One reader, commenting on my Berlusconi post, defends Larry Flynt’s attacks on Jerry Falwell (something I’ve written on before).
Note: Flynt attacked Rev. Jerry Falwell with a satire in print of the pastor having sex with his mother. Falwell sued Flynt and lost.
I decide to debate the assertions he made in his comment, point-by-point in this post, because they misuse language in ways that are quite common these days.
COMMENT: “I found Flynt’s raunchy satire of Falwell to be very funny and appropriate, although I can understand if others might have different opinions…..”
RAJIVA: Funny? Sexually and publicly humiliating someone in terms that rubbishes the most sensitive areas of their life – their family, their mother, their childhood affections, their sexuality, their religious beliefs, the public’s perception of their work as a minister, their capacity to perform professionally (counseling young people on sexuality or faith or family) – is “very funny,” and “appropriate”?
Actually, it’s considered torture (when done in the military), domestic abuse (when done in the family), and sexual harassment (when done in the work-place).
But it seems as though, if it’s printed, then suddenly it goes scot-free, it gets tagged “free speech.”
Well, some speech is not speech. It’s effectively action. And it should be treated as action.
Libel is a tort.
COMMENT: “He wasn’t attacking Falwell directly, so much as his absurd pompous messianic holier-than-thou persona and the oppressive and xenophobic underpinnings of his beliefs — the very same oppressive and xenophobic culture that was trying to silence and sue him.”
RAJIVA: You’re doing a lot of name-calling.
I disagree with Falwell’s fundamentalism. I never found him to be “holier than thou”. He was genuinely affable, as far as I could tell. Your opinion that someone else is personally xenophobic and oppressive doesn’t equate to their actually being those things, unless you show some evidence of injury, as I did in my previous response. Whatever Falwell said, he said quite courteously and even affectionately, when he spoke to Flynt. I saw them on TV (after the lawsuit, I believe).
COMMENT: The two had completely and violently opposing views on almost everything — I don’t see how anyone can be “cheerful” and “tolerant” and “reasonable” with someone who so thoroughly undermines one’s values.
RAJIVA: The essence of civilization and civility is to be tolerant of views that undermine your own. I have good friends who are evangelical Christians and devout Catholics. Many of them probably hope I will leave off my “heretical” views. It doesn’t bother me at all. And likewise, they aren’t bothered by my questioning of their dogmas. Ideology is only a dimension of personality…
COMMENT: Moreover, Falwell was not cheerful nor tolerant nor reasonable — he brutally tried to sue Flynt for $45M because of this insignificant work of fiction printed in his own private subscription-based magazine,
RAJIVA: You’re worried about the “brutality” of suing a man who made a huge fortune out of overtly misogynistic imagery of female sexuality (this is Hustler, not Playboy)….That’s a twist. Why should you “tolerate” any injury done to you? Do you tolerate muggers and bank robbers or financial criminals? Why should you tolerate vicious slanders in the media? Being civil in debate doesn’t mean you have to give up your legal rights, I hope.
The image was very damaging to Falwell and to his memories of his mother. It was degrading. How do you cap the monetary damages on that? Personally, I don’t think monetary damages alone are suitable for all torts. I think Flynt needed to have some small taste of what he himself had inflicted.
And it’s interesting that he ultimately did. His daughter accused him of incest, didn’t she?
Karma?
What’s more, it turned out, he was the incestuous one. Cheap psychoanalysis isn’t very useful usually, but in this case, it does seem that some compulsion made Flynt deride Falwell for exactly what he (not Falwell) was guilty of.
Shades of all those CEOs and political bosses who harass their female employees…. and then protect themselves by turning around and preemptively accusing disaffected employees of “stalking”… or in other ways undermining their professional claims. I’m talking about the sainted Bill Clinton, beloved of liberal feminists….and of a few other people……
I’m sure this satisfaction with punishment won’t sit well with those who see religious and spiritual values as all “milque-toast” and “mildness.” –
To me, that’s a sign of the decay in our sensibilities and the loss of the noble and chivalric value of honor, which is now confined to the Muslim world, or so it seems.
COMMENT: “Not to mention the far more insidious repressive venom he would spew to his students (all his draconian Religious anti-sexuality stuff, and twisted anti-free-speech poison).
RAJIVA: Did Falwell libel anyone when he was expressing his views? No. Then, those are precisely the views the first amendment is for, not for nasty, libelous attacks.
Also, disliking Hustler-type imagery and language don’t make you anti-sex or repressed, unless your idea of sex is not much more than what boys scrawl on bathroom walls. People can be quite sexual, and not want their sex lives displayed like graffiti.
Or can’t anyone tell the difference any longer? Throwing around the word “prudish” at anyone who doesn’t agree with your own level of tolerance for public coarseness is a misuse of the word.
COMMENT: I’m still not sure how the two managed to become friends later in life. (Also, unless there is more credible evidence — why doesn’t Tanya take a polygraph like her dad did? she already wrote a book about it — one can’t simply assume such character-assassinating crimes :b.))
RAJIVA: Again, most of your argument is personal bile, ad hominem, and assumption.
Jerry Falwell got on with Flynt at the end because, like him or not, Falwell took his religious beliefs seriously, and really did feel he could “hate the sin and love the sinner.” That may not sit well with the left, but my opinion of him has nothing to do with his political views or his dogmas – none of which I share. My opinion of him is based on my perception that whatever he was otherwise, as a public person, he presented himself genially, affably, and reasonably (
[Correction: I should add the phrase ‘when speaking to other people.’ It is true that Falwell used harsh language about groups of people, but that was language based on evangelical and fundamentalist criteria that he held about their behavior. This was the argument I made in a piece called, “God’s Son, Falwell’s Mother, and the Rest of Us Ho’s”].
He did not deserve the filth slur thrown at him by Flynt, he was a better man than Flynt
(Correction: I should add the phrase – ‘in this respect’), and Flynt recognized it at some level….
Update: The fact that through most of history both secular and religious thinkers have regarded homosexual behavior as morally wrong can provide some rational justification for differentiating between Falwell’s attacks on homosexual behavior ( in language like “part of a Satanic system”) and any other random personal attack on another human being. There is a distinction that can be made between those two types of attacks.
Camille Paglia makes this point in an essay she wrote about a Martha Nussbaum critique that I’ll try to link here…
Note: I am a firm supporter of gay marriage.
You seem to have trouble accepting that other people have different tastes and senses of humor. Yes — I really did find the satire very funny. I sincerely do find Falwell’s evangelical religious beliefs, his job, and much more incredibly offensive. Am I not able to express my deep disgust? Do you not consider Falwell’s public and relentless bashing of Flynt as a “sinner” slanderous? I certainly do, and if I were to buy into your conception of speech-as-action, I would definitely feel incredibly violated and abused by his rhetoric. Falwell’s public oratory deeply insult Flynt’s (and mine) core values (of truth, social values, etc) — they “torture”/”harass”/”abuse” him, and me. (This is why speech cannot be construed as action. Whereas there does exist more or less a consensus on what constitutes physical violence, the realm of ideology is currently in such a chatoic state of flux, that there is very little people agree on.) I would love to criminalize and lock Falwell up for his vile speech (even though it seemed courteous and affectionate), but it would be wrong.
How can you not find Falwell “holier than thou”. The man claims to have secret knowledge of a super-powerful entity who apparently communicates with him, and uses this as his authoritative foundation to *preach* to others, to prove to them unqestioningly that Flynt is a bad person who violates the supposed super-powerful entity’s arbitrary laws, to dictate to them how to interact with others (apparently free and open sexuality is forbidden — it must be hetero and monogamous for whatever reason), to dictate to women what they can do with their bodies, etc ad nauseum. Flynt would never be so disgustingly arrogant; at worst he may have had “unusual” personal views, but he would never claim authority nor preach to others.
Regarding tolerance, umm, no. Hitler’s views (at least to me) were intolerable. Bush’s views were intolerable. Obama’s views are intolerable. Falwell’s views were intolerable. Sure, it’s a dimension of personality, but it’s the most sacred dimension. What are we without our ideas?
Also, although you may find Hustler to be misogynistic and vulgar, the women and everyone who was *actually* involved in the work (writers, photographers, readers) certainly did not. No offense, but your relative tastes don’t really matter :P. The women involved in the work loved their job, and so did the writers and readers. That can’t be a bad thing.
Hi Dennis –
I don’t have problems with your having a sense of humor.. but when your sense of humor becomes a tort, I will then sue.
You’re free to speak
and I am free to take action, right?
We have courts. They’ll decide.
That’s what Falwell did. Whether the courts were right or wrong continues to be debated and that’s what I am doing
Far from stopping you speak, I am giving you a forum to do it endlessly on my blog. I am pretty sure you wouldn’t be so generous to anyone with opposing views from yours.
The fact that some women make money out of work that exploits women is not a proof of anything except that as Barbara Ehrenreich said, a uterus is not a substitute for a conscience..
Plenty of men made money and “love” working in the “torture-military-industrial ” complex..
That’s not an argument
That’s a logical fallacy – band wagon..
This one is a stretch: “The women involved in the work loved their job, and so did the writers and readers. That can’t be a bad thing.”
Wow–how do people come to make such assertions? How far have people declined? So much for technology elevating intelligence. Its possible that women in pornography or in prostitution like their jobs but not likley and probably found themeselves in that circumnstance due to a series of events-much like say the youn prostitutes in Thailand who some would say enjoy their work and the customers happy. Pretty twisted reasoning–or actually rationalizing. People throughout the world enjoy all manner of twisted things–rape of prepubescent boys by provinical police in afghanistan is probably a great source of yucks for the perpetrators. Dog fighters claim to enjoy the sport and that the dogs that are brutalized would otherwise have been euthanized and they also enjoy the bloody battle. The rationalization and justification capacity of brutality is beyond limit. Civilization is indeed receeding as I fear folks like Dennis come to be the majority….
Hi Robert –
i think you get to the point…which is that we have to have some standards and ultimate principles by which we judge things..
If we claim to be rational, can we support behaviors that atually strengthen the drives and prejudices that undermine reason..
This is a delicate question
I am not suggesing we should censor and you can sue only if libel is involved
But the idea that what masses of people like is always a good thing is clearly untenable
But I rather think Denis doesn´t really hold that view seriously or with much knowledge of what the porn industry is like outside, say, a very select airbrushed segment of it which presents itself as just another business..
We have to look at the way things operate on the ground..
>But maybe I am just oldfashioned
You are not old fashioned–just civilized.
These days, it would be a fantasy if at minimum people could see the sense in following the Kantian categorical imperative–what would the world be like if everybody did the thing you are doing. Somehow I think that is too much to ask in this cognitivly challenged.
Kant – yes, that is pretty old fashioned these days…
Poor old Prussian..all that routine and system.
He must have been hopelessly repressed.
Who defines the standards or when my humor becomes a tort? I’ve already stated how I am deeply offended by Falwell and his “hate speech”. Why prefer Falwell’s vitriol over Flynt’s? How is having consentual and satisfying sex with one’s mother worse than preaching that another person is wicked and deserves to burn in hell?
Moreover, I have seen MANY interviews with very confident and strong and happy women, many having professional careers, who are proud to be “prostitutes”. I’m not sure what percentage of the sex industry they constitute, but they certainly exist, and it is incredibly derogatory and libelous to them to call them weak or exploited or victims or needing Big Brother to tell them what to do and how to think properly. Most if not all the Hustler girls fall into this category — some are interviewed in that Larry Flynt doc — they are frustrated at constantly being portrayed as exploited victims — it’s insulting.
You guys may consider this a “recession of civilization”, I call it advancement. Whatever the case may be, it is nobody’s job to police it, as Falwell tried to do — as Flynt would never dare have the arrogance to do, tempting as the power might be.
Hi Dennis –
there are too many confusions in what you wrote for me to get to them all – but briefly
You are certainly free to be as funny as you want in any way
But if the society in which you live has decided that certain things are torts – then you will have to pay the piper, right?
You might be a communist and believe all property is yours whether you worked for it or not, and you are free to preach this offensive (to some) view as you like..
however, when you move to acting on it, you’ll have to face the fact that others will defend their rights..
Now, who decides? the laws..which change..
It may soon be fine for your mom to have sex with you, if she wants, but right now, it would be called incest..and especially if you’re a minor, you both will be in trouble not only for that but ever after as your reputation will be severely damaged. Who decides that? Public opinion.
So far, public opinion of the educated thinks believing in hellfire is less a bad thing than sleeping with your kids. That opinion may change. At that point, preaching hellfire will be a tort and sleeping with your kids will be preached from the roof tops.
Until then, you’ll have to put up with the fact that if you libel other people as pedophiles or incestuous (only if it’s a libel), they might well decide to haul you off to court, right?
You don’t seem to get the distinction between having an opinion about the nature of the universe and life that is not a personal attack on someone, and doing some definite damage to an individual.
Walter Block has an opinion on slavery that some black people might well consider offensive. However, it is a perfectly defensible opinion in free speech terms. However, if Block were to announce that one of his students was a child molester (and he wasn’t), Block could be sued.
Repeating some mantra about free speech without understanding what it is, when it is defensible and when it’s not, won’t help you any more than someone who tries to excuse fraud as free speech
I agree with your analysis completely. I would only add that I do in fact understand when speech can be emotionally “harmful”, but that none of you seem to be considering the emotional “harm” inflicted on Larry and I :\.
(Fraud is an entirely different issue, entirely objective.)
I’ll close with some of our affectionate and courteous friend Falwell’s kosher statements:
* AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.
* I am saying pornography hurts anyone who reads it, garbage in, garbage out.
* If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.
* [homosexuals are] brute beasts…part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven.”
Hi dennis –
All those opinions of Falwell are offensive but are genuine religious and political opinion which is just what free speech defends.
Now, defining homosexuals as a class as Satanic is a different thing.
I’d like to see that, though, and in what context..
However, the idea that homosexuals are a class of people and not a type of behavior is something that evangelicals of Falwell’s type don’t accept..
so it’s still in a gray area.
Moreover, the term satanic is applied to quite a few things and people these days…including capitalism.
Many of the same terms falwell uses are terms I’ve seen communists use against capitalist bosses…
against wall street..
so – I believe it would be considered a more generally derogatory term and not personally offensive..
As for believing that God punishes society for certain acts that’s fairly widespread as a belief..
the best retaliation for that is counterspeech
In fact, I believe I wrote a piece about Pat Robertson called Dover Bitch, which is that sort of counterspeech.
And I did argue that Robertson needed to exercise some care in what he said.
There is another, more prudential point.
If you are trying to make you audience accept controversial opinions, it’s best not to present them terribly offensively.
Minorities have to present their views more circumspectly, just as a matter of tactics.
There is a difference between that which is permissible and that which is desirable entirely outside of the idea of police power and coercion. Call it ethics, morality, natural law or whatever you prefer. Simply because something should be allowed (or not prevented via violence and coercion) because it is voluntary and does not directly infringe on the life, liberty or property of another individual does not necessarily make that thing desirable in so far as an individual or society is concerned.
The Flynt piece on Falwell is no more than base insult, not satire. Some of the above Falwell comments, if true, are as well. The point of my original post is that (assuming most of us are Libertarians) we can generally do much better in picking our heroes and icons.