Once More, With Coherence

Okay, so the post below is more baby's bum than smooth. Ultimately, I think that the gist of the Danish editor's was: Are artists being censored—are artists censoring themselves—for fear of touching on religious sensitivities that largely fall outside Western culture (but to varying degrees affect it)? The same question Edward_ asked the other day, except that the editor went so far as to provide artists access to his paper to work it all out. That makes it a leading question vis-à-vis journalism, and a dangerous question once Saudi Arabia or Hamas gets ahold of it, but sure, it falls under the purview of art.

I think there are two comparisons that drive at why the Danes did a defensible thing, one easy and one more problematic. One: Christian doctrine absolutely prohibits the use of the Lord's name in vain, but this stricture is ignored regularly, daily even, by artists. Either Christians take their commitment to liberal democracy seriously or they don't take their commitment to this Commandment seriously or whatever, but Christians more or less tolerate constant exposure in the public square to all sorts of taking the Lord's name in vain. But if the Christian temperament or balance or what have you changed tomorrow and "goddamnit" was an unthinkably insensitive thing to say, even demonstrably inflammatory, you'd hardly want artists to stop saying it, would you? No, tenets of liberal democracy, etc.

More problematically, there are elements of Muslim practice that seem fundamentally irreconcilable with Western liberal Democratic values—how women fit into society, for example. Insofar as art is about anything more than image and form, etc., it's about problems, and that one is a pressing one for Christians in the West, Muslims in the Middle East, and secularists everywhere. (Also, women, if you want to count them.) The answer's bound to offend. What makes the Danish maneuver so stupid is its comparative irrelevance—the Muslim prohibition against idolatry and certain other depictions isn't new, isn't fractious, and isn't provocative. Maybe it's the right topic but the wrong question, or maybe it's rightwing nativist propaganda and I'm stupid. But if you want to go out on a limb, it ought to be a fruitful one.