Paper presented at the Conference “Democracy and Difference”, Culcom, University of Oslo,
Aug. 26, 2008
THE USE AND ABUSE OF “UNIVERSAL VALUES”
IN THE DANISH CARTOON CONTROVERSY
Christian F. Rostbøll, Ph.D.
University of Copenhagen
[email protected]
During the Danish cartoon controversy in 2005-2006 appeals to universal liberal values were often
made in ways that marginalized Muslims. An analysis of the controversy shows that referring to
“universal values” can be exclusionary when dominant actors fail to distinguish their own culture’s
embodiment of these values from the more abstract ideas. To avoid self-contradiction, liberal
principles and constitutional norms should not be seen as incontestable aspects of democracy but
rather as subject to recursive democratic justification and revision by everyone subject to them.
Newcomers should be able to contribute their specific perspectives in this process of democratically
reinterpreting and perfecting the understanding of universalistic norms and thereby make them fit
better to those to whom they apply and to make them theirs, too. In this way the norms are not made
cultureless but they are separated from one specific culture and made the product of the meeting of
members with different cultural backgrounds.
Keywords: Danish cartoon controversy, constitutional patriotism, cultural diversity, deliberation,
democracy, liberalism, relativism, universalism
In September 2005 Denmark’s largest newspaper Jyllands-Posten commissioned drawings of the
prophet Muhammad “in response to several incidents of self-censorship … in dealing with issues
related to Islam.”1 Twelve cartoons (only some of which are actually of the prophet) were published
on September 30 and later caused what has become known as the Danish cartoon controversy (in
Denmark as the Muhammad crisis). The controversy has been subject to political theoretical
analysis mainly to consider (a) whether there should be a legal right to such expressions, and (b)
whether it is morally legitimate to mock people’s most cherished beliefs. 2 This paper rather analyses
the defense of the cartoons in public discourse, in particular how universal liberal values were
invoked and how they were related to national (Danish) culture.
The defenders of the cartoons appealed to a number of values that are often regarded as
liberal values, chiefly freedom of expression, but also democracy, equal treatment, and secularism.
My initial aim is to understand how these values were presented in the most prominent defenses of
the cartoons, by editors and commentators of Jyllands-Posten and the Danish government.3
Particularly, I am interested in how they were presented as relating to Danish national culture. Were
the values on the basis of which the cartoons were defended presented as universalistic values or as
particular Danish values? This question is important from the perspective of normative political
theory because the way liberal values were invoked by many powerful actors during the controversy
served to marginalize Muslims and to delegitimate dissenting voices in Danish society. The aim is
to understand how these values could be used to exclude a group of people, their beliefs, practices,
and opinions. Is there something inherently exclusionary in these values? Is the universalism of
liberalism to blame for the failure to respect cultural difference? Or was it not liberalism or moral
1
Flemming Rose, “Why I Published Those Cartoons,” Washington Post, February 19, 2006.
See e.g. Ronald Dworkin, “The Right to Ridicule,” The New York Review of Books 53, no. 5, March 23, 2006; Robert
Post, “Religion and Freedom of Speech: Portraits of Muhammad,” Constellations 14, no. 1 (2007): 72-90; the
contributions to the special issue “The Danish Cartoon Affair: Free Speech, Racism, Islamism, and Integration” of
International Migration 44, no. 5 (2006).
3
In Danish public discourse it is most common to speak about “values”, but I shall sometimes speak also about norms
and principles.
2
2
universalism that was at play in the controversy but rather particularistic nationalism? The latter we
know to be exclusionary and it can be so without contradiction, which liberal universalism cannot.
My hope is that analyzing how liberal values worked in this particular case can give us a better
understating of how liberal principles work in relation to issues of cultural diversity. However, my
aspiration is not just critical (to understand how liberal principles were used for exclusionary
purposes) but also constructive: to consider how we can go beyond such exclusions.
In the latter purpose, I go beyond the unconstructive attacks on liberal universalism that
one sometimes finds among Foucaultians and post-structuralists. 4 Indeed, I shall argue that it is not
liberal principles or moral universalism per se that is to blame for the marginalization of Muslims in
the Danish case but rather the specific way in which they were invoked by dominant defenders of
the cartoons. Exclusion was the effect of how liberal principles were tied to national culture and
history as well as the fact that they were placed as beyond democratic deliberation and seen as
infallibly understood in and by Danish political culture. The constructive aim in the paper is to
argue that core liberal principles and constitutional norms should not be seen as infallible and
nonnegotiable aspects of democracy given by “the nation” in the past but rather as subject to
continued democratic justification and, if need be, revision by everyone subject to them, also by
those who do not share the history and culture in which the values were first established.
I
In the article that accompanied the original publication of the cartoons, written by cultural editor
Flemming Rose, a number of liberal principles were appealed to: equal treatment, secularism,
democracy, and freedom of expression. To insist on “special concern for [one’s own] religious
4
This is not a paper on Foucaultian or post-structuralist theory and the criticisms raised are only of the specific claims
that I mention in the text.
3
feelings,” according to Rose, “is incompatible with secular democracy and freedom of expression.” 5
This focus on core liberal principles or “Enlightenment values” never disappeared in the ensuing
public debate.6 At the same time, the values were defended as universal, that is, as applicable to all
independent of their culture. Muslims cannot refer to their religion or culture as a reason for being
exempted from the consequences of others’ exercise of freedom of expression, was a key message
in Rose’s original text as well as in many subsequent interventions. Freedom of expression was also
often justified in universalistic terms, e.g., as necessary for progress and democracy, rather than as
something particularly Danish. Criticism of the cartoons and demands for respect for religious
feelings were seen as anti-Enlightenment and relativistic. In these ways, a kind of liberal
universalism played a central role in the defense of the cartoons.
This is not the whole story, however. Stanley Fish, for example, gets the case completely
wrong when he writes that the editors are concerned “only to stand up for an abstract principle –
free speech,” while they have no interest in the content of what is expressed and have nothing
against Islam.7 His certainty about this does not seem to come from any research into the Danish
debate but rather from his understanding of liberalism. For him, liberalism is about abstract
principles while it cannot take substantive positions seriously. If Fish had studied Jyllands-Posten’s
editorial line, he would have seen that the editors are not liberal defenders of abstract principles
who have nothing against Islam. In fact, the publication of the cartoons was only the culmination of
a long line of anti-immigration and anti-Islam editorial decisions. 8 If it is a form of liberalism that
informs Rose et al, it is not of the type Fish thinks. What created the conflict was not some
5
Flemming Rose, “Muhammeds ansigt,” [The Face of Muhammad] Jyllands-Posten, September 30, 2005, my
translation.
6
On the use of “Enlightenment values” during the controversy, see Christian F. Rostbøll, “Autonomy, Respect, and
Arrogance in the Danish Cartoon Controversy,” typescript, University of Copenhagen, 2008.
7
Stanley Fish, “Our Faith in Letting It All Hang Out,” New York Times, Op-Ed piece, February 12, 2006, emphasis
added.
8
Cf. Stig Hjarvard, “Religion og politik i mediernes offentlighed,” [Religion and politics in the media’s public sphere]
in Gudebilleder - Ytringsfrihed og religion i en globaliseret verden, [Images of God: Freedom of expression and
religion in a globalized world] ed. Lisbet Christoffersen (Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter, 2006), 44-71, pp. 51f.
4
defending abstract rights against others taking their culture seriously. This point is important both to
understand the case right and to understand the possible exclusions of liberalism right. Foucaultian
critics of liberalism sometimes see the problem with liberalism as being that it “represents itself as
cultureless.”9 However, insofar as there was a liberalism involved in the defense of the cartoons,
this was not one that represented itself as cultureless. The defenders of the cartoons were not just
defending freedom of expression but also Danish culture, as well as how this culture supports
liberal values. My concern is how the values used to justify the cartoons creates a conflict with
Muslims and how the latter are marginalized in this conflict; and a key point is that this was not
because freedom of expression was presented as an abstract principle but rather because of how it
was connected to Danish culture.
Jyllands-Posten and its supporters are at one and the same time promoting certain liberal
principles and Danish culture and history against (what they see as) another, foreign culture and
religion: Islam. It is worth trying more precisely to understand how they see the relationship
between liberal principles and national (Danish) culture. First, it should be noted that the
publication of the cartoons was part of a wider culture struggle (or culture war, kulturkamp) in
Denmark. This struggle was initiated by the Danish government (to which Jyllands-Posten is
ideologically close) and a core aspect of it concerns which values should guide immigration
policies. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s position is that Denmark ought to stand firm on
its (liberal) values and that this requires stricter immigration laws and assimilation of those (few)
foreigners who are admitted. It is a noteworthy characteristic of this culture struggle that “political
values, including universal liberal values, are talked about as culture.”10 Talking about norms and
values as culture in this case does not mean rejecting their universal scope. Rather, defenders of the
9
Wendy Brown, Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2006), 21, see also 166f, 170f,
10
Per Mouritsen, “The Particular Universalism of a Nordic Civic Nation: Common Values, State Religion and Islam in
Danish Political Culture,” in Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship, ed. Tariq Modood, Anna Triandafyllidou and
Ricard Zapata-Barrero (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 70-93, p. 73.
5
cartoons see insight into universal values as a particular Danish accomplishment. This
accomplishment is seen as relying on the substance of Danish culture and history, particularly
Lutheran Christianity and the Enlightenment. Many Danish politicians (including the Prime
Minister and the Minister of Integration) as well as Lutheran theologians have recently put much
effort into arguing that Lutheran Christianity is uniquely conducive to secularism or the separation
of politics and religion. Of course, the Lutheran understanding of secularism is not the only possible
one, but this point was absent from the dominant discourse. 11
Thus, in the Danish culture struggle, of which the cartoon controversy was a climax, liberal
values are presented as embodied in Danish culture. These values are not just presented as part of
Danish culture in the sense that they could be part of many different cultures; nor is the idea merely
that Danish national culture is a liberal culture. Liberal values are presented as so entangled with
Danish culture that in order to understand and accept them, one has to understand Danish history
and assimilate to Danish culture. On this view, there is only one true way to understand and accept
liberal principles. Muslims might be able to come to share these values but this requires that they go
through a history similar to the one Danish Lutheran Christians have gone through; in short, via the
privatization of religion as found in Luther and by attaining a critical distance to religion as
advocated by “the Enlightenment.” In this respect, explaining the cultural genesis of liberal values
and principles were seen as more important than arguing for their (universal) validity. 12 By tying
liberal principles so closely to one specific history and culture, they can be used to vindicate an
entire form of life and to condemn another, rather than merely as the normative basis for
determining what is right and wrong in concrete cases.
This representation of liberal principles makes it impossible for Muslims to accept them as
Muslims. First, because the content of this liberalism extend beyond moral principles of right and
11
Cf. Anders Berg-Sørensen, “Religion i det offentlige rum? En rundtur i danske sekularismer” [Religion in the public
sphere? A roundtrip in Danish secularisms] Kritik 182 (December 2006): 30-38.
12
Cf. Mouritsen, “The Particular Universalism of a Nordic Civic Nation,” 84.
6
wrong to substantive questions of the good life. In Rawlsian terms, the connection of liberal
principles to a particular culture establishes a form of comprehensive liberalism, which can be
shared only by people who share metaphysical beliefs about the source of moral obligations and
substantive conception of the good.13 Second, because the values are seen as products of a particular
history and culture, and it is implied that to accept them one must accept not just the validity of the
principles but also the superiority of the history and culture that created them, that is, of Danish
history and culture. To avoid misunderstanding, the point here is not that when norms arise within a
particular culture and this is made explicit, then this makes it impossible for people from other
cultures to make them theirs, too. Rather, exclusion arises when it is implied that the only way to
understand the values is to follow one particular historical path or to assimilate to the culture in
which they arose.
The culturalist or contextualist focus on genesis was often combined with the insistence on
that liberal principles are universal. Prime Minister Rasmussen has repeatedly emphasized the
importance of “standing firm” on “our” values, and he contrasts this to “being weak on values,” or
to relativism. One of the actions that led to the escalation of the cartoon crisis was Rasmussen’s
refusal in October 2005 to meet with a group of diplomats from Muslim countries who had
complained about the negative portrayal of Islam in the Danish public sphere. 14 He told the press,
“This is a matter of principle. I won’t meet with them because it is so crystal clear what principles
Danish democracy is built upon that there is no reason to do so.” 15 Looking back at the crisis a year
later he explained, “The Enlightenment … has been the driving force behind European development
and decisive for why we have come as far, as we have. Therefore we have something here [i.e.
13
John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
On Rasmussen’s refusal to meet the ambassadors, see Klaus and Michael Rothstein, 2006. Bomben i turbanen [The
bomb in the turban] (Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter, 2006), 32ff.
15
Quoted from Pernille Ammitzbøll and Vidino Lorenzo, “After the Danish Cartoon Controversy,” Middle East
Quarterly 14, no. 1 (2007): 3-11.
14
7
freedom of expression], with regard to which we cannot give one millimeter.” 16 Other prominent
participants in the public debate insisted that dialogue with Muslims is fine, “as long as one has
clarity regarding one’s own values and principles, which are nonnegotiable.” 17 It was not only the
principles in general, not just freedom of expression as such, that was spoken of as nonnegotiable; it
was the defenders’ own particular interpretation of the principles and their implications that were
placed beyond discussion.
For the defenders of the cartoons being liberal and universalist meant presenting liberal
principles as beyond discussion, in particular as uncontestable from the perspective of Islam. To be
critical of Jyllands-Posten or to claim that the right to freedom of expression ought to be used with
concern for religious feelings was seen as either relativistic (if made by “the political correct elite”)
or as fundamentalist (if made by Muslims themselves). In this way, any opposition to the cartoons
was constructed as a rejection of liberal principles in general and freedom of expression in
particular. The critics thus could not get the idea through that they were merely (1) criticizing
Jyllands-Posten’s use of the right and not the right itself, 18 or (2) if they were addressing the legal
right itself, that they were discussing its limits rather than arguing for its abandonment. This
dichotomous understanding of liberalism and anti-liberalism was presented as related to an idea of a
clash of cultures.19 Two journalists from Jyllands-Posten write in a book about the case that it was
16
John Hansen, “Jyllands-Posten havde ret til at bringe de tegninger – punktum,” [Jyllands-Posten had a right to publish
those cartoons – period] an interview with Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Jyllands-Posten, October 1, 2006, my trans.
17
Karen Jespersen and Ralf Pittelkow Islamister og naivister - et anklageskrift [Islamists and naivists – an indictment]
(Copenhagen: People’sPress, 2006), 178, my translation. The authors of this book are, respectively, a member of the
current Danish government and a commentator at Jyllands-Posten.
18
One study of Danish newspapers coverage of the case was “not able to find one newspaper or individual person who
denied Jyllands-Posten’s legal right to publish the cartoons.” See Peter Hervik and Clarissa Berg, “Denmark: A Political
Struggle in Danish Journalism,” in Reading the Mohammed Cartoons Controversy: An International Analysis of Press
Discourses on Free Speech and Political Spin, ed. Risto Kunelius et al (Bochum, Germany: Projekt Verlag, 2007),
25-39, pp. 37f.
19
Huntington’s thesis of a clash of civilizations was one of the main frames in the news coverage of the controversy in
many countries. See Risto Kunelius and Elisabeth Eide, “The Mohammed Cartoons, Journalism, Free Speech and
Globalization,” in Reading the Mohammed Cartoons Controversy: An International Analysis of Press Discourses on
Free Speech and Political Spin, ed. Risto Kunelius et al (Bochum, Germany: Projekt Verlag, 2007), 9-21, p. 12.
8
“evidently” about “two sets of incompatible values that had to clash.” 20 This sounds as if there exist
a uniform Danish set of values that includes absolute freedom of expression and mockery of
religious symbols as essential features, on one side, and a Muslim set that rejects freedom of
expression and requires extreme concern for religious feelings, on the other side. This picture pays
little attention to the fact that Denmark has hate speech and blasphemy laws and, as a matter of the
ethics of public discourse, that few think that no concern for religious feelings should be shown. It
ignores as well that no Muslims in Denmark required total abandonment of freedom of expression,
or that Islam be placed beyond critique but only that the religion was not mocked or ridiculed.
II
Whereas the first section was concerned with the particular question of how liberal values were
used to marginalize Muslims by some defenders of the Danish cartoons, I now turn to the more
general question of whether liberal values necessarily are exclusionary. While acknowledging that
any understanding of liberal principles is particular, partial, and as such exclusionary, I argue that
this is no reason to abandon them or to abandon universalism. The challenge is, first, to find a way
of thinking about liberal values that acknowledges their dependence on culture and history without
discarding their claim to universality and, second, to determine how to acknowledge this connection
to culture without seeing them as inseparable from any specific culture.
The cartoon case illustrates a failure of meeting the challenges for liberalism posed by
cultural diversity, a failure on liberalism’s own terms insofar as it aims for equal respect and
inclusion of everyone independent of their religion. One cannot claim that prominent defenders of
the cartoons failed to see that principles arise from within particular contexts; on the contrary, by
tying the principles so closely to one particular culture, they closed off the possibility of both (1)
20
John Hansen and Kim Hundevadt, Provoen og profeten: Muhammedkrisen bag kulisserne [The provocateur and the
prophet: The Muhammad crisis backstage] (Copenhagen: Jyllands-Postens Forlag, 2006), 242, my trans.
9
that one can come to understand and accept liberal principles from a different path, or (2) that they
(Danes) could acquire a deeper or better understanding of liberal principles and their application by
listening to the perspectives of others. In other words, they did not see liberal principles as
dialogically constituted, nor did they accept that any formulation of them is fallible, provisional,
and therefore improvable in light of new insights, which can come from anyone. Finally, they did
not acknowledge the importance of that everyone who is subject to the norms also should be their
authors. Thus, I shall further discuss three exclusionary aspects of the particular liberalism one finds
in prominent defenses of the cartoons.21 These concern the relationship between (liberal) values and
national culture, the issue of fallibilism, and finally democratic discussion, interpretation, and
revision of constitutional norms.
II.1
An important conclusion in the analysis of the cartoon case was that insofar as universal liberal
principles were used to delegitimate and marginalize Muslims, it was not by presenting these
principles as beyond culture but rather by talking about them as culture. It is not a case of exclusion
based on the denial of the cultural and historical aspects of liberalism that some Foucaultians and
post-structuralists attack. Rather, it was the explicit presentation of liberal principles as tied to a
specific history and culture that made it impossible for Muslims as Muslims to come to share them.
When liberal principles are presented as having an organic relation to a national culture, allegiance
to them cannot be chosen by those who do not share that culture. 22
This conclusion might lead to the impression that to make liberalism more inclusive would
require making it cultureless. But that is not the point I am driving at. Post-structuralists are right
21
In speaking about a “particular liberalism,” I am indebted to Mouritsen’s phrase “particular universalism” in “The
Particular Universalism of a Nordic Civic Nation.”
22
See Sune Lægaard, “Liberal Nationalism and the Nationalisation of Liberal Values,” Nations and Nationalism 13, no.
1 (2007): 37-55, p. 52
10
that it is impossible to formulate universal principles that are not culture bound, and that this means
that every formulation of universal principles is a particular one. As Ernesto Laclau puts it,
“universality is incommensurable with any particularity but cannot, however, exist apart from the
particular.”23 However, one need not be a post-structuralist or to reject universal principles to accept
this. Indeed, I shall argue that affirming that any embodiment of liberalism in a concrete context
means that it has “cultural facets” and is “imprinted by particular cultures” does not “undermine
liberalism’s claim to universalism,” as Foucaultians such as Wendy Brown thinks it does. 24 We must
be much more precise regarding which aspects of “liberalism” can and cannot lay claim to
universality. And we must define more clearly what it means to lay claim to universality.
Acknowledging that every formulation and application of liberal principles is
particularistic and exclusionary need not imply an overall rejection of moral universalism. Nor does
the putative fact that any particular formulation and institutionalization of liberal principles has
“constructive and repressive powers” entail that liberal principles as universalistic principles are no
better than other principles. 25 We must distinguish between the universal validity claimed for a norm
and the acceptance of this norm in a particular context, its meaning in a particular political culture,
its formulation in a particular constitution, its institutionalization, and so forth. 26 It seems obvious
that the local acceptance of a norm always will reflect the culture(s) and history(ies) of those who
accept it, the same is true regarding how it is formulated in the constitution and which political
institutions and policies it is seen as requiring. 27 A claim to (universal) validity can only be raised
23
Ernesto Laclau, Emancipation(s) (London: Verso, 1996), 34.
Brown, Regulating Aversion, 24.
25
Pace Brown, Regulating Aversion, 22.
26
Cf. Jürgen Habermas’s distinction between Gültigkeit and Geltung; see Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a
Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans. William Rehg (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), 20.
27
Bhikhu Parekh has an interesting discussion of how it is “possible to arrive at a body of moral values which deserve
the respect of all human beings,” while at the same time acknowledging that these “need to be interpreted, prioritized,
adopted to, and in case of conflict reconciled, in the light of the culture and circumstances of each society.” See
Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. 2nd ed. (Houndmills: Macmillan, 2005), 133, 135.
However, I do not share Parekh’s general framework or specific conclusions.
24
11
and accepted from within a particular context. 28 It is also undeniable that power differentials will
affect, which norms are accepted. The consequence of this is that under normal circumstances,
imperfect as they are, no particular liberalism, that is, no particular liberal political culture and no
particular liberal institutions, are fully inclusionary or a perfect actualization of universality. This is
an important point that some “liberal” practitioners such as the defenders of the cartoons could learn
from.
However, it does not follow from the fact that every political culture is particular and thus
not fully inclusive that one political culture cannot be more universalistic and inclusive than
another. And to judge and compare how inclusive different political cultures are we need standards
with cross-cultural validity. Equally fallacious is it to think that it is the appeal to universal norms
as such that makes a particular political culture exclusionary. Indeed, one needs such appeals in
order to criticize a political culture for being exclusionary. Appeals to universality bring people
different from oneself under the scope of one’s claims and can be used by all parties equally. To be
sure, such appeals can lead to exclusion and silencing of dissent, as it did in the Danish case. And
this was not only because the values were tied to Danish culture but also (as discussed below)
because they were seen as beyond discussion. It is exclusionary (and hence illiberal) to claim that
one’s particular culture is the infallible incarnation of universal values. Moreover, one should
remember that there is a difference between claiming universality for one’s entire political culture
and to claim universality for some principles to which the political culture is committed, even if
these are fundamental to the political culture in question.
There is further distinction underlying the preceding discussion, a distinction which is
neglected by broad-based attacks on liberalism as those one sometimes finds among poststructuralists and post-modernists. This is the distinction between what Ronald Dworkin calls
28
Habermas, Between Facts and Norms,18-21.
12
liberalism’s constitutive morality and its derived positions. 29 The constitutive morality of liberalism
is its core norms and values, while its derived positions are means (e.g. policies and institutions)
that is believed to best further these norms and values. Derived positions are more sensitive to
contexts and therefore allows for more diversity than do constitutive morality. The fact (when it is
one) that specific liberal policies and institutions are exclusionary do not show liberalism’s
constitutive morality to be wrong. Indeed, criticisms of liberal institutions and policies often rely on
fundamental liberal principles. When one criticizes specific “liberal” institutions or policies for
being exclusionary and oppressive, then one implicitly accepts norms of freedom and equality that
most agree are core liberal principles.
This does not mean that citizens in practice can or should separate discussions of values
and norms, on the one hand, and of the best means to satisfy these, on the other hand. In actual
public deliberations issues of norms and means cannot meaningfully be separated, and often one
cannot tell if a disagreement is over values or over the best means. Indeed, in the Danish culture
struggle the problem often is that some people attempt to separate disagreements over values from
discussion of concrete issues, or reduce the latter to the former. 30 With regard to the cartoons, this
became a discussion of whether one is for or against freedom, democracy, equality, and progress,
rather than a discussion of the concrete challenges at hand, or of how best to interpret and apply
these norms to these challenges. My point is simply that it is wrong to reject liberalism as a whole if
one can find exclusionary tendencies in a particular constellation of liberal institutions, policies, and
political culture – which one always can.
29
Ronald Dworkin, “Liberalism,” in Public and Private Morality, ed. Stuart Hampshire (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1978), 113-143.
30
Jørn Loftager, “Værdifri samfundskritik – teknokrati eller demokrati?” [Value-free social criticism – technocracy or
democracy?] in Kritik som deltagelse [Criticism as participation] ed. H. K. Nielsen & F. Horn (Århus: Klim, 2006),
85-106.
13
II.2
The preceding argument implies that acknowledging that every actual formulation of universal
principles is imprinted with particular culture(s) and history need not lead to skepticism or cultural
relativism. It rather should lead us to endorse fallibilism, that is, to acknowledging that every belief
could be wrong and hence should be seen as revisable in light of further learning. A core failure of
the particular liberalism of many defenders of the cartoons was that they wanted to place core
liberal principles and institutions beyond discussion. They failed to understand what Hilary Putnam
takes to be “the unique insight of American pragmatism,” namely “that one can be both fallibilistic
and antiskeptical.”31 Some defenders of the cartoons, including the Danish Prime Minister, thought
that to be principled and liberal, one must stand firm and not discuss core values or constitutional
norms. Not only abstract principles (such as equality and individual freedom) were placed beyond
discussion, the same were specific constitutional rights (such as freedom of expression), as well as
the political-cultural understanding of the ethics of public discourse (how citizens ought to use their
freedom of expression).
There are several advantages to the fallibilistic position compared to the relativistic one. I
mention two. First, it corresponds better to how people normally talk about values and present their
moral positions. Most people most of the time present their moral views as right for everyone and
not just for those who share their culture.32 When Danish Muslims criticized the cartoons they did
not just claim they are wrong according to their religion’s norms or their culture, they appealed to
the (universalistic) idea that it is wrong to show disrespect for others’ deepest commitments. 33 And
when some appealed to religious norms (e.g. that it is wrong to picture and mock the prophet), they
31
Hilary Putnam, “Pragmatism and Moral Objectivity,” in Words and Life, ed. James Conant (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1994), 152.
32
Jeremy Waldron, “How to Argue for a Universal Claim,” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 30 (1998-99): 305-13,
p. 310
33
This can be seen in the contributions to the public debate by e.g. the Islamic Organization in Denmark; see Anders
Jerichow and Mille Rode, eds., Profet-affæren: Et PEN-dossier om 12 Muhammed-tegninger - og hvad der siden
hændte [The Prophet Affair: A PEN dossier about 12 Muhammad cartoons – and what followed] (Danish PEN, n.d.),
18-22, 35-39, and its homepage http://213.237.52.131/wakfweb/wabout.nsf/Index?readform.
14
saw these as applying to everyone, that is, as norms with universal scope. To defer to Muslims’
demands would not be to accept relativism but to do what they see as right to do – for everyone. 34
Fallibilism makes moral disagreement and moral discussion meaningful, because it presupposes not
only that we can never place any beliefs beyond contestation as unquestionably true but also that
there is something to learn and that there is a right answer to look for. Cultural relativism makes
cross cultural dialogue meaningless, because if values are relative to culture there can be no
disagreements or attempts at overcoming differences through dialogue but only reports of
differences,35 or power struggles over whose “value set” wins.
To say that fallibilism corresponds better to actual practice is not to imply that people
necessarily are self-conscious fallibilists; indeed, it was a failing during the cartoon controversy that
many were not, or not sufficiently so. But fallibilism is compatible with the fact that the parties to
the controversy disagreed on and argued about values. Even if defenders of the cartoons were not
self-consciously fallibilistic nor presented their value beliefs as provisional and reversible, to be
consistent they would have to do so and they could in principle be convinced of this. In contrast, the
relativist position works only from the observer’s perspective; participants would rarely accept that
the only thing that “justifies” that their cultural values prevail is that they are the values of the most
powerful. Usually people will say that the reason that their values ought to be accepted is that they
are right, true or the best, and if they do not make this claim, they claim that the values of the
majority or of those who belong to the nation should prevail, in which cases they are appealing to
the rightness of majority rule or of nationals’ right to determine over their own nation – and these
principles are presented as having validity that reaches beyond one specific culture.
34
Ronald Dworkin and Martha Nussbaum, among others, have argued that relativism is self-defeating, because insofar
as most cultures are non-relativistic, to defer to local cultural norms cannot mean to accept relativism. See Simon
Caney, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 34f.
35
Caney, Justice Beyond Borders, 48.
15
Second, fallibilism has important inclusionary and democratic implications. Fallibilism
entails that no one can claim to have the final answer; no one can claim that his or her culture
presents the perfect actualization of universal values. Therefore dissent cannot be silenced; any
claim to truth or rightness can be questioned and could in principle be found to be mistaken. 36 Now,
one might think that in the cartoon case, this would speak in favor of the defenders of the cartoons.
After all, they sometimes appealed to John Stuart Mill, who defended freedom of expression with
reference to the idea that silencing an opinion is an (unwarranted) “assumption of infallibility.” 37
The paradox in the defense of the cartoons is that while it partly relied on the idea that freedom of
expression is a prerequisite for public deliberation, it had the effect of discouraging dissent. To
borrow an apt phrase from Rogers Smith, some used a “rhetoric that valorize[s] democratic ideals
while discouraging democratic practices.” 38
The defenders of the cartoons apparently believed that there can be legitimate
disagreement and discussion about all kinds of issues, but the right to freedom of expression is
beyond discussion because it is its prerequisite. However, public deliberation doesn’t require
absolute freedom of expression (no country has that), and it can at least be discussed which degree
of legal restraints promotes the best and most inclusive form of democratic deliberation. 39 My aim is
not to argue either way about this latter issue, but only to note that there are legitimate
disagreements over the extent of freedom of expression. To call those who dissent regarding the
currently accepted limits of freedom of expression anti-democratic closes discussion and calls into
question their status as co-citizens. To demand that the right to freedom of expression be used with
36
Christian F. Rostbøll, Deliberative Freedom: Deliberative Democracy as Critical Theory (Albany, NY: SUNY Press,
2008), 195f.
37
Mill, “On Liberty,” in On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. John Gray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1-128,
p. 22.
38
Rogers M. Smith, “Religious Rhetoric and the Ethics of Public Discourse: The Case of George W. Bush,” Political
Theory 36, no. 2 (April 2008): 272-300, p. 296. Smith analyzes the rhetoric of President George W. Bush and it is
interesting to see that it, despite its much stronger religious aspects, has some of the same effects as the rhetoric often
used in the Danish context.
39
For an argument favoring certain limits on freedom of expression for the sake of improving public deliberation, see
Cass R. Sunstein, Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech (New York: Free Press, 1995).
16
respect also does not as such undermine democracy. It is part of a vibrant democracy also to have
deliberations about deliberation, that is, to deliberate about which forms of deliberation best secures
the intrinsic and instrumental values of deliberation – and of democracy, the issue we now turn to. 40
II.3
I have been considering how we can uphold a commitment to core liberal norms while
acknowledging that they are always culturally and historically situated and imbued. It is important
to note that what is permeated with history and culture is the specific formulation and
institutionalization of the norms, that is, the actual agreement on, interpretation and application of
the norms by a particular community. However, liberal principles of freedom and equality, respect
and inclusion, can never be fully or perfectly realized and thus have a meaning and content that
transcends any context, a content that can be appealed to in criticisms of any socially accepted
meaning. The issue I turn to now is how liberal norms are agreed to by a particular community, in
particular to what extent they should be subject to democratic deliberation.
Part of the answer to the challenge of connecting universalistic values with particular
cultures, without making them inseparable from one specific culture, is to see liberal norms as
subject to continued democratic deliberation, reinterpretation, and revision. Fallibilism should
extent to liberal rights and the conditions of democratic practice itself and not only to ordinary
policies. Thus, liberal principles and constitutional norms should not be seen as incontestable
aspects of democracy that have already been established by “the nation” and its particular past but
should be subject to recursive democratic justification and, if need be, revision by everyone subject
to them, including those who do not share the history and culture in which the principles were first
agreed to. Newcomers must be able to contribute their specific perspectives in this process of
40
Cf. James Bohman who writes, “democracy is reflexive and consists of procedures by which its rules and practices
are made subject to the deliberations of citizens themselves.” Democracy across Borders: From Dêmos to Dêmoi
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 2.
17
democratically reinterpreting and perfecting the understanding of universalistic norms, and thereby
make them fit better to those to whom they apply and to make them theirs, too. In this way the
norms are not made cultureless but they are separated from one specific culture and made the
product of the meeting of members with different cultural backgrounds. When members of minority
cultures demand inclusion in the democratic process, they appeal to principles of freedom, equality,
and respect that have a meaning and validity that extends beyond the particular culture that excludes
them. Thus, I suggest embedding liberal universal norms in democratic practices, which are always
particular and imbued with culture(s). To connect universality with particularity in the proper way,
universalistic norms must be accepted by a particular community by deliberative democratic means.
For liberalism to live up to its norms of equality and respect, its principles and institutions must be
subject to continued democratic justification and revision.
A core liberal principle is that everyone ought to be treated with equal respect. This is often
regarded as a matter of affording everyone equal rights protecting negative freedoms, e.g., freedom
of religion treats Christians, Muslims, and atheists with equal respect, since each is seen as capable
of determining her own conception of the good in relation to religion. However, it is equally
important for treating everyone with respect that one treats them as equally capable of
understanding and determining what it means and requires to be afforded equal negative freedom
and how one should interpret different rights. Again the cartoon case is instructive. An important
aspect of the disrespect shown Muslims was that they were not treated as equal co-legislators of the
laws and of informal political-cultural principles everyone in society is subject to. This was because
the defenders of the cartoons presented both freedom of expression and the way it was used by
Jyllands-Posten as incontestable and nonnegotiable parts of a secular democracy.
In an article that is very close to Jyllands-Posten’s own justification for publishing the
cartoons, Randall Hansen writes, “like all actors within the liberal state, observant Muslims’ beliefs
18
are to be respected, but they are to be accommodated within the norms and principles that underpin
the liberal constitutional state. They cannot be accommodated through a revision of those norms
and principles.”41 Note that Hansen does not write “rejection” of liberal principles but “revision” of
them. What worries me about Hansen’s formulation is that liberal principles are presented as given,
not just as abstract principles that can and should be appropriated by particular communities and
made to fit those who are subject to them, but as beyond scrutiny, interpretation, and discussion,
indeed as beyond democracy.42 Hansen further writes, “free speech … is part of the liberal
democratic framework, not a negotiable addition to it.” 43 While he is right that without any freedom
of expression democracy is impossible, it doesn’t follow that different ways of interpreting the
proper limits of freedom of expression and of institutionalizing the norm cannot be compatible with
democracy. And it was the latter that was the substantive issue in Denmark.
To respect a minority, it is not sufficient that one claims that its members are subject to the
same norms as everyone else is, if one does not respect them as equally able to understand, give,
and revise these norms. Hansen rejects Muslim exceptionalism (the idea that Muslims are different
from other immigrants by not sharing values with the West) 44 – but why, then, not listen to them and
allow that they have legitimate inputs to the democratic discussion about how best to legally delimit
and use the right of freedom of expression? If he and likeminded Danes had listened, they would
have heard that what Danish Muslims demanded was not an abolition of freedom of expression but
its respectful use or the application of already existing Danish blasphemy or hate speech laws.
My argument, then, addresses instances where the right of freedom of expression (and
other liberal norms) is presented in a way that pre-empts and excludes the possibility of a group of
41
Randall Hansen, “The Danish Cartoon Controversy: A Defence of Liberal Freedom,” International Migration 44, no.
5 (2006): 7-16, p. 8, emphasis added.
42
Erik Bleich notes about Hansen that “his vision of how to defend [freedom of expression] verges on the
authoritarian.” See “On Democratic Integration and Free Speech: Response to Tariq Modood and Randall Hansen ,”
International Migration 44, no. 5 (2006): 17-22, p. 18.
43
Hansen, “The Danish Cartoon Controversy: A Defence of Liberal Freedom,”16.
44
Here Hansen departs from Jyllands-Posten, which believes in Muslim exceptionalism.
19
people becoming co-authors of core constitutional norms and of shaping the shared political culture.
The normative concern is exclusion from what Seyla Benhabib calls democratic iterations and
jurisgenerative politics, that is from “iterative acts through which a democratic people that considers
itself bound by certain guiding norms and principles reappropriates and reinterprets these, thus
showing itself to be not only the subject but also the author of laws.”45 Note that in Benhabib’s
formulation the parties are guided by certain norms, she calls these the metanorms of deliberation,
and they are universal respect, which “means that we recognize the rights of all beings capable of
speech and action to be participants in the moral conversation,” and egalitarian reciprocity, which
requires “that in discourses each should have the same rights to various speech acts, to initiate new
topics, and to ask for justification of the presuppositions of the conversations.” 46
Thus, the type of deliberation and revision of core principles we are talking about here is
not one in which everything is up for grabs, as sometimes seems to be advocated by poststructuralists. Laclau, for example, writes, “If democracy is possible, it is because the universal has
no necessary body and no necessary content; different groups, instead, compete between themselves
to temporarily give to their particularisms a function of universal representation.” 47 Laclau is right if
the point is that democracy presupposes that no one already knows what is best to do, or that no one
has privileged access to the universal, but he is wrong if he means that we have no normative
guidelines or that no solutions are better or more universalistic than others. It is one thing to say that
the precise meaning and implications of norms should be open to reinterpretation, it is quite another
to say that such negotiation should be without normative restraints and guidelines. The latter
reduces the democratic process to a power-struggle and there is no reason to think the result of such
will be more egalitarian or inclusive that what preceded it. Moreover, if there is no content to the
45
Seyla Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004), 181, emphasis in original.
46
Ibid., 13.
47
Laclau, Emancipation(s), 35.
20
universal, if we have no normative guidelines, there is no reason to hold that democratic procedures
and dialogue are more legitimate than, for example, violence. 48 Democratic procedures are most
legitimate because of the intrinsic properties of respect and equality that they express in addition to
their epistemic value. To accept the former requires that we have some normative guidelines and the
epistemic value of democracy presupposes the possibility that some results are better than others.
The present argument relies on the norm of equal respect, which in the Kantian tradition
requires not only that everyone enjoys equal negative liberty but also that everyone “must always be
regarded as at the same time lawgiving, since otherwise [his or her will] could not be thought as an
end in itself.”49 To treat someone with respect means not only to treat her as an equal following
one’s own view of what that means, but to accept that the other has insight into what it means to be
treated as an equal, not the least into what it means to treat him or her as an equal. 50 This requires
that one affords the other standing both as equally subject to common laws and principles and as
co-legislator of these. It is disrespectful and a form of moral arrogance to assume that “one has a
fundamental ‘lawgiving’ standing that others simply don’t have” 51 – a form of arrogance one found
among many defenders of the cartoons.52
The advantage of a fallibilistic and dialogical universalism is not only that it shows respect
for everyone in the process of giving common norms but that it acknowledges that any formulation
of these norms might be biased and can be improved upon. The respect we show each other as colegislators is reinforced when we see everyone’s participation as necessary for finding the
48
I don’t think democratic deliberation is the only legitimate means under all circumstances, see Christian F. Rostbøll,
“Dissent, Criticism, and Transformative Political Action in Deliberative Democracy,” Critical Review of International
Social and Political Philosophy (forthcoming).
49
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997), 42, Ak 434.
50
For a modified Kantianism that emphasizes that one must be open to the cultural perspectives of others in order to
show them respect, see Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Respect, Pluralism, and Justice: Kantian Perspectives (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000), ch. 3, esp. 83.
51
Stephen Darwall, The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2006), 136.
52
Christian F. Rostbøll, “Autonomy, Respect, and Arrogance in the Danish Cartoon Controversy.”
21
epistemically best solutions to common problems. But why think that everyone’s participation is
necessary for finding the best solutions? My argument here is limited to the claim that participation
by members of all involved cultures is necessary for learning what it means to treat everyone with
equal respect.53 The Danish cartoon controversy illustrates that when members of the majority
culture lacks insights into a minority culture, it is almost impossible for the former to know how to
treat members of the latter as equals, even if they are committed to norms of respect and equality. 54
We should not essentialize culture or assume that all Muslims agree on what it means for Muslims
to be treated with respect. It is, therefore, important that not only representatives of a culture are
included in the democratic process, but that everyone can speak for him- or herself.
The argument for opening up for democratic deliberation and reinterpretation of core
liberal principles requires that we do not see any and all criticisms of universalistic liberal norms as
relativistic resistance or as anti-democratic. There can be legitimate deliberation about the exact
meaning and application of these principles. As Jeremy Waldron notes in a discussion of human
rights, resistance to these are often not relativistic resistance to universalistic claims but rather a
rejection of the content of these norms, a rejection which often is made in universalistic language. 55
In a similar vein, it is not only misguided but unproductive to see criticism of Jyllands-Posten’s use
of freedom of expression as a universalism/relativism conflict. Rather, it should be regarded as part
of legitimate democratic deliberation about which norms are best for regulating our interaction, as
well as how these norms should be interpreted and applied in concrete cases. For such deliberation
to be meaningful, we must hold on to the importance of regulative ideals and to the possibility of
norms having universal validity. First, such norms show why egalitarian, inclusive, and respectful
dialogue is more legitimate that violent struggle. Second, only if participants believe some results
53
For a fuller argument about the epistemic dimension of deliberative democracy, see Rostbøll, Deliberative Freedom,
ch. 7.
54
See Christian F. Rostbøll, “Freedom of Expression, Deliberation, Autonomy, and Respect,” paper presented at the
58th UK Political Studies Association Conference, Swansea University, UK, April 1-3, 2008.
55
Waldron, “How to Argue for a Universal Claim.”
22
are better than others and that they can find these despite cultural differences does common
deliberation make sense.
III
I have criticized how prominent defenders of Jyllands-Posten’s cartoons tied universal liberal
principles to Danish history and culture. However, it might be objected that they were in line with
Jürgen Habermas’s valuable notion of constitutional patriotism in requiring that Danish Muslims be
loyal to universalistic constitutional principles, as these are interpreted in Denmark. Constitutional
patriotism requires that minorities are integrated via loyalty towards constitutional principles
interpreted “from the perspective of the nation’s historical experience,” as opposed to (a) integration
around a shared cultural or ethnic identity or (b) mere allegiance to abstract universal norms. 56 One
could thus argue that the defense of the cartoons struck the right balance between universal norms,
on the one hand, and the need for patriotic loyalty to a specific political community, on the other
hand. However, I suggest two ways in which the defense of cartoons diverges from Habermasian
constitutional patriotism; one regards the issue of the explicitness of interpretation and the other
who interprets. Highlighting these two issues on the basis of the concrete case will (hopefully) also
contribute to better understanding the limits and possibilities of the idea of constitutional patriotism.
Habermas’s hope is that constitutional patriotism “can take the place originally occupied
by nationalism” by serving the same motivational function while being more accommodating of
cultural diversity.57 The idea is that different national political communities will interpret the same
constitutional rights each from their particular national perspective. Thus the system of rights is
universal but the specific interpretations are particular. 58 In any given community there will be
56
Jürgen Habermas, “Struggles for Recognition in the Democratic Constitutional State,” in Multiculturalism, ed. A.
Gutmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 107-148, p.134.
57
Habermas, “The European Nation-State: On the Past and Future of Sovereignty and Citizenship,” in The Inclusion of
the Other (Cambridge, MA. MIT Press, 1998), 105-28, p. 118.
58
See also Habermas’s discussion of the system of rights in Between Facts and Norms, 118ff. See in particular 125:
Basic rights “must be interpreted and given concrete shape by a political legislature in response to changing
23
“debates about the best interpretation of the same constitutional rights and principles. These form
the fixed point of reference for any constitutional patriotism that situates the system of rights within
the historical context of a legal community.” 59 Habermas further acknowledges that because the
interpretation of the norms happens from the perspective of a particular nation’s historical
experience, “that interpretation cannot be ethically neutral.” 60 By ethical neutral, he means neutral
between different identities, cultures, or conceptions of the good. According to Habermas, this
ethical permeation of any constitutional order is both unavoidable and creates a “motivational
anchorage” for loyalty to and participation in common political institutions. 61
Three points should be noted about Habermas’s account. (1) Any concrete constitutional
order is an interpretation of universal principles, not the incarnation of these principles themselves.
(2) No particular interpretation can be ethically neutral. (3) The interpretation is (and should be) a
product of debate and can be altered by future debates among all members of the political
community.
In light of the discussion of the cartoon controversy, it is crucial that the majority
acknowledges that any particular constitutional order is an interpretation of something more
universal. Defenders of the cartoons obscured that their understanding of freedom of expression (the
right and how one ought to use it) was a particular interpretation of a universal norm, and thus they
placed it beyond the limits of legitimate debate over interpretation. By presenting their own
understanding of freedom of expressions as the universally true and only possible one, they took
any criticism as a rejection of the universal norm, rather than as a matter of the best interpretation of
a universally valid norm and how to apply it to a concrete case. 62 In contrast, when we insist that
circumstances,” 125, emphasis in original.
59
Habermas, “Struggles for Recognition in the Democratic Constitutional State,” 134.
60
Ibid.
61
For a good summary and discussion of Habermasian constitutional patriotism, see Cécile Laborde, “From
Constitutional to Civic Patriotism,” British Journal of Political Science 32 (2002): 591-612, pp. 594f.
62
For an instructive discussion of the importance of interpretation in applying universal norms to concrete cases, see
also Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, “Relativism, Universalism, and Applied Ethics: The Case of Female Circumcision,”
Constellations 14, no. 1 (2007): 91-111, esp. pp. 92f, 105f.
24
any concrete interpretation of and agreement on a constitutional norm (Geltung) is not identical
with universal validity (Gültigkeit), then dissent cannot be delegitimated; critics of the dominant
interpretation always can make validity claims that “overshoot every context.” 63
Constitutional patriotism allows that interpretation is colored by historical experience and
thus cannot be ethically neutral. Defenders of Jyllands-Posten acknowledged that their
understanding of secularism, democracy, and freedom of expression was a product of Denmark’s
particular historical experience. However, they did not see this as a reason to regard their
understanding of these norms as a particular interpretation but rather to describe Danish culture as
particularly conducive to understanding and accepting universal norms. Furthermore, the way in
which Danish history and experience was presented as relating to liberal norms treated the former
as over; it treated the past as past. I take it that when Habermas says that constitutional principles
will and should be interpreted on the basis of a particular nation’s historical experience, he sees the
latter in dynamic terms, and thus new experiences requires new interpretations. The relevant new
experience in the Danish context is the existence of a minority that does not share the culture of
most other members of society. If the interpretation of constitutional norms in Denmark were to
mirror the nation’s historical experience, it should include the experience of becoming a
multicultural society with a Muslim minority.
Habermas’s point that no interpretation can be ethical neutral can be read in two ways.
First, each country’s interpretation will be made by its population in democratic deliberation and
thus made to fit their particular needs and experiences, interests and cultures. Second, we can read it
in the fallibilistic sense that any interpretation and application of universal norms could be
improved upon and be made more inclusive and more universalistic. As quoted, Habermas sees
constitutional patriotism as fixed not on one specific interpretation of constitutional norms but on
“debates … about the best interpretation” of these. Just as it is crucial to see that interpretation was
63
Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 21.
25
not settled in the past, it is essential for the inclusion of minorities and immigrants that debates can
continue in the future and that the perspectives of everyone is included in these debates. This means
that we should not see the political culture and its understanding of freedom of expression and other
constitutional norms as a given that immigrants and minority groups have to assimilate to and
cannot question. Rather than regarding a specific form of how people speak to each other in public
deliberation as a given part of a country’s political culture that everyone “must put up with,” 64 we
should insist “that the political culture itself be one of the objects of democratic deliberation.” This
“puts pressure on the majority group, urging it to open up the public sphere, to allow widespread
contestation of deeply entrenched practices and beliefs, and to trim down its public culture.” 65 Such
democratic deliberation about the political culture of a particular community does not mean that
universal principles are finally fully actualized but it allows for a more inclusionary and
universalistic political culture.
The Danish case shows that it is not sufficient to substitute constitutional norms for the
cultural nation as the focus of patriotic loyalty. Certain modes of demanding loyalty to liberal
political principles can also work to wrongly exclude minority groups. 66 The two points I have
stressed are that constitutional patriotism should require (1) that we acknowledge that any political
cultural understanding of constitutional norms is only a particular – and hence imperfect and
improvable – interpretation of something more universal, and (2) that we see this interpretation in
dialogical and dynamic terms, that is, as requiring continued reinterpretation in face of new
experiences by everyone subject to them, including new members of society.
64
One of the key phrases in Rose’s original article states that Muslims have to learn that in a country with secular
democracy and freedom of expression, “one must be prepared to put up with scorn, mockery, and ridicule.” Rose,
“Muhammeds ansigt” [The face of Muhammad], my translation.
65
Laborde, “From Constitutional to Civic Patriotism,” 610.
66
See also Lægaard, “Liberal Nationalism and the Nationalisation of Liberal Values,” 51; Clarissa Rile Hayward,
“Binding Problems, Boundary Problems: The Trouble with ‘Democratic Citizenship,’” in Identities, Affiliations, and
Allegiances, ed. Seyla Benhabib, Ian Shapiro, and Danilo Petranovic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007),
181-205, pp. 200f.
26
Sometimes constitutional patriotism is seen as a solution to the motivational problem of
making people obey and participate in their political institutions. I cannot enter that discussion here
but I want to mention that what motivates some might discourage others. If it is true that tying
constitutional principles to national culture motivates those who share that culture to participate
politically, it seems likely that it at the same time discourages people who do not share that culture
from participating in the same institutions. 67 This has been a key concern of mine: that
constitutional norms during the cartoon controversy often were presented in ways that limited
Muslims’ ability to participate as equals in the political process. And if Muslims were not
discouraged from participating, then the way members of the majority were motivated to participate
was one that discouraged them (members of the majority culture) from listening to Muslims. If one
is motivated to participate by references to a particular culture, then this hardly encourages one to
listen to and learn from people who one perceives as coming from another, foreign culture.
Openness to listen to and learn from Muslims in Danish society was exactly one of the virtues that
many defenders of the cartoons lacked the most. Muslims were given no opportunity to participate
in reinterpreting core constitutional norms such as freedom of expression and freedom of religion,
because they were seen as culturally and religiously unable to contribute any insight to this
deliberative democratic process. When one is excluded from the discussion over how best to
interpret core constitutional norms, one is also excluded from sharing patriotic loyalty to that
constitution. Those who are excluded from democratic reiterations in Benhabib’s phrase cannot
come to see the constitution and the political culture that crystallizes around it as theirs.
67
Whether this is true, however, is an empirical question that cannot be decided here. See Melissa Williams,
“Nonterritorial Boundaries of Citizenship,” in Identities, Affiliations, and Allegiances, ed. Seyla Benhabib, Ian Shapiro,
and Danilo Petranovic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 226-56, pp. 235f.
27
Conclusion
The guiding idea behind this paper is that an analysis of a concrete case like the Danish cartoon
controversy can contribute insights into the general political theoretical problem of the relationship
between universal liberal principles and cultural diversity. My analysis suggests that referring to
universal liberal values can be exclusionary when dominant actors fail to distinguish the majority’s
culture’s interpretation of these values from the more abstract ideas. The solution to attaining
greater inclusion of minorities, however, is not to abandon liberal universalism but rather to engage
everyone in the deliberative democratic process of continually reinterpreting, refining, and revising
the norms to which everyone is subject – and this includes the very norms that are the precondition
of the democratic process itself. In such deliberative processes, criticism of currently dominant
understandings of core liberal and democratic values and norms are seen not as anti-democratic or
relativistic, but as legitimate disagreements over their meaning and application in particular
contexts. This is not to deny a priori that some people might entirely reject some liberal values and
norms but rather to open up for the possibility that many different perspectives can contribute to
attaining a deeper and better understanding of these values and norms. In this way everyone will be
treated with respect not merely as subject to the same norms as everyone else but also as co-authors
of these norms.
The paper has criticized the way in which prominent defenders of the Muhammad cartoons
presented liberal values, particularly how they tied them to Danish culture. I would like here to add
that my argument is not that public discourse should be constrained in the way suggested by
Rawls’s notion of public reason, that is, that one ought not to appeal to ideas that others will find
unreasonable.68 The issue is not the appeal to ideas that others cannot reasonably be expected to
accept but when such ideas are presented as infallible and incontestable, and therefore as beyond
68
I discuss Rawlsian public reason in Deliberative Freedom, ch. 4.
28
democratic deliberation. In other words, the shortcoming is lack of openness to listen to and learn
from others who do not share a history and culture similar to one’s own. 69
To see core liberal norms as subject to recursive democratic justification and redefinition
by those subject to them implies also to connect them to the particular cultures of the latter. The
values and norms of a particular community should neither be seen as cultureless representations of
the universal nor as perfectly incarnated in a settled and unified national culture. Rather, liberal
norms and values should be regarded as always fallible and contestable, as open to refinement and
perfection in light of the insights everyone is respected as capable of contributing with
independently of their cultural background. This argument was related to the idea of constitutional
patriotism and it was argued that in order for everyone to share patriotic loyalty to the constitution,
the interpretation of the latter cannot be seen as the prerogative of those who share the culture in
which it was first agreed to but must be the shared enterprise of everyone subject to it, including
minorities and newcomers.
69
Cf. Rogers Smith, “Religious Rhetoric and the Ethics of Public Discourse,” 295f.
29