While the world
continued to look on—like an impotent rich man who cannot afford Viagra—as a
genocide was taking place in Syria (i.e., the systemic killing of a group—in this
case, of pro-democracy demonstrators), France’s state senate approved a bill on
January 23, 2012 criminalizing the denial of officially recognized genocides,
which according to the state includes the Nazi Holocaust and the Turkish
killing of Armenians beginning in 1915. In the twenty-first century, fining
people and putting them in prison for not wanting to remember things so
horrible evinces the same kind of nationalist thinking that had led the
twentieth to be the bloodiest century. In contradistinction to that decadent
century, turning a new leaf following the Arab spring in the twenty-first is a
far better strategy.
Beyond the obvious
matter of free speech, which admittedly is not absolute even in America, it
should be asked whether law is an efficacious means of barring or changing
thoughts. On the day of the vote, a study was released at the Bundestag in
Berlin reporting that twenty percent of that state’s population was still
anti-sematic. I don’t believe penalizing that prejudice itself (i.e., as a
belief apart from any conduct) by the state’s police power forces any change at
that level. At most, people would simply hide it—and how would such repression
burst out in conduct? I submit it would be better simply to ignore the thoughts
and concentrate on conduct.
Europe has had a
tendency to codify thoughts as if they belong to the state. In America, that
realm is province of the “thought police” that sprang up (as self-appointed)
during the 1990s as “political correctness.” At least with political
correctness (such as in saying humankind rather than mankind, and Native
American rather than American Indian), the self-appointed enforcer can be told
to go to hell. The natural reaction to being accosted in such a presumptuous
and pernicious way is to say precisely that which is not desired by the
aggressor. Adding the police power of the state to enforce certain beliefs by
penalizing others is dangerous not only for society itself, but also for
individuals in terms of our quality of life free from anxiety. The
over-reaching may even be immoral; it is certainly weakness.
A person may be able
to control one’s own conduct more than one’s ideas or beliefs. Besides the
futility of law in going after a person’s interior mental life, that domain is
inherently beyond the unwanted control of another person. The French law would
include up to a year in prison and a fine of about $58,000 for anyone who
denies an officially-recognized genocide. Is the reach of the law limited to
public speeches or published writings, or are people of France to feel anxious
at private parties in their own home? In terms of general anxiety, the law
could cost the state’s entire population. Is effectively adding the Turkish
killings nearly a century before to the German Holocaust worth this in France?
It is not as if that E.U. state borders Turkey.
Therefore, behind the
127 to 86 vote is a rather basic category mistake with respect to
jurisprudence. Taking the law beyond its native domain to enforce one’s agenda
using the police power of the state undercuts law itself, and thus contributes
to the downfall of its legitimacy, even in its proper realm. In other words, in
over-reaching, a government can wind up with even less influence over its
people through even criminal law.
Additionally, a
refusal to respect another’s inalienable right to have certain ideas or beliefs
is to treat the rational nature (i.e., thoughts or beliefs) itself as merely a
means to one’s own designs, rather than as an end in itself. According to Kant,
this is immoral because of the value that is rightfully in reason because it is
the assigner of value and thus has absolute value. Treating that which has
essentially undefined value (as the source thereof) as having value only in so
far as it fits with one’s own ideas or beliefs is wrong.
Might it be,
Nietzsche would surely add, that modern moralizers are immoral rather
than what we take ourselves to be? Who are the aggressors—les esprits méchants
et perniceux? Might it be that human beings are far too presumptuous in
what we think we know to venture into any other man’s head with impunity? Am I
understood? This medicine is not meant for the weak, Nietzsche warns, who
nonetheless have an uncontrollable urge to dominate. These new birds of prey
are not entitled to dominate, and yet they somehow convince the strong—through thou shalt not—to
be ashamed of those thoughts come out of their innate, self-confident strength. Be ashamed of who you
are. The strong self-overcome their most willful instincts in order to
experience the pleasure of power that naturally goes with their strength. The
weak who seek to dominate, on the other hand, are driven by their instinct to
overcome the resistance of others by
passive aggression (owing to the weakness of the instinct, which they can’t
seem to resist anyway) and cruelty (including genocides). Hitler was weak, but so too is the
presumption to punish others for their beliefs in retaliation. Birds
of a feather, these new birds of prey most certainly are. It is amazing they
can even fly.
“By aiming at more
[in pride],” Augustine proclaims in City of God (bk
14, ch.13), “a man is diminished.” Pride, by the way, is not self-confident
strength, for self-overcoming is blocked by self-idolatry. Perhaps expressing
the belief in
over-reaching, which is an idea of the immoral and weak, should itself be
punishable by a year in prison. This would probably only strengthen the
belief, which in turn would weaken the believer even as he or she presumes to
be more moral as a self-denying martyr. Lest the advocates of victims become
ourselves victimizers (e.g., the Crusaders), it is a good policy for a general
population to keep an eye on us too, for we can get quite carried away as moral
zealots without realizing how we are affecting others (i.e., rational nature of
others). That there have been (and will be) victims of horrible things in the
world, does not give anyone the right to punish others for their thoughts or
beliefs, for such intangibles are our inner castles, not to be treated like
sand by pushy waves.
Fortunately, good
sense prevailed and the French Constitutional Council struck down the law that
would have criminalized the denial of the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman
Turks. “We consider the annulment of the legislation by the Constitutional
Council as a step that complies with the principles of freedom of expression
and research, the rule of law and international law in France,” the Turkish
Foreign Ministry said after the Council’s decision. This statement is ironic,
given that the accession of Turkey into the E.U. had been held up in part out
of concern in Europe that Turkey was not yet sufficiently ensconced in Western
values. Perhaps it should have been asked whether France should be a state of
the E.U.
Sources:
Scott Sayare and
Sebnem Arsu, “Genocide
Bill Angers Turks as It Passes in France,” The New York Times,
January 23, 2012.
Scott Sayare, “French
Council Strikes Down Bill on Armenian Genocide Denial,” The New York Times,
February 29, 2012.
