Big Brother....
I was a little disturbed when I read about the KFPL possibly being taken to court by one of their patrons. I'm not sure why Irving Freilich feels he needs to file a human rights complaint against the Kingston Frontenac Public Library for refusing to pull their copies of adbusters, a Canadian magazine that carried an editorial earlier this year by its President and Publisher/Editor, Kalle Lasn that generated a great deal of controversy. In it, he claimed that the high percentage of Jews within the upper echelon of the American neoconservative movement unduly influences the current American foreign policy in the Middle East. Mr. Freilich wants the magazine taken out of KFPL branches and is willing to take action to get his way. The question here is not whether Mr. Lasn’s editorial is biased; it is. Any editorial, by its nature, is designed to be persuasive and present a particular point of view.
What Lasn asks in his editorial, in my opinion, is this: given that Jews represent roughly 2% of the general population in America today, why are 26 of the 50 most influential neoconservatives in America Jewish, and does that fact actually influence current American policies towards Israel and the Middle East? It’s an interesting and potentially valid question and, had Mr. Lasn backed it up with more than mere circumstantial evidence, I might have been inclined to give him at least the benefit of the doubt on his theory. However, the editorial is based on a faulty premise--being Jewish automatically translates to being a Zionist--a premise Lasn himself discounts later in the editorial when he states that the majority of American Jews typically vote Democrat and oppose the policies of the right wing Likud party and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. As well, Lasn's argument of the significance of the 52% Jewish component in Lasn’s Top 50 neoconservatives becomes a non-issue when you realise that neoconservatives are, by definition, staunchly pro-Israel, regardless of religious affiliation, rendering it a moot point. In the end the article collapses under a morass of muddled logic and unanswered questions.
If Mr. Freilich is worried that Mr. Lasn's article will adversely influence the public, I suggest he read the archives of online discussion groups such as rabble.ca, among others, including the adbusters site itself, to see the breadth of debate this editorial has spawned; in the months following its publication, it and Mr. Lasn have been the subject of a wide ranging and comprehensive debate regarding the validity of his ideas, a sure sign that nothing in the editorial is being taken as face value or blindly accepted.
While I applaud Mr. Freilich's desire to right a wrong as he sees it, eliminating a perceived source of anti-Semitism, I have to take issue with the idea that he or anyone has the need or the right to protect us from supposedly subversive or anti-social sentiments. What is disturbing is the fact that Mr. Freilich wants to decide for us what we can read in a public library as well as the idea that he and others feel that we as a culture need to be protected from bad ideas and that they are somehow solely qualified to do so. I am also insulted that he has chosen to compare a country that allows free speech to Nazi Germany, a comparison that should be seen as offensive to Canadians, especially those who struggled and died fighting the Nazis and their ideology. Ultimately, the real danger here is not the influence Kalle Lasn and his editorial--or anyone’s writing, for that matter-- might have on a weak-minded few. It is the free flow of thoughts and ideas being judged by political pressure, rather than succeeding or failing based on their merit or lack thereof. I believe that, inflammatory nature aside, the vast majority of these "dangerous" ideas tend to inevitably show themselves rather quickly for what they are: flawed and nothing more than part of what Canadian Journalist Leslie Millen refers to as "intellectual landfill", originally a commentary on the quality of Internet-sourced information, but also, I believe, an accurate term to describe intellectual discourse as a whole. We need to be exposed to the entire range of thought and debate in order to make fully reasoned decisions about their worth. So, I thank Mr. Freilich for his concern on our behalf, but, personally, I think I'll make up my own mind about Mr. Lasn and adbusters.
What Lasn asks in his editorial, in my opinion, is this: given that Jews represent roughly 2% of the general population in America today, why are 26 of the 50 most influential neoconservatives in America Jewish, and does that fact actually influence current American policies towards Israel and the Middle East? It’s an interesting and potentially valid question and, had Mr. Lasn backed it up with more than mere circumstantial evidence, I might have been inclined to give him at least the benefit of the doubt on his theory. However, the editorial is based on a faulty premise--being Jewish automatically translates to being a Zionist--a premise Lasn himself discounts later in the editorial when he states that the majority of American Jews typically vote Democrat and oppose the policies of the right wing Likud party and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. As well, Lasn's argument of the significance of the 52% Jewish component in Lasn’s Top 50 neoconservatives becomes a non-issue when you realise that neoconservatives are, by definition, staunchly pro-Israel, regardless of religious affiliation, rendering it a moot point. In the end the article collapses under a morass of muddled logic and unanswered questions.
If Mr. Freilich is worried that Mr. Lasn's article will adversely influence the public, I suggest he read the archives of online discussion groups such as rabble.ca, among others, including the adbusters site itself, to see the breadth of debate this editorial has spawned; in the months following its publication, it and Mr. Lasn have been the subject of a wide ranging and comprehensive debate regarding the validity of his ideas, a sure sign that nothing in the editorial is being taken as face value or blindly accepted.
While I applaud Mr. Freilich's desire to right a wrong as he sees it, eliminating a perceived source of anti-Semitism, I have to take issue with the idea that he or anyone has the need or the right to protect us from supposedly subversive or anti-social sentiments. What is disturbing is the fact that Mr. Freilich wants to decide for us what we can read in a public library as well as the idea that he and others feel that we as a culture need to be protected from bad ideas and that they are somehow solely qualified to do so. I am also insulted that he has chosen to compare a country that allows free speech to Nazi Germany, a comparison that should be seen as offensive to Canadians, especially those who struggled and died fighting the Nazis and their ideology. Ultimately, the real danger here is not the influence Kalle Lasn and his editorial--or anyone’s writing, for that matter-- might have on a weak-minded few. It is the free flow of thoughts and ideas being judged by political pressure, rather than succeeding or failing based on their merit or lack thereof. I believe that, inflammatory nature aside, the vast majority of these "dangerous" ideas tend to inevitably show themselves rather quickly for what they are: flawed and nothing more than part of what Canadian Journalist Leslie Millen refers to as "intellectual landfill", originally a commentary on the quality of Internet-sourced information, but also, I believe, an accurate term to describe intellectual discourse as a whole. We need to be exposed to the entire range of thought and debate in order to make fully reasoned decisions about their worth. So, I thank Mr. Freilich for his concern on our behalf, but, personally, I think I'll make up my own mind about Mr. Lasn and adbusters.
posted by Michael Roberts at
7.12.06
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