Dartblog

In early March, I wrote in “Professor Discretion Is Advised” about the brave Professor Karen Murdock of Century College. She had the libertine* gall, and in the thick of the Cartoon Jihad no less, to actually make public the cartoons in question, that the studentry might debate the issue having actually seen those editorial graphics—those little newspaper drawings—which had moved great masses in the East to fire automatic weapons into the air in outrage, conduct an armed raid of an E.U. office, organize absolute boycotts against the entire state of Denmark, threaten mass murder of all who disagree, threaten to kidnap all foreigners, and conduct massive flag burnings and bomb threats, torch two embassies, kill a priest, order newspapers not to print the cartoons, set ablaze another embassy, torch police cars, conduct even more flag-burning, target Danish soldiers, invade one of the few Christian homes in town and kill the family there, infiltrate a police station, fabricate further offensive cartoons, demand execution of the artists, stone a fourth embassy, storm a U.S. military base, sever all trade ties with Denmark, attack a NATO base, and attack an international observer mission in the West Bank.

The good professor thought line drawings that had sired such behavior might be worthy of informed debate rather than the self-same mindless fanaticism which underwrote the above. Murderous zealotry was sapped here centuries ago, after all—it ended when we began calling ourselves a civilization—and as a nation we reject censorship just to suit the fundamentalist holy law of some violent terrorists. Why shouldn’t the cartoons be aired? But in Century College’s little corner of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, Islamists’ war to impose their unique taboos and religious laws on the wider non-fundamentalist world ended in utter triumph. Murdock had posted the cartoons behind a curtain to be safe, and time and time again they were rent to the ground, the tearers outraged over cartoons they may never have even seen, or which they at least didn’t want others to see, lest the artificial outrage be bedded down. Eventually she was silenced and interdicted by supervisorial fiat, and told not to post them again.The logic proceeded something like this: No, you cannot show these cartoons. You can show other cartoons, but these ones you cannot show, because these ones take as their topic Islam, and Islam is a special religion. Its rules apply to everyone, unlike other religions, whose rules only apply to their devotees.

And that, in turn, is code for: Pardon my doublethink; I don’t want the college administration building to be firebombed.

Today, the heat having cooled, Karen Murdock e-mails to me this lovely note:

Dear Joe,

Thanks for mentioning me on your “Dartblog”! I’m dumbfounded at the attention being paid over The Great Cartoon Kerfuffle at Century College. Last week, I even got into USA Today. Nat Hentoff has long been a hero of mine and it was an honor to get into his column.

What I wonder is: what is happening at other colleges?? I have to say that, when I first posted the Muslim cartoons (on February 7th, when the story was freshly in the news) I assumed—I just assumed without giving it much thought—that thousands and thousands of college teachers all over this land would be doing exactly what I was doing at exactly the same moment I was doing it—finding the cartoons online, printing them off, and posting them up so people could see them. Why didn’t this happen?? I’m a good liberal and a product of the academy of the 1970s (Middlebury ‘77), when a rather free-and-easy ethos prevailed on campus, and so I suppose I am not easily offended by material posted on college bulletin boards. But I can’t be unique in my background, sensitivity (or lack thereof) or simple human curiosity. Surely there must be—somewhere “out there”—others like me who did what I did! But I have not heard of any other cases. The silence is thundering. If you know of any other cases like mine, please let me know!

Yours, freely speaking,

~Karen Murdock

The unwrit ban is still in effect, but at the very least there is the Internet, where freely speaking means something.

—
*libertine, n.: One who holds free or loose opinions about religion; a free-thinker.

Admittedly, this is a low-ranked definition of the word—below, essentially, slut—but in my opinion it ought to be the very first meaning, and it is, of course, what I mean when I refer to Professor Murdock’s actions as being libertine in nature.