Thursday, April 01, 2010

Right to not be offended - Smeared!

Now this has to be the most succinct expression of why there is no such thing as "offensive" material. Phillip Pullman wrote a book entitled The Good Man Jesus and Scoundrel Christ. When asked if, for example, Christians might be offended by the title, here is Pullmans' reply, in totality:

Yes.

It was 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 paper. You can write your own book.

You can do all those things, but there your rights stop.

No one has the right to stop me from 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.

The video is here: