Thread by @SecDetective

An apology has been demanded from Boris Johnson for having mocked a religious custom, namely the wearing of the full-face veil in Islam.

It is obvious that those demanding the apology must believe that the mocking of this religious custom is wrong.

This is ridiculous.

When considering a thing said, or a thing done, and whether it is wrong, we must embark on a course of moral induction.

This is how we decide why something is wrong, and if it is at all.

It isn't sufficient to merely declare that the thing said or done is "offensive".

At one time or another, perhaps more recently than permits comfort, the prospect of interracial or same-sex coupling would have been greatly offensive to a great many people.

This is a dead end.

Offence taken cannot be the criterion by which we judge actions or expressions.

So what else is left? Perhaps it's the fact that the custom in question is religious.

Consider the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Followers believe that the cracker and the wine turn literally, not metaphorically, in to the flesh and blood of Christ.

This is asinine.

It is also the source of some organic and worthwhile humour.

The belief, and arising practice, that molecules can change when chewed and swashed (naturally ever-evasively from scientific detection), is so ridiculous that it's quite funny.

Sam Harris made the observation in debate with William L Craig: "[Religion] allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions, what only lunatics could believe on their own."

This is true, and it is so from every perspective.

I won't argue that calls for apologis don't come in instances of Christianity being mocked, but there is a rather crucial distinction pertaining to the source of those demands, which should not be overlooked.

(We are getting closer to the pertinent variable.)

The vast majority of demands for apology, following some instance of Christian ridicule, will come from offended Christians.

Some Christians, for instance, were offended by Greggs portraying Jesus as a sausage roll during the Christmas season some time ago.

What one doesn't see so frequently in such instances however, is the deluge of vicarious offence and arising demands for apology coming from secular, or at least non-Christian sources.

One also notices that there's no social penalty for declining to join the offended bandwagon.

It appears we can remove religion as the relevant factor here as well.

The pertinent variable is the particular religion from which the custom being mocked derives.

Islam is again being singled-out for special privilege, namely the secular enforcement of blasphemy doctrines.

This is the same line of thinking which prompted the widespread denouncement of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in the aftermath of their slaughter, while their bodies were still warm, no less.

There must be no curtailment of the right to scrutinise, criticise or ridicule customs.

The right to free inquiry is meaningless without the right to report the results of one's investigation.

The question as to which side of history one would have liked to be on is also pertinent. Would you like to have been next to Giordano Bruno, or the inquisition?

The charge that the mockery of religion is wrong thus fails in principle.

But it also fails in practice.

Whatever I might say about transubstantiation, it is at least mostly benign (unlike some other Catholic doctrines).

I couldn't say this of the full veil with any sincerity.

I do not believe that the proliferation of the practice of covering one's face is a good thing, and I think it should be discouraged.

It is an afront to the norms which bind society in an open contract of presumed accountability by identification.

But more than this, it shows no respect to the intricacies and nuances of our facial expressions which do the bulk of our communication with one another.

Exchanges online descend into uncharitable spats much faster than in the real world, and this is no coincidence.

A better society, one rigged to promote the sharing of ideas and experiences and the building of communities of shared principles, progresses on the basis that interactions will involve the visibility of each other's faces, and the consequent perception of all they can convey.

These few points are among the reasons that I don't much like the veil.

They are each compounded, however, with the stark and sinister understanding that the rules governing it apply to only one sex.

Practices worth discouraging must haev vehicles by which to discourage them.

And this brings me to a point made by Douglas Murray, made in debate with Tariq Ramadan, noting his opponent's call for "more dialogue on this issue".

Murray agrees, as would anyone, that more dialogue is warranted; but he asks how that dialogue should begin.

"What could be more innocuous", he wonders, "than a cartoon, a joke or an article?"

And here, we all stumble upon the unhappy fact that the rules of the game are being rigged to make this dialogue, which is so often declared as necessary, a very difficult affair indeed.

To declare that jokes about Islamic practices are wrong, as those demanding the apology are, is to retard the possibility for this necessary dialogue to the point of its being doomed to failure before it even leaves the ground.

We must understand the implications of this line.

In any conversation worth having, feelings will hurt. I say this because the conversations that matter are those which challenge our deepest-held positions and beliefs.

These moments in life, where one is forced by intellectual honesty to change one's mind, are worth cherishing.

To seek to protect Muslims from these challenges is, as well as being thoroughly demeaning, axiomatically to hinder their prospect of enjoying these moments in life.

The calls for apology fail in principle and practice, and we should pay attention to the path on which we embark.