Here is an amusing quote from novelist Philip Pullman.
At the 2010 Oxford Literature Festival, on the early afternoon of Palm
Sunday, March 28th, in Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre, Philip Pullman gave
a talk on his book "The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ".The last Questioner of the session quietly asked (paraphrased) :
"To call the son of god a scoundrel is an awful&offensive thing to say"
To which, the author calmly replied :
"Yes it was a shocking thing to say, and I knew it was a shocking thing to say.
But no one has the right to live without being shocked.
No one has the right to spend their lives without being offended.
Nobody has to read this book.
Nobody has to pick it up.
Nobody has to open it.And if they open it and read it, they don't have to like it.
And if you read it and dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it.
You can write to me.
You can complain about it.
You can write to the publishers, to the papers,
You can write your own book.
You can do all those things.But there your rights stop.
No one has the right to stop me writing this book.
No one has the right to stop it being published, sold, or bought, or read.
And that's all I have to say on that subject."And there was much applause.
Many thanks to Richard Whitelock for the quote.
The part I like most is "no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their lives without being offended." Science often reveals uncomfortable truths. Should science writers sprinkle such bitter pills with artificial sweeteners just to keep science popular, or keep making the case that knowledge is for the greater good, even if initially unpalatable? I think many assume that understanding leads to acceptance, and yet we see many instances where willful misunderstanding is propagated for political or religious ends directed towards outright rejection; Pullman forgot to add that people also have a right to be stupid and ignorant. Every writer has his or her style and perhaps not everyone enjoys being provocative, but, just for experimental purposes, a Jekyll and Hyde approach may yield dividends.
