Reasons, Freedoms, and Offense: the point of drawing Mohammed

Daniel discusses "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" below, and solicits responses.  Here's mine.

My concern about this is the extent to which emotionalism and vague sentiment are being packaged up as reasons and free thought.  I could conceive of a situation where drawing a likeness of Mohammed would serve some useful purpose, despite the fact that it may offend some people.  In these cases, I'd of course advise prudence with regard to the display of such images, but I don't see any reason for one person's conscience to be dictated by another's.  The question, then, is whether such useful purposes are present in the recently declared holiday.

In the poster for the event, and in many statements by organizers, it's claimed that this is about the First Amendment and free expression.  This seems obviously false.  A media corporation censored the South Park episode, not the government.  And, while I'm no expert in the contracts involved with such endeavors, it hardly seems as if the free expression of Parker and Stone has been squelched, even if we set aside the fact that we're not dealing with citizens' rights vis-à-vis their government. There's nothing stopping me from drawing a picture of Mohammed right now, scanning it, and posting it on this blog for all the world to see (or at least all of the places where Google has a grip).  Parker and Stone can surely do the same.  What has been restricted is not their free expression, but rather the extent of corporate backing that would allow them to broadcast their work to millions of viewers in a branded, highly advertised, and moneyed project under the Comedy Central name.  Forgive me if I don't shed any tears for their hardships.  It is a damn shame that they have to express themselves like the rest of us in this case, rather than take for granted the provision of soapboxes and loudspeakers by one of the largest media conglomerates in existence.

So basically, it's absurd to make this into a free expression issue.  This is show business, not a Vietnam War protest, and Parker and Stone knew as much quite well when they signed on for their big fat paychecks, signed over the rights to their creation, etc.  The fact that they decided to be corporate tools and we decided to pay for their cable channel in order to get a good laugh doesn't mean that their artistic or philosophical sensibilities are our burden.  Nor are their sensibilities the burden of Comedy Central or Viacom.  Not to shatter everyone's blissful misconceptions of the matter, but no one who produces or consumes the product that is South Park cares very much about the personal expression of its producers, or what they think about anything. 

But this also doesn't mean that "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" is only about South Park.  In addition to a claim to being about the First Amendment, the poster advertising today's festivities says that they seek to "water down the pool of targets".  Awfully noble.  After all, the big concern is that threats have been made against the creators of South Park, as they have been made (and sometimes even carried out) against cartoonists over the past few years.  This is a serious issue, and while certain offenses may justify violent response (human rights abuses, terrorists attacks or other crimes, imperialism, etc.), the offense of certain images against religious sensibilities (which we shouldn't deny are real) doesn't seem deserving of death, at least for those committed to liberal values.

Daniel wants to embed this liberal sense more objectively, to draw a distinction between whether simply anger or violence is provoked by these actions.  I don't know how helpful this is.  The images only subjectively provoke one thing rather than the other given certain assumptions.  And I share those assumptions, to be sure, but the whole reason why we have a problem here is that some people don't share those assumptions.  Violence is only unprovoked in a situation where the drawing of a likeness of the Prophet doesn't deserve violent punishment.  If it's our contention against those who disagree that no such punishment is deserved- ever- it hardly seems sensible to just assume that everyone take this to be the case on our say-so.  Better to say, perhaps, that (objectively) the comics have provoked anger and violence, that (subjectively) they don't obviously provoke anything, either anger or violence, and that we don't think it's reasonable for people to respond in violent fashion to the offense they entertain at certain images, although we do think it's reasonable (though not necessary) to respond simply with anger and objection.  This, I think, prevents us from hiding our own imperative statements behind the cover of "that's how things are".  We can then take full responsibility for our own values, and push them on people openly.  This strikes me as the only honest way to have an ethical dialogue unless we are prepared to argue from natural law, divine command, or whatever other solid foundation the objective and enduring basis of the free expression of religious blasphemies. Daniel may be prepared to do this, but I'm not.

So much for the reasons for this day.  I've tried to separate the substantive from the non-substantive and clarify how I think a substantive response would best proceed.  Granting that we've made such an argument, though, what of the drawings themselves?  Is this how we should express our concerns?  If, as Daniel says, the founders of this holiday "aren't trying to marginalize or intimidate Muslims in general [...] they're quite clearly singling out a particularly totalitarian and illiberal segment of Islam", it seems questionable to me whether images of the Prophet will serve the intended purpose of the day.  What will it accomplish (for? against?) the totalitarian and illiberal segment?  More anger?  Perhaps a feeling of being cornered?  Marginalization?  Disgust?  Boredom?  Confusion?

If we want to convince people to abandon violent tendencies, or at least stop them from such tendencies, it seems worthwhile to ask how practical it really is to piss them off further.  I don't personally see why someone with goals of alleviating violence would do something to fan the flames (even if they think such flames are unjustified in the first place).

...which is why I suspect that this is one big pissing contest between partisans of a rather unenlightened liberalism and partisans of a rather unenlightened religious despotism.  Which is why I'm not especially interested.