Dear Moderators:
The Iranian government condemned the attacks in Paris, but stressed the impermissibility of insulting religious faith; and in some Orwellian twist of doublethink, Pope Francis has corroborated the Iranian position by affirming that freedom of speech is a "fundamental human right" but religious faith must be respected. Its occasionally comforting to see two of the world's oldest competing theocracies finding common ground in their bipartisan assault on freedom of expression.
Freedom of speech creates an economy of ideas which are fluid and mobile enough to allow the exchange of error for truth in the event that someone is mistaken about their convictions. Its a device for surveying all possible modes of knowledge in the overall phase space of human ideas. Thus, it is not only tolerable, but morally incumbent upon us to mock and defame religion- especially the Islamic religion.
The rigidity of moral absolutism can only be broken, not reformed. We often forget that the death of humans is a tragedy, while the death of ideas is a triumph. Our civil discourse is imprisoned by the tyranny of consensus and yet it's survival depends upon the emancipation of dissenting views. This false synthesis of vice and virtue is a volatile mixture with annihilating consequences. As rational agents we are endowed at once with the faculty to reason and to laugh at the absurdities and ironies of our world. Accordingly, we must disrespect propositions which demand that some cosmic renaissance took place in an ancient desert and was revealed in the mental auditorium of nomadic delusions. Let us defend offensive speech for truth's sake. And if we abound in error, then let us celebrate our fallibility. For there is no higher virtue than the right to be wrong.
References:
[1] F.L. Carsten (1980). The Rise of Fascism. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press
[2] F.L. Carsten (1980). The Rise of Fascism. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press
[3] T. Ferris (2010). The Science of Liberty. New York City, NY: Harper Collins
[4] F. Hayek (2007). The Road to Serfdom (Definitive ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
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