Word of the week: offend

Photo Credit: CanStockPhoto under creative commons licence

Where is the line between the right to free expression and the responsibility to respect others?

There’s a debate going on now about whether media outlets should republish the cartoons from Charlie Hebdo that enraged three men in France enough to kill 25 people at the magazine and at a kosher grocery store, and wound another 20.

In Canada, several newspapers, most of them French-language, republished the cartoons. Most English-language newspapers, however, did not. The New York Times’ editor changed his mind twice about the issue, ultimately deciding not to publish them.

The French language side of the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Radio-Canada, published them on its website. The English-language service made a point of not doing so. David Studer, CBC's director of journalistic standards and practices, said that there was no need to publish the cartoons to understand the story, and that since CBC would not have published them before the shootings, there was no reason to publish them after.

Last Friday, the lunchtime radio call-in program in my home town debated the issue. Most of the callers, Muslim or not, agreed with the sentiment that the cartoons should not be published because they are offensive, particularly those that depict the prophet Muhammed in sexual situations.

Think of the children!

One caller who identified herself as a Muslim said that “I am trying to raise my children to respect Muhammed, and how can they when they see images like that?”

Protecting children is important. In Canada, 344 people drowned in 2012. Open water can be dangerous for anyone.

How do we protect children against drowning? We teach them swimming and water safety. As a result of increased numbers of children enrolled in swimming lessons, the drowning statistics for children under age 18 has been declining steadily.

Automobile accidents claim thousands of lives every year. Yet we teach children to drive cars. We acknowledge that the danger is best met and mitigated by teaching people how to deal with real danger.

But we have such a different attitude when it comes to offence, insult or criticism of figures that some people revere.

Why? What could happen to the Prophet were someone to criticize him? I haven’t seen any harm come to Islam itself as a result of cartoons. And don’t imagine that the murders were somehow divine retribution. That was the action of three angry, petulant and ultimately immature young men who decided on their own to react to an insult with deadly force. The same way a playground bully will use force to react to an insult.

I understand that people do not like to be offended. But we all have a choice when it comes to offensive material: we don’t have to look. No one has to look at pornography. No one has to read satire. You don’t have to read or watch The Last Temptation of Christ.

In a pluralistic, egalitarian society, which is what we are trying to build in the West, we respect each other’s right to practise any religion we choose, as long as we’re not harming anyone else. But your right to respect your religion does not trump my right to express my ideas. And if I feel the need to criticize a religious leader, that’s my right.

To my Muslim friends: if you are afraid of being offended, do not scroll any lower. I am going to republish some of the offensive cartoons from Charlie Hebdo. Not gratuitously, not just to make fun of a revered man, but as part of a question I want candid answers to.

Are you offended by this?

Personally, I think this is funny, riffing on a scene from a Brigitte Bardot film. I think it’s important to poke fun at revered figures, because it allows us to question our leaders, to hold them to account, and to question our own assumptions. We need to do this every so often, so we can make certain we are not being hypocrites.

And really, we are seeing a man’s bare ass. How does that hurt anyone? Even if it’s not beautiful, it’s not harmful. We’ve all seen someone’s bare ass at some point in our lives, and we’re none the worse for it.

How about this one?

It’s a reference to the film “Intouchables,” about a disabled, rich white man who hires a poor black man to care for him. The dialog bubble means “We must not be mocked.” Is it funny? Does it offend you? Tell me in the Comments section.

And what about this one? 

What do you think?

Even if it is disrespectful, Charlie Hebdo did not harm anyone or anything. And here’s a suggestion to those who did feel offended and disrespected: consisder satire like Charlie Hebdo’s like a vaccination. If you can deal with the disrespect and come up with a response—one that does not involve violence or repression—maybe your faith will be stronger for it.

If you publish your writing, you're an author

Whenever I watch TV  shows like Downton Abbey, or movies like The Remains of the Day, stories that centre around servants in a thankfully extinct era, I am always struck by the attitudes of the servant class — the way that they reinforce their own subjugation, partly because it allows them to abuse those lower on the social hierarchy than themselves. 

Does it matter whether you're a professional or am amateur, as long as you want to see the sky?
Image from Wikipedia Commons

I think the same sentiment is behind a recent blog post by Michael Kozlowski on his Good E-reader blog, "Self-publishers should not be called authors." Kozlowski called for a clear definition of “author.” 

The post raises questions, but not the questions that the author wanted to. Kozlowski wants to start a debate among the “publishing industry,” defining what an indie author is.

The question I ask is "Why?" 

Why do we need a definition of a professional writer versus an authentic author, versus a self-published author?

Let's look at this from the audience's point of view. As a reader myself, when I buy a book, I want an engaging story about characters I can believe in, if not identify with. I want a tale that rings true, that satisfies my desire for a story and that answers the questions it asks. 

From this point of view, the author's credentials, whether self-applied or bestowed by an external authority, do not matter.

"Indie author," "self-published author," "commercially published author" and so on are only labels that anyone can attach to the cover of book.

What about someone who sets up a business, and registers it, which publishes the business owner's book? Is that self-published or commercially published? Does that change if the same business publishes books by other authors?

Kozlowski's proposition is that there is a minimum for writers to be able to call themselves authors  —  he suggest that a writer should have to make a minimum amount of money to be able to call him/herself a professional author.

There are two problems with this idea. First, what is the standard? Is $1000 enough, too little or too much? How do we determine the threshold? Based on what? Is the standard universal, or should there be different standards for writers of fiction and non-fiction, or for writers of different genres?

The second problem is, who's going to enforce this? Who will determine the standard, apply it, and sanction violators? And what would the sanction be?

A solution in search of a problem

If there were some kind of professional standard for "author," it stands to reason that would come with a designation; a writer who achieves the standard of earning, say, $1000 from writing in a year would get to append "PW" after his or her name. 

"Scott Bury, PW." Nope. Don't like it one bit. 

Some professions have formal, strictly enforced designations: medicine, engineering and law, for example. These exist to protect the public, particularly those who pay for their services. There are many reasons for this protection, among them: 

• poor professional decisions and practices can have catastrophic consequences
• the professional acumen of the professional is not readily apparent to those not schooled in those disciplines.

Neither of these conditions occur with writers. Reading a book by an  untrained, unskilled writer may disappoint you, but that consequence answers the second reason for a professional designation — bad writing is obvious.

It's also subjective. Some people enjoy reading Michael Ondaatje, others like Stephenie Meyer. But reading either of them, or any other book, won't kill anyone and it's highly unlikely to land them in jail. At least, in this country.

Sure, there are a lot of bad books on the market, and with the e-book explosion, there are more than ever. But independent authors have no monopoly on bad writing. The commercial publishing industry, yes, the Big Five, have been responsible for publishing real stinkers for centuries.

And this is the crux of the problem, which even Kozlowski missed: commercial success or sales, are not the same as quality. Selling a minimum number of copies does not mean a book is any good.

At risk of coming across as a right-winger, I say: let the free market decide. Lower the barriers to entry (done — thank you, Amazon, Smashwords and all the other tools that allow individual writers to publish e-books) and let readers make their own choices. As for Michael Kozlowski and people like him, I say: may your biggest problem be choosing a good book to read.

Image by ginnerobot, licensed under Creative Commons.

To everyone else, I say: if you sell your writing, you're a professional writer. Your sales will indicate how well you connect with an audience.

Don't let anyone else tell you what you are.