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Sunday 7 September 2008

Brick Lane’s queen strikes gold

Brick Lane’s queen strikes gold on the silver screen

An interview with Monica Ali

She sets all this in the broader context of a crisis within liberalism that concerns her deeply. ‘The fact is that the liberal consensus that used to obtain on freedom of expression has broken down over the last two or three decades. That consensus rested on Enlightenment values and can in particular be traced back to J.S. Mill — the idea that it is the individual that needs protection from the tyranny of prevailing opinion. The individual should be at liberty as long as he does no harm to others. Or, using a Benthamite calculation of utility, the benefits are greater than the detriments. Mill discounts the kind of “moral harm” or “outrage” — disgust, indignation — which weigh so heavily in the balance today, pleading for the elevation of “reason and argument against the deification of mere opinion and habit”.

‘We no longer discount these kinds of “harms” so readily because of the huge transformations, postwar, in our society. We want to have an equal respect for all people which entails having an equal respect for all cultures and ways of life. Therefore the kinds of “moral distress” or “harm” which are generated, for instance, by an art exhibition which some Hindus found “offensive” — such that they forced the exhibition to be closed [the closure in May 2006 by London’s Asia House Gallery of its M.F. Husain show] — are given an entirely different kind of consideration than they would have been given by Mill. For him the absence of outrage would have been a sign of a society in stasis; ironically, it is the rapid changes in society that have elevated outrage as a “harm”.’

More articles from: Matthew d'Ancona | this section

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