Sloane Crosley Quotes
Personal technology has given us the freedom of being able to do whatever we want - and in the case of celebrities and athletes, whomever they want. But it can also serve as a humiliation jetpack.
Crosley, Sloane. Look Alive Out There. MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.
Part of the right to freedom of speech is the right to criticize, disparage or insult. However, there are some people in the world who do not believe in freedom of speech or expression and not only believe that certain types of expression are blasphemous and sinful, but some believe that it is their religious duty to kill the blasphemer. In this case a film was made that was not only intellectually an attack on Islam but it was done in such a manner that most orthodox Muslims were insulted and offended that their Prophet and religion were both insulted in a blasphemous manner. It was a film that was very much in poor taste, insensitive and gross. In the Islamic world, some extremists use incidents that they call blasphemy to whip up large crowds who riot, destroy and in many cases kill innocent people who have nothing to do with the alleged blasphemy except that their employer might be a company in the same nation as the blasphemer. These fanatics also hold governments responsible for blasphemy if they do not violate their own laws and constitutions and interfere with their citizens right to freedom of speech and expression. For people like Bollinger, this raises a terribly difficult situation and as he points out in this quotations free speech can have serous repercussions almost anywhere in the world. Others observe that every time we even discuss the potential repercussions, the enemies of freedom of expression win, and have a chilling effect on the rest of the world. They urge ignoring the consequences and avoid rewarding the enemies of freedom by giving them an influence on our freedoms and practices.
Sloane Crosley is an American writer living in New York City known for her humorous essays, including the collections I Was Told There'd Be Cake, How Did You Get This Number, and Look Alive Out There. She has also worked as a publicist at the Vintage Books division of Random House and as an adjunct professor in Columbia University's Master of Fine Arts program. She graduated from Connecticut College in 2000.
