Different Aspects of Freedom
Mosif, a friend and adversary, pointed me to interesting article that bring two interesting points of view about the recent events in Europe. Although the article itself is in Hebrew the sources are two articles in the Guardian and can be read by non-Hebrew speakers.
The first quoted article is the opinion column by Ronald Dworkin which has problems with the delivery of the message, but not with the message itself. I’m taking for granted that everyone exercise, or at least should, self censorship. We are making "editorial" decisions constantly and newspapers making them as well. However these are self impose decisions and shouldn’t be government rules. There is however a problematic point in the fact that the British media made a decision as a body and not each source for itself. It is even scarier when you follow the logic of Dworkin’s statement:
“But the public does not have a right to read or see whatever it wants no matter what the cost, and the cartoons are in any case widely available on the internet.”
Who is making the decisions about what should the public know? And what should the public speak about? This is unclear.
In a whole I agree with Dworkin’s main point that we should have no law that limits the freedom of speech.
“So in a democracy no one, however powerful or impotent, can have a right not to be insulted or offended. That principle is of particular importance in a nation that strives for racial and ethnic fairness. If weak or unpopular minorities wish to be protected from economic or legal discrimination by law - if they wish laws enacted that prohibit discrimination against them in employment, for instance - then they must be willing to tolerate whatever insults or ridicule people who oppose such legislation wish to offer to their fellow voters, because only a community that permits such insult may legitimately adopt such laws. If we expect bigots to accept the verdict of the majority once the majority has spoken, then we must permit them to express their bigotry in the process whose verdict we ask them to respect. Whatever multiculturalism means - whatever it means to call for increased "respect" for all citizens and groups - these virtues would be self-defeating if they were thought to justify official censorship.”
The second article is an Interview with Amartya Sen and is more interesting intellectually. Sen Challenges the concept of classifying people into groups by one criterion, mainly religion.
“What grates on Sen is the idea that individuals should be ushered like sheep into pens according to their religious faith, a mode of classification that too often trumps all others and ignores the fact that people are always complex, multi-faceted individuals who choose their identities from a wide range of economic, cultural and ideological alternatives. "Being defined by one group identity over all others," he says, "overlooking whether you’re working class or capitalist, left or right, what your language group is and your literary tastes are, all that interferes with people’s freedom to make their own choices."
In practical terms Sen argues that too much power is being handed to religious leaders and that religious is having greater involvement in politics:
“Sen is also critical of the growing consultative power given to the religious organisations of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. It does, he believes, magnify the power and authority of religious leaders at the expense of a healthy democratic debate. "Suddenly the Jewish, Hindu and Muslim organisations are in charge of all Jews, Hindus and Muslims. Whether you are an extremist mullah or a moderate mullah, whether you’re Blair’s friend or Blair’s enemy, you might relish the idea of being able to speak for all people with a Muslim background - no matter how religious they are - but this may be in direct competition with the role of Muslims in British civil society."
While it is very interesting idea I’m afraid that this is only a symptom and not the problem. The main reason such classifications are being made is to simplify a problem to our political system. Since we are handing more and more power to the government to handle more and more aspects of our lives, it is necessary to classify individuals into larger groups. And while in technology we are discovering the benefits of addressing smaller and smaller of the “public”, in our public life we are grouping people into larger groups so they can fit to some grouping inventory.
So yes I would like to develop Sen’s Idea and threat people as individual, with infinite combination of identifying tags, but in order to that we need to limits the effect of this identification on our political life.
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I'm struggling with this question for the longest time, and I don't have perfect answer. However, I will try my best here. I do not object classifications what I object is the implications of classifications in the current political situation. People have the right, and they use it, to classify themselves in many ways. However I do not think that the fact that someone is Jewish, Reform and belong to Jazz club should be effect on the political system.
The nation state concept is new concept and was developed basically in the last 200-300 years.In fact the nation state is a fluid and unclear concept as it can be, and it be come less clear as time pass.
But you didn't really ask a theoretical question, so I'll response to your underline trap. Jewish people had the right to classify themselves as a nation, and Palestinian people can classify themselves as a nation as well, And for historic reasons they had right on a small land called Israel. Ideally the state of Israel should give the same treatment to all of its citizens. there is a question of how the state protect the right of the Jews to live peacefully in Israel without being killed.
For me when ever I'm confronting a question of group Vs. the Individual the later is more important. States created to protect Human rights. Nation state is European concept which is going to be replaced by hopefully something better, what is that saying about Israel, I'm too afraid to think about that.
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No this is not what I was saying. what I was saying was that it is natural for politician, or political parties, to group our identities. In a way it is like managing Inventories.
However if we limits the effect of politician, or the governments administration, on our life we by definition limits the affect of this type of classification.
How relevant is sectorial party (like Shas) if it has no ability to give money? if the government doesn't give money to schools, etc. the identification grouping that parties, like Shas, naturally enjoy from has no meaning.
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do you mean that identities politics (a political party like Shas) should be limited and even banned, or that identities (national, religious etc.) should not take a part in politics?
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