IN CASE your attention recently strayed from Fox News, last Wednesday, University students Amber VerValin and Grayson Lambert joined puerile pundit Bill O'Reilly on his show to discuss the decidedly controversial cartoon fiasco. The scandal exploded after The Cavalier Daily published two cartoons that, among other tasteless witticisms, suggested that the Virgin Mary spent evenings as a syphilitic senorita de la noche. The trio talked for a while but, ultimately, said nothing. The conversation, which wavered predictably from the "open season" on Christians to the unfair treatment of the poor, ridiculed majority, is worth some attention.
The show consisted of a conservative monologue of three voices, the two students' and O'Reilly's, who parroted the predicable, reactionary drivel -- offending Christians is unacceptable, and anyone publicly convicted of doing so ought to be punished and thrown off campus. It makes for scintillating television, you must admit. But debate? Come now, Mr. O'Reilly, certainly someone with your intellectual feistiness must notice the difference. The show's rightist masturbation notwithstanding, the most irritating words mentioned during the entire exchange were, as one might have expected, "It's very offensive."
Now, before even beginning to discuss the role of "offensiveness" in our culture, or what that role ought to be, it's worth acknowledging that yes, the cartoons were offensive. Of course they were. But that, and the fact that they possessed not even the residue of wit, is irrelevant. Hopefully, if this controversy yields anything at all, it will help us better understand the extent to which "being offended" in a free society is part of the deal. We hear it ceaselessly -- how offensive these cartoons were, how stereotyping offends us -- we are all, it seems, constantly and uniformly offended. This whining begs the question: So what?
We've been conditioned to recognize this statement as having meaning, as bearing some punitive value. But despite the hordes of blustering, bloviating bullies who insist otherwise, it doesn't. It doesn't matter at all, unless, of course, one listens to O'Reilly. He and his sycophantic guests repeated the phrase "offensive" so frequently that it sounded as though O'Reilly was waiting for Orwell's thought police to take notice, march right down to the offices of The Cavalier Daily and begin arresting blasphemers. He spent the entire interview trying to incite his guests, community members and even University President John Casteen to "take action" against a pair of drawings. O'Reilly even childishly taunted Casteen, saying he was "hiding under his desk" by reminding everyone, "We must uphold freedom of speech." Yes, what a most unfortunate act of cowardice -- to defend oneself with the same right that permits Christians to mention Creationism is the same breath as the name of Charles Darwin.
As reasonable Americans, we desire tolerance, yet we insist on the right to express intolerance toward whatever ideology we choose -- here, one begins to recognize the tragic failure of language in saying we should "reject intolerance." University spokesperson, Carol Wood thoughtfully pointed out that, no matter how loudly people lament the cartoons, they represent something fundamentally protected by our Constitution. Our Constitution, by the way, also ensures O'Reilly the right to spew his "fair and balanced" stupidity on national television. The standards of decency work both ways. One could just as credibly say that O'Reilly idiocy is offensive, and to say so would be just as meaningless as when O'Reilly does it. Put simply, it's merely whining.
Let O'Reilly and his braying cronies be offended and let them express it however they want; it's the only way to ensure I have the same right. And believe me, I'll enjoy that right to criticize that which offends me -- namely, hypersensitive religiosity. And that's just the point. We place such value on the phrase "offense," we sometimes forget that in a free society, offensive cartoons are, in a sense, canaries in a mineshaft. They ensure that the environment hasn't grown too toxic for free speech to survive. Certainly they "offend" some delicate individuals, but to others, they represent the absolute insurance that our society still functions as Mr. Jefferson intended.
The First Amendment protects every expression of religion, but it also protects every expression about religion. The deal is fair, I think -- if Christian fundamentalists demand the right to subjugate homosexuals and profane the Constitution, then I demand the right to mock them incessantly. Those are the terms.
I cannot bear the idea of not being able to ridicule anything freely, which includes cartoons. If I'm going to defend the right for that fool to pontificate on Fox News, however, I will ask for the same courtesy in return.
Dan Keyserling is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at dkeyserling@cavalierdaily.com.
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