Scott Cawelti

Here's a short piece published in the Courier on Feb. 19, 1987.  Seems to connect to a timeless human foible:  contradicting ourselves.  Is it dated?  Only the reference to communists--which seem to have disappeared as world-class villains to be replaced these days by terrorists.  

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Two of America’s greatest poets, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, still offer comfort to millions of Americans. It has to do with self-contradictions, which Emerson and Whitman saw as being part of the human condition.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” said Emerson. And Whitman snorted, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Both poets offered those thoughts as replies to critics who rub their hands gleefully every time they discover some belief that doesn’t match some other belief held by the same person.   “Didn’t you just contradict yourself?” they’ll ask, looking down their noses.

And we all do, daily, if not hourly. The human personality is much like an old house, full of rooms, closets, and basements containing all sorts of mismatched junk.

The basement contains buckets of toxic cleaners, paints, and poisons. Upstairs, the kitchen counter sports a water purifier. It’s designed to remove the very poisons found in the basement – though, of course, the house’s owner senses no contradiction. The poisons he/she’s worried about come from other people’s basements, sooner or later.  

And on a bedroom wall, maybe, hangs the slogan, “ABORTION IS MURDER.” And the wall on the den: “BETTER DEAD THAN RED.”

Do they contradict themselves?

According to last Sunday Register’s Iowa Poll, half of all Iowans insist they’d rather be “dead than Red.” That means they’d choose death rather than life as supposedly lived in a communist society.

Now, by  “communist society” we mean that society as depicted in the Western media for the last half a century. It’s clearly a totalitarian, bureaucratic, corrupt, vicious police state.

 “Amerika,” the ABC miniseries showing every night this week, portrays that state with a vengeance. It’s a powerful depiction because it’s superimposed on our beloved homeland.

We recognize the people, the towns, the language – except that now they’re all stereotypically “communist.” As I say, half of all Iowans would choose to die rather than live in such a state.

According to the poll, such people tend to be Republican and conservative. And very likely many of them are also anti-abortion.

But surely if one is pro-life, one must continue to be pro-life no matter how rotten that life might be. Whether it’s capitalist or communist, it’s still life. The quality of life can’t be an issue for pro-lifers without a raging contradiction.

The other problem:  The depiction isn't true.We’re heavily propagandized in this country, as are all media-oriented countries.

 Most Americans have trouble imagining happy, well-fed Russians, concerned with their careers, raising families, with aspiring to make a better world. Such Russians appeared all last week on the “Donohue” show, by the way, direct from Russia.

Such a view doesn’t serve the military, which needs an enemy to justify its weapons contracts. It doesn’t serve politicians, who need to rail regularly about the communist threat. And it certainly doesn’t serve television, which needs visually exciting melodramas to hype its ratings.

It’s all part of the largest contradiction of all: love your enemy on Sundays, and hate them during weeknight miniseries.

Emerson and Whitman would have understood.

Sunday, April 14 Courier column--on blasphemy and freedom of speech.   

Blasphemy, aka heresy, impiety, sacrilege, apostasy, and plain old taking the Lord’s name in vain, is back in the news.  

It’s been awhile since questioning religious beliefs was punishable.  The last execution for blasphemy in English-speaking countries occurred in 1697 in England.  Young Thomas Aikenhead, all of 20, was hung for ridiculing the Bible and questioning the legitimacy of Christ’s miracles.  Soon after, blasphemy was eliminated as a capital crime in England.      

Authorities must have realized that executing religious questioners was a bigger problem than offending God and His followers.  Besides, there were so many blasphemers, apostates, and impious cursing citizens that nearly everyone would have to be arrested.

The Bible does declare that blasphemers will be punished—but in the afterlife. Mark 3:29 declares “he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.”

Since hell awaits, there’s no need to punish blasphemers with mere execution.

So we’ve come a long way since those dark days of being killed for questioning religion.

Republicans, Democrats, progressives, conservatives, and libertarians alike, all agree that government must not infringe on free worship, speech, and press.  In a nutshell, that’s our first Amendment, the equivalent of the Holy Grail for freedom seekers.  It’s also widely imitated and appreciated worldwide, regardless of party affiliation.   

In fact, there’s even an International Blasphemy Day—September 30--recently established to encourage people everywhere to freely express questions about religion or any other sacred beliefs, just to celebrate true freedom of speech.

However, since 1989, free speech in the form of blasphemy has come under attack. Indeed, writers and other protestors have been intimidated and killed for expressing their questions and beliefs about religion.  It began when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini declared that Salmon Rushdie had insulted Islam and declared the writer should be killed for his novel “Satanic Verses.”   

Rushdie went into hiding, and would have been murdered without police protection. His Japanese translator, however, was killed, and his Italian translator seriously injured.  Bookstores in America were bombed and burned to the ground.   All because Rushdie’s novel offended Islamic radicals, urged on by their leaders.

Now comes an international movement led by contemporary Muslim radicals.  Egyptian president Morsi declared, “Insults against the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, are not acceptable.   We will not allow anyone to do this by word or by deed.”  Morsi and others are calling for international laws against blasphemy toward Muslims in all countries. 

Even though the Koran (unlike the Bible) never mentions blasphemy, radical Islamists have defined any questioning of Islam as “blasphemy” and want the rest of the world to do the same.

In effect, they want the whole world to ignore freedom of expression in order to protect their own religious sensibilities. 

There’s a word for this:  Tyranny.  

Free speech supporters everywhere must unite and reject calls for new laws against blasphemy. 

Here’s why.

No one can say who will take offense.   One person’s entertainment and satire is another’s assault on deeply held beliefs. The Broadway satire of “The Book of Mormon” must be deeply offensive to some Mormons, but Mitt Romney appreciated the Broadway exposure of his faith.

People with deeply held faith-based beliefs are occasionally going to be offended, period.   That’s our world—secular, diverse, free-wheeling, questioning, pondering, wondering, making people think and take stands, or change their minds and move on. 

Offensive expressions of ideas especially need protection from those who would silence it.  Why bother protecting expression that only amuses and delights?  “The Ten Commandments” needed no free speech rights, but “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which questioned Christ’s godliness, did.  

Or consider Martin Luther, whose protests in 1517 established an alternate version of Christianity.   That’s why they’re called “protest-ants,” after all.  No doubt that Catholics found Luther’s protests deeply offensive.  

*Freedom of expression is a primary human right, enshrined in our constitution and respected worldwide as the fundamental human freedom.

If we can’t insist on its primacy, and fight for our right to use it in whatever way we choose, we’ve lost.  

And not only the battle, but also the war.