Rushdie: The idea of universal rights--the idea of rights that are universal to all people because they correspond to our natures as human beings, not to where we live or what our cultural background is-is an incredibly important one. This belief is being challenged by apostles of cultural relativism who refuse to accept that such rights exist. If you look at those who employ this idea [cultural relativism], it turns out to be Robert Mugabe, the leaders of China, the leaders of Singapore, the Taliban, Ayatollah Khomaini. It is a dangerous belief that everything is relative and therefore these people should be allowed to kill because it's their culture to kill.
I think we live in a bad age for the free speech argument. Many of us have internalized the censorship argument, which is that it is better to shut people up than to let them say things that we don't like. This is a dangerous slippery slope, becasuse people of good intentions and high principles can see censorship as a way of advancing their cause and not as a terrible mistake. Yet bad ideas don't cease to exist by not being expressed. They fester and become more powerful.
I was still a Conservative Christian (actually, I was again a Conservative Christian, after a spiritual affair with Nietzsche) when the fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie, in 1989, for the Satanic Verses. I have a confession to make: I was pleased at the time that there was a religion in the world that took its beliefs seriously enough to take action against those who ridiculed them.
Now, I see that, in a free market of ideas, the best will win. So there is no point in forcably suppressing any of them. And I see that it is evil to do so.
I cited the title of "An Arrow Against All Tyrants," by Richard Overton, in a comment at Libertopia earlier tonight. Rulers, and terrorist leaders, "may profit by this example."
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