On the Soapbox

As reported by Reuters, a "leading cardinal" of the Catholic Church has urged that Christians take legal action against the Da Vinci Code. These were the words of Cardinal Arinze:

[...] legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others.

This is one of the fundamental human rights: that we should be respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected.

What struck me first about this comment was the remarkable similarity that it had to those of the Muslims protesting the Muhammad cartoons. The Muslims demanded that their "rights" be respected and claimed that the mockery of their prophet Muhammad was a violation of their freedoms.

I have to admit that I have not read the Da Vinci Code, but based on the media coverage that it has received, I have a general idea of what it is about, and most importantly, I also know that it is a piece of fiction, published by Doubleday Fiction. That was the second thing that struck me: that the Catholic Church was up in arms about a piece of fiction; it can't even be classified as libel.

However, the issue that bore into me the most was the attempt by the Church to disguise a positive right as a negative right. A negative right is expressed in the form of restricting the actions of an entity with power (usually government). The First Amendment begins with, "Congress shall make no law..." These are "rights" in the traditional sense. A positive "right" is not really a "right" in the traditional sense, but rather, it is an entitlement. Instead of restricting the actions of an entity wielding power, it grants people certain things. For example, the "right" to jobs or to health care are positive rights often associated with liberals, and the "right" to be free of indecency in the media would be an example of a positive right often invoked by conservatives.

The primary danger of these pseudo-rights is that they are arbitrary. Someone can claim the "right" to just about anything, ranging from those that are reasonable, such as the "right" to provided basic food and shelter, to those that can be quite absurd, such as the "right" to be provided with a cell phone. As a result of this arbitrary nature, positive rights can often clash with one another and with negative rights. When those who claim the "right" to be free from offensive material turn to the government to enforce that "right", they come in direct conflict with the negative right of free speech. Additionally, as more and more people from both ends of the political spectrum couch their agenda in the distorting language of positive "rights" and "freedoms", it causes confusion and disorientation for people. How many people do you know are able to distinguish traditional negative rights from entitlement positive rights? This misuse of distorting language often hampers and obfuscates meaningful debate.

The casting of the cartoon and Da Vinci Code controversies in the language of positive rights is misleading and harmful to the public. If the Catholic Church is so opposed to the book and movie, they are perfectly free to arrange boycotts and protests, which they have already done. But when they start asking for legal action, they are crossing the bridge and turning a legitimate protest into an oppressive use of legal power; they are seeking to trump a "true" negative right (free expression) with their "false" positive right. But of course, the obfuscating nature of the language used neatly hides it.

Finally, I must take issue with their claim that the "right" to respect is a "fundamental" human right. In dealing with government, this is true in the sense that all people must be equal under the law.* But when dealing with private entities, respect is neither entitled nor decreed--it is earned. If anything, the holding and expression of various opinions--disrespectful or not--is a much more "fundamental" right. Perhaps in time, the Vatican will finally learn that obtaining respect requires the shedding of their thin skin and the cessation of a history of attempts at oppression.

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* On that note, legalizing gay marriages would grant gays the negative right of equality under the law while depriving Christians the positive right being free from the "menace" of gay marriages.