An excellent response to offended people

Here’s a video and a stellar quote that ought to be shown to everyone, especially those buggers who try and shut you up just because your words or beliefs are so doggone offensive!!! to them. Philip Pullman penned a book entitled The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, and received the reception you’d expect with such a phrasing. He was asked about Christians who would find such a title offensive, and here’s his eloquent response:

Here’s a transcript of the whole thing (slightly edited from Tacroy in the comments at Dispatches Fromm the Culture Wars):

PHILIP PULLMAN: And the, gentleman over there.

GOT: Ah, Mr. Pullman, the title of the novel seems to an ordinary Christian offensive, and to call the son of God a scoundrel is not [?often said?].

PULLMAN: Yes, it is a shocking thing to say, and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book, nobody has to pick it up, nobody has to open it, and if they open it and read it they don't have to like it. And if you read it and dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. But there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read. And that's all I have to say on that subject.

My only disagreement, here, is with his claim that “no-one has the right to [not] be offended”. This being a free society, it’s therefore natural that, yes, people do have the right not to be shocked or offended or insulted and whatever. The thing is, though, that others’ right to formulate, hold and communicate dissenting ideas, even ones deemed “offensive” to others, exceeds others’ right to have a negativity-free existence. In other words, if one has to choose between a dissent free world, and one where freedom of expression is cherished above (nearly) all others, even at the expense of those who could feel insulted, then one must choose the latter.

(via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)