Month: February 2006

Jack Straw

Just seen Jack Straw’s comments, which are very close to my own. I would quibble with one word – he is quoted as saying:

“We have to be very careful about showing the proper respect in this situation.”

Strictly speaking, we don’t have to. I would say we ought to, unless we have some sufficient reason not to (such as, for instance, the literary purpose of The Satanic Verses).

The difficult question is whether the danger of “causing trouble” should be taken into account, as Straw seems to suggest. It’s a question of whether to be polite, or whether to demonstrate that we are not intimidated. To the extent that fear of causing trouble is caused by threats, those threats are wrongful and should be defied. On the other hand, it is generally true that being rude or offensive can cause trouble, and that’s certainly not generally a reason in favour of being rude or offensive.

I suppose I care more about my neighbours in Luton than a bunch of thugs in Gaza. I believe my neighbours would prefer not to have the cartoons all over the papers, but they haven’t (to my knowledge) been violent or threatening. I don’t want to insult them in order to defy the thugs.

There was a drunk tramp on the Northern Line train from London Bridge to St Pancras last night, and he mumbled obscenities at various of his fellow passengers. It would have given me great satisfaction to have thrown him off the train. But it would have been a bit of a stretch to say he was causing “harrassment, alarm or distress” – in fact he was causing annoyance.

As I said, if there is some point to the cartoons beyond being offensive, I don’t know what it is. I suppose they’re funny – that might have been enough reason to publish them once, but not to make a big thing of it. You could say that it is necessary for people to see them in order to understand what a small thing all this fuss has grown out of, but I haven’t heard anyone explicitly claim that, and I’m not convinced.

On Being Offensive

Being offensive is an absolute right. No legal action and no violence should be brought against anyone, anywhere, for being offensive.

But let’s not get carried away. Being offensive, is not, in itself, a good thing. Other things being equal, it is better not to be offensive than to be offensive. There are, however, many things more important than not being offensive, and so it is sometimes necessary or desirable to be offensive.

If we take The Satanic Verses, or Jerry Springer, the Opera, they both offended a lot of people. They are both, in their different ways, artworks and pieces of entertainment, and their producers felt that their value outweighed any offense they gave. Right or wrong, that was their decision to make.

In the case of the Danish cartoons, I get the impression that the whole point was to be offensive. If so, I’m not able to say it was a good thing to do. What is praiseworthy about insulting people for no reason? Offensiveness is a right, but it’s not a duty. People must put up with being offended, but they are not required to like it.

So now we have the fallout. Many people were offended, and responded, some in legitimate ways, some in illegitimate ways. Violence is unjustified. Complaints are justified. Threats of violence are unjustified. Boycotts are justified. Demands for changes to the law are allowable, but should be refused. Demands backed by threats of violence are wrong.

In the face of this reaction – some of it illegitimate – it has been suggested that it is good to reproduce the cartoons, either to punish those who overreacted, or to “draw fire” from the original publisher. But this also adds to the original offensiveness, and dilutes the effect of legitimate criticism as well as illegitimate threats.

In reality, one side is trying to radicalise their section of society by exaggerating the original offense, and using it as a provocation. This was even more blatant over the Satanic Verses affair, where almost nobody who would be offended would ever have even heard about the offense without strenuous efforts by their “leaders” to bring it to their attention.

Against that, the other side is trying to demonstrate its attachment to, and unwillingness to compromise, its freedom of expression, and, less admirably, to demonstrate its power to be as offenive as possible.

I think it would be better to stand firm, but not to antagonise. Remember that there are many people who are offended, and who are entitled to be offended, and who have not threatened violence or otherwise stepped beyond the bounds of civilised behaviour. In dealing with retaliation, concentrate on the retaliation itself, and do not dwell on the insufficient reason for it. Basically, pretend that the reaction that occurs – withdrawl of ambassadors, or whatever – is completely unprovoked and act accordingly. That is better than the “escalating” response of repeating and amplifying the original, insignificant, offense.

As I discussed last year, I think we can best deal with the intolerant by calmly insisting that the right to free expression is inviolable, while at the same time discussing the content in question rationally, and treating any calls for acutal censorship as “ceremonial” – part of the normal process of objecting to something one doesn’t like, but not serious proposals. Unfortunately, this approach is undermined by any censorship we do have, such as the “inciting hatred” laws which weere used unsuccessfully against the BNP, and which are currently being expanded (fortunately less than the government wished).

Of course, if the point of the cartoons really was solely to be offensive, then there is not really anything of substance to argue, which is a shame.

Technical Integration

Cory Doctorow asks:

I’ve often wondered why the camera in my pocket — which has a fast processor, a big beautiful screen, and a four-way rocker-switch — doesn’t come with a couple thousand video-games, given its capacious memory.

I can think of several reasons:

The camera state-of-the-art is fast-moving. The extra time it takes to design in the game features for a given model will delay it – putting it up in the market against newer designs.

Software reliablility. Cameras don’t crash. Games do. I slight tendency to crash would be a huge problem for a camera.

Phones. If you want a single do-anything gadget, it’s more likely to be a phone with a camera in it than a camera with extra features. Buyers of specialist cameras – which aren’t phones or pdas – are likely to concentrate solely on phone features.

General “integrated device problems” – if one feature goes obsolete, the other is left with an obsolete device hanging off it. If one feature breaks, the other is left with a broken device hanging off it.

These things take time. I remember a long period during which laser printers, photocopiers, faxes and scanners were all made of different combinations of the same functional elements, but multi-functional devices that could fulfil the different roles were not available. They became available once the features of each device reached a plateau – where integrating different functions became a more useful innovation than improving any one function.

There is a pernicious belief that what matters in innovation is ideas. The idea of integrating a dvd-player into a television, the idea of a compressed-air powered toy aeroplane, the idea of selling petfood on the internet. What matters isn’t having the idea, it’s making it work.

All these things will happen when someone invests in making them work. I’m planning to hang on to my antediluvian Nokia 3310 until I can replace it with a model integrating an MP3 player with >20Gb of storage. I estimate 2009, including a year for the early-adopter tax to go away.

Three cheers for democracy

Yesterday the House of Commons unexpectedly upheld freedom of speech by voting to accept the amendments made by the House of Lords to the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Very good news. We will continue to be able legally to be rude about religions, as long as we are not threatening (in which case there is plenty existing law, anyway). And three boos for my MP Margaret Moron, who has a 100% record of voting for oppression.

Of course, while it is good to see our elected representatives voting for freedom, it must be remembered that the Commons previously approved the bill in all its horrible glory, and only after the rejection by the unelected house of Lords did it agree to gut it. What conclusions can we draw from that?

Well, one is that the Commons’ view when there is time for both a public and an internal debate is not the same as its view in normal circumstances. This is because legislative productivity is too high: laws are being passed without getting adequate consideration.

Why did the Lords get it right when the Commons initially got it wrong? Possibly, the Lords, while unrepresentative of the population just happens to be more representative of me. That doesn’t lead anywhere useful. Alternatively, I have often thought that the Lords show a greater sense of responsibility, brought on by the knowledge that their powers are illegitimate. An MP says to himself “I have gone through a long struggle of politicking and elections to obtain the power to vote on these matters – I shall now vote according to whatever suits my purpose at this moment”. A Lord says “I have undeservedly been given power to change the law of my country – I must take care not to use that power in a harmful way”. This explanation seems weaker now that most voting Lords are appointed ex-MPs – it seems unlikely that they would suddenly aquire an unfamiliar humility along with their silly robes.

I cannot justify the existence of the House of Lords, and I have in the past argued for unicameralism, but there is a pressing need to reduce legislative productivity, and the brake that is the Lords, eccentric as it is, cannot be discarded at this stage.

A claim by Charles Clarke was that the defeat was “a purely political act”. A bizarre statement for a politician to make, but I suppose he meant that those opposing the bill were not really opposed to it, they just wanted to see the government defeated on something. (Of course it is unheard of for a Labour MP to vote for a bill he does not really support, just because he wants the government to win a vote). That may be true of some Tories, but I am sure that those who voted against their own party were sincere in their opposition.

A prominent feature of the debate was its dishonesty. The original text of the bill said things like “an offense is committed if someone says things that stir up racial or religious hatred”. In response to criticism, the government proposed amendments along the lines: “you may express criticism of religion (provided you don’t stir up hatred)”. Such amendments obviously have no effect whatever on the meaning of the bill: see here

I am impressed by the Hansard web site. Full text of yesterday’s debate and votes is available this morning for examination. Obviously, this is how it should be, but it is slightly surprising nonetheless.