Salman Rushdie and the Cult of Offense

“Over the past two decades, our culture has been Carterized. We have conceded moral authority to howling mobs, and the louder the howls, the more we have agreed that the howls were worth heeding. The novelist Hanif Kureishi has said that “nobody would have the balls” to write The Satanic Verses today. More precisely, nobody would publish it, because sensitivity readers would notice the theological delicacy of the book’s title and plot.”

Leaving the murder attempt aside (because we all agree, I think, that is was planed by someone "not too bright"), I think it's funny to see the hypocrisy of (most of) the West (let's be generic...) "intellectuals".

What this article fail/avoids to see is that "intellectuals" put the Right-to-Offense-Some-Categories as their new Cult/Religion. When you put an idea so high that you can't see the other's point of view, well it's called fanaticism.

Voltaire was one of them, & many "journalists" too. But of course some categories should not be offended because, well, we can lunch together tomorrow, so they're "with us".

Those who rush to say "we are all Rushdie" like conditioned Pavlov's dogs are simply fanatics of their Religion doing the same things as the hysterical mobs who burn flags at the other side of the world.

Well, it would be ok, at least, if they would accept to die for the Noble Cause that their Religion is. But you see them shocked & scandalized that their actions can have consequences, whatever unjust or barbaric they may be...

I'm a long time subscriber of the Atlantic. While I don't agree with everything they publish, I generally can agree with their logic. This article is really reaching though.

Considering the 40 year period in between the fatwa and his attack, I don't think this is a reflection of much except the truth that there are crazies out there that get set off every so often. When a far left trans woman tried to kill Kavanugh and murder two other justices*, no one said it's because we need to make fun of trans women more, or that far leftists have some inherent violence. Why does that change when it's foreigners? It's a privilege that only some of us have to defend our entire group whenever 1 in a billion does something terrible. As they say, some are more equal than others.

Some passages I have to take issue with as well;

>The ayatollahs have trained them well, and social-media disasters of recent years have reinforced the lesson: Don’t publish books that get you criticized

Really, is this the teaching of the ayatollah? After American employees refused to work on Mike Pence and Woody Allen's biographies?** After Chris Cuomos work was canceled?** To say that was all the result of the Irani religious grand leader is almost OANN levels of crazy. "Liberals are just doing this because their Muslim overlords want them to". Perhaps America should be more open and accepting of controversy, but that's a separate issue.

>PEN’s critics of Charlie Hebdo declared that its “cartoons of the Prophet must be seen as being intended to cause further humiliation and suffering.” The letter did not even attempt to criticize Charlie Hebdo on literary grounds.

But this makes sense. The point is that there are war torn regions that are the way they are largely due to western influence, and to come in after that and insult the few beliefs that comfort them is provocative. To expect them to be okay with it on 'literary grounds', while idealistic, is very divorced from reality. No amount of lofty ideals will give you free right to insult the beliefs of orphans you created without possible consequences. I'm a liberal, but I'm sorry this just makes no sense.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/roske-sup...*

** https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/03/if-publishers-...

** https://nypost.com/2021/12/07/chris-cuomos-book-canceled-by-...