Will Self: Tosser

Will Self, the literary equivalent of a tattered Salvador Dali melting clock poster on the bedroom wall of a pretentious fifth-former, has spoken out in the wake of Charlie Hebdo.

The bestselling author, who recently dismissed George Orwell as a “Supreme Mediocrity”, has bravely told Vice (which generously bills him as one of “Europe’s leading satirists”) that while free speech is obviously important there have to be limits…

Strangely, the piece was not headlined: “Why I don’t want my name to appear on any Al Qaeda death lists.” Though perhaps it should have been.

Here’s what this bold champion of artistic freedom had to say:

Will Self, writer:
“Well, when the issue came up of the Danish cartoons I observed that the test I apply to something to see whether it truly is satire derives from HL Mencken’s definition of good journalism: it should ‘afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted’. The trouble with a lot of so-called ‘satire’ directed against religiously-motivated extremists is that it’s not clear who it’s afflicting, or who it’s comforting. This is in no way to condone the shooting of the journalists, which is evil, pure and simple, but our society makes a fetish of ‘the right to free speech’ without ever questioning what sort of responsibilities are implied by this right.”