Coyne: With some exceptions, being offended by what we see before us is a choice

A man with Je Suis Charlie written on his hand holds a pencil. Following the Paris attack, the choice for the media to show, or not show, the Charlie Hebdo cartoons served up an opportunity to rehearse, yet again, the theme of the apologetic, uptight squareheads versus the fearless, free-thinking French. Photo: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images

In the wake of the Paris attacks, a furious debate has arisen over the rights and responsibilities of the press — specifically, whether the world’s newspapers had a right, if not a responsibility, to print the offending Charlie Hebdo cartoons, or whether they had a responsibility, if not a right, to decline to do so.

Inevitably, this became entangled in other issues. For example, sharp-eyed observers in the Quebec media were quick to spot an apparent linguistic divide: for while the French media generally (with exceptions) chose to print the cartoons, the English media generally (with exceptions) did not, at least at first. Charlie Hebdo dead, it seems, did not die in vain: they served up an opportunity to rehearse, yet again, the theme of the apologetic, uptight squareheads versus the fearless, free-thinking French.

Reading this, I was transported back to an earlier controversy, involving another offensive image. Perhaps you recall the furor of a few years ago over a Maclean’s magazine cover story, for which I was partly responsible, about political corruption in Quebec. I know I do.

For the crime of reporting that Quebec had an especial problem in this regard — a suggestion, post-Charbonneau, that would not excite much controversy today — we were savaged in the most hysterical terms by much of the Quebec media and political class, which did not subside before the House of Commons had passed a unanimous motion declaring itself “profoundly saddened” by us. (The only time in history, I feel confident in saying, that a legislative body has made a formal finding of its own emotional state.)

At the height of the madness it was maintained, in all seriousness, that where the magazine’s coverage had truly crossed the line was not in what I or my colleague, Martin Patriquin, had written, but the illustration on the cover of Bonhomme Carnaval, the beloved mascot of the Quebec Winter Carnival, with a briefcase full of cash. In our insensitive Anglo way, it was explained, we had failed to grasp that Bonhomme was not just a mascot, but a sacred figure in Quebec culture. It was not just offensive, but impermissible to represent him in such a mocking way. You know, like Muhammad.

That this was not remotely true (a quick search unearthed dozens of cases of the province’s cartoonists gleefully subjecting the unfortunate Bonhomme to all manner of indignities) is not the point. Suffice it to say, rather, that an excess of sensitivity is not an affliction only of the English media.

A 2012 file photo taken in Paris shows French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s publisher, known only as Charb, in the newspaper offices. [Francois Guillot/Getty Images]

I trot out this anecdote only to suggest that a debate restricted to the rights and responsibilities of the media — the offenders, as it were — only gets at half the issue. There is also the question of what responsibilities, if any, are borne by the offended.

The whole of the debate to now has taken it as a given that of course Muslims would be offended, even outraged, by the cartoons. The only question was whether the media should censor the cartoons, in deference to that outrage, or publish them, in defiance.

But it is not automatic that people must be offended by what they see in front of them. Leave aside how many Muslims genuinely object, as claimed, to any figurative representation of the Prophet. Even the most pious believer has a choice, faced with material he might be inclined to find offensive, whether in fact to be offended. As we all do. We are not automatons, programmed to respond in the same way to every provocation. We have a choice.

This will sound odd — even offensive — in this age when everyone is not only offended by everything, but spends half their day informing the world, via social media, precisely how offended they are. We have all absorbed the notion, not just that elaborate care should be taken not to offend anyone, ever, but that the offended are excused from any reciprocal obligation: namely, to examine whether such feelings are reasonable.

There are, after all, a range of possible responses to something we find objectionable. We might be puzzled why its authors should think it acceptable, or pity them their ignorance. We might take the time, if it seemed useful, to explain our position to them. Or we might shrug and move on. There is no inevitability to the current preference for instant, foaming outrage. It is a choice.

A cartoon tribute drawn by MacLeod was released in solidarity with those killed in an attack at the Paris offices of the weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo after masked gunmen stormed their offices. [AP Photo/MacLeod Cartoons]

More particularly, it is learned behaviour, a collective performance as prescribed in its stages as kabuki theatre. First someone decides they are offended, and reports it online. Then a storm of the like-minded repeats the original grievance, and redoubles it. Then the media report: “There was outrage on Twitter today, when …”

It is unclear what the participants hope to achieve. If it is to prevent the offending thought from being expressed — as in the self-conscious ritual, made camp through repetition, of demonstrators shouting down a visiting speaker — is it imagined that it will not still be said in other fora, or if not said, thought?

Or is it simply a kind of moral preening, to be valued for its own sake? Look at me, shrieks the Perpetually Aggrieved Person: I’m angry. Which would seem little more than a disclosure of emotional incontinence, but for the self-aggrandizing subtext. I’m angry, it says, at some injustice. How wrong it is, to be sure, that such injustice should exist — but how fine of me to be so enraged by it!

I don’t mean to suggest there is never any cause for people to feel pained by what they read or hear. Speech can wound. It can do harm to reputations, it can threaten physical harm. There’s a reason why hockey players, who might shrug off the nastiest personal abuse, will drop the gloves and mean it over a racial slur. For then a fight between two people is raised to the level of two races, and all the history of insult and injury the one race has endured from the other is imported into that moment, and re-enacted.

But these are the exceptions, in the serially offended world we are now in. It is no longer news that “Twitter is outraged.” It would be news if it weren’t.

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