Zadius wrote:Of course words and ideas have consequences. That's what religion is after all and millions of people are negatively affected by it. The least that can be done is to break up the insulation and open things up to opposing words and ideas. Part of the reason some of the people react so angrily to that is because they aren't used to that. I think it would be a great thing if they got used to it. The free flow of ideas (and yes, that sometimes includes stupid ideas) is a positive thing.
Okay, so why is it religion is bad for 'words and ideas having consequences' but not criticism/mockery of religion having consequences? In the context of the current situation, as I already said, we have a mockery in the form of cartoons when there is already a great deal of inflammed sentiment from a similar 'mockery' being done. It's rather hard to justify a right to 'mock' (or criticise) when there is reasonable expectation that it will offend people and put them at risk (hell, its already lead to the deaths of people.)
Which again, seems to be the crux of the issue. Some of the people I read in this thread DO make it sound as if thye care more about their freedom to mock or criticize instead of the fact that doing shit like that in this situation can (and has) lead to people being hurt or killed.
Connor MacLeod wrote:I'm also going to add I get a very disturbing vibe from this thread that goes along the lines of 'people are less important than a principle' namely the freedom to mock/insult whatever one sees fit to, and I suspect thats where alot of the opposition on the other side comes from, because people keep fixating on that 'freedom' angle, but ignore the fact thta words/actions can and do hurt people. Seriously, is the fact that words and deeds can have consequences really THAT unimportant to some of the folk in here, or is it just some sort of miscommunication issue?
Of course words and ideas have consequences. That's what religion is after all and millions of people are negatively affected by it. The least that can be done is to break up the insulation and open things up to opposing words and ideas. Part of the reason some of the people react so angrily to that is because they aren't used to that. I think it would be a great thing if they got used to it. The free flow of ideas (and yes, that sometimes includes stupid ideas) is a positive thing.
Is there ANY evidence to suggest that a religious community (say Christianity) became more tolerant of insults and mockery as a result of constant exposure?
Even the attacks on Christianity during the age of enlightenment is considered mild by modern day standards. I would imagine such modern day mockery will not be tolerated during that age, nor will it contribute to making Christians more tolerant towards any such insults.
Which again, seems to be the crux of the issue. Some of the people I read in this thread DO make it sound as if thye care more about their freedom to mock or criticize instead of the fact that doing shit like that in this situation can (and has) lead to people being hurt or killed.
I think this question have yet to be answered by the proposition here. Is the price of exercising the right to mock religion worth the price of endangering the lives of others?
Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.
ray245 wrote:Is there ANY evidence to suggest that a religious community (say Christianity) became more tolerant of insults and mockery as a result of constant exposure?
Even the attacks on Christianity during the age of enlightenment is considered mild by modern day standards. I would imagine such modern day mockery will not be tolerated during that age, nor will it contribute to making Christians more tolerant towards any such insults.
I would not claim that you can change a hardened fundamentalist with mockery, but you sure as hell can influence people who are on the fence about it. What the hell do you think satire is for?
ray245 wrote:
Connor MacLeod wrote:Which again, seems to be the crux of the issue. Some of the people I read in this thread DO make it sound as if thye care more about their freedom to mock or criticize instead of the fact that doing shit like that in this situation can (and has) lead to people being hurt or killed.
I think this question have yet to be answered by the proposition here. Is the price of exercising the right to mock religion worth the price of endangering the lives of others?
So the result is that women continue to be oppressed, homosexuals and apostates continue to be persecuted and killed, honor killings continue, etc. But now the rest of us need to shut up about it because it might lead to a few more people being killed? That's a lovely little result, isn't it? But you're right, I obviously only care about my own right to spout off, consequences be damned.
Connor MacLeod wrote:Okay, so why is it religion is bad for 'words and ideas having consequences' but not criticism/mockery of religion having consequences? In the context of the current situation, as I already said, we have a mockery in the form of cartoons when there is already a great deal of inflammed sentiment from a similar 'mockery' being done. It's rather hard to justify a right to 'mock' (or criticise) when there is reasonable expectation that it will offend people and put them at risk (hell, its already lead to the deaths of people.)
All consequences should be considered. I'm in favor of attacking organized religion because I think it's a negative force in the world. I have weighed those consequences and decided being silent is not acceptable. Appeasement is not a good policy.
Zadius wrote:I would not claim that you can change a hardened fundamentalist with mockery, but you sure as hell can influence people who are on the fence about it. What the hell do you think satire is for?
Is there any evidence to suggest you can influence the moderates with such satire?
So the result is that women continue to be oppressed, homosexuals and apostates continue to be persecuted and killed, honor killings continue, etc. But now the rest of us need to shut up about it because it might lead to a few more people being killed? That's a lovely little result, isn't it? But you're right, I obviously only care about my own right to spout off, consequences be damned.
Please tell me how does mocking Islam bring about a more open minded attitude towards homosexuals, women and apostates. You have offered no evidence nor any strong arguments that mockery of religion will moderate its believers.
Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.
Zadius wrote:I would not claim that you can change a hardened fundamentalist with mockery, but you sure as hell can influence people who are on the fence about it. What the hell do you think satire is for?
Is there any evidence to suggest you can influence the moderates with such satire?
There are plenty of examples of effective mockery in politics. The Daily Show being a prime example. It helps people see the ridiculousness of certain things and can create a sense of embarrassment whereby people will want to distance themselves from it. I actually think the strong desire among certain governments to censor criticism, including mockery, is a tacit admission that it works.
ray245 wrote:
Zadius wrote:So the result is that women continue to be oppressed, homosexuals and apostates continue to be persecuted and killed, honor killings continue, etc. But now the rest of us need to shut up about it because it might lead to a few more people being killed? That's a lovely little result, isn't it? But you're right, I obviously only care about my own right to spout off, consequences be damned.
Please tell me how does mocking Islam bring about a more open minded attitude towards homosexuals, women and apostates. You have offered no evidence nor any strong arguments that mockery of religion will moderate its believers.
Same way it did in Europe. Satirical social commentary was an important part of the Enlightenment. I never said if we mock them they'll suddenly realize how wrong they are. Mockery and satire are simply a part of the overall free flow of ideas, and yes, by the glory of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it does work.
Jub wrote:The real issue here as that the cartoonists are in the right no matter what they intended. The cartoonist isn't killing people and the pissed off people are.
Why are you still not grasping the whole context issue? The West has been taking a dump on the Middle East ever since Napoleon invaded Egypt to steal its national treasures. Imagine a man who's been beaten up by a bunch of thugs. What the cartoonists are doing is like walking up to that man lying bleeding on the ground and pissing on him while insulting his family, just because they can. Yeah, that might make that man somewhat angry, whoop-dee-fuckin-doo! Actions don't take place in a vacuum and have actual consequences, who'd have ever thought of that.
But o no no, I forgot, in Jubworld, Middle-Easterners are just irrational and violent animals that get regularly angry because they hate freedom and puppies out of the blackness of their dark hearts.
Except that the cartoonist is a world away and the extremists get pissed off and attack people that aren't involved. Your telling me that these people aren't smart enough to know the difference, or are that they are simply too upset to care. I'm saying that if they are that crazy, and even the rather moderate are nuts by most standards, we're not going to be able to fix things.
When these people can't tell the difference between a small group of people saying something hurtful and the diplomats that are officially sent there to try and help, how can we appease them? When they call for us to strike freedom of speech from our laws, how can we appease them? When any private citizen can whip a region into a frenzy with the stroke of a pen, how can we appease them?
The Middle East is clearly in the wrong and should be dealing with these criminals without outside support. However, due to inability, or lack of desire they don't do this. These nations are like spoiled teens thinking they know everything and demanding loudly to be taken seriously. Hell they're the school shooters of the world, nobody understands them so they might as well just shoot up a school to show that they can make an impact on the world. Yet we look at them and wonder why they haven't grown up like the rest of us.
Why should they punish them? When GW Bush lied to the UN and the american people, invaded and fucked up Iraq causing thousands of deaths, he wasn't punished in any way for it and neither were any of his cronies (better yet, he was re-elected). Heck, all the Haditha murderers got was a slap on the wrist and that after all efforts were taken to hush it all up.
We are not exactly leading by example here, dude. Grown-up my ass.
I've called for Bush to be tried, you don't see the Middle East acknowledging that. They ignore the equally small groups that speak out for them, they shoot the people sent to dig ditches and improve infrastructure for them, and then they get enraged when an equally small group insults them. How do you deal with such a mentally unstable region? If it was a person we'd give them some strong drugs and send them to counselling, but what do you do for a region that's even more unstable?
Akhlut wrote:
Jub wrote:The Middle East is clearly in the wrong and should be dealing with these criminals without outside support. However, due to inability, or lack of desire they don't do this. These nations are like spoiled teens thinking they know everything and demanding loudly to be taken seriously. Hell they're the school shooters of the world, nobody understands them so they might as well just shoot up a school to show that they can make an impact on the world. Yet we look at them and wonder why they haven't grown up like the rest of us.
Western nations used them as pawns in their global games of imperialism for the past two centuries. Why should they respect us in the least and listen to our demands to how they should act? Why shouldn't they engage in asymmetrical warfare with their oppressors? After all, I can't think of a Western nation in the world that condemned the partisan movements of WWII when they were being oppressed, despite the fact that they used terrorist tactics (well, aside from the Western nations that were fighting the partisans at the time, obviously). Why is it wrong when the people of the Third World do it, then?
Except these partisan groups were acknowledged by our governments and openly supported by us and fighting nations we were locked in total war with. In these cases these acts are done against us by countries that haven't declared anything. Then these governments sit on their hands and obstruct attempts to find the people who carried out these attacks. Doing so is an act of war, and yet when we invade people get all weepy about civilian deaths because we should have magic terrorist sensing wands or something. Should we move to a total war stance and keep grinding until they lose all will to ever raise a hand against us again? Should we keeps up this attempt at nation building? Should we leave and invade again properly the next time we get attacked? Or do we leave and just hope they decide the war is over?
Zadius wrote:
Same way it did in Europe. Satirical social commentary was an important part of the Enlightenment. I never said if we mock them they'll suddenly realize how wrong they are. Mockery and satire are simply a part of the overall free flow of ideas, and yes, by the glory of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it does work.
Did you notice that the acceptance of a satirical social commentary mostly occurred when the society is relatively peaceful and wealthy?
Such social condition needs to exist before we can even talk about making the Islamic community in the middle east more tolerant.
Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.
People might get used to the idea of free speech a lot more quickly if the West didn't use it to go around acting like imperialist dickwads (as France is doing now).
People bring up shows like the Daily Show as examples of Westerners accepting mockery, but they forget one thing: the people doing the mockery are also part of the same cultural hegemon, and are mocking from a position of a) deep understanding of the issues involved and b) using a form of mockery that is considered acceptable in the culture being mocked. On the other hand, when Westerners mock Islam, there's no indication given that the cartoonist genuinely understands the situation in Islamic countries but is, instead, a strong indication given that the cartoonist doesn't actually give a shit about Muslims. I highly suspect that if you ask non-Westerners their opinion of the cartoons, they'll have a low opinion of them even if they aren't Muslim, because the cartoons do nothing but say that the West is so up itself with its own superiority that it feels morally obliged to go around insulting other people's cultures, just because it can.
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Free speech might be better accepted if the West actually followed their own philosophy. Sure some people crying free speech no doubt believes in it, but the West as a whole does not behave like that. France banning Muslims protesting the film. Obama killing an AQ propagandists. Fuck, even in Australia a few years ago I had to put up with racists on the ground its "free speech", then surprise surprise, the government cracks down free speech when its Muslim demagoguery at work, but white racist demagoguery its ok. At least some Western nations have hate speech laws so they aren't as hypocritical anymore.
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If the douche bag film maker was going to distribute the film in the middle east, then you all would have a point. Fact is, though, it wasn't. Whether or not the middle east has a developed civilization enough to withstand mockery or satire is irrelevant to the fact that this one is, and this civilization was where the mockery and satire was.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
Do you think that Middle Easterners are so stupid that they can't tell that Westerners are insulting them when they just put the insults up on youtube and in French national papers, rather than posting it up on billboards in Iraq? Does the fact that you seem so think that the French are deliberately insulting Muslims to each other (albeit in a forum that is widely accessible to any Muslim who cares to look) rather than going and punching Muslims in the face make it more acceptable to just deliberately inflame a delicate situation?
I bet you think it's ok for the KKK to go around making racist jokes at each other, because it's not like there will be any black people at their meetings to notice.
"I would say that the above post is off-topic, except that I'm not sure what the topic of this thread is, and I don't think anybody else is sure either."
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"Why does it look like you are in China or something?" - havokeff
Lusankya wrote:I bet you think it's ok for the KKK to go around making racist jokes at each other, because it's not like there will be any black people at their meetings to notice.
If anyone's the KKK in this situation, it's the guys rioting and setting fires to intimidate the rest of the world into laying low.
In fact I do. Open discussion and open speech brings ideas out into the open. Human nature dictates that, unfortunately, that for every good idea brought out into the open, a bunch of bullshit ideas come out into the open. You don't deal with those stupid ideas, though, with driving them underground. You deal with them by hearing them, and then exposing the problems with that idea.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
Knife wrote:If the douche bag film maker was going to distribute the film in the middle east, then you all would have a point.
I have not been following this whole thing very closely, but I recall we were not sure who actually translated and posted the version seen in the Mideast as opposed to the English language version. There could well have been a breakthrough on that front since I last read deeply about this film and the riots that I am not aware of, but if so please let me know. Given the shady characters known to be associated with the production of this mockery, it would not surprise me if they had a hand in making sure it got to where it could do the most damage.
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If the douche bag film maker did indeed do it, I would like to be told, my opinion might change if it was shown he deliberately put the info into the hands of people to riot.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
I doubt it. It's probably the same as with those cartoons a couple of years ago: a couple of extremist imams who distributed them to stir up trouble for their own gains.
Lusankya wrote:I bet you think it's ok for the KKK to go around making racist jokes at each other, because it's not like there will be any black people at their meetings to notice.
That analogy only works if you think the ideas expressed in the cartoons are inherently bad as opposed to only being bad due to the reaction to them. It's hard for me to imagine a mockery of religion that goes too far given how ridiculous religion is. Keep in mind I don't accept the equivocation that insulting Islam or Muhammad is the same as insulting Muslims, though Muslims may see it that way.
I do however find it insulting to Muslims the suggestion that they are simply not able to understand satire, or not ready for it. Besides, if it is true, why is that not a fault in their culture for being too insular? Isn't it either ignorance or xenophobia? Why should we have to tiptoe around that? Either way, the antidote is exposure.
I never said the Muslims were too stupid to understand satire. I said that when you have a bunch of privileged European fuckheads going around "satirising" their culture without bothering to understand it in any sort of complexity, then all it does is make the Europeans look like Imperialist shitheads. Putting out those cartoons doesn't give the Middle East the message, "Look how awesome free speech is - we can even insult Muhammed if we want to." The message it gives is, "Screw you, we're going to insult you if we want." It's basically taking an already volatile situation and using it to revel in how much more "superior" and "enlightened" Western culture is, rather than trying to open a dialogue so that both sides can gain a mutual understanding of each other to prevent such riots from occurring in the future. Sure, they're allowed to print it, because rah rah free speech and whatever, but that doesn't make their actions moral, any more than it's moral for What's his face to cheat on his wife while she has cancer.
People don't react well to those they perceive as being from an "out-group" going around blindly insulting them and telling them what to do, because the people from the out-group are perceived to have imperfect understanding of the local situation and possibly ulterior motives. That goes double when the members of the outgroup have a known history of racism and imperialism. The west isn't immune to it either: Tell me, how do you think the American public would feel if China started producing ads encouraging voters to vote for Obama? Even if the ads were 100% accurate with all their information, and were not misleading in any way, do you really think that there would be no backlash against China deciding to interfere with America's business? Now, granted there might not be riots where people die, but I put it to you that the US has a far better control of its territory than Egypt and Libya, what with not having only recently deposed of a dictator and all, and thus might be in a better position to control any protests. I seem to recall that America was not to impressed with Netanyahu trying to endorse Romney, even though Israel's a supposed Ally of the US.
And I don't buy the argument that insulting Muhammed or Islam is different from insulting Muslims - not in the case of the cartoons, anyway. Given the context that these cartoons were printed in, I see it as basically the equivalent of a kid holding their finger about an inch away their sister's face, and when their mother says to stop bothering her, the first kid says, "But I'm not even touchingher." Sure, they're not technically committing hate speech, just like the kid's technically not touching their sister, but they sure are both being arseholes about the whole thing.
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"Why does it look like you are in China or something?" - havokeff
Lusankya wrote:I never said the Muslims were too stupid to understand satire. I said that when you have a bunch of privileged European fuckheads going around "satirising" their culture without bothering to understand it in any sort of complexity, then all it does is make the Europeans look like Imperialist shitheads. Putting out those cartoons doesn't give the Middle East the message, "Look how awesome free speech is - we can even insult Muhammed if we want to." The message it gives is, "Screw you, we're going to insult you if we want." It's basically taking an already volatile situation and using it to revel in how much more "superior" and "enlightened" Western culture is, rather than trying to open a dialogue so that both sides can gain a mutual understanding of each other to prevent such riots from occurring in the future. Sure, they're allowed to print it, because rah rah free speech and whatever, but that doesn't make their actions moral, any more than it's moral for What's his face to cheat on his wife while she has cancer.
People don't react well to those they perceive as being from an "out-group" going around blindly insulting them and telling them what to do, because the people from the out-group are perceived to have imperfect understanding of the local situation and possibly ulterior motives. That goes double when the members of the outgroup have a known history of racism and imperialism. The west isn't immune to it either: Tell me, how do you think the American public would feel if China started producing ads encouraging voters to vote for Obama? Even if the ads were 100% accurate with all their information, and were not misleading in any way, do you really think that there would be no backlash against China deciding to interfere with America's business? Now, granted there might not be riots where people die, but I put it to you that the US has a far better control of its territory than Egypt and Libya, what with not having only recently deposed of a dictator and all, and thus might be in a better position to control any protests. I seem to recall that America was not to impressed with Netanyahu trying to endorse Romney, even though Israel's a supposed Ally of the US.
And I don't buy the argument that insulting Muhammed or Islam is different from insulting Muslims - not in the case of the cartoons, anyway. Given the context that these cartoons were printed in, I see it as basically the equivalent of a kid holding their finger about an inch away their sister's face, and when their mother says to stop bothering her, the first kid says, "But I'm not even touchingher." Sure, they're not technically committing hate speech, just like the kid's technically not touching their sister, but they sure are both being arseholes about the whole thing.
The thing is, when you insult the west people don't die. We might call you out for it and tell you to stop, but we won't be attacking embassies. When the Middle East can do that maybe we can start taking them seriously.
Did you ever think that if we stopped pouring gasoline on their fire, they might have a better chance of getting it under control?
And you missed her whole point about western countries being in complete control of their own territories, while Egypt and Libya have just knocked off their governments.
Phantasee wrote:Did you ever think that if we stopped pouring gasoline on their fire, they might have a better chance of getting it under control?
And you missed her whole point about western countries being in complete control of their own territories, while Egypt and Libya have just knocked off their governments.
How do your think we should go about keeping every citizen living in the western world quiet on this issue until the Middle East can learn to not blow us them themselves up at the slightest cause? It's also sad that the part of the world that civilized first is now among the worst places in the world to live.
Lusankya wrote:I never said the Muslims were too stupid to understand satire. I said that when you have a bunch of privileged European fuckheads going around "satirising" their culture without bothering to understand it in any sort of complexity, then all it does is make the Europeans look like Imperialist shitheads. Putting out those cartoons doesn't give the Middle East the message, "Look how awesome free speech is - we can even insult Muhammed if we want to."
Insulting Muhammad proves they are privileged fuckheads who haven't bothered to understand their culture? How do you make that assumption? Is there no such thing as a valid critique of Islam or Muhammad made by a knowledgeable person? By your logic such a thing obviously cannot exist, because it would provoke anger and violence, and that anger and violence proves that the creator of the message is an instigator. If that instigator created the message from the relative safety of a free country, well that only makes him/her a privileged instigator. A privileged instigator poking a finger in the eye of a whole culture! For shame. Leave Muhammad Alone!
Phantasee wrote:You don't even understand what privilege is, in the sociological context Lusy is using, do you?
Haven't our nations earned our privilege through bloodshed and revolution already? What right do they have to shit on us just because our countries don't suck ass like their's do?
Jub wrote:Haven't our nations earned our privilege through bloodshed and revolution already? What right do they have to shit on us just because our countries don't suck ass like their's do?
Phantasee wrote:You don't even understand what privilege is, in the sociological context Lusy is using, do you?
