Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
21 August 09
Just to clarify things, the issue regarding the publication in Sweden or elsewhere of crazed and slanderous antisemetic and anti-Israel materials in the media is not a question for censorship. Nobody should be asking for governments to ban such things or punish those who publish them. Holocaust denial laws were a terrible mistake which proved that the founders of America were right in prohibiting limits on freedom of speech.
The issue is for editors, publishers, and journalists to exercise professional ethics and rational thought in their work. If these are reduced to two key principles they would be:
--Make every effort to ensure to the greatest possible extent that what is published is accurate. And if you don't know either hedge it with qualifications, do more investigation, and get both sides. Use also the rules of logic. Does it really make sense that a liberal democratic country with a free press is so monstrous as to murder people to steal their organs? Would you even publish such a story without proof of a closed, ruthless dictatorship like North Korea?
--Be balanced and don't let political bias determine what you write or publish. For example, you might hate Israel but that doesn't mean you should publish falsehoods about it. Be aware of the track record for accuracy and honesty of those trying to persuade you about something. History shows that Palestinians, who want to destroy and discredit Israel, energetically and systematically make up lies and try to get the media to publish them.
I have written about the phenomenon I call "lying for peace," the justification of telling deliberate falsehoods because they serve a "good" cause. If a cause requires falsehoods then perhaps it isn't such a good cause.
Several people have asked me about the origin of the concept of "lying for peace" or for some other "good cause." Clearly, this was a powerful force in the "progressive" (read: pro-Communist) left of past decades.
An interesting recent example was the deliberate underplaying of the Iranian threat during the last administration because journalists, writers, and academics (I heard people say or saw them writing this) that if the truth were to be known it would give aid and comfort to some mythical Bush plan to invade Iran.
I am now reading Max Eastman's 1934 book, Artists in Uniform. Eastman at the time was a left-wing socialist who nevertheless exposed the rising repression in the Soviet Union. He clearly had to confront these issues.
His introduction begins:
"This is a sombre book, and will be denounced as `counter-revolutionary' by those who think the world can be saved by Soviet ballyhoo. I do not think it can. I am on the side of the soviets and of the proletarian class struggle. But I think that critical truth-speaking is an element of that struggle essential to its success."
Do supporters of the Palestinians, haters of Israel, Islamists, and the Politically Correct think that "critical truth speaking" is essential for their movements? Well, the problem is how they define "critical truth speaking." For them, this means pushing their political line in the belief that it is absolute truth and any dissenting view is evil, unacceptable, racist, or whatever.
But what Eastman meant by that phrase is that you have an open mind, a battle of ideas, a free marketplace of ideas, and you direct "critical truth speaking" not only against the beliefs of others but against your own as well.
Eastman is also trying to maintain both a commitment to the revolutionary left and to truth. But he admits that his decision to publish the book--which we should remember was the first documentation about the suppression, torture, and murder of Soviet intellectuals--was a close-run thing. We should remember that Western counterparts should have been passionately interested in the persecution of these people. It was also an important indication of the direction of Communism and the USSR.
Today, such people should be demonstrating and complaining loudly about repression of intellectual dissidents or women's rights in places like Iran and Syria, Cuba and Venezuela, China and Gaza. But they don't, do they? Just as in Eastman's time, these are generally seen as places or movements to be defended against the "true evil," Western democracies (including Israel).
Of course, Eastman was right: he was denounced and vilified as a counter-revolutionary. While only a portion of Western intellectuals were Communists or even Fellow Travellers in the 1930s, these were generally the most outspoken and active people. To cross them was to be unfashionable and perhaps even to risk one's career, in some places one's life.
He concludes his introduction by writing:
"I have debated in my mind whether this book should be delayed, in view of the reactionary world-tendency of the moment....The decision was not lightly taken."
In 1934, an American intellectual had to apologize for revealing the crimes of a ruthless dictatorship because its progressive pose and anti-capitalist, anti-American orientation was so attractive to other intellectuals.
Someone said that if you read the Reader's Digest--considered to be a low-brow, conservative publication--in the 1930s and 1940s--that person would know far more accurately about Communism and the USSR than if he'd read the New York Times.
Perhaps the world hasn't changed so much.
The issue is for editors, publishers, and journalists to exercise professional ethics and rational thought in their work. If these are reduced to two key principles they would be:
--Make every effort to ensure to the greatest possible extent that what is published is accurate. And if you don't know either hedge it with qualifications, do more investigation, and get both sides. Use also the rules of logic. Does it really make sense that a liberal democratic country with a free press is so monstrous as to murder people to steal their organs? Would you even publish such a story without proof of a closed, ruthless dictatorship like North Korea?
--Be balanced and don't let political bias determine what you write or publish. For example, you might hate Israel but that doesn't mean you should publish falsehoods about it. Be aware of the track record for accuracy and honesty of those trying to persuade you about something. History shows that Palestinians, who want to destroy and discredit Israel, energetically and systematically make up lies and try to get the media to publish them.
I have written about the phenomenon I call "lying for peace," the justification of telling deliberate falsehoods because they serve a "good" cause. If a cause requires falsehoods then perhaps it isn't such a good cause.
Several people have asked me about the origin of the concept of "lying for peace" or for some other "good cause." Clearly, this was a powerful force in the "progressive" (read: pro-Communist) left of past decades.
An interesting recent example was the deliberate underplaying of the Iranian threat during the last administration because journalists, writers, and academics (I heard people say or saw them writing this) that if the truth were to be known it would give aid and comfort to some mythical Bush plan to invade Iran.
I am now reading Max Eastman's 1934 book, Artists in Uniform. Eastman at the time was a left-wing socialist who nevertheless exposed the rising repression in the Soviet Union. He clearly had to confront these issues.
His introduction begins:
"This is a sombre book, and will be denounced as `counter-revolutionary' by those who think the world can be saved by Soviet ballyhoo. I do not think it can. I am on the side of the soviets and of the proletarian class struggle. But I think that critical truth-speaking is an element of that struggle essential to its success."
Do supporters of the Palestinians, haters of Israel, Islamists, and the Politically Correct think that "critical truth speaking" is essential for their movements? Well, the problem is how they define "critical truth speaking." For them, this means pushing their political line in the belief that it is absolute truth and any dissenting view is evil, unacceptable, racist, or whatever.
But what Eastman meant by that phrase is that you have an open mind, a battle of ideas, a free marketplace of ideas, and you direct "critical truth speaking" not only against the beliefs of others but against your own as well.
Eastman is also trying to maintain both a commitment to the revolutionary left and to truth. But he admits that his decision to publish the book--which we should remember was the first documentation about the suppression, torture, and murder of Soviet intellectuals--was a close-run thing. We should remember that Western counterparts should have been passionately interested in the persecution of these people. It was also an important indication of the direction of Communism and the USSR.
Today, such people should be demonstrating and complaining loudly about repression of intellectual dissidents or women's rights in places like Iran and Syria, Cuba and Venezuela, China and Gaza. But they don't, do they? Just as in Eastman's time, these are generally seen as places or movements to be defended against the "true evil," Western democracies (including Israel).
Of course, Eastman was right: he was denounced and vilified as a counter-revolutionary. While only a portion of Western intellectuals were Communists or even Fellow Travellers in the 1930s, these were generally the most outspoken and active people. To cross them was to be unfashionable and perhaps even to risk one's career, in some places one's life.
He concludes his introduction by writing:
"I have debated in my mind whether this book should be delayed, in view of the reactionary world-tendency of the moment....The decision was not lightly taken."
In 1934, an American intellectual had to apologize for revealing the crimes of a ruthless dictatorship because its progressive pose and anti-capitalist, anti-American orientation was so attractive to other intellectuals.
Someone said that if you read the Reader's Digest--considered to be a low-brow, conservative publication--in the 1930s and 1940s--that person would know far more accurately about Communism and the USSR than if he'd read the New York Times.
Perhaps the world hasn't changed so much.
.
Free speech should never be taken lightly. It is a cornerstone of democracy and liberty. But, when an author or organization uses free speech as a platform to disseminate racial, ethnic or religious hatred, then free speech must take second place to common sense.
ReplyDeleteSometimes authors use a novel or screenplay to support political or social beliefs; or to cry out for morality and ethical principles. This is no more clearly evident than with Holocaust books and films. Whenever we stand up to those who deny or minimize the Holocaust, or to those who support genocide we send a critical message to the world.
We live in an age of vulnerability. Holocaust deniers ply their mendacious poison everywhere, especially with young people on the Internet. We know from captured German war records that millions of innocent Jews (and others) were systematically exterminated by Nazi Germany - most in gas chambers. Holocaust books and films help to tell the true story of the Shoah, combating anti-Semitic historical revision. And, they protect future generations from making the same mistakes.
I wrote "Jacob's Courage" to promote Holocaust education. This coming of age love story presents accurate scenes and situations of Jews in ghettos and concentration camps, with particular attention to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. It examines a constellation of emotions during a time of incomprehensible brutality. A world that continues to allow genocide requires such ethical reminders and remediation.
Many authors feel compelled to use their talent to promote moral causes. Holocaust books and movies carry that message globally, in an age when the world needs to learn that genocide is unacceptable. Such authors attempt to show the world that religious, racial, ethnic and gender persecution is wrong; and that tolerance is our progeny's only hope.
Charles Weinblatt
Author, "Jacob's Courage"
http://jacobscourage.wordpress.com/