I’m not clear on the relevant Muslim sensibilities/doctrine, but are they upset merely by seeing pictures of Mohammed, or by the existence of pictures of Mohammed? It may be that without actual policies/norms/etc. stringently forbidding drawing Mohammed, they will experience a non-negligible background level of upset based on the probabilistic expectation that someone, somewhere, is drawing Mohammed where they can’t see. What does this model of offense etc. say to this situation?
I think you’re right that the seeing vs. existing is a big part of why people’s intuitions about salmon vs. Mohammed may differ in the example. British people (in the example) aren’t trying to stop the existence of salmon pictures they can’t see, whereas some Muslims are trying to stop the existence of Mohammed pictures they can’t see. Even if only a minority of Muslims holds that attitude, it might be sufficiently annoying and scary to some non-Muslims that they are willing to annoy other Muslims by making pictures as a protest.
Yvain almost covers this case:
Say a random Christian kicked a Muslim in the face, and a few other Muslims got really angry, blew the whole thing out of proportion, and killed him and his entire family. This would be an inappropriately strong response, and certainly you could be upset about it, but the proper response wouldn’t be to go kicking random Muslims in the face. They didn’t do it, and they probably don’t even approve. But drawing pictures of Mohammed offends many Muslims, not just the ones who send death threats.
Except kicking someone in the face violates Western notions of rights, while drawing pictures of Mohammed somewhere doesn’t. Drawing pictures of Mohammed to protest Muslims who try to deny the right of others to do so is not a violation of anyone’s rights, according to Western concepts of rights. Westerners feel they must treat any attempt to deny their rights as a Schelling Point.
Yes, it is still annoying for the set of Muslims-who-are-bothered-by-pictures-of-Mohammed-but-aren’t-trying-to-take-away-the-right-of-people-to-do-so. Yet people who draw pictures of Mohammed might feel they are justified in annoying those Muslims in order to protest the subset of Muslims that attempt censorship. Perhaps they hope that moderate Muslims will understand why they must defend that Schelling Point, or perhaps they hope that moderate Muslims will bring the radicals in line.
Analogously, If this theoretical scenario were to take place, I would be doing wrong if I were to force British people to look a salmon against their will, same as if I hurt them against their will buy punching them in the face.
But they would have no justification for acting against say the “Australian Salmon photographers association” who happen to enjoy taking pictures of Salmon themselves but have no intention of exposing British people to them against their will.
In the Danish cartoons example, they were originally given a very minor circulation in Denmark, they were not airdropped into Mecca or whatever. The objection to Muslim ‘offense’ is that they are attempting to restrict others self regarding actions that do no harm to them. [Also in that specific case there was deliberate political manipulations.]
I don’t understand this use of Schelling point- could you explain?
When there is a potential for conflict over some issue, people can communicate and negotiate as much as they like, but the most important piece of information is hard to communicate reliably and credibly: namely, the line that one is committed to defend without backing off, even if the cost is higher than the value of what’s being defended. (Such commitment is usually necessary to defend anything effectively, since if you defend only when the cost of defense is lower than the value defended, the opponent can force you to back off without fighting by threatening an all-out attack whose cost is disproportionate to the prize, and which would not be profitable if you defended at all costs.)
The key insight is that such commitment is easier to assert credibly by drawing the line at a conspicuous focal point, which will enable both parties to come to a tacit mutual agreement. However, if you’re not really committed to defend a particular focal point and your opponent senses that, he has the incentive to mount an attack that will make defense too costly and make you back off. And you can’t back off from a focal point by giving just a small concession—you can only withdraw to the next conspicuous focal point, and even then, it will be harder to assert commitment to defend it given your history.
Agreeing to tribute costs the victim not only the tribute but the only available Schelling point.
This is where all the slippery-slope arguments come from. Without “speech free from repercussion” as a Schelling point, there appears to the West be no other natural point until you reach complete submission to Muslim dictates. The Muslim tradition would prefer if the conflict was resolved on their side of the issue—in itself a strong strategy for moving towards more complete submission to Muslim tradition. (Given this, an unreasonable attachment to what the West perceives as the Schelling point is a sound strategy for the West—cue cries of free speech).
What Vladimir_M said. The line in the sand being defended in this case is the right of Westerners to create media that is offensive to the beliefs of some Muslims, even though it doesn’t tangibly harm Muslims in any way.
I’m not clear on the relevant Muslim sensibilities/doctrine, but are they upset merely by seeing pictures of Mohammed, or by the existence of pictures of Mohammed? It may be that without actual policies/norms/etc. stringently forbidding drawing Mohammed, they will experience a non-negligible background level of upset based on the probabilistic expectation that someone, somewhere, is drawing Mohammed where they can’t see. What does this model of offense etc. say to this situation?
I think you’re right that the seeing vs. existing is a big part of why people’s intuitions about salmon vs. Mohammed may differ in the example. British people (in the example) aren’t trying to stop the existence of salmon pictures they can’t see, whereas some Muslims are trying to stop the existence of Mohammed pictures they can’t see. Even if only a minority of Muslims holds that attitude, it might be sufficiently annoying and scary to some non-Muslims that they are willing to annoy other Muslims by making pictures as a protest.
Yvain almost covers this case:
Except kicking someone in the face violates Western notions of rights, while drawing pictures of Mohammed somewhere doesn’t. Drawing pictures of Mohammed to protest Muslims who try to deny the right of others to do so is not a violation of anyone’s rights, according to Western concepts of rights. Westerners feel they must treat any attempt to deny their rights as a Schelling Point.
Yes, it is still annoying for the set of Muslims-who-are-bothered-by-pictures-of-Mohammed-but-aren’t-trying-to-take-away-the-right-of-people-to-do-so. Yet people who draw pictures of Mohammed might feel they are justified in annoying those Muslims in order to protest the subset of Muslims that attempt censorship. Perhaps they hope that moderate Muslims will understand why they must defend that Schelling Point, or perhaps they hope that moderate Muslims will bring the radicals in line.
Analogously, If this theoretical scenario were to take place, I would be doing wrong if I were to force British people to look a salmon against their will, same as if I hurt them against their will buy punching them in the face.
But they would have no justification for acting against say the “Australian Salmon photographers association” who happen to enjoy taking pictures of Salmon themselves but have no intention of exposing British people to them against their will.
In the Danish cartoons example, they were originally given a very minor circulation in Denmark, they were not airdropped into Mecca or whatever. The objection to Muslim ‘offense’ is that they are attempting to restrict others self regarding actions that do no harm to them. [Also in that specific case there was deliberate political manipulations.]
I don’t understand this use of Schelling point- could you explain?
When there is a potential for conflict over some issue, people can communicate and negotiate as much as they like, but the most important piece of information is hard to communicate reliably and credibly: namely, the line that one is committed to defend without backing off, even if the cost is higher than the value of what’s being defended. (Such commitment is usually necessary to defend anything effectively, since if you defend only when the cost of defense is lower than the value defended, the opponent can force you to back off without fighting by threatening an all-out attack whose cost is disproportionate to the prize, and which would not be profitable if you defended at all costs.)
The key insight is that such commitment is easier to assert credibly by drawing the line at a conspicuous focal point, which will enable both parties to come to a tacit mutual agreement. However, if you’re not really committed to defend a particular focal point and your opponent senses that, he has the incentive to mount an attack that will make defense too costly and make you back off. And you can’t back off from a focal point by giving just a small concession—you can only withdraw to the next conspicuous focal point, and even then, it will be harder to assert commitment to defend it given your history.
I recommend this essay by David Friedman, which explains how the concept of Schelling point applies to property rights, in a way that’s clearly generalizable to all other issues of rights and social norms:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Property/Property.html
From that essay:
This is where all the slippery-slope arguments come from. Without “speech free from repercussion” as a Schelling point, there appears to the West be no other natural point until you reach complete submission to Muslim dictates. The Muslim tradition would prefer if the conflict was resolved on their side of the issue—in itself a strong strategy for moving towards more complete submission to Muslim tradition. (Given this, an unreasonable attachment to what the West perceives as the Schelling point is a sound strategy for the West—cue cries of free speech).
What Vladimir_M said. The line in the sand being defended in this case is the right of Westerners to create media that is offensive to the beliefs of some Muslims, even though it doesn’t tangibly harm Muslims in any way.