Tuesday, January 11, 2011
"Don't hate nuthin at all except hatred..."
This is an interesting, thought provoking, and well written blog post. In the wake of the recent Arizona shootings I found myself, reflexively turning to the notion that the right wing shock jocks climate of paranoia, hatred, racism and penchant for violence filled rhetoric had to end up somewhere. Beck, Palin, O'Reilly Hannity, Limbaugh, Liddy, Buchanan, Robertson, Savage - they all retain some sort of plausible deniability (they didn't specifically tell that guy to do anything), but we all "know" they are responsible.
This got me to thinking about the logic of "blaming" the right on the basis that what they say "creates a climate in which this sort of thing is bound to happen".
Is it consistent, from a left wing point of view, to argue that violent right wing rhetoric and hate speech, while not directly or immediately responsible for the Arizona shootings (at least there's no direct evidence for that), created an ongoing climate of sustained violent rhetoric and imagery that may have lead an unstable person into committing these acts?
Surely the left would argue against censorship in video games, music, film, literature, media, even pornography, on the grounds that there's no evidence that this contributes to violent crimes or acts or their incitement? Presumably the unspoken assumption is that even if something does happen, this is one of the prices we pay for living in a society where freedom of expression mingles, very occasionally, with mental instability, leading to horrific outcomes.
[Interestingly, on the left, some feminists are now arguing the opposite: that increasingly violent pornography creates a climate in which women become increasingly endangered].
If we can argue against censorship on these grounds, isn't it inconsistent to want to accuse the right of creating a "climate" in which mentally unstable people are somehow goaded into terrible and violent action?
I suppose there might be a difference between politicians, radio and TV "news-fomational/info-tainment" hosts engaging in regular and repeated hate speech and outrageous attacks and calls for murder, and a climate where violent films, literature, internet images, videogames etc are readily available?
Is the fact that politicians and TV hosts are "real" a quantitative difference in the impact they might have, over say, someone seeing Bruce Willis in a 'Die Hard' film shooting down helicopters and tagging bad guys? In the mind of a deranged person, could we be sure there is any difference? I think not.
So, if it's correct, and I think it is, to say that we should not be censoring arts and media (up to the legally permissible limits of free speech, for as Chomsky always points out, there are limits), then the idea that you can censor right wing shock jocks and politicians, or blame or associate their rhetoric with the Arizona shootings is also false.
What would be better, or at least more consistent, is to examine whether what they say is actually covered by free speech or not, whether any of it legitimately breaches incitement laws, and focus on exposing and beating back those statements that are out of line with existing law. That, and advocating gun control laws, and instituting guidelines for press and media about how such incidents are covered in order to minimise any copycat potential.
# posted by Flann O'Brien @ 4:50 PM
