Because they don't threaten violence anywhere near as credibly? That's a terrible, terrible incentive to set up. (But perhaps you have another answer?)
Perhaps the suggestion of be respectful is the wrong choice of words; probably I mean "avoid inciting the extremist elements" instead (till they become irrelevant).
What would you suggest as an alternate solution?
My solution is simple: To tell the extremist elements that they can't dominate our discourse, and to meet both threats and any attempts to follow through on those threats with all the force necessary to dissuade them. The "nice" answer is wrong and has all sorts of "not nice" results. And however hard this may be to believe or accept, the potential losses of knuckling under to terrorism are unbounded. Because the thing is, it's not about the grievance they say it's about. There's an infinite supply of grievances, and even if there wasn't, if you leave the decision about whether you've discharged the grievance in the hands of the terrorist they can always decide you haven't done enough. What it is about is that they can get more benefit from the terrorism than it costs them. That is what you must be concerned about, ensuring that the costs of terrorism exceed the benefits, and one easy (and arguably necessary-but-not-sufficient) way to do that is to make sure they don't get benefits. Official "Draw Mohammed" day is a good solution on the side, by raising the costs of terrorism.
Any policy that has the end result of moving the cost/benefit advantage of terrorism in the direction of "benefit" is wrong, especially any that cross from net-negative to net-positive. Regardless of how "nice" it is. Regardless of how well-cloaked in moralistic bibble-babble it is. And it will be so cloaked; the ability of humans to rationalize the short-term convenient answer is nearly unbounded. This is part of the basic contract of civilization and operates at a lower, more fundamental level than most people are used to debating at, in that if terrorists are allowed to tear apart civilization (the ultimate end result if this policy of appeasement is followed), most of the rest of our debates are rendered moot. The first order of business is make sure we still have a civilization in which to have our arguments about what it should be.
I've gone down to this level because it's really important. The US remains a ways away from this being a serious problem, but I am concerned about the number of draws we're making against this account without depositing things; we're a ways from bankrupt here but the trend is strongly negative lately.
I have carefully referred to "nice" policies rather than naming names, but in most cases there are, shall we say, correlations between political parties and the "niceness" of their policies; applying this discussion to their country's policies is left as an exercise for the reader. But there is definitely a time and a place for "not nice" policies, if you actually want your civilization to survive.
If we consistently replied with "we don't listen to threats; if you follow up, you'll be punished," then crazies with agendas wouldn't be able to push the whole world around.
Not that I'd find it easy to publish something, just for humor's sake, that could get me or my loved ones killed. But if I thought it was truly an important message, I hope I'd publish it.
Just for the record; I entirely agree here! If it is important then it needs to be said.
But if you say something for fun (which I think one should be allowed to do!) and because of it a bomb goes off elsewhere in the world - that is hard to justify.
> If we consistently replied with "we don't listen to threats; if you follow up, you'll be punished,"
Yeh, the problem with applying this to extremism is that, for the most part, it doesn't work. On one hand it gives them ammunition to "legitimise" their actions and on the other punishment isn't necessarily a concern for some. They will kill anyway.
As cliche as it is, if we let them dictate what we do and do not do, the terrorists win.
There is, perhaps, only a small portion of blame - but it is akin to throwing a red cape between a bull and a man with his back turned.
I think it is morally justified to think: "if I say this will some idiots try to kill other people? perhaps I should tone it down"
Mind you, I'm drawing a line between incitement (flat out saying "go and do something wrong") and saying something knowing others, in reaction, will do something wrong.
You're opening the opportunity for every type of speech to be silenced. Example?
If you disagree with me, I will kill every poney in the world.
Now you see, we can't even discuss the chance of having a discussion.
Also, one last point to be made: How do you "tone down" against a belief that EVERY visual representation of a person is wrong?
The only real point there is that is an unlikely threat. I can ignore it. If a substantial number of people developed a long history of killing ponies and then made that threat I might reconsider.
One of two things has to happen in my mind. Either we have to ignore the terrorists - which is my preferred solution, but I highly doubt the media will let us. Or we avoid inciting them for a bit as best we can whilst eradicating the problem.
If you think "of course not, don't be silly", then tell me how can I know, prior to expressing my thoughts, if my work will result in a murder. What's a substantial amount of people, how much time is a long history? You're saying there's a line that speech should not cross, because after a certain point bad things will happen.
Where is that line? You're being vague if you say "some people, long history, napkim is okay, cartoon in national newspaper is not". I want to be a law abiding citizen. Should the government publish a list of prohibited things to say? A civilian committee? Should I use "common sense" (as if there's anything common in 2 billion people and 2 major religions spanning 2 thousand years). Or will I only know if what I said was okay after someone killed?
There are serious implications on who you choose to blame, I don't think you've thought this one through.
You know that's not what I mean :) and it's unrelated. Also your definition of blame is fallacious because punishment does not always take the form of jail/fine (i.e. social blame, personal blame).
Besides your action is not inciting; who will see it? If you now go into the town centre and happen to post it near a mosque athat has potential to be inciting. And you need to consider whether that is the sensible thing to do.
(the answer is; it's probably fine because no one is likely to get killed)
> then tell me how can I know, prior to expressing my thoughts, if my work will result in a murder.
Strawman; there is ample precedent for media, particularly cartoons, to cause offence and elicit extremist response.
> You're being vague if you say "some people, long history, napkim is okay, cartoon in national newspaper is not". I want to be a law abiding citizen. Should the government publish a list of prohibited things to say?
Deliberately so; it's a personal choice, not something anyone else should decide!
> I don't think you've thought this one through.
You skirt around some good points - particularly with regards to "social interference" (i.e. a moral brigade deciding what is right/wrong to publish based on their feeling on what will cause extremist response). However I think you make a few fatal mistakes in rhetoric (mostly by building on increasingly shaking links); ultimately I'm not sure you've thought the counter argument through clearly.
I suspect I've just not really put my idea out there very well. It happens.
> Agree to disagree?
Done.
The moral dilemma is that this itself seems to limit free speech. How can we allow the media to publish any parody or mock any religion, and at the same time keep extremists from making threats? I don't think it's sufficient to try to find the killers after they've already killed. I truly think this needs to be dealt with in a "Minority Report" style of thoughtcrime, as scary as that sounds to me.
Im disappointed the above thread has got so much support when it is fatally flawed.
The problem with extremism is that punishing the perpetrators is pretty irrelevant as a solution to the issue because, for the most part, they don't care (or to put it more bluntly: nothing you do can negate what God will provide them).
What we need is a solution to the problem of extremist groups.
The comparison to hostages is wrong; it is more like saying "this is the decision between should I go to a hostage risk area or not?".
It is a personal choice and I think what I am mostly saying is: we should individually consider whether our actions/comments are simply inciting the situation. If that is the case it may be reasonable simply not to say it (an example; if things are getting heated in a bar and you think the other guy is an airhead saying it to his face might not be the most sensible way to make your point).
Or more succinctly: why should we hand them ammunition if we don't have to? As you say; they will pick out all manner of grievances but that's not an argument for increasing their choice. Indeed in the case of parodies it is problematic; because it is legitimate to feel angered by them, and extremists can use that to say "hey, so our violence is legitimate".
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Surprisingly false, and that's the key. The evidence quite strongly suggests that the extremists on the whole really do make rather calculated decisions about what to push, even if only subconsciously. We can tell, because when we change the incentives, behavior changes.
You are basically arguing that the perfect should be the enemy of the good. If there is an extremist that attacks us no matter what, then frankly our policy doesn't matter for that extremist. We need to be concerned about the ones that are calculating though, because there are far more of them.
(Hostages was not a comparison, it was an observation that most terrorism is in one form or another about hostages.)
Your arguments are contradictory; you invoke extremists so extreme that it doesn't matter what we do, then you say we shouldn't incite them. But by definition, you've created a set of people that are unincitable, they're already permanently incited to the max. Yup, they exist. I'm actually pretty comfortable saying "Kill them". Anybody who truly, honestly wants to make it "Either your civilization dies or I die" must be taken up on their offer. However, these people do not numerically amount to all that much, even in the part of the world that has been deliberately cultivating a large group of people who are supposed to make that demand, making the horror of my suggestion MUCH less than it seems; the damage these people can do to civilization is far greater than the loss. (I can not underscore this enough; the evidence is that my approach is by far the more peaceable, because it produces a situation where civilization is to people's advantage. It is the production of a situation where attacking the civilization is advantageous that produces chaos and death! Second order effects utterly dominate this discussion.)
Your approach is a recipe for increasing the number of terrorists, not decreasing them.
Have you any references for that? (I'm interested, not disputing it)
> it was an observation that most terrorism is in one form or another about hostages.
Ah, now that is a slightly different matter I feel. I was more discussing the idea of indiscriminate killing or direct murder of the "offendor".
> But by definition, you've created a set of people that are unincitable, they're already permanently incited to the max.
How are terrorists made? For the most part the "foot soldiers" are incited by the more calculating leaders. Handing those leaders material that is offensive is ammunition for them to convert foot soldiers to the cause.
Your right - it wont affect the leadership, but it removes some of their ammunition to brainwash others with.
> If there is an extremist that attacks us no matter what, then frankly our policy doesn't matter for that extremist. We need to be concerned about the ones that are calculating though, because there are far more of them.
No, we clearly need to respond - and respond in a cohesive way. What I'm suggesting is that avoiding inciteful actions might make it easier to combat extremism.
> It is the production of a situation where attacking the civilization is advantageous that produces chaos and death!
Bear in mind that I'm not suggesting we make a big thing of "we are not going to incite you". Just that, perhaps, a more careful personal set of actions is justified. Every time a big thing (in media terms) like this happens the death threats come in, more people are scared and there is added potential for people to die. If it hadn't have happened there would be less fear now than a few weeks ago :)
> you invoke extremists so extreme that it doesn't matter what we do
To be fair that was what you invoked - I was trying to sync it into my arguments.
Incidentally a strong argument for my idea is that modern terrorist leaders have realised they don't have to actually bomb anyone significant or even actually respond to a threat. They just have to get it into the news to propagate fear.
Brilliant.
One shouldn't be giving any special treatment to faith-based ideology regardless of whether they can amass whacko proponents or not. This isn't anything like 'shutting up and walking away from a fight', it isn't a personal experience or situation; this is a matter of policy and public fucking health (mental too).
(edited for clarity of language)