Saladin Ahmed is a science fiction and fantasy writer and poet.

Guns should not be used to silence speech. Governments should not censor art. These things are, or should be, beyond dispute. But are there times when writers, particularly satirists, should check our own tongues? When sensitivities are high, should artists self-censor?

As an American writer, I know that the "right" answer here -- the answer that one is supposed to give, especially in light of the hideous mass murder of cartoonists in Paris -- is a resounding "No!" Art must serve no masters, we are told, and satire can have no sacred cows. The truth must be told, sensitivities be damned! It's a thrilling pose to strike, at once moral and subversive. And in principle, it's hard to disagree with.

In an unequal world, satire that mocks everyone serves the powerful. It is worth asking what pre-existing injuries we add our insults to.

In practice, however, art is always beholden to forces other than simple truth, and even the most ruthless satirists have their sacred cows. Charlie Hebdo, which fired the cartoonist Sine in 2009 for an antisemitic column, certainly did. American cartoons such as South Park and Family Guy joke about the disabled and the terminally ill, and constantly engage in "envelope-pushing" racist and misogynist humor. But these "no holds barred" shows never mock, say, 9/11 victims, or soldiers killed in Iraq. American newspapers do not publish pro-ISIS cartoons.

The fact is, we self-censor and select the targets of our satire based on our worldviews - and those worldviews are influenced profoundly by being male or female, black or white, American or Iraqi, Muslim or Christian. Our identities and lived experiences have everything to do with the offenses we decide need mocking, and the targets that we select.

The question for writers and artists, then, is not whether we ought to limit ourselves, but how we already limit ourselves. In a field dominated by privileged voices, it's not enough to say "Mock everyone!" In an unequal world, satire that mocks everyone equally ends up serving the powerful. And in the context of brutal inequality, it is worth at least asking what preexisting injuries we are adding our insults to.

The belief that satire is a courageous art beholden to no one is intoxicating. But satire might be better served by an honest reckoning of whose voices we hear and don't hear, of who we mock and who we don't, and why.



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