December 18, 2003

Blasphemy

Posted by Kieran

I just finished a writing up a 500-word entry for a forthcoming Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology, edited by Jens Beckert and Milan Zafiroski. (I was only about a year late. You’d think the blogging would have made 500-word chunks easy to churn out.) While reading the boilerplate in the contributor’s agreement, I came across the following clause:

2 (a) … The Contributor further warrants that the Contribution contains nothing obscene, libellous, blasphemous, in breach of copyright or otherwise unlawful …

All well and good, except that my allocated entry is “Sacred.” As you will all remember from your social theory class, Durkheim’s view is that religion is a collective representation of the social structure. “Society awakens in us the feeling of the divine.” This is not likely to get a nihil obstat from many religions.

Posted on December 18, 2003 12:45 AM UTC
Comments

Good grief (she said non-blasphemously), what business does such an agreement have forbidding blasphemy anyway for chrissake?! Blasphemous? Is that a normal stipulation?? How extremely bizarre.

But the important point is -

“You’d think the blogging would have made 500-word chunks easy to churn out.”

Ohhhhhhhhhh no I wouldn’t. Not in a million years. Many a time and oft have I noticed and marveled how very, very, very much easier it is to churn out a post than it is to write something more as it were official.

Posted by Ophelia Benson · December 18, 2003 01:53 AM

I’d assume that clause is there in case there is some antiquited, moronic law about blasphemy somewhere.

Posted by DJW · December 18, 2003 02:01 AM

Oh yeah - that law.

But seriously - it’s not enforced on books is it? I’m pretty sure I’ve read some irreligious books that were published in the UK. Yup - pretty sure. There’s that thing William Empson says at the beginning of Milton on God (is that what it’s called?) for example. Or Amis and Larkin every time they opened their mouths. Or - thousands of people. Come on, you’re making fun, they don’t enforce it.

I was thinking it might have been some brilliant post-fatwa idea.

Posted by Ophelia Benson · December 18, 2003 02:50 AM

Interesting to juxtapose Empson and irreligion. He was thrown out of Magdalene for, I guess lax morals when they found condoms in a suitcase of his. He later taught Shakespeare from memory in China.

Posted by John Isbell · December 18, 2003 03:39 AM
blasphemous
It is just such an ugly word. It’s use always conjures vivid images of witch hunts and torture. In my own narrowminded manner, I equate it’s use to that segment of society unable to get past their own preconceived notions of morality and decency with the resultant “Us vs. Them Heathens” mentality.
Posted by Guy Andrew Hall · December 18, 2003 05:44 AM

I’m sure there’s no meaningful chance it’ll be enforced anytime soon, especially in this sort of capacity. But it wouldn’t be the first time a standard legal contract contained language to protect one party from a wildly implausible form of plausibility.

Posted by djw · December 18, 2003 06:45 AM

While “Society awakens in us the feeling of the divine” is indeed pretty irreligious, it seems to me that it’s more likely to be heretical rather than blasphemous. Blasphemy refers to the direct giving of offence to God rather than to general ill-will against religions. In general in the UK you have to depict Jesus Christ in a scenario involving buggery to even rouse the god-squad to have a pop. Otoh, it’s an offence without much in the way of specific definition, so be careful out there.

Posted by dsquared · December 18, 2003 09:33 AM

Won’t they just accept ‘mostly harmless’?

Posted by Backword Dave · December 18, 2003 10:44 AM

In the US, this clause would likely be unenforceable, because courts will almost always refuse to reach an issue that requires them to interpret religious law (i.e., to decide what is blasphemous and what is not). No idea how other countries handle it.

NB: This is not legal advice and should not be relied upon by any reader.

Posted by Tom T. · December 18, 2003 01:22 PM

Offense to God, right, that’s why I thought of Empson; he says when he taught Milton in China, his students said to him (approximately): ‘We knew your god was horrible but we had no idea he was as horrible as that.’

Posted by Ophelia Benson · December 18, 2003 03:04 PM

But the important point is -

“You’d think the blogging would have made 500-word chunks easy to churn out.”

Ohhhhhhhhhh no I wouldn’t. Not in a million years. Many a time and oft have I noticed and marveled how very, very, very much easier it is to churn out a post than it is to write something more as it were official.

Too right Ophelia. In fact, I was just saying to a colleague who’s also suffering from ‘end of term-itis’ that blogging only seems attractive when it is work displacement. If I was a woman of independent means, I probably wouldn’t blog, but would stay at home watching dvds all day. To which Claire replied; “You should probably request a lap top from the IT department so you can watch dvds in work.”

Posted by Maria · December 18, 2003 03:50 PM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.