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s online Intelligence Report has a recent article on the topic of academic freedom and racism in the college classroom. The article can be found at this link: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=754
Academic freedom is critical for the advancement of knowledge and understanding. Scholars in the sciences, humanities, and arts have to know that their research, writing, and teaching pursuits will not be infringed because of political expediency, corporate interest, or the whim of public opinion.
There are limits to academic freedom. Many academic disciplines and programs have curriculum elements that are prescribed. For example, when I teach a course like “Introduction to Anthropology,” there are certain topics that I am expected to teach. Technically, this abridges my free action in that I have to teach these topics. This is not a bad thing, and my freedom to pursue my research and writing is not infringed upon. Nor for that matter is my freedom to have a perspective on the topics I teach in that course abridged – and I have any number of ways available to go about teaching about human evolution, language, human culture, etc.
Another limit to academic freedom in the classroom has to do with truth, or more precisely with untruth. There is a reasonable expectation on the part of students and the public (including other faculty) that a teaching professor is knowledgeable about the topic they are teaching and that they present the facts of the topic in an accurate manner.
Ideally, people should be knowledgeable about matters that they hold forth about. As the B-52s song “Mesopotamia” says, “Before I speak, I should read a book.” Still, in general people should be free to express whatever the like, even the nonsensical or offensive. And when people say offensive things, others should freely express their offense. As I wrote in my previous post, for example, I’m against both Holocaust Denial and Holocaust Denial laws.
The classroom is different though. Again, there’s a reasonable assumption that what a professor says is accurate and based on expertise. When a professor presents information which is manifestly untrue as if it were true, they’re not just expressing themselves. They’re actively causing harm to the education of their students. In that context, it’s entirely reasonable to restrict things like Holocaust Denial or the presentation of other racist untruth as established fact.
At the same time, I’m wary of formulating restrictions on academic freedom in general. There are too many people who’d like to influence academics’ freedom under the guise of protecting “truth” or “balance” or “academic freedom.” One example: a couple years ago, in the Florida state legislature a bill was introduced (thankfully, it didn’t pass) that would have required balance in the teaching of human origins, the clear and fairly explicit goal of which was to force professors to teach creationism alongside evolution in the guise of protecting students’ academic freedom and scientific debate about truth.
Academic freedom is critical for the advancement of knowledge and understanding. Scholars in the sciences, humanities, and arts have to know that their research, writing, and teaching pursuits will not be infringed because of political expediency, corporate interest, or the whim of public opinion.
There are limits to academic freedom. Many academic disciplines and programs have curriculum elements that are prescribed. For example, when I teach a course like “Introduction to Anthropology,” there are certain topics that I am expected to teach. Technically, this abridges my free action in that I have to teach these topics. This is not a bad thing, and my freedom to pursue my research and writing is not infringed upon. Nor for that matter is my freedom to have a perspective on the topics I teach in that course abridged – and I have any number of ways available to go about teaching about human evolution, language, human culture, etc.
Another limit to academic freedom in the classroom has to do with truth, or more precisely with untruth. There is a reasonable expectation on the part of students and the public (including other faculty) that a teaching professor is knowledgeable about the topic they are teaching and that they present the facts of the topic in an accurate manner.
Ideally, people should be knowledgeable about matters that they hold forth about. As the B-52s song “Mesopotamia” says, “Before I speak, I should read a book.” Still, in general people should be free to express whatever the like, even the nonsensical or offensive. And when people say offensive things, others should freely express their offense. As I wrote in my previous post, for example, I’m against both Holocaust Denial and Holocaust Denial laws.
The classroom is different though. Again, there’s a reasonable assumption that what a professor says is accurate and based on expertise. When a professor presents information which is manifestly untrue as if it were true, they’re not just expressing themselves. They’re actively causing harm to the education of their students. In that context, it’s entirely reasonable to restrict things like Holocaust Denial or the presentation of other racist untruth as established fact.
At the same time, I’m wary of formulating restrictions on academic freedom in general. There are too many people who’d like to influence academics’ freedom under the guise of protecting “truth” or “balance” or “academic freedom.” One example: a couple years ago, in the Florida state legislature a bill was introduced (thankfully, it didn’t pass) that would have required balance in the teaching of human origins, the clear and fairly explicit goal of which was to force professors to teach creationism alongside evolution in the guise of protecting students’ academic freedom and scientific debate about truth.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Racism and Free Speech: Part II
Holocaust Denial and Holocaust Denial Laws
Denying or minimizing the significance of the Holocaust is one contemporary form of Anti-Semitic speech, often coupled with other Anti-Semitic expression. (See the following link for an overview of Holocaust Denial:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/denial.html )
A number of countries, mostly in Europe (and also Israel), have laws against denying the Holocaust. (See the following article on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial#Laws_against_Holocaust_denial.
As with all content on Wikipedia, use caution, but this article seems to have good content [at least at the time I wrote this].)
The Wikipedia article points out that most countries with Holocaust Denial laws also have other laws slightly abridging free speech by banning speech that incites racial hatred or intolerance. A number of other countries, including Canada and the UK, have such laws banning incitement of racial hatred and sometimes use such laws to prosecute Holocaust Denial, without having specific Holocaust Denial laws.
The article has this to say about countries with Holocaust Denial laws:
“In the words of D. Guttenplan, this is a split between the "common law countries of the US, England and Wales, and former British colonies from the civil law countries of continental Europe and Scotland. In civil law countries the law is generally more proscriptive. Also under the civil law regime the judge acts more as an inquisitor, gathering and presenting evidence as well as interpreting it"[64]
This is an interesting argument, and an accurate one with regard specifically to Holocaust Denial laws, but given laws banning incitement of racial hatred in places like Canada and the UK, there seem to be at least two contrasts at play – one between common and civil law countries, and another between some common law countries (e.g. England or Canada) and others (e.g. the United States). (There is another contrast as well, also pointed out in the article – many of the countries with Holocaust Denial laws have some direct tie to the Holocaust, e.g. Israel, Germany, Austria.)
The law systems of all western nations embody a valuation of freedom, but we see in the reactions to Denial of the Holocaust somewhat different emphases on Enlightenment values stemming from the different strains of Enlightenment thought. It seems to me that the French and other continental traditions, while highly valuing liberty or freedom, have more emphasized the other two components of the revolutionary triad of liberty, equality, fraternity (hence the banning of Muslim head scarves in some public contexts). The English-speaking Enlightenment traditions have emphasized individual liberty to a somewhat greater extent, with this markedly so in the U.S. (where equality has often gotten short shrift, and fraternity never had the sort of resonance it did in France), stemming probably from the experiments with partially democratic self-government in the North American colonies, the American revolutionary experience, and the specifically American variety of Enlightenment thinking (embodied by writers like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, thoroughly grounded in the English-speaking tradition [especially influenced by John Locke], but nonetheless distinct).
Against Holocaust Denial and Holocaust Denial Laws
I’m obviously against Holocaust Denial. It’s one of the most repellent and repugnant forms of contemporary racist thought and expression.
I’m also against Holocaust Denial laws, though, or any other laws that make any political or social commentary illegal. As offensive and contrary to fact as Holocaust Denial might be, the speech act alone doesn’t significantly harm anyone nor infringe on others’ freedoms. (If Holocaust Denial is used in conjunction with or as a form of threat or harassment – that’s different, but it’s the threat or harassment, and not the offensive content, that would make such instances acts that I don’t think should be protected or allowed.)
I sympathize with the supporters of Holocaust Denial laws (especially in countries like Germany and Austria where there is a clear relationship between the nation-state and the Holocaust). I just think that restrictions on speech are not a good strategy (pragmatically or in terms of protecting free action) for combating Holocaust Denial and Anti-Semitism.
I’m aware also that my own simultaneous opposition to Holocaust Denial and Holocaust Denial laws is probably largely the result of the grounding of my own thinking in North American traditions of thinking about politics and culture. (Though such an awareness really says little about the merits of any arguments I might make; it’s simply a contextualization – and likewise with recognition that Holocaust Denial laws themselves are grounded in other varieties of Enlightenment thought.)
Why is Freedom of Expression Important even for Racist Speech?
As I argued in my previous post, freedom of expression should not be abridged lightly. Denying the Holocaust is seriously offensive and repulsive to most people. I don’t think this is sufficient to make illegal such denials. (I understand why others disagree, and even sympathize.) Protecting freedom of expression seems to me more important than protection from offense.
There are pragmatic reasons too to maintain freedom of speech even in the face of high offense. (Again, when speech also constitutes slander, direct harm, assault, or harassment, this changes things.)
Restrictions on speech drive those with offensive ideas completely out of the mainstream and contribute to the sense of persecution and martyrdom common among the racist fringe. On the other hand, allowing the free expression of even offensive ideas allows for engagement. Truly hardcore bigots are typically not open to reasoning, but more run of the mill racists, or the person who might be prone to occasional racist thinking (perhaps without even realizing it) might be. In open discussion, most can clearly see how counter-factual the sort of conspiracy theorizing typical of racist thinking is. But for engagement to happen, free speech has to be protected even at the risk of being highly offended.
Denying or minimizing the significance of the Holocaust is one contemporary form of Anti-Semitic speech, often coupled with other Anti-Semitic expression. (See the following link for an overview of Holocaust Denial:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/denial.html )
A number of countries, mostly in Europe (and also Israel), have laws against denying the Holocaust. (See the following article on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial#Laws_against_Holocaust_denial.
As with all content on Wikipedia, use caution, but this article seems to have good content [at least at the time I wrote this].)
The Wikipedia article points out that most countries with Holocaust Denial laws also have other laws slightly abridging free speech by banning speech that incites racial hatred or intolerance. A number of other countries, including Canada and the UK, have such laws banning incitement of racial hatred and sometimes use such laws to prosecute Holocaust Denial, without having specific Holocaust Denial laws.
The article has this to say about countries with Holocaust Denial laws:
“In the words of D. Guttenplan, this is a split between the "common law countries of the US, England and Wales, and former British colonies from the civil law countries of continental Europe and Scotland. In civil law countries the law is generally more proscriptive. Also under the civil law regime the judge acts more as an inquisitor, gathering and presenting evidence as well as interpreting it"[64]
This is an interesting argument, and an accurate one with regard specifically to Holocaust Denial laws, but given laws banning incitement of racial hatred in places like Canada and the UK, there seem to be at least two contrasts at play – one between common and civil law countries, and another between some common law countries (e.g. England or Canada) and others (e.g. the United States). (There is another contrast as well, also pointed out in the article – many of the countries with Holocaust Denial laws have some direct tie to the Holocaust, e.g. Israel, Germany, Austria.)
The law systems of all western nations embody a valuation of freedom, but we see in the reactions to Denial of the Holocaust somewhat different emphases on Enlightenment values stemming from the different strains of Enlightenment thought. It seems to me that the French and other continental traditions, while highly valuing liberty or freedom, have more emphasized the other two components of the revolutionary triad of liberty, equality, fraternity (hence the banning of Muslim head scarves in some public contexts). The English-speaking Enlightenment traditions have emphasized individual liberty to a somewhat greater extent, with this markedly so in the U.S. (where equality has often gotten short shrift, and fraternity never had the sort of resonance it did in France), stemming probably from the experiments with partially democratic self-government in the North American colonies, the American revolutionary experience, and the specifically American variety of Enlightenment thinking (embodied by writers like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, thoroughly grounded in the English-speaking tradition [especially influenced by John Locke], but nonetheless distinct).
Against Holocaust Denial and Holocaust Denial Laws
I’m obviously against Holocaust Denial. It’s one of the most repellent and repugnant forms of contemporary racist thought and expression.
I’m also against Holocaust Denial laws, though, or any other laws that make any political or social commentary illegal. As offensive and contrary to fact as Holocaust Denial might be, the speech act alone doesn’t significantly harm anyone nor infringe on others’ freedoms. (If Holocaust Denial is used in conjunction with or as a form of threat or harassment – that’s different, but it’s the threat or harassment, and not the offensive content, that would make such instances acts that I don’t think should be protected or allowed.)
I sympathize with the supporters of Holocaust Denial laws (especially in countries like Germany and Austria where there is a clear relationship between the nation-state and the Holocaust). I just think that restrictions on speech are not a good strategy (pragmatically or in terms of protecting free action) for combating Holocaust Denial and Anti-Semitism.
I’m aware also that my own simultaneous opposition to Holocaust Denial and Holocaust Denial laws is probably largely the result of the grounding of my own thinking in North American traditions of thinking about politics and culture. (Though such an awareness really says little about the merits of any arguments I might make; it’s simply a contextualization – and likewise with recognition that Holocaust Denial laws themselves are grounded in other varieties of Enlightenment thought.)
Why is Freedom of Expression Important even for Racist Speech?
As I argued in my previous post, freedom of expression should not be abridged lightly. Denying the Holocaust is seriously offensive and repulsive to most people. I don’t think this is sufficient to make illegal such denials. (I understand why others disagree, and even sympathize.) Protecting freedom of expression seems to me more important than protection from offense.
There are pragmatic reasons too to maintain freedom of speech even in the face of high offense. (Again, when speech also constitutes slander, direct harm, assault, or harassment, this changes things.)
Restrictions on speech drive those with offensive ideas completely out of the mainstream and contribute to the sense of persecution and martyrdom common among the racist fringe. On the other hand, allowing the free expression of even offensive ideas allows for engagement. Truly hardcore bigots are typically not open to reasoning, but more run of the mill racists, or the person who might be prone to occasional racist thinking (perhaps without even realizing it) might be. In open discussion, most can clearly see how counter-factual the sort of conspiracy theorizing typical of racist thinking is. But for engagement to happen, free speech has to be protected even at the risk of being highly offended.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
"More on Why Race Matters"
I'd like to direct attention to the June 1 post on Nicolette Bethel's Blog, "More on Why Race Matters" . As with the previous post on the same blog, "On Why Race Matters" (which I cited in my own post, "Talking About Race"), Bethel's discussion provides an insightful commentary on the contemporary Bahamas that also speaks to the issue of race in a variety of other American contexts.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
A Promising New Documentary Artist
Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting and having a long conversation with an ambitious and promising young documentary film artist, Adelin Gasana. Gasana is a student at the University of West Florida where I teach, and he has already produced several short documentary videos on topics that include genocide, addiction, money, and sex. He's bright, enthusiastic, and thorougly engaged with the world. In short, he's a young artist worth supporting and watching.
Gasana's videos and a short biography of him can be viewed at his website: http://www.adelingasanafilms.com/index.shtml
Gasana's videos and a short biography of him can be viewed at his website: http://www.adelingasanafilms.com/index.shtml
Friday, June 1, 2007
Racism and Free Speech: Part I
In my previous post, I discussed briefly the recent controversy surrounding Don Imus and the issues it raises around racism and free speech. In that particular case, the issue actually seems more straightforward than many have made it out to be (Don Imus has a right to say whatever stupid thing he wants; his network has a right to control the speech they present; everyone else has the right to be offended or not at his comments and to say so), but in other instances, things are not so clear.
On the one hand, I find racism and racist speech, and other forms of hate speech, abhorrent. On the other hand, I strongly support the right to free speech. Freedom of speech is a critical component of any society that values freedom of action in general. For scholars, freedom of speech is any absolutely essential ingredient of any intellectual debate that is invigorating, interesting, or respectful of truth. Freedom of speech should only be abridged for good and serious reason.
Still, as is common to acknowledge, there are limits to free speech. To me, the right to free speech reaches a limit when speech causes significant harm to another or seriously infringes the free action of another. (I’m aware there’s a grey quality to this – what counts as “significant” or “serious” – but in actual social relations, I often find that room to interpret and maneuver are as important as principles. So, does calling member of the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos” constitute significant harm? It arguably caused harm – it has the character of a slander – but while the comment was offensive, racist, insulting, and I’m glad he’s off the air, in itself I’m not sure how the comment causes significant harm.) Serious slanders that harm another’s reputation and standing; speech which constitutes a threat (and so is as much an assault as the communication of topical content); speech which harasses and thereby infringes significantly on the actions of another; such speech acts should not be protected, but other speech which communicates content and ideas should be, no matter how heinous or repulsive.
I’d like in the next few posts to consider three sorts of cases involving racism and free speech issues – the dissemination of videos by racist hate groups on the YouTube site; “Holocaust Denial” laws; and academic freedom and racism in the classroom.
Racist Videos and YouTube
There is a tendency to think that the internet and other widely distributed communication technologies will bring greater freedom and democratization, and so they will to a certain extent. But that includes greater freedom for organizations like Al Qaeda to coordinate terrorist activities, to communicate propaganda and inspire others to terrorist acts, and to disseminate videos of beheadings.
In the United States, this has also meant greater ability for racists to distribute their ideas – any lone racist can put up a website or blog and reach thousands of readers. Organized hate groups have taken advantage as well of new media technologies. As a recent article in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s print and online magazine Intelligence Report points out, various Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups have already posted thousands of videos on the YouTube web site, some of which have been viewed by hundreds of thousands.
As the Intelligence Report article also points out, YouTube’s policy is to eliminate from the site explicitly racist or hate-mongering videos from the site when the site is made aware of them. Though I strongly support free speech rights, including of racists to make racist videos, I applaud YouTube’s policy. All decent people should reject racism, and to compel a private website to carry content its managers find offensive (or simply bad P.R. for the site) would be a violation of their right of free expression. At the same time, I’d be strongly opposed to any governmental restriction on the distribution of political thought, regardless of how offensive.
On the one hand, I find racism and racist speech, and other forms of hate speech, abhorrent. On the other hand, I strongly support the right to free speech. Freedom of speech is a critical component of any society that values freedom of action in general. For scholars, freedom of speech is any absolutely essential ingredient of any intellectual debate that is invigorating, interesting, or respectful of truth. Freedom of speech should only be abridged for good and serious reason.
Still, as is common to acknowledge, there are limits to free speech. To me, the right to free speech reaches a limit when speech causes significant harm to another or seriously infringes the free action of another. (I’m aware there’s a grey quality to this – what counts as “significant” or “serious” – but in actual social relations, I often find that room to interpret and maneuver are as important as principles. So, does calling member of the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos” constitute significant harm? It arguably caused harm – it has the character of a slander – but while the comment was offensive, racist, insulting, and I’m glad he’s off the air, in itself I’m not sure how the comment causes significant harm.) Serious slanders that harm another’s reputation and standing; speech which constitutes a threat (and so is as much an assault as the communication of topical content); speech which harasses and thereby infringes significantly on the actions of another; such speech acts should not be protected, but other speech which communicates content and ideas should be, no matter how heinous or repulsive.
I’d like in the next few posts to consider three sorts of cases involving racism and free speech issues – the dissemination of videos by racist hate groups on the YouTube site; “Holocaust Denial” laws; and academic freedom and racism in the classroom.
Racist Videos and YouTube
There is a tendency to think that the internet and other widely distributed communication technologies will bring greater freedom and democratization, and so they will to a certain extent. But that includes greater freedom for organizations like Al Qaeda to coordinate terrorist activities, to communicate propaganda and inspire others to terrorist acts, and to disseminate videos of beheadings.
In the United States, this has also meant greater ability for racists to distribute their ideas – any lone racist can put up a website or blog and reach thousands of readers. Organized hate groups have taken advantage as well of new media technologies. As a recent article in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s print and online magazine Intelligence Report points out, various Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups have already posted thousands of videos on the YouTube web site, some of which have been viewed by hundreds of thousands.
As the Intelligence Report article also points out, YouTube’s policy is to eliminate from the site explicitly racist or hate-mongering videos from the site when the site is made aware of them. Though I strongly support free speech rights, including of racists to make racist videos, I applaud YouTube’s policy. All decent people should reject racism, and to compel a private website to carry content its managers find offensive (or simply bad P.R. for the site) would be a violation of their right of free expression. At the same time, I’d be strongly opposed to any governmental restriction on the distribution of political thought, regardless of how offensive.
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