It wasn't censorship. Fine. It was cowardly, it was craven, it was a manifestation of dhimmitude, and it most certainly was "an episode in some 'showdown between Islam and the Western tradition of free speech.'” I am not so much interested in Stanley Fish's pedantic point about the definition of the word censorship as I am in his cavalier dismissal of the possibility that this is a skirmish in a larger battle over free speech. The Organization of the Islamic Conference has been clear about its plan to compel Western countries to curtail free speech so as to end criticism of Islam and jihad terrorism, and Random House was clear that they did not publish this book because they were afraid of violent reprisals.
How, then, could this not be "an episode in some 'showdown between Islam and the Western tradition of free speech'”? Fear rules the day: even blowhard conservative talking heads on TV are afraid of discussing the elements of Islam that jihadists exploit to justify jihad violence and Islamic supremacism, for fear of being called "bigots" and "racists." Others, like Random House, are afraid of making any move that Muslims might dislike, up to and including publishing a trashy Harlequin-Romanceization of Muhammad's marriage to the nine-year-old Aisha, for fear of suffering violent reprisals.
So perhaps Fish is right: there is no showdown, because on the Western side no one is showing up. For a showdown in the Old West you needed two gunfighters standing toe-to-toe, not one standing up and the other running to meet his every demand.
But is there an attempt by the Islamic world to muzzle Western speech about Islam? Certainly. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary General of OIC, recently crowed: "In confronting the Danish cartoons and the Dutch film ‘Fitna’, we sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed. As we speak, the official West and its public opinion are all now well aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.” And now Random House has obediently fallen into line.
Stanley Fish, and everyone, ought to be aware of what's at stake, and ready to defend our values.
"Crying Censorship," by Stanley Fish in the New York Times, August 24:
Salman Rushdie, self-appointed poster boy for the First Amendment, is at it again. This time he’s not standing up for free expression on his own behalf, but on behalf of another author, Sherry Jones, whose debut novel about the prophet Muhammad’s child bride had been withdrawn by Random House after consultants warned that its publication “could incite racial conflict.” [...]It is censorship when Germany and other countries criminalize the professing or publication of Holocaust denial. (I am not saying whether this is a good or a bad idea.) It is censorship when in some countries those who criticize the government are prosecuted and jailed. It was censorship when the United States Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798, stipulating that anyone who writes with the intent to bring the president or Congress or the government “into contempt or disrepute” shall be “punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.” Key to these instances is the fact that (1) it is the government that is criminalizing expression and (2) that the restrictions are blanket ones. That is, they are not the time, manner, place restrictions that First Amendment doctrine traditionally allows; they apply across the board. You shall not speak or write about this, ever. That’s censorship.
So what Random House did was not censorship. (Some other press is perfectly free to publish Jones’s book, and one probably will.) It may have been cowardly or alarmist, or it may have been good business, or it may have been an attempt to avoid trouble that ended up buying trouble. But whatever it was, it doesn’t rise to the level of constitutional or philosophical concern. And it is certainly not an episode in some “showdown between Islam and the Western tradition of free speech.” Formulations like that at once inflate a minor business decision and trivialize something too important and complex to be reduced to a high-school civics lesson about the glories of the First Amendment.
Well, Stanley Fish doesn't know anything about Islam, and he's an ostrich.
Here's a recent NYT article titled "A Jihad grows in Kashmir."
That's the home of Rage Boy. Thought people might be interested:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/opinion/27mishra.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
"But whatever it was, it doesn’t rise to the level of constitutional or philosophical concern."
In other words, since this incident is not caused by the evil U.S. government conspiring against its citizens, and since it just involves noble foreigners (victims all) justifiably reacting to American cultural imperialism, and since it does not conflict with leftist hatred for traditional America (i.e., "philosophy"), it is not anything of interest. Nothing to see here.
"And it is certainly not an episode in some “showdown between Islam and the Western tradition of free speech.”"
This remark is wishful thinking, and culturally arrogant. Since the Islamic world DOES consider this incident a "showdown between Islam and the Western tradition of free speech,"
in fact, it is, regardless of what this Fish idiot asserts.
"Formulations like that at once inflate a minor business decision and trivialize something too important and complex to be reduced to a high-school civics lesson ..."
Mr. Fish himself is trivializing the issue by describing it as a "minor business decision." Standing on principle demands that small incidents never be ignored or so trivialized. Robert Spencer has got it right.
We fear Islam and yet we won't allow ourselves to hate Islam. That is a recipe for a civilization's nervous breakdown.
I thought this was the most ridiculous argument possible. Yes, it isn't censorship per se, but Fish as is his wont, ignored the real issue. Western businesses are caving in to threats.
For clarity, I should have written my second paragraph thusly:
... and since it does not conflict with "philosophy" (i.e, leftist hatred for traditional America) ...
"...and yet we won't allow ourselves to hate Islam." --poetcomic
I hate Islam. I hate Naziism and Fascism, too.
But, I know that by the "we" you meant the West. However, I believe there are many enlightened individuals out there who hate Islam as much as they hate the two aforementioned supremacist, oppressive, totalitarian, and murderous political ideologies.
You know, people who don't have mush for brains.
The snide Mr. Fish can parse the definition of censorship all he wants from his precarious ivory tower (and the New York Times can pat itself on the back all it wants for enlisting the aid of yet another snooty, irrelevant intellectual to dismiss concerns about Islam), but the reality is this:
The cultural context in which this "minor business decision" was made is one in which Islamists have repeatedly made it clear that murder and mayhem will ensue if their sensibilities are offended by Western writers, filmmakers, and artists. Random House was all set to publish this book until another snooty intellectual promised Islamic retaliation and alerted a popular Islamic website to fan the flames of Islamic outrage. Random House then announced that for the safety of everyone involved, they scuttled the book. How is that not de facto censorship?
Of course Stanley Fish's point -- that the First Amendment protects only against censorship by the government -- is both true, and obvious. But there are other kinds of censorship, by private parties, even large corporations such as Random House, made fearful in the current climate, all over the world, in which publishers (Jyllands-Posten) and writers and cartoonists and movie-makers are not only threatened (Salman Rushdie, Kurt Westergaard, Geert Wilders) but also killed (Theo van Gogh).
What he, Fish, had he a head on his shoulders, might have written is this:
"The First Amendment protects only against censorship by the government. It does not protect against another form of censorship, that is these days far more potent and worrisome: the censorship that comes from physical insecurity, because of the widespread presence of Muslims in Western lands, and among those Muslims many who do not subscribe to the Western notions of free speech, even if they may live among us, and have acquired citizenship in advanced Western democracies. And it this kind of censorship that we should worry most about."
He could have done that. But he's too busy, down in sunny Florida, enjoying his extraordinarily well-paid existence: the Academic Entrepreneur, who showed all the others how it was to be done. Well, almost all the others, for then there is Henry Louis Gates, another such entrepreneur, with a slightly different shtick unavailable to Stanley Fish.
Stanley Fish is an example of a new phenomenon in American academic life. It is the almost-comical bestrider-of-disciplines (not to be confused with that also highly desirable envelope-pushing edge-cutting "interdisciplinarian" who, unlike all the sad sacks among us, Williiam James with his "philosophy" and Jacques Barzun with his "litreature, are multidisciplined), the one who insists on being called not merely a Professor of X, but a Professor of X and Y, or as in Martha Nussbaum's case -- one quite similar to that of Fish, though beyond all ichthyologizing, a Professor of X and Y and Z.
So Stanley Fish is a Professor of Law and Literature. Martha Nussbaum, seeing him and raising him, becomes a Professor of Law and Literature and Philosophy, or is it Law and Philosophy and Literature, or is it Literature and Philosophy and Law? I forget.
It's all silly. The words mean nothing, really, for no one intelligent is limited in thought or in practice to what a department is named. The Fishes and the Nussbaums become comically Irwin-Coreyish.
But there is one thing that is deeply, truly, madly serious about this. And that is Money. Because if you have the word "Law" in your title, your salary immediately is jacked up, far above the usual for professors of literature or philosophy, even if you are not teaching at a law school. And that Money, that swanning around the world -- was Stanley Fish not the model for David Lodge’s Morris Zapp Stanley Fish is an example of a new phenomenon in American academic life. It is the almost-comical bestrider-of-disciplines (not to be confused with that also highly desirable envelope-pushing edge-cutting "interdisciplinarian" who, unlike all the sad sacks among us, Williiam James with his "philosophy" and Jacques Barzun with his "litreature, are multidisciplined), the one who insists on being called not merely a Professor of X, but a Professor of X and Y, or as in Martha Nussbaum's case -- one quite similar to that of Fish, though beyond all ichthyologizing, a Professor of X and Y and Z.
So Stanley Fish is a Professor of Law and Literature. Martha Nussbaum, seeing him and raising him, then insisted on being called a Professor of Law and Literature and Philosophy, or is it Law and Philosophy and Literature, or is it Literature and Philosophy and Law? I forget. But you get the picture.
Here is how Judith Shulevitz, in an article in Slate, began her dissection of Stanley Fish a few years ago:
"Stanley Fish, the new dean of arts and sciences at the University of Illinois in Chicago and the second-most-famous English professor in America--after Harvard's Henry Louis Gates Jr.--is indistinguishable from Morris Zapp. Everyone knows that the character in David Lodge's trilogy Changing Places, Small World, and Nice Work, the most popular campus novels since Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim, was based on Fish, Lodge's good friend. Zapp, a jetsetting, starfucking, and intellectually luminous American deconstructionist whose charm lies in his gleeful disregard for scholarly convention, aspires to become the highest-paid English professor in the world. What's wrong with that? he asks.
“To readers of American newspapers, however, particularly the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Fish is the symbol of how the left is wrecking American universities. Fish's sin, according to his journalistic critics, is moral relativism. He is the founder of "reader-response" criticism, which holds that texts don't have intrinsic meaning--meaning is a byproduct of the encounter between reader and text. He advocates campus speech codes, the ultimate in political correctness. He defends the cultural-studies journal Social Text and the field of "science studies," even after they were humiliated through a brilliant prank by physicist Alan Sokal. And yes, he is one of the highest-paid English professors around. He currently gets $230,000 a year from the University of Illinois. This, it is felt, does not reflect an amusing brashness. It reflects a lack of principle."
Now about that word "Law" in Fish's title. The whole business may have begun with James Boyd White, a former student of the inimitable master teacher Theodore Baird, and Reuben Brower, and others at Amherst when English departments were English departments. James Boyd White was among the first -- there have been so many since -- who while still deeply attached to literature, was forced to do something "practical," and so Boyd White went off to law school, but in the end managed to create a field, Law and Literature, out of his text "The Legal Imagination," and now the phony field has its own journals, and its own professional groups and meetings, and of course its own fakes, producing bastard stuff -- see Weisberg's confused gallimaufry about French lawyers and law-- but despite all this, when the practitioner of the non-existent discipline or interdisciplinary disciplin, happens to be cutlivated, what is offered can be more than a respite for desperate law students from the aridities of the U.C.C., and they can acquire some sense, in law school, of first and last things. In the biography of Stanley Fish, however, James Boyd White is important as the very first student of the humanities to see a way to smuggle himself, and what he really wanted most to teach, into a Law School, with a law school salary, and far easier prospects.
And Stanley Fish, though in his time far more of a professional reader -- in a bad sense -- than the gentlemanly James Boyd White (with a whiff of George Saintsbury, or other hours-in-a-library Logan-Pearsall-Smith and Maurice-Bowra boys), was inspired to himself become a "Professor of Law and Literature."
The word “Law” in someone's title turns out, you see, to be worth -- and a Law School setting is not absolutely de rigueur -- worth is worth an extra – oh, fifty thousand, at least, per year --and that is why one sees Stanley Fish carefully remembering in his articles, in his new and latest gig for The Times, o do his impersonation of a first-year law student who, having proudly taken Constitutional Law, is eager to explain the difference between government censorship, and private parties exercising their right not to publish something, yes mimicking such a student right down to the “time, manner, place” restrictions that you can find in any Kaplan or BarBri outline of Con Law. This is how Fish puts it:
(1) it is the government that is criminalizing expression and (2) that the restrictions are blanket ones. That is, they are not the time, manner, place restrictions that First Amendment doctrine traditionally allows; they apply across the board. You shall not speak or write about this, ever.
You see, Stanley Fish some years ago became a Professor of Literature and Law. And without even having to go to the trouble of attending Law School. And he doesn’t want you, or the Comptroller’s Office at whatever university he is currently associated with, to ever forget it.
Oh, Stanley! Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into. Suddenly, Fish believes that there is an OBJECTIVE content to words, but in every other situation, attempting to find meaning would yield only an interpretation stemming from the interpretive community to which the reader belongs.
Although I agree with Fish's point that Random House's action is self-censorship and not government censorship, the main point is this: shall we cower before the bullying class or oppose them?
Which is it, professor?
I wish Robert would put a link on this so we can flood Random House with emails. The American Family Association does this and it seems effective. Although, I am afraid some knuckle heads will send the wrong message.
Caving in to Islam is self censorship, also called
negating your manhood.
Popular among various leftists, liberals, dhimmi's fellow travelers, PC freaks, diversity Chumps and multicultural idiots. All emasculated by Islam, and the self censorship, that they would like to pass on to the rest of us, as free speech issues, and as legislation if possible.
Well the government, on behalf of Islam, can try to censor me if they want, but I am not going to self censor myself in the manner that they wish. I refuse to surrender my manhood, whatever that is, to the gods of self emasculation.
Sorry, I'm just not into it...but if others think that is the way to salvation, I guess life as a mental eunuch is the way to go...If Allah wills it, and he always does...
So where are the other two monkeys? I mean, Stanley Fish sees no evil, so where are "hears no evil" and "speaks no evil". Do they work at the New York Times as well?
Charming to see this writer (Mr Fish) demonstrating the same kind of cowardice that
he insists does not constitute censorship on the part of Random House. That is a much needed contribution. Presumably he thinks this makes him a voice for reason, clarifying the issue for the sake of pluralist cohesion, a motivation which seems to produce more kow-towing poltroonery (or perhaps I should say more sorrow and pity) than Nazi occupation.
I guess the rationale here is: if you are forced for political or ideological reasons to withhold free expression, you are being censored. If you withhold that expression because you are threatened with violence and have chosen to give in to the threat, you are NOT being censored.
And I suppose we can add that if you refuse to give in to the threat and allow for the expression anyway...you are a bigot. I am very thankful for this lesson in political correctness.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference
--
That sounds so happy.. [my apologies to the happy community :-)]
If you want to stand up for freedom of speech write Random House at this website that has the proper form.
God bless Denmark for publishing the novel (which sucks, btw; I read the Prologue), for standing up for free speech, for having an anti-Islam party, for printing and reprinting the cartoons, and for Fitna.
When someone agrees to publish your novel and this agreement is then withdrawn purely because of what Muslims might think - this IS censorship.
It is cowardly, Muslim appeasing self-censorship on the part of the publisher. The novel is probably trash, but for me the publisher is unpatriotic, nonchalant scum.
The publisher thinks Muslims have the right to never be criticized or offended (even when Westerners are bombed, attacked and Islamized).
What gives Islam the rights that no other reliion has? - The answer is terror, violence and intimidation.
Who can now say terrorism, violence and intimidation don't pay?
"...and yet we won't allow ourselves to hate Islam." --poetcomic
"No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies." Dean Acheson,former Secretary of State (D)
Should the West not learn and heed this lesson rather quickly, all will be lost to the ignorant thugs at the gates (and in Europe well inside the gates.)
"...and yet we won't allow ourselves to hate Islam." --poetcomic
"No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies." Dean Acheson,former Secretary of State (D)
Should the West not learn and heed this lesson rather quickly, all will be lost to the ignorant thugs at the gates (and in Europe well inside the gates.)
Very useful quote from Dean Acheson in the posting(s) just above.
"No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies." Dean Acheson,former Secretary of State (D)
Right. Now all we have to do is decide who are enemies are, and we're all set!
our*
(hooked on Phonics)
If you have to be hooked on something, phonics is a good thing to be hooked on.
I responded to Fish's piece here.
bill poser, too bad you have comments closed on your site, so I guess I have to comment here. I liked your piece on Fish.
"Update: The omitted words "by fear" have now been restored in Stanley Fish's post."
They may be restored in his post, but didn't he also get published in the hard copy of the New York Times? August 24 -- wonder if "by fear" is there, and if not will the NYT issue a correction a week later buried on page C18?
Fish, Greenblatt, Gates, et al. have not only contributed to the ruin of the academic study of English, turning it into a not very effective form of social work; they have used their narrow professional expertise (impressive in the first two instances at least, and if only (makari!) they had stuck to their lasts they might have contributed something lasting) to parade their larger, ridiculous political opinions to the world. Whatever one thinks at the end of the day about the ancient narrow sectarian war between Alcove One and Alcove Two, at least those fellows had a serious, adult interest in politics and how politics and literature might intersect. Normally any sane mind would ignore a shallow publicist like Fish, but our two editors and every commentator above have rightly seen the larger issues here and the need for response to yet one more failure of nerve by the West.