The AP brings us this troubling news:
(I've never heard of a "suspended sentence"—apparently it means that Galliano will not actually be punished for his "crime"; he does not have to pay the fine and will serve no time in prison). But the sentence, or lack thereof, is not at issue here, nor is the conviction itself. Galliano was undoubtedly guilty of the alleged crime—making "public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity":
The problem here is French law. When a government tries to eradicate “wrong” ideas from a society through strict regulation of speech, it ultimately does more bad than good.
By interfering with the process of public reasoning through which the merits of virtuous ideas are made clear to the citizenry, a government wounds the very cause that it seeks to advance. Light is only seen in the presence of darkness; we can only ascertain the goodness of an idea through a comparison with its evil antithesis.
A Paris court has convicted former Christian Dior designer John Galliano for making anti-Semitic insults and gave him a suspended sentence of €6,000 ($8,400) in fines.
(I've never heard of a "suspended sentence"—apparently it means that Galliano will not actually be punished for his "crime"; he does not have to pay the fine and will serve no time in prison). But the sentence, or lack thereof, is not at issue here, nor is the conviction itself. Galliano was undoubtedly guilty of the alleged crime—making "public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity":
Earlier this year, a video posted on the website of British daily The Sun showed Galliano arguing with a couple at La Perle. It was unclear when the video was recorded, but in it, he was dressed differently than on Thursday. At one point in the video, starting in mid-conversation, a woman's voice asks Galliano, "Are you blond, with blue eyes?" Galliano, speaking in slurred speech, replied: "No, but I love Hitler, and people like you would be dead today. Your mothers, your forefathers, would be ... gassed and ... dead."
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| Former Dior designer John Galliano |
By interfering with the process of public reasoning through which the merits of virtuous ideas are made clear to the citizenry, a government wounds the very cause that it seeks to advance. Light is only seen in the presence of darkness; we can only ascertain the goodness of an idea through a comparison with its evil antithesis.
* * *
Such were the views expressed by 17th century English writer John Milton in his seminal defense of free speech, The Areopagitica. Milton’s essay was aimed at getting Parliament to rescind the Licensing Order of 1643, which, he feared, would lead to the return of state control over publishing and freedom of thought.
For Milton, the Licensing Order constituted an anti-Protestant regression from the spirit of the Reformation, with which men “reassume the ill deputed care of their Religion into their own hands again.” He felt that, in attempting to regulate which ideas can and cannot be shared, Parliament was acting with an impiety and arrogance on level with the Catholic Church in the time of the reformation.
The human condition is one of imperfection, said Milton, as God’s truth, the knowledge of good and evil, is only partially revealed to man, and hence we repeatedly fall victim to the sinful passions and pleasures the world in which we live. Thus it is the unending task and responsibility of man to gain knowledge of God’s truth. For this task God has endowed us with the power of reason, the freedom to choose between different things and different ideas, between vice and virtue, between good and evil. In thinking and debating and sharing ideas, we move closer to God. That this process may at first manifest in sects and schisms is only natural, as “there must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the timber, ere the house of God can be built.”
In Milton’s view, Parliament’s Licensing Order was an act of extreme impiety, for it presumed a complete and settled knowledge of good and evil that no mortal can attain, and accordingly interfered with God’s work on earth by preventing his followers from using the powers of reason with which he had imbued them:
The French government would do well to take Milton’s advice. In making such an aggressive attempt to eliminate vice, the state injures the cause of virtue by impeding the quest for truth. Because we can never have perfect knowledge of good and evil, we must allow ideas to be given a fair viewing in the eyes of each individual, for it is through this process alone that such knowledge can be ascertained. The moment we presume perfect knowledge of such matters, we close our minds to new ideas, and, “while thinking thus to defend the Gospel, we are found the persecutors.”
Milton would roundly dismiss the French fear that freedom of thought must be regulated, lest false and dangerous ideas overpower those which are righteous and vital to the health of that nation. Through “licensings and prohibitions we misdoubt [the] strength” of truth in the battle of ideas:
Of the myriad factors that have coalesced to make America a far more powerful nation than France—geographic location, population size, economic ingenuity—our history of internal cohesion (the Civil War notwithstanding), as compared to their early decades of sustained disunity and recurrent revolution, is one whose importance cannot be overlooked. At the core of American cohesion is a cultural affinity for American life, and at the core of American life is individualism, and at the center of our concept of individualism is a freedom of belief and a freedom of property. Thus it can be said that our history of internal cohesion is the result of our cultural affinity for individualism, and in turn, for democracy and for capitalism.
At first, this would seem unlikely. Capitalism is an exploitative and tumultuous system that creates a huge disparity in the quality of life between the rich and the poor, and wreaks havoc on a great number of people. Why should both the rich and the poor have an affinity for capitalism when only the rich appear to be enjoying its benefits? Indeed, capitalism appears to be a source of divisiveness rather than of cohesion, and that it is—for those unfortunate people who lack Americans’ peculiar affinity for it.
The answer, historically, begins with the fact that this cultural affinity was born out of the symbiotic relationship between American religion and American capitalism: the identity and concomitant ideology interpellated to an individual by the institutions of one system have squared up neatly with those which are interpellated to him by the other. Again, given the disparate nature of daily experience between two religious persons standing several rungs apart on the socio-economic ladder, it should be quite baffling that both individuals could be equally assured in their religious identity. While a wealthy CEO might reasonably believe his prosperity to be indicative of a seat in heaven, with what confidence might an impoverished factory worker view his potential for salvation? With great confidence, if he chooses a different set of beliefs than the CEO—a set of beliefs, for example, which rejects the notion that worldly success implies subsequent salvation. The diversity of religious groups and denominations existing and expanding in this country since its inception has made it easy for an individual to subscribe to a system of beliefs most compatible with his daily experience.
There is much, much more to be said about how American democracy, capitalism, and religion have reinforced a common ideology positing individualism as the catalyst for positive change. Suffice it to say that an American’s freedom to choose the set of beliefs which best comport with the unique realities of his experience goes a long way toward keeping him happy—and happy to work—within the country’s liberal, capitalist system.
John Milton was ahead of his time. His rebuke of a government that tries to eradicate “wrong” ideas from a society through strict regulation of speech articulates an idea which, since at least the Reformation, has been one of the most enduring strands of Anglo-American thought—that no man and no government may exercise a monopoly over the truth. And while Milton could not have known it at the time of his writing, The Areopagitica prefigures one of the most central features of American grand strategy. Indeed, one of the big keys to American ascendancy in the 19th century and onward is that we took heed of Milton’s warnings and implemented his recommendations regarding the freedom of an individual to choose from a diversity of competing beliefs. Perhaps France would have done well to follow suit.
For Milton, the Licensing Order constituted an anti-Protestant regression from the spirit of the Reformation, with which men “reassume the ill deputed care of their Religion into their own hands again.” He felt that, in attempting to regulate which ideas can and cannot be shared, Parliament was acting with an impiety and arrogance on level with the Catholic Church in the time of the reformation.
The human condition is one of imperfection, said Milton, as God’s truth, the knowledge of good and evil, is only partially revealed to man, and hence we repeatedly fall victim to the sinful passions and pleasures the world in which we live. Thus it is the unending task and responsibility of man to gain knowledge of God’s truth. For this task God has endowed us with the power of reason, the freedom to choose between different things and different ideas, between vice and virtue, between good and evil. In thinking and debating and sharing ideas, we move closer to God. That this process may at first manifest in sects and schisms is only natural, as “there must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the timber, ere the house of God can be built.”
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| John Milton's Areopagitica |
He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised & unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
The French government would do well to take Milton’s advice. In making such an aggressive attempt to eliminate vice, the state injures the cause of virtue by impeding the quest for truth. Because we can never have perfect knowledge of good and evil, we must allow ideas to be given a fair viewing in the eyes of each individual, for it is through this process alone that such knowledge can be ascertained. The moment we presume perfect knowledge of such matters, we close our minds to new ideas, and, “while thinking thus to defend the Gospel, we are found the persecutors.”
Milton would roundly dismiss the French fear that freedom of thought must be regulated, lest false and dangerous ideas overpower those which are righteous and vital to the health of that nation. Through “licensings and prohibitions we misdoubt [the] strength” of truth in the battle of ideas:
Truth is strong next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious […] Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter.
Of the myriad factors that have coalesced to make America a far more powerful nation than France—geographic location, population size, economic ingenuity—our history of internal cohesion (the Civil War notwithstanding), as compared to their early decades of sustained disunity and recurrent revolution, is one whose importance cannot be overlooked. At the core of American cohesion is a cultural affinity for American life, and at the core of American life is individualism, and at the center of our concept of individualism is a freedom of belief and a freedom of property. Thus it can be said that our history of internal cohesion is the result of our cultural affinity for individualism, and in turn, for democracy and for capitalism.
At first, this would seem unlikely. Capitalism is an exploitative and tumultuous system that creates a huge disparity in the quality of life between the rich and the poor, and wreaks havoc on a great number of people. Why should both the rich and the poor have an affinity for capitalism when only the rich appear to be enjoying its benefits? Indeed, capitalism appears to be a source of divisiveness rather than of cohesion, and that it is—for those unfortunate people who lack Americans’ peculiar affinity for it.
The answer, historically, begins with the fact that this cultural affinity was born out of the symbiotic relationship between American religion and American capitalism: the identity and concomitant ideology interpellated to an individual by the institutions of one system have squared up neatly with those which are interpellated to him by the other. Again, given the disparate nature of daily experience between two religious persons standing several rungs apart on the socio-economic ladder, it should be quite baffling that both individuals could be equally assured in their religious identity. While a wealthy CEO might reasonably believe his prosperity to be indicative of a seat in heaven, with what confidence might an impoverished factory worker view his potential for salvation? With great confidence, if he chooses a different set of beliefs than the CEO—a set of beliefs, for example, which rejects the notion that worldly success implies subsequent salvation. The diversity of religious groups and denominations existing and expanding in this country since its inception has made it easy for an individual to subscribe to a system of beliefs most compatible with his daily experience.
There is much, much more to be said about how American democracy, capitalism, and religion have reinforced a common ideology positing individualism as the catalyst for positive change. Suffice it to say that an American’s freedom to choose the set of beliefs which best comport with the unique realities of his experience goes a long way toward keeping him happy—and happy to work—within the country’s liberal, capitalist system.
John Milton was ahead of his time. His rebuke of a government that tries to eradicate “wrong” ideas from a society through strict regulation of speech articulates an idea which, since at least the Reformation, has been one of the most enduring strands of Anglo-American thought—that no man and no government may exercise a monopoly over the truth. And while Milton could not have known it at the time of his writing, The Areopagitica prefigures one of the most central features of American grand strategy. Indeed, one of the big keys to American ascendancy in the 19th century and onward is that we took heed of Milton’s warnings and implemented his recommendations regarding the freedom of an individual to choose from a diversity of competing beliefs. Perhaps France would have done well to follow suit.
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