In 2015, there was a fatal attack on the offices of the magazine, killing
12, which was reported to be in response to the cartoons. The shooting
sparked a public movement on freedom of speech, with supporters
adopting the phrase ‘Je suis Charlie’. In response to the Danish paper
Jyllands-Posten’s cartoons, Lægaard (2007) questions whether Muslims
should have tolerated provocations like the cartoons; he criticises three
main moral arguments for not tolerating harm caused by free speech.
Lægaard’s argument in favour of tolerance state that; firstly, the offence
that could result from such cartoons isn’t necessarily harmful. Secondly,
that a cartoon which makes an attack on the identity of the members of
a minority group does not harm an individual’s self-worth as much as
the loss of free speech would. Finally, he argues that the oppression
which minority groups have endured historically (which should act to
protect them from future oppression) cannot be shown as causally linked
to publication and structural oppression.
Each one of these points is flawed in that, firstly, it is difficult to separate
offence and harm: offence can be harm in itself. Secondly, Lægaard’s
third argument is not sufficiently tangible: a causal link between such
things is difficult to make, and persistent offensive publications is a form of
oppression itself. Finally, the most revealing aspect of Lægaard’s (2007:
491) point-of-view is the one that freedom of speech is more integral to
self-worth than the protection of the identities of a minority group. This
makes the presumption that everyone is on an equal footing to utilise
the right to freedom of speech and so has an equal opportunity find self-
worth in it, with the paradox here that the oppression and humiliation that
comes at the cost of one person’s freedom of speech (for their extraction
of self-worth) can silence another. It seems Lægaard is advocating one
person’s freedom of speech over another’s, not as well as. To discuss
the merit of potentially harmful free speech, it is worth drawing on Max
Weber’s argument for proportionality: he argues that when assessing
moral value, one should balance harm and responsibility and he asks
‘what kind of man must one be if he is to put his hand on the wheel of
history?’ (2013: 115).
This idea of balancing the cost and responsibility of free speech is an
interesting one in the world of comedy and satire. In the debate regarding
what should and shouldn’t be joked about, the comedian Stewart Lee
(2012) says that he doesn’t make jokes about a culture he hasn’t grown
up in. This is the idea that the purpose of satirical comedy should be to
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