by hilzoy
In comments on an earlier thread, OCSteve asked about the difference in some people’s responses to what Amanda Marcotte’s posts about religion on the one hand, and the Danish cartoons of Muhammed on the other. I started to write a reply, but I decided to make it into its own post, both because it was getting too long and because it makes a point that I think is generally useful. Namely:
The brouhahas over Amanda’s posts on religion and the Danish cartoons are in some ways similar, in that both involve people saying or drawing things that offend some members of a given religion. However, in each case, there is no one thing that is “the question raised by Amanda’s posts/the Danish cartoons”. Instead, there are a bunch of different questions confronting different actors in those situations. And it’s worth separating those different questions, and asking whether a difference in someone’s responses to the two cases might reflect not a difference in the way that person treats Christianity and Islam, but the fact that s/he identified with differently situated actors in the two cases.
To flesh this out: in the Danish cartoons case, I thought the following: (1) the newspaper was just being pointlessly rude when it decided to hold what is, to Muslims, a blasphemy contest. It would have been different had there been some compelling reason to publish cartoons about Muhammed. If, say, archeologists had discovered Muhammed’s secret porn stash, I’d of course support newspapers reporting that discovery — that’s their job. But just up and deciding to run the contest was, to me, different. Had I been the newspaper editor, I would not have done that.
(2) For similar reasons, had I been a cartoonist, and had some paper announced such a contest, I would not have entered.
(3) Had I been an editor of a different paper, and had one of my cartoonists submitted an entry to that contest, I would absolutely not have fired that cartoonist.
(4) Had I been the government of Denmark, I would absolutely have supported the right of cartoonists to draw pictures of whatever they want. I would also have apologized to Muslims for any offense.
(5) Had I been a Muslim opinion-maker, I would not have drawn attention to this particular case, on the grounds that there were more pressing matters to attend to. I would also have discouraged violence.
(6) Had I been the government of a Muslim country, I would have supported the right of my citizens to engage in peaceful demonstrations, but not violent ones. I would also have expressed my displeasure at the insult to Islam, probably in something like an op-ed rather than a government-to-government communication, since I would recognize that speech is not for the government to regulate in this way. I would also have tried to communicate to my citizens the fact that in Denmark, what appears in a newspaper does not necessarily reflect any kind of official policy.
(7) Had I been a random Muslim, I would have thought: they are trying to distract us again by throwing us this red meat when we might otherwise work for some sort of serious political reform, or (alternately) addressing the religious failings of people closer to home, starting with ourselves. This is all a charade. Feh.
(In all of the above, read ‘I would have done X’ to mean: I hope I would have. The above is about what I think is right, not about e.g. my estimate of my own courage or ability to think fast in a pinch.)
If you just look at these responses in isolation, I might seem to be taking quite different views on whether it’s OK to make the cartoons. In particular, if you focus on (1) or (2), you might get the sense that I thought that criticizing Islam is just out of bounds, when in fact I think something more like: gratuitously insulting any religion, or more generally anything people care deeply about, is wrong. (Note the word ‘gratuitously’: the idea is not that things people care deeply about cannot come in for criticism; it’s that you shouldn’t slam them for no reason. Similarly: I think that it’s wrong to belittle people’s marriages just for fun, but that does not mean that I don’t think you can criticize them at all. The word ‘insult’ is also important: there are all sorts of ways of poking fun at something that are not insulting.) On the other hand, if you looked at my response in (3) or (4) (about sticking up for the cartoonists’ right to say what they did, which I would strenuously defend), you’d get just the opposite impression.
I don’t think that this is because my responses are inconsistent. It’s because the decisions that different actors are faced with are very different. If I were a government, I would defend the rights of all my citizens to say what they wanted to about any religion, even if what they said gratuitously offended people. The decision faced by someone deciding whether or not to say something gratuitously offensive in the first place is completely different.
For this reason, in comparing people’s responses to these two cases, it’s crucial to make sure that what you’re counting as “their responses” are responses addressed to similarly situated actors. If someone says that the cartoonists should have been legally forbidden to draw cartoons of Muhammed, but that Amanda should feel free to write literally anything, however insulting, about Christianity, and if they can’t explain this difference on the basis of some real distinction between the two cases, then that person has a double standard. (An example of a real distinction: someone — not me — might point to the fact that the cartoons, but not even a totally outrageous post on Pandagon, has a real likelihood of provoking violence. The reason that’s not a good argument isn’t that the difference it points to is not real; according to me, it’s that it’s not true that speech that might provoke violence by being offensive should be banned.) Likewise, if someone said that Muslims would be justified in burning down Danish embassies, but that Christians would not be justified in burning down Edwards’ campaign offices, that’s a double standard.
But if someone says: the cartoonists should not have drawn the cartoons, and also says: Edwards should not have fired Amanda Marcotte, that’s not evidence of a double standard. Those two agents are not on a par, and they do not face the same decisions. Had I been a Danish cartoonist, I would not have drawn the cartoons; had I been Amanda, I would not have written those of her posts that ridiculed Christianity as a whole, not just those Christians who have made themselves legitimate targets of ridicule by e.g. mounting campaigns against Sponge-Bob Square Pants and Tinky-Winky. Had God taken me aside and offered me the ability to make the Danish cartoonists, Amanda, or anyone else, conform to my sense of what they should write or draw, I would be horrified and say no. Had I been the Danish government, I would have stuck up for those cartoonists’ rights; had I been the US government, I would have stuck up for Amanda’s. Had I been either a Danish newspaper or the Edwards campaign, I would not have fired the people in question, though I think that employers can legitimately consider the question how their employees’ public personae affect their business interests. (This last is meant not as a point about whether employers can legally take such things into account. I don’t know enough about that to say.) Had I been either a random Catholic or a random Muslim, I would have focussed on more important things. And so on.
The general point, of course, is: it’s always, always a good idea to take statements about someone’s position on a situation as shorthand for: someone’s position about what someone in that situation should have done; to consider the various different decisions that confront the different actors in that situation; and to consider the possibility that apparent conflicts in someone’s position on two apparently similar situations might be due not to inconsistencies in that person’s beliefs, but to the fact that s/he is talking about what two differently situated actors should do. It’s one of those useful tools of thought that can clarify a lot.
Or so I’ve found.
“I thought the following: (1) the newspaper was just being pointlessly rude when it decided to hold what is, to Muslims, a blasphemy contest. It would have been different had there been some compelling reason to publish cartoons about Muhammed.”
The newspaper commissioned it in response to charges that artists were afraid of violence and thus wouldn’t make depictions that they would otherwise be willing to make (i.e. in a children’s book). They unfortunately illustrated that the fear of violence was well grounded.
Sebastian, is that intended as a defense of the contest?
“Or so I’ve found.”
Indeed.
mounting campaigns against Sponge-Bob Square Pants and Tinky-Winky.
For some reason, that just struck me as incredibly funny.
Carry on.
Seb: I wouldn’t hold a “let’s insult Sebastian; actually, let’s try as hard as we can to say things that Sebastian will find deeply offensive, because people are afraid that if we provoke Sebastian he will beat us up” contest. I never really saw how this was different — except in that at least you know me, and would have some context to place it in, and also that at least here, any such contest would devolve into jokes (the imaginary Thullen contribution alone would be worth it all, actually) and thus be less likely to cause deep offense.
my bigger concern is this sort of de-legitimizes a lot of liberals’ arguments about how bush/etc. associate themselves with loathsome people like limbaugh, hannity, etc. i’m not comparing marcotte to those people, but some of anti-catholic posts are as anti-catholic as limbaugh’s were anti-liberal.
in other words, the question is this — how you can you demand that bush not associate himself with hannity, while at the same time associating yourself — and fighting for — marcotte. it’d be different if marcotte’s posts were thoughtful, or paradigm-shattering satire or something. but they’re just tantrums with a thesaurus. (again, i exclude shakes from this)
this is a problem i think.
I have to chime in here on another distinction: was Amanda’s stuff really gratuitiously offensive? Taken out of context, you could make the case that it was, but was it really? She fears religion, and I don’t think that’s an unreasonable thing at all; Christianity and Islam – in their State, or quasi-State, forms – positively ooze a remarkably piquant, even toxic, hypocrisy right now. You can’t really indict her for noticing and rebelling, including somewhat viscerally. There are good practical *reasons* to have freedom of speech and press, and the biggest is what could loosely be called ‘(earthly) priests‘. A really free society – and also a true believer – wouldn’t/don’t fear Amanda’s ridicule. I don’t know what the deal was with the Danish newspaper; hilzoy’s ethical workup sounds very good to me. But freedom of speech is the absolutely vital requisite, and we can’t forget it. Hilzoy touched on this point in the other thread when she hoped that the Bloggers In Question wouldn’t react one way or another to the kerfufflette.
Furthermore, the Danish paper was defending, in a clumsy and self-defeating way perhaps, The fundamental freedom. If you think about how young European muslims might have felt about it, it’s possible that some reacted the way some did for the very fact that it *was* clumsy and self-defeating; weak; decadent; shallow; a ‘crappy show’; not credible, etc. Liberalism is indeed under attack in the world, and the US government’s reaction is….to also attack Liberalism. It’s mind-blowing.
how you can you demand that bush not associate himself with hannity, while at the same time associating yourself — and fighting for — marcotte
Hannity’s views are his professional views. President Bush meets with Hannity to solicit, I suppose, advice. Up until now, Marcotte was an amateur blogger. Her new job will be to facilitate communication b/w the campaign of John Edwards (spelled it correctly this time, Gary) and the “netroots”. In others, it her job to communicate her employers views.
Judging her in that capacity, and Leon Wolf, starts now.
In others, it
That should read “in other words”
jb — i was thinking of developing a post to flesh some of that out. anyway, one argument for marcotte is that extreme, radical speech is vital because it shifts the poles of “respectable” debate. the liberal blogosphere has been important in that respect in that it’s moved the “left” pole from where it was in 1999 at the height of broder wankery/impeachment/etc.
the thing is though is that there’s a difference b/w radical, subversive speech and unthoughtful shrill rants. the question you have to ask yourself is what category marcotte falls into. if the only thing that matters is that she’s ridiculing, then why isn’t that enough for coulter too?
if she’s changing the terms of debate by, say, rejecting the legitimacy of religion through her ridicule, that’s one thing. but i don’t get that vibe from her.
Disclosure: I’m a long-time Pandagon reader and commenter.
The comparison between Amanda and the Danish cartoonists is invalid because the power dynamic is different. Amanda is a forthright atheist living in a deeply Christian culture; she is a feminist living in a substantially patriarchal culture. Mockery has been one way for her to assert the reality of her life against a culture that says she shouldn’t really exist, or if she exists she shouldn’t be so uppity about it.
The Danish cartoonists were rude and disrespectful, but they were not uppity — they were not trying to subvert an oppressive power relationship within their own society. But sometimes you gotta be uppity, and uppity is *always* rude.
I should add that I have never found Amanda’s writing to be unreadably insulting, though she’s sometimes a bit *young*. More important, in my experience she always listens to (reasonable) counter-arguments, and frequently adjusts her views in response. That last point alone is enough to put her completely outside the ranks of Limbaugh, Hannity, and their ilk.
Re: criticing Bush for associating with Limbaugh and coulter, but not Edwards for hiring Marcotte. I can see your point and I wish this exact rightwing Noise Aattck wasn’t the one that galvinnized a concerted pushback. The ongoing smear of Pelosi, the attck on Barbara Boxer, the humiliation of Durbin, the smears on Kerry, the ridicule aimed at Dean, the repeated accusation of cowardice or the “emboldenning of the enemy” that is standard fare of Republicans in Congress–any of these examples of rightwinng bullying could have, and maybe should have, set off a pushback like this attack on Marcotte did.
I am just sick of it.
I can’t stop the Noise Machine but I can express my frustration with Democrats who don’t stand up to it. I am sick of Democrats apologizing for minor stuff most of which isnn’t even real whhen I am not aware of anny promenent Republicans apologizing for any of thhe despicable behavior their party has inndulged in over thhe last twenty years.
So I don’t care if the pushback came over the wrong issue. The only Democrats that I am willing to consider for thhe candidacy of Preseident are thhe onnes tht hhave the guts to fight back.
I don’t think that Edwards should have hired Marcotte. That was, in my mind, an error judgement. However the left blogstorm wasn’t in defense of his decsion to hire her. It was in opposition to him firing her. It was opposition to Edwards beinng held to a higher standard than MMcCain by a lazy irresponsible unprofessionnal press corp that was being used once again to bully a Democratic politician. It was oppositionto thhat Democrat caving into thhe bullying.
The Noise Machine won’t stop but it can be made to look silly and impotent if Democrats stop respondinng to it. I hope this incident was a lesson to the othher candidates on how to responnd to thhe attacks thhey will get: don’t back down.
lily – as i wrote earlier, I agree. but when does that end. and why can’t bush justify meeting hannity on precisely the same terms (i.e., well, you can’t stop now or you’ll show weakness).
my fear is that every time greenwald or whoever writes a post criticizing a conserv politician for associating with falwell, etc., the response will be marcotte. it won’t matter politically — it’s a moral-ground-of-the-blogosphere point
Hilzoy: (4a) Had I been the government of Denmark, I would absolutely have supported the right of cartoonists to draw pictures of whatever they want. (4b) I would also have apologized to Muslims for any offense.
Why would you, the state, apologize to Muslims (and presumably Muslim states) for your citizens exercising their free speech rights, rights you presumably uphold? The state either respects the law and follows the law or it subscribes to another view, in which case the cartoonists have bigger things to worry about than anonymous threats to their persons. If I were an editor I wouldn’t apologize to Christians for a satirical contest. Muslims, being regarded as equal under law in every way, have every reason to expect the same non-response.
The cartoons were blown out of proportion. Several of the protests, if not all of them, were spurred on by state-run newspapers if not organized by the states themselves. Apologizing to states would legitimize their dysfunctional governments. Apologizing to Danish Muslims would legitimize their intellectually prudish double-standards.
how you can you demand that bush not associate himself with hannity, while at the same time associating yourself — and fighting for — marcotte.
Hilzoy’s post is about people glossing over categorical differences, and such a difference here is obvious. And for that matter, I wouldn’t demand that Bush not associate himself with his own propaganda partner. Let him. The anxiety here is about having a ‘neutral’ press or a more european type. I would like an independent press, but a ‘neutral’ one isn’t working out too well.
This is something which makes liberals uneasy about Edwards: after Bush, we are scared of someone who might blur the lines, someone who might be an advocate. It’s really a bad mistake. There’s a similar unease about Obama. Our two best candidates. Gee. Why is that? Because liberals are the only conservatives left. The Movement has sifted the old right conservatism into a more pure authoritarianism (unfortunately), and the liberals end up having to be both conservative and liberal. Dems have flubbed it a lot in the past, but actually, it’s a great deal for us in the end – if we have some sort of conviction.
Lesly: I think it’s generally OK to apologize for rudeness. In this case, the state was not itself rude, but its citizens were. As I said, I’d defend their right to be rude against all opposition, but I don’t think that’s incompatible with acknowledging that it was, in fact, offensive to Muslims.
Spartikus, you seem to be saying that everyone should be judged as a blank slate starting at the moment of hiring. Then if McCain hired Charles Johnson, it would be unfair to assume that said anything at all about McCain. We’d have to wait to see what Johnson did after he was hired. That’s certainly not the way it would work, and it’s not the way it should work, as far as I’m concerned.
It was not unfair of people to analyze Marcotte’s writings and treat them as reflecting somewhat on Edwards. He hired her as a blogger, so her blogging is relevant. If she’d been hired as a chauffeur, then her blogging wouldn’t have been relevant.
Lying about Marcotte’s actions and misrepresenting her work are of course unfair.
The fact that I believe it’s fair for people to criticize of course does not mean that I must agree with their criticisms.
Spartikus, you seem to be saying that everyone should be judged as a blank slate starting at the moment of hiring.
Within reason. To my knowledge prior to employment Marcotte hadn’t done anything criminal or, unlike Ben Domenech, unethical.
Then if McCain hired Charles Johnson
As you point out, that would depend on what he was hired to do, wouldn’t it? If he was McCain’s adviser, certainly. If he simply built McCain’s website and kept his views to himself, then what’s the big deal. Whatever I may think of Charles Johnson, and believe it’s not a lot, LGF is a big, very active community and he built it and has a great deal of technical expertise.
He hired her as a blogger, so her blogging is relevant.
Maybe I’m confused as to what she was supposed to be doing, but I was under the impression she was hired b/c she understood how blogging and blogging communities work, and would “facilitate” b/w them and the campaign. ie. Her professional blogging will be to communicate John Edwards positions, not her own.
She’s on payroll now, and Edwards is responsible for them.
Pub: if she’s changing the terms of debate by, say, rejecting the legitimacy of religion through her ridicule, that’s one thing. but i don’t get that vibe from her.
You probably have a point. But it’s all about context. If Hannity or El Rushbo were bloggers, and they said controversial things but ultimately showed some formal respect for people who might not like what they blogged (by joining a campaign, for instance – by being open advocates), you’d have a match. But those guys remorelessly and utterly unapologetically spew (nominally ‘fair and balanced’) horseshit every day to big audiences on tv and radio – and there’s no respect shown for *anyone*. It’s schtick. Not a match, IMO.
Cough.
No, that was not at all the point in publishing the Mohammed cartoons, and I suspect you know it.
The point was to demonstrate the reaction of some Muslims to that publishing. To demonstrate the West’s self-censorship and cowardice and to demonstrate the effects of violent intimidation.
The exercise was most successful in demonstrating those things and one could write a book (some have) about why you seek to deny it.
“I wouldn’t hold a “let’s insult Sebastian; actually, let’s try as hard as we can to say things that Sebastian will find deeply offensive, because people are afraid that if we provoke Sebastian he will beat us up” contest.”
But that isn’t how it happened. It was sparked by the fact that somebody couldn’t get anyone to draw a picture of the prophet for (I believe) an artistic representation in a children’s book. Piss Christ was deliberately offensive art. Though the artist pretends otherwise, Dung Virgin Mary was deliberately offensive art. Yet it is also totally acceptable art.
Actually Sebastian, there is a long history of Jyllands-Posten being anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant, so the drawings didn’t appear in as clear a context as you make it sound. Also, Jyllands-Posten said at the time, that they wanted to show that the sacret cows of Islam was not sacret in Denmark – fair enough, but then they shouldn’t be suprised when people in societies where they are sacret get offended.
It was quite possible to raise the debate about the drawings in the childrens’ book, without going out of the way to offend people.
And it is worth noticing that Jyllands-Posten had in the past turned down drawings that they though mocked Christ, so they didn’t offend their readers.
I find both the Muslim fanatics and Jyllands-Posten repulsive in general, and especially in this situation.
Hilzoy: Thank you. *bookmarks post* This is a wonderful clear articulate outline of how I feel about the difference between the Danish cartoons and Marcotte’s two-line quip.
I don’t see that the differnce in power dynamics is anything like as clear as Doctor Science argues. The problem is that there were two different power dynamics involved in the Danish cartoons: a national and an international one. At the international level the cartoonists might feel they were liberal heroes faced against the vast menacing forces of Islam. At the national level they were picking on a small minority group. And some of the cartoonists were deliberately picking on Muslims as a whole. If you publish a picture showing Muhammed with a bomb in his turban, you are surely implying that Islam is intrinsically violent/pro-terrorist. If they’d done a cartoon of Moses killing a Palestianian child, because children have sometimes been killed by Israeli soldiers, would that have been seen as acceptable free speech? How big would the US protests have been if there had been a cartoon of Christ bombing an abortion clinic (justified by the cartoonist because some Christians have done that)?
Magistra: How big would the US protests have been if there had been a cartoon of Christ bombing an abortion clinic (justified by the cartoonist because some Christians have done that)?
…..
Actually, I wonder how big the US protests would have been if there had been a cartoon of Christ escorting a pregnant woman into an abortion clinic, protecting her from the pro-life protesters? Bit difficult to get across in a line drawing, but… either idea makes me wish I could draw!
Speaking as someone who was in the Arab world at the time, the Danish cartoonists and, the muppets who imitated them in the US, deserve a good beating. It’s easy to be provocative when someone else’s hoo-hah and delicates are in the firing line. If some of those guys had strolled around downtown Damascus, Hebron or Algiers with their artwork I would have been more impressed.
if she’s changing the terms of debate by, say, rejecting the legitimacy of religion through her ridicule, that’s one thing. but i don’t get that vibe from her.
And yet, that’s exactly the vibe I *do* get — as when she equates the Christianity (or Islam) with the Worship of the Sparkly Disco Ball, while acknowledging the equal status of the Flying Spagetti Monster.
Hilzoy: First, I did not bring the cartoons into it at all – that was spartikus.
In response to Donald Johnson:
I meant to say that Christians and Muslims and secular people with strong convictions on this or that should get used to the idea that their sacred beliefs are fair game for crude jokes.
I said this:
You mentioned Muslims so let’s expand on that. What if her remarks had concerned Allah and Mohammed and a certain underage bride and had been as detailed and crass. What if it was CAIR calling for them to be canned?
Would the left have been as supportive? Would the outcome have been the same?
About the time I hit post I had a bit of an epiphany. This whole thing had really bugged me, but I could not put my finger on exactly why. I am not Catholic, I am not religious. So why should it bother me?
I thought that the netroots’ defense of her was a bit over the top (ACTION ALERT blah blah). How much fun did the lefty blogs have with HH and company and their petition threatening to withhold donations from Republicans who voted for the non-binding resolution? This struck me as very much the same thing. If you fire her them you not only lose our support we will work against you…
Still – why did it bother me? About the time I hit post I realized why. If those kind of crass remarks had been made about Islam, and it was in any way connected to a Presidential candidate, and it hit the MSM – the outcome would have been vastly different.
Now, my follow up comments weren’t entirely coherent I admit. I get up at 5 and work 12-14 hour days. I’m pretty tired by that time of the evening and should probably avoid commenting after about 6PM.
This was over the top and didn’t make much sense:
But this country was founded on religious freedom – and it seems we no longer have that.
It’s not really about religious freedom – it’s about freedom of speech. Christianity or Judaism are fair game for the vilest of remarks. No penalty attaches. Islam is more and more off limits though.
I stand by the rest of it:
If it came to light that a staffer of a Presidential candidate had publicly written something as crass about Islam (Allah, Muhammad, 9 year old bride, hot white sticky something) and the episode made it into the MSM (it wouldn’t of course, they wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole) the following would be the result:
-CAIR would have had a press release out in hours calling for their firing and Edwards’ apology.
-Muslims would have protested in Detroit and Conyers would have publicly denounced the bloggers and called on Edwards to do something.
-“Prominent clerics” here and worldwide would have denounced Edwards until he complied.
-She would have been in actual physical danger.
-He would have had NO hope of being president in this day and time without throwing them under the bus and groveling a good bit.
At the very least, the very least – he would have canned them, apologized for not vetting them, and lost a half day meeting with CAIR and other representatives for some sensitivity training.
Anyone who doubts that (the general outline, not necessarily the specifics) has not been paying very close attention these last few years.
Note: I have not read the comments on yesterday’s thread yet (after I signed off) much less the comments on this post. If there are more specifics for me to respond to I’ll do my best but it may have to wait until tomorrow.
OCSteve: If those kind of crass remarks had been made about Islam, and it was in any way connected to a Presidential candidate, and it hit the MSM – the outcome would have been vastly different.
Yes: for a start, the right-wing blogosphere would have been loud in the defense of the crass remarks, and some of them would have been competing for who can make crasser remarks about Islam. Islam is the only Abrahamic religion about which right-wing Christians in the US feel free to be completely bigoted, in the certainty that no one whose opinion they care about will ever call them on it.
Christianity or Judaism are fair game for the vilest of remarks. No penalty attaches. Islam is more and more off limits though.
This comment is so much in reverse of reality that I can’t believe you could actually bring yourself to type it. Did you happen to miss the controversy over Keith Ellison’s choice of religious text to take oath on? That’s just the most recent, most public example I can think of: the assertion that if Ellison were “allowed” to use the Qu’ran, this would undermine American civilization.
And, I am prepared to bet that not one of the blogs who took up this idea and howled in its favor argued that Amanda Marcotte had a perfect right to diss Catholic theology if she felt like it.
I’m always astouned how fast US liberals denounce our basic freedoms under the PC banner.
IF the Jyllandsposten cartoons had been about christianity in a similar way, any objection to them would have been called misguided and dangerous.
It is simply a massively unfair double standard you hold the cartoonists to. This double standard is unfortunately coupled with a similary massive ignorance about the subject matter. If you haven’t seen the cartoons and read the accompanying article, please don’t bother us with your opinion on the matter. It is simply uninformed.
At least we know the true allies in the fight for real liberal democracy is neither New Labour Britain nor the US (either PC liberal or christianist right), but instead solidly democratic Old Europe countries like Germany and France.
The rest of you would sell your own grandmother, if it made you seem tolerant and progressive.
/Limagolf
Limagolf: IF the Jyllandsposten cartoons had been about christianity in a similar way, any objection to them would have been called misguided and dangerous.
Gee, how clever you are to know about things that never happened.
Criticizing what someone says, or suggesting that saying it might not be a good idea, is not “denounc[ing] our basic freedoms” — it’s exercising free speech. Defending the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie doesn’t require that I march with them or embrace their views.
Similarly, if I say that I think it was a bad idea for Edwards to hire Marcotte, that doesn’t mean that I think she should be censored. It doesn’t even necessarily mean that I disagree with anything she said.
Jes: This comment is so much in reverse of reality that I can’t believe you could actually bring yourself to type it. Did you happen to miss the controversy over Keith Ellison’s choice of religious text to take oath on?
What penalty resulted? I didn’t say “no controversy”. He went ahead with it, even used Jefferson’s Koran and managed to spin it that Jefferson was pro-Islam. He’s a hero for not folding. What penalty attached?
And anti-Semitic remarks might draw a press release from the ADL. Big whoop.
I think, if there had been remarks that could be construed as blatantly anti-islamic, the right wingers would have gone into double-think overdrive*. They would have, in my opinion, both denounced Islam and Edwards for being anti-religion.
*similar to the common pro-Israel antisemitism one can find in parts of the Kristian(C) Right
OCSteve, I don’t understand why you think an ADL press release is insignificant and a CAIR press release is supremely important and possibly a threat to free speech. Do you believe that Jewish (or Christian) groups have less influence in American politics than Muslim groups? How did we end up in Iraq then?
I also think you should consider how the reaction to mocking of the dominant culture might reasonably differ from the reaction to mocking of a minority group. Perhaps “anti-Christian” statements don’t spark sufficient outrage for you, but I disagree that antisemitism is viewed as no big deal.
OCSteve: What penalty resulted? I didn’t say “no controversy”.
Oh, well, penalty. Then please tell me what penalty resulted for the US newspapers/magazines that reprinted the Danish cartoons, Steve, and we’ll talk.
Do you believe that Jewish (or Christian) groups have less influence in American politics than Muslim groups?
It’s not the PR per say, but what might follow it, and not so much here in the US.
You are correct in that someone of note might say something dumb that is taken as anti-Semitic. ADL might call them on it. It gets some press, and someone of note issues a retraction and an apology.
It’s not really about religious freedom – it’s about freedom of speech. Christianity or Judaism are fair game for the vilest of remarks.
The mere suggestion, recently, by Matthew Ygelsias and Wesley Clark that some influential American Jewish political groups were pushing behind-the-scenes for a war with Iran got them tagged as anti-Semites by Jonah Goldberg and the Noise Machine.*
Given that, I’m not sure how your statement above comports with reality, but, well, there it is.
* I have all their albums.
Sebastian: Piss Christ was deliberately offensive art.
No, it wasn’t.
Though the artist pretends otherwise, Dung Virgin Mary was deliberately offensive art.
No, it wasn’t, and 15 yards for “pretends,” which you are not in a position to know.
And Steve, if you think that “no penalty attaches” for saying “the vilest things about Judaism,” explain Mel Gibson. And if you think it’s also true re: Christianity, explain John Lennon.
Then please tell me what penalty resulted for the US newspapers/magazines that reprinted the Danish cartoons, Steve, and we’ll talk.
Again – my rant does not have anything to do with the cartoons and never did.
But since you asked…
I don’t believe any American paper published all of them. Some published one or even two of them. Some that did publish one actually blurred it, as if it was too graphic to show the detail.
But for the most part, they just wrote editorials about why they didn’t have the guts to publish them. Did the UK media publish any at all? I don’t recall that they did (obviously you would know better so I stand to be corrected.)
For the most part, American papers were too intimidated to publish them.
“She fears religion, and I don’t think that’s an unreasonable thing at all; Christianity and Islam – in their State, or quasi-State, forms – positively ooze a remarkably piquant, even toxic, hypocrisy right now. You can’t really indict her for noticing and rebelling, including somewhat viscerally. There are good practical *reasons* to have freedom of speech and press, and the biggest is what could loosely be called ‘(earthly) priests’. ”
That was jonnybutter, speaking about Amanda. I think this conflates two different things that Amanda did. I skimmed through links to her stuff. Some of it seemed harsh, but fair, and some of it seemed like gratuitous childish insults to me. It was fair to criticize the dishonest claims being made about contraception and even to point out what Amanda thinks are contradictions between being in favor of natural family planning and the Pill. (I agreed with all that, not that this matters.) Where she crossed the line, IMO, was in the Virgin Mary joke. She has the right to say these things in public or private–free speech isn’t the issue. But that comment would disgust any Christian, I think. Some of us would feel personally insulted, while others of us would regard it with contempt–it’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a teenager trying to shock his parents just for the fun of it. I have friends who make jokes like this in private–I know them well enough to know they don’t really think all Christians are mentally challenged morons for believing in the sky god who came down and impregnated a Middle Eastern peasant woman and I don’t think people should constantly be policing their own thoughts about how ridiculous other people’s opinions seem to them. Political correctness and sensitivity all the time can be a little boring and I appreciate the fact that they feel they can say stupid things in front of me. (Besides, I know they’ll burn for it someday.) But I know they’ll admit they don’t know why Christians believe what they believe, but Christianity has in fact a mixed historical record (it’s not all crusades all the time, you know) and many Christians seem like decent sane people to them. In contrast to someone like Dawkins, who strikes me as someone who thinks that in a well-run society theists would be given the psychiatric treatment they so obviously need. I don’t read Amanda and don’t know what category she falls into, but when someone makes that kind of joke in public I assume this is a person who is too wrapped up in her own thoughts to care much about who she offends. This isn’t a compliment. (To repeat what I said yesterday, I also think that Edwards handled it correctly, and that the whole thing should blow over.)
As for the Muslim comparison, it’s different in various aspects. Anti-Muslim jokes tend to lead to violence. On the one hand (the right one, though some liberals also point this out), a fair number of Muslims still live in a world where they think it’s acceptable to murder people for blasphemy. And on the other hand, anti-Muslim jokes encourage an atmosphere of anti-Muslim violence, both on the individual level and on a larger scale. People have the right to insult Islam if they want, but maybe they should voluntarily restrict themselves to reasoned criticism, something which might possibly incite violence, but which can’t be helped. I think hilzoy examined all the angles I might have thought of and a few extra ones and pretty much said what I would have said if I had thought of it.
To be clear, one of the things some Muslims should be criticized about is precisely the belief that rioting over blasphemy is a morally justifiable reaction.
And if, for one example among many, a member of Congress talks about bombing Mecca, what happens? Was he forced to resign? Did a mob of Muslims burn down his office?
Several American newspapers, like the Philly Inquirer, published one or two of the cartoons so people could assess the controversy for themselves. I don’t see a sound journalistic reason to reprint all of the cartoons, although one could certainly do so to make a political statement or to be inflammatory.
if you think that “no penalty attaches” for saying “the vilest things about Judaism,” explain Mel Gibson.
Offered two apologies. Had to prostrate himself on 20/20. His next movie release was a blockbuster. It was not boycotted, he was not blacklisted, wasn’t stabbed in the street.
And if you think it’s also true re: Christianity, explain John Lennon.
Now he was killed in the street by a born-again whacko, quite likely due to his remark, “We’re more popular than Jesus Christ now”. Chapman was found to be criminally insane. Was his action connected to indoctrination by a Christian church? Could have been I guess…
OCSteve, I’m trying to get you to show actual examples of what you claim is a distinct double standard that renders Islam immune from criticism.
What penalty attached to Dennis Prager – or any of the right-wingers who took up the hunt he started – for his vile claim that for a Muslim Congressman to carry a Qu’ran would “undermine American civilisation”? Has he lost his job? Has he been widely criticised? Has anyone demanded that TownHall.com “distance” themselves from him? Have any of the right-wing commentariat who who supported this vile suggestion suffered by it? (Did Ann Coulter suffer any penalty in the five years since she suggested: ‘We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.’? Aside, that is, from having to be Ann Coulter?)
As for the cartoons – can you offer any actual examples of intimidation of US newspapers? I believe you when you say you read all these op-eds by American newspaper editors saying they were too scared to publish them: but what examples of threats or direct intimidation did they offer to explain their terror? (For a run-down on what major UK papers said was their reasoning in not publishing them, here – or here for direct quotes, but you have to register.)
You’re claiming that there’s some kind of systematic penalization going on in the US whenever someone criticizes Islam. Yet you don’t seem to be able to provide any actual examples of this penalization, though I can point you to more examples than Prager or Coulter where public US figures have said vile things about Islam, and do not appear to have suffered any penalty.
Oh yes, and tell me what penalty Glenn Beck suffered for saying to a newly-elected Congressman “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies” because that Congressman is a Muslim? Any?
“Though the artist pretends otherwise, Dung Virgin Mary was deliberately offensive art.”
This is a lot of dung. I looked into this back when the fuss arose, because I grew up with the Brooklyn Museum, was a docent there as an adolescent, and a volunteer teacher of young kids, and had a variety of other gigs, so years later when Giuliani began his usual historics, and attempt to censor, I wanted to know what was going on.
Chris Ofili, who is Nigerian, has been working with dung his entire career. Unless he spent decades working up a cover before launching on his plot, your claim is mistaken.
That’s what he does. The fuss about one of his typical works was manufactured outrage. The same old story.
The Giuliani attack was in 1999. Here is a 1998 profile of Ofili:
Presumably, after his deliberate attempt to offend Catholics, Ofili used his time machine to travel backwards, and set up his entire career for decades earlier, to provide an alibi for plotting his entire life to use dung to insult the Virgin Mary.
I suggest reconsidering this claim.
Do most people here live in Never Never Land?
Look, you can’t possibly deal with the issue that Marcotte, in particular, raises, without coming to grips with the exact pernicious content of what she has said. Nearly everybody, at least on this thread, seems to want walk around that content as if it’s bad form to quote it.
Yet let’s take this now notorious example:
“Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.”
Now I wonder how many people on this thread even have a concept of how sacrilegious and outrageous this comment is to a pious Catholic? How many have ever been religious enough in their lives that they might appreciate the impact of such a statement? Marcotte’s current assertion, that she never intended to malign anyone’s religious beliefs, could hardly be more disingenuous. In fact, and obviously, the comment was precisely designed to be as insulting to the Catholic faith as her rather limited creative powers could manage. In fact, that quote is so very toxic, that even without any use of profane words, it simply can’t be quoted in mainstream publications; that would probably be a scandal in its own right. Isn’t that a pretty good sign of how badly it would be received? Calling the comment merely “silly”, as at least one blogger here has done, doesn’t exactly do it justice.
Now it is obvious to those who have taken up residence outside of Never Never Land that it would be a major blunder for a politician seeking the votes of a nation with a large Catholic/Christian community to hire, or even to keep on, someone who had made such a statement publicly.
It’s pretty clear, however, that in the narrow provinces of the academic and “intellectual” community, this realization has not really dawned, and probably never will.
Please, if you’re going to defend Marcotte, how about actually quoting the comment and explaining to us all why it won’t deeply offend a large block of voters, and why it doesn’t present a political problem for a politician who has chosen to hire this person?
Otherwise, maybe shut up, and leave politics to people who have some understanding?
And, speaking of double standards, what do you think would happen if a Republican Presidential candidate were to HIRE Rush Limbaugh, in any capacity, on their campaign? Do people here truly believe that they would not rise up in howling protest? Isn’t that the far more relevant “double standard” that is operating here? Given that the Danish cartoons were in a standard publication, and Marcotte’s comments were in a blog, and basically the problem is the political one those comments pose for her employer, it’s just strained to find any significant comparison between them. And really, who cares?
I am left wondering, though, how many here can manage the simple intellectual act of putting the shoe on the other foot. Pretty basic, I should imagine, to anyone who aspires to be a genuine thinker.
“I’m always astouned how fast US liberals denounce our basic freedoms under the PC banner.”
Can you name some, please?
OCSteve: “What penalty resulted? I didn’t say ‘no controversy’. He went ahead with it, even used Jefferson’s Koran and managed to spin it that Jefferson was pro-Islam. He’s a hero for not folding. What penalty attached?”
Non-stop attack from rightwingers; hate mail; denunciation across the nation on talk radio; infamy; a gazillion rightwing blog posts; a full Malkin; etc.
What was the penalty, in contrast, attached to Keith Goode?
KCinDC: “I also think you should consider how the reaction to mocking of the dominant culture might reasonably differ from the reaction to mocking of a minority group.”
Exactly.
“You are correct in that someone of note might say something dumb that is taken as anti-Semitic. ADL might call them on it. It gets some press, and someone of note issues a retraction and an apology.”
Or it might not be anti-Semitic, and they might never apologize at all.
OCSteve, please let me do you a favor: you’re going down a rhetorical road at the moment in which you wind up trying to prove that — actually, you’re pretty much already at this point — where you’re trying to prove that Muslims in America are more privileged, less threatened, and are in a superior position to, Christians and Jews.
That’s an argument you’ll never be able to make fly, because it’s insupportable. Don’t put yourself in that corner.
“For the most part, American papers were too intimidated to publish them.”
Unless you have testimony from editors or publishers to bring forward to demonstrate this, you are making a mind-reading claim.
Ten yard penalty.
franklyo: “Do most people here live in Never Never Land?”
And: “Otherwise, maybe shut up, and leave politics to people who have some understanding?”
You certainly have a sense of how to make friends and influence people.
frankly0: Now I wonder how many people on this thread even have a concept of how sacrilegious and outrageous this comment is to a pious Catholic?
If you define as “pious” someone who would find it “sacrilegious and outrageous”, this is true but tautologous. Several Catholics said they didn’t find it sacrilegious and outrageous. (And the most pious Catholic I know, a regular attender at Mass: she found it funny, though she agreed that she had at least two aunts who would find it outrageous, and her dad would find it outrageous that his daughter thought it was funny – even though he found it funny.)
Using Mel Gibson as an example that there’s no penalty for anti-Semitism is an absurd claim; there’s no doubt about that.
But Apocalypto bombed. It cost $40,000,000, and only grossed $50,222,634 (USA) (28 January 2007). It had a $15 million opening weekend, and the next weekend, it it dropped 46.6% to land in sixth place. Then it fell out of the top ten by the next weekend, and then wasn’t running anywhere by the following weekend. That’s a bomb, not a “blockbuster,” unless you meant “blockbuster failure.”
Frankly0: ” How many have ever been religious enough in their lives that they might appreciate the impact of such a statement?”
I don’t think anyone here would have to be, or to have been, religious in order to comment on this, but since you asked: I have. Religious enough to seriously consider becoming a nun (Episcopalians have nuns; I wasn’t RC). Religious enough that I actually did St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises before going to high school. (And there are those who wonder why I wasn’t popular.)
The quote you cite is the one that has always bothered me most, and that I had in mind when I wrote: “had I been Amanda, I would not have written those of her posts that ridiculed Christianity as a whole, not just those Christians who have made themselves legitimate targets of ridicule by e.g. mounting campaigns against Sponge-Bob Square Pants and Tinky-Winky.” It is also, frankly, a post that, if I were running a political campaign and read it in advance, would have made me not hire her. It is obviously a post I would want to be sure would not be written by someone while she was on my payroll, and not just because I wouldn’t want to offend Christian voters, but because it would offend me personally.
It is nonetheless not a post that, once I discovered it had been written by someone I was currently employing before she joined my campaign, would make me fire her.
What, other than your unfounded assumptions about the people in this discussion, do you find wrong with this view?
If you define as “pious” someone who would find it “sacrilegious and outrageous”, this is true but tautologous.
What is this, word games? As if “pious” has no independent meaning.
And I’m sure that you know some Catholics who don’t find it offensive. So what? How about the many Catholics who do, who, I’m sure, can be counted in the millions?
Of course there would be howls of protest, frankly0. But are you suggesting that the candidate would then fire Limbaugh, or even apologize? The vice president of the United States regularly appears on Limbaugh’s show and in fact appears to prefer it to most other possible venues. Has he suffered any penalty for that? Has the glimmer of a shadow of a vague idea of an apology ever found its way into Cheney’s conscious or unconscious mind?
I am pretty close to agreement with you about the offensiveness of Marcotte’s comments and the disingenuousness of her apology, though.
What is this, word games? As if “pious” has no independent meaning
Pious does have an independent meaning, yes. But what did you mean by it?
hilzoy,
You say that you don’t think the comment is enough to create grounds for firing Marcotte.
I can only say that if your “sacrilege” meter were well calibrated enough, and your political consequences calculus were sophisticated enough, you simply would think otherwise.
Except for the tantrum the blogosphere is now engaged in over Marcotte’s firing, what could possibly be a sufficient reason for Edwards NOT to fire her?
I simply predict that Edwards will indeed fire her in due time. It’s pretty obvious that this is going to play out VERY negatively for him. The upside of keeping her, even with the blogosphere mob muscling Edwards to retain her, is not going to balance the political downside of keeping her. Edwards can’t gratuitously insult the faith of millions of voters, no matter what — THAT is more important than being the darling of the rather idiot blogosphere.
Edwards can’t gratuitously insult the faith of millions of voters
Edwards didn’t. Get some perspective.
Jes: As for the cartoons – can you offer any actual examples of intimidation of US newspapers?
I’m not aware of any documented “direct threats”. But it is clear that intimidation played a part in at least some editors’ decision not to publish. Most of them spun it as sensitivity etc. At least one was brutally honest:
Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and . . . could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year-publishing history
Yet you don’t seem to be able to provide any actual examples of this penalization
It is not as prevalent here yet as in other parts of the world – I’ll grant you that. It does happen.
Thomas Klocek was summarily fired after students complained he had insulted their religion.
Michael Graham was fired for calling Islam “a terrorist organization.”
I’ll try to find more examples when I have more time.
Can we go back to what I actually said – that there would have been much more of an uproar in the hypothetical I gave? Do you disagree with that?
Edwards didn’t. Get some perspective.
OK, Edwards can’t SEEM TO insult the faith of millions of voters.
Satisfied with the trivial revision?
frankly i think it’s about damn time that the questioning the use of religious beliefs in politics has become acceptable. my hat’s off to Dawkins and Marcotte to their efforts in moving Overton’s Window.
if people want to pray to Odin, the Flying Spagetti Monster or various version of the Abrahamic god in the privacy of their bedrooms, fine by me.
but way too many religious people claim both (a) that their values should inculcate public debate; and (b) that the basis of these values is off-limits for purposes of discussion.
since this society apparently cannot have a rational discussion about the impact of religous values on matters of public concern, mockery appears to be the only other choice.
Satisfied with the trivial revision?
I don’t think it’s a particularily trivial distinction, and I’m finding your reaction, and the reaction of some Muslims to the Danish cartoons, to be different only in degree. It’s all from the same branch of the tree, it seems to me.
There are confirmed quotes of Bill Donohue’s circulating on the blogosphere which are anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and one where he clearly admits to trying to intimidate the judiciary.
As a Christian (I’m assuming) will you let this stand, or will actively try to destroy Bill Donohue’s career like you are Amanda Marcotte’s?
Frankly0, Edwards seems to some (including you) to have insulted the faith of millions of voters. That doesn’t mean that millions of voters will think he’s insulted their faith. Has any mainstream Christian organization (as opposed to a couple of antisemitic and/or anti-Muslim wackos) denounced Edwards?
To go waaay back to the point publious started with: i agree that if Democrats adopt a policy, as Republicans have, of never apologizing, that some day we Democrats may hhave to rein inn some out of control Democrtatic politicians. So OK, I think we can do tht. Look at Leiberman: the democrtaic rank annd file can get uppity with arrogant conceited jerks.
Right now the Republican politicians never apologize, noever explain, and are rarely asked to by a largely righhtwig media. Nobody inthe MMSm spends a week hysterically sqawking about Chheney’s appearences on hannity annd thhere is no leftwing equivalent of hanity, Coulter, beck AND Limbaugh. For cryinng out loud inn this controversy a well established righhtwing bigot was used by thhe MSM to attack marcotte over onne paragraph! And the otherr blogger was attacked overr exactly nothinng..In this atmosphere Democrats have only two choices: let the bullies control the terms of debate or refuse to let them control thhe terms of debate. it’s kind of like the Overton Winndon phenomenon: as long as Democrats keep apolpgizing and backing dowm annd Republicanns don’t, they get to define thhe debate as between weak us and strong them. Democrats have to move thhe framework over to strong Democrats and childdish temperr-tantrumming impotent republicans before we can get back to some kinnd of balance. We won’t get back to balance any other way.
Harper’s Magazine also published the Danish cartoons, IIRC.
RE Piss Christ: Wikipedia has this:
As for Andres Serrano, again according to Wikipedia, Serrano comes from a ‘strict Roman Catholic background’, placing his statement in an entirely different context than that of the Danish cartoonists – none of whom (AFAIK) are Muslim.
Mockery is usually the first choice. I tend to interpret that as something like I can’t be bothered to cobble together a decent argument, so I’m going to mock you, instead.
Compare and contrast that to, just to pick a random example, what hilzoy does. Yes, I know: we can’t all be hilzoy. But those of us without the least dollop of skills in this particular arena should really have the grace to opt out.
Not saying mockery doesn’t have its place, mind, but it tends to lose its edge when it’s the only tool in the toolbox.
“Except for the tantrum the blogosphere is now engaged in over Marcotte’s firing,”
She wasn’t fired, and the “tantrums” ended with that announcement yesterday.
“I can only say that if your ‘sacrilege’ meter were well calibrated enough, and your political consequences calculus were sophisticated enough, you simply would think otherwise.”
Excellent display of condescension; can you do “interested in mutually respectful conversation” now?
Or are you just trolling?
OCSteve:
Well, yeah, here’s a hint: that’s a lie and a bigoted slander. Imagine if he’d said that of Christianity or Judaism.
Shocking.
“if she’s changing the terms of debate by, say, rejecting the legitimacy of religion through her ridicule, that’s one thing. but i don’t get that vibe from her.”
Arghhh.
“Sebastian: Piss Christ was deliberately offensive art.
No, it wasn’t.”
Oh good heavens. Yes, like Serrano or Sister Wendy Beckett I can can come with a sufficiently artsy defense for absolutely anything. But a picture of a crucifix which you have submerged in urine and labelled “Piss Christ” is going to be offensive and you know it full well. And maybe you are trying to “subvert the paradigmatic understanding of Christ” or whatever, but the EXACT SAME THING can easily be said of the Danish cartoons. The goal of the cartoons was the political point of showing that Danish cartoonists were not intimidated by threats of Muslim violence over mere blasphemy (see also “Satanic Verses”). The cartoons ended up showing that the artists had good reason to be intimidated.
It is art trying to make a political point. It doesn’t have to be good art to be trying to make a political point through art (though in my opinion, at least some of the cartoons were indeed good art for the cartoon form).
RE Ofili, I will retract ‘deliberately’ for the artist only. I’m willing to extend to him the ignorance defense if he honestly didn’t believe that it would be offensive. I don’t extend that to those who exhibited his work in New York, I have a sneaking suspicion they knew full well that it wouldn’t be well received. (Note that I am NOT arguing that the museum should have been barred from showing the exhibit or that they should have failed to do so because of the outrage which they knew they risked. I’m supporting the free speech idea. Let them do what they want.) Which brings us back to the Danish cartooon again. Exhibiting or commissioning art which you have reason to believe will be offensive, is something that we allow. Marcotte’s example of making a political statement out of offensive words is not in distinction to the Danish cartoons. Both cases were making political statements using offense as the vehicle for making the statement.
OCSteve: I’m not commenting on the hypotheticals because I honestly don’t know, and suspect that a lot would turn on particular details which, since the events in question are imaginary, I don’t have.
I do think that the following developments would be wonderful: (a) everyone were to just admit that virtually any religion that has served as the foundation for a great civilization, and has won wide popular acceptance, can’t be all bad, and is in fact likely to have genuinely great parts to it, though (if it was the religion of a whole civilization), also darker parts to its history; (b) that making fun of things people cherish, not in a good-humored way but in an insulting way, is rude and we shouldn’t do it; (c) that in particular people should distinguish between a particular part of Christianity, exemplified by Mr. Donohue, that has gone off the rails, and Christianity as a whole; and likewise between Islamic terrorists and Islam as a whole (note: this is NOT meant to imply any similarity between a hateful but afaik non-violent guy and a terrorist; just that in both cases we need to distinguish the odious part from the quite different whole); (d) we should speak up for freedom of speech whenever it’s threatened, and recognize that doing so in no way involves liking what people are freely saying, and also that not every employment decision threatens free speech; (e) — well, I could go on, but work beckons.
Shorter me: my imagination isn’t working well enough to get me to imaginary worlds, but in the meantime I want to get clear on what to do.
OCSteve: Thomas Klocek was summarily fired after students complained he had insulted their religion.
According to wikipedia, Klocek was suspended on full pay, not summarily dismissed: he then sued the university for “for defamation of character and for breach of contract”: his claims for breach of contract were dismissed with prejudice on January 30, 2006, and his claims for defamation were allowed to proceed. Further, the Dean’s reasons (in the article you link to) for suspending Klocek were not that he’d insulted Islam, but that he’d insulted the students. (My father is a university lecturer, and I gather via him that one thing universities do not tolerate is a lecturer verbally abusing students.)
Michael Graham was fired for calling Islam “a terrorist organization.”
“WMAL president and general manager Chris Berry told the industry publication Radio & Records: ‘Some of Michael’s statements about Islam went over the line — and this isn’t the first time that he has been reprimanded for insensitive language and comments. I asked Michael for an on-air acknowledgement that some of his remarks were overly broad and inexplicably he refused.'” So, in fact, he was fired because his boss asked him to acknowledge that Islam is not a terrorist organization, and that the US is not at war with Islam, and he refused to do so – after a history (his boss says) of “insensitive language and comments”.
So neither one is exactly a clearcut case of someone suffering a penalty because they “insulted Islam”. In both cases, you have someone behaving in a way that their employers found unacceptable. The unacceptable behavior was not directly derogatory language about religious belief.
Can we go back to what I actually said – that there would have been much more of an uproar in the hypothetical I gave? Do you disagree with that?
Of course I disagree. I’ve given you a couple of examples where someone made a truly outrageous statement against Islam, and there was no uproar. Can you point to any penalty that Glenn Beck or Dennis Prager have suffered, or any uproar equivalent to the one over Amanda’s comment about their remarks? Do you yourself still associate that comment with Ann Coulter?
At the international level the cartoonists might feel they were liberal heroes faced against the vast menacing forces of Islam.
Because when they drew them for the Jyllands-Posten they were were very aware of the international readership of this Danish newspaper…
I found this article by a Danish muslim an interesting point of view, providing more background to the writer (was he known for anti-islamic views?) and the Danish community. Interesting to learn that that same writer now is working on a Danish translation of the Koran, even though he doesn’t speak Arabic.
If it is true that, as the article says, people are convicted for saying slanderous jews, does that mean that to stand up for the freedom of speech every newspaper in Europe and the US should now start referring to Jews as slanderous?
they don’t really think all Christians are mentally challenged morons for believing in the sky god who came down and impregnated a Middle Eastern peasant woman
But…. don’t muslims believe the same thing?
Clearly the Democrats should nominate an openly atheist lesbian (preferably transsexual) running on a platform of removing “God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and our money, ending tax exemptions for religious institutions, legalizing prostitution, and for good measure repealing drug laws. Anyone who suggests otherwise is just being a “sensible liberal” and must really be opposed to everything in that list.
you’re going down a rhetorical road at the moment in which you wind up trying to prove that — actually, you’re pretty much already at this point — where you’re trying to prove that Muslims in America are more privileged, less threatened, and are in a superior position to, Christians and Jews.
I’d actually say dragged down the road. But I’ll take your point.
For the third time – I did not introduce the topic of the cartoons; I did not use them as a point in my original comment. So I’m done with cartoons.
My entire argument is that given my hypothetical, there would have been a much different outcome, similar to what I laid out. I stand by that, but I can’t prove a hypothetical.
If you honestly believe that the outcome would have been no different then there is nothing I can say to change your mind.
If you honestly believe that publicly insulting Islam is no more dangerous than insulting Catholics then there is nothing I can say to change your mind.
I’m no expert in either Christianity or Islam, but I’m reasonably sure the answer is “no: Muslims do not believe that God fathered Jesus.”
DM, who do you think Muslims believe God impregnated?
The purpose of faux outrage attacks onDemocrats isto distract attention. I’d bee very surprised iff Dobbs spennds a week screaminng about Feith’s de facto admission that the inntelligennce upon whhichh this war was based was made up. Nor am i expectinng a righhtwing blogstorm attack against Feith over this.
OCSteve, people have given plenty of examples of people in the US publicly insulting Islam and suffering little penalty for doing so.
OCSteve: If you honestly believe that publicly insulting Islam is no more dangerous than insulting Catholics then there is nothing I can say to change your mind.
And if you honestly believe that insulting Catholics in the US carries less penalties than insulting Islam, then you have been staying well away from all public discourse over the past six years.
“…Feith’s de facto admission that the inntelligennce upon whhichh this war was based was made up.”
I posted about this story yesterday, but I’d have to say that that’s a severe enough distortion to be a falsehood.
And if you honestly believe that insulting Catholics in the US carries less penalties than insulting Islam
carries more penalties. D’oh. Preview didn’t help. 🙁 I need more coffee.
Well, she had a virgin miraculous birth and produced one of the major prophets according to Islam. So there have to be some divine roots there…
Having to look up the specifics led to googling which led me to this site but there are plenty.
hilzoy:
I note that your 12:28 list includes nothing about respect for the feelings or intelligence of people who are outside faith communities, including atheists such as Amanda.
Amanda’s most scathing remarks — including the Virgin Mary and Plan B comment that frankly0 finds so very, very shocking — have been directed at people who insist that respect for their feelings about unprovable events is more important than Amanda’s right to her own body.
I personally think it is impossible for any verbal insult, no matter how nasty-spirited, to be as offensive as the actual facts women face when we try to control our sexuality and reproduction.
“I’m no expert in either Christianity or Islam, but I’m reasonably sure the answer is “no: Muslims do not believe that God fathered Jesus.”
Actually, the Muslim belief about the conception of Jesus is pretty close to the Christian belief.
And it is interesting that there is more said about Mary in the Koran than in the Bible.
In regards to OCSteve’s comment, “If you honestly believe that publicly insulting Islam is no more dangerous than insulting Catholics then there is nothing I can say to change your mind.”
I think this is very dependent on where you are. In this country, it probably isn’t any more dangerous. In some areas, such as some South American countries, it might be more dangerous to insult Catholics.
I do not remember where I saw it yesterday, and I will try to find out, but I read a very interesting article about Muslims in the military, including those who have spent time in Iraq, having a lot of difficulty in this country with name calling, threats etc. That is a real tragedy.
OCSteve,
You keep saying that saying bad things about Islam would produce bad results- qualitatively worse than those produced by a similar statement about Christianity or Judiasm.
But so far, the examples that have been offered appear to be similar (except in one regard): someone says something bad about a religion, a bunch of other people exercise their free speech to condemn the original speaker. Sometimes, the original speaker repents, sometimes not.
The only exception is your claim that anyone who vilifies Islam in the US is in “actual physical danger”. Which seems like complete BS, since numerous well-known US religious and political speakers have vilified Islam in spades for years (try googling “islam and satanic”), and I can’t recall a single incident of serious physical harm coming because of this. Perhaps you can offer some couterexamples that demonstrate the physical danger posed to US citizens (“stabbed in the street”) who said bad things about Islam…
And it is interesting that there is more said about Mary in the Koran than in the Bible.
Well, I suppose I could write more about Mary here than was written about her in the Bible, but there’s that little problem of accuracy, which the Qur’an also suffers from, having been written at a remove of several centuries.
Doctor Science, Amanda’s remarks may have been directed at those people, but they hit a much broader swath of people. If someone goes into an antisemitic rant, it might be more understandable if there are Jews who have wronged them in some way, especially if their religion had something to do with it, but that doesn’t make the comments any less offensive.
Yes, the Bible was only written a few centuries after the fact, therefore the Bible wins.
“Well, I suppose I could write more about Mary here than was written about her in the Bible, but there’s that little problem of accuracy, which the Qur’an also suffers from, having been written at a remove of several centuries.”
Which is probably why there is more written about her. Early Christianity focused more on Christ, with limited interest in Mary, which developed over time. By the time Mohammed came around, she was already a major player in Christianity and may have needed to be taken into account.
this site has more info on Jesus’ role in the Islam.
Being a secular humanist myself I don’t remember all the biblical stories and the differences between all the monotheistic (I include Christians in monotheistic) religions, though I am sometimes suprised at the similarities they have. But I come from a culture that has moslims in the house representing the Christian Democrats 😉
I do rememember being pleasantly suprised when I discovered that Islam says Adam and Eve both decided to take the apple and thus were both responsible. Our bible-belt is rather strict about blaming women starting with the responsibility for getting chucked out of paradise.
Spartikus, the 4 gospels were written some 30-60 years after the fact, not a couple centuries. Most of the letters of Paul were written 20-30 years after the fact. (Some attributed to Paul were probably written much later.)
That does not, however, assure complete accuracy.
“…Feith’s de facto admission that the inntelligennce upon whhichh this war was based was made up.”
I posted about this story yesterday, but I’d have to say that that’s a severe enough distortion to be a falsehood.
Gary, I presume you’re basing this on the fact that Feith based his work on a CIA conclusion that there was an “evolving” association between Iraq and AQ, and Feith exaggerated the association, but did not make it up.
But I think that even the “evolving” association theory has no credibility any more. And so it seems logical to believe* that the CIA’s conclusion is already a compromise between reality and what the administration wanted to hear. (And Feith was an enthusiastic member of the team that wanted to hear it.) And in that case, I tend to agree with lily — the whole thing was made up.
* I have no direct evidence for this. An alternative explanation is that they honestly believed there was an association, had evidence that seemed to point that way, but they were just wrong. That, I guess, is the official explanation. But it strains my credulity to the breaking point.
“I do not remember where I saw it yesterday, and I will try to find out, but I read a very interesting article about Muslims in the military, including those who have spent time in Iraq, having a lot of difficulty in this country with name calling, threats etc.”
Possibly when I posted it here.
If you honestly believe that publicly insulting Islam is no more dangerous than insulting Catholics then there is nothing I can say to change your mind.
Is this an inelegant way of admitting that there are no real facts to back your position? This sounds like you’re recasting it as a difference of opinion where no facts can reasonably intrude.
The fact is that there are certainly hundreds of cases of people in the US insulting Islam in the most direct and ugly ways possible without any professional or personal repercussions, let alone suffering any physical attacks.
“I presume you’re basing this on the fact that” Feith didn’t make such an admission.
Really, what he actually said was mockable enough, I think, that we don’t have to go all Jesurgislac on his arse, and rewrite it to what we claim he really meant.
Spartikus, the 4 gospels were written some 30-60 years after the fact
So they say, but earliest surviving copies date from the 4th century. Is what is in the Bible today actually what was originally written? I dunno. The Qu’ran has that going for it, at least.
And, of course, none of the disciples were around to witness events prior to Jesus’s birth.
So they say, but earliest surviving copies date from the 4th century.
Therefore, fiction, or fictionalized history written centuries later?
And, of course, none of the disciples were around to witness events prior to Jesus’s birth.
Nor was anyone else who bothered to set some sort of writing utensil to media, including Muhammed.
Not sure what your point is, here. Could it possibly be that the gospels are all forgeries? Or that the Qur’an is, in fact, divine truth as related to the prophet, whilst the Bible is a pack of lies? What?
“Is what is in the Bible today actually what was originally written?”
Define “originally written.” And “in the Bible today.” (Are we talking a Bible in ancient Aramaic and Hebrew, a Torah, or what?)
I finally saw the Mohammed episode of South Park the other night, and what’s interesting about it is that it was deliberately developed to be a controlled experiment about what is allowed and what isn’t.
Not Allowed: Depiction of Mohammed giving a man a hat.
Allowed: Jesus taking a crap on George Bush on the American flag.*
I’m sorry, people who are arguing that Islam is not being treated any differently in critical or satiric discourse are just flat out wrong. Spending years in predominantly secular circles, where Christianity is freely and routinely criticized in the harshest possible terms, similar conversations about Islam are considered completely inappropriate.
*To be perfectly fair, the other controversal episode with the Virgin Mary was broadcast, pulled, then eventually rebroadcast.
Could it possibly be that the gospels are all forgeries?
The question was about accuracy, and I think it’s pretty silly to hold one book up over the other in that regards when both were written significantly after the fact about events not witnessed by the authors.
Define “originally written.” And “in the Bible today.”
There had to have been that first copy, right? Given the early Church’s penchant for editing, and the inherent problems of accuracy of simply translating a document from one language to another, I don’t see how anyone today can feel comfortable they are reading text that conveys what the original authors intended.
“Is this an inelegant way of admitting that there are no real facts to back your position? This sounds like you’re recasting it as a difference of opinion where no facts can reasonably intrude.
The fact is that there are certainly hundreds of cases of people in the US insulting Islam in the most direct and ugly ways possible without any professional or personal repercussions, let alone suffering any physical attacks.”
This isn’t a good use of statistical thinking. There are certainly thousands of cases of people all over the world insulting either Christianity or Islam with no ill-effect. That doesn’t say word one about what your chances of suffering bodily injury for your insult are and whether or not they are higher when insulting one compared to the other.
If a US magazine were to run a contest to make insulting art about Jesus, there would certainly be outcry (there were indeed protests surrounding Serrano’s exhibits) but there wouldn’t be riots in multiple locations across the world over it (the protests surrounding Serrano’s exhibits didn’t end in burning buildings or threats of kidnapping).
The point I’m attempting to make is that yes both Marcotte’s writing and the Danish cartoons married political message with deliberate insult–and that is acceptable free speech. Can free speech have ideological consequences? Are we allowed to think less of the speakers based on what they say? Of course. Should we force association with the speakers in order to facilitate the speech (force me to write on a blog with Marcotte or force me to subscribe to the magazine)? No. Would it be wise for a presidential candidate to hire the editor of Jyllands-Posten to oversee any part of a campaign? Probably not.
In short, you can defend Marcotte’s speech as politically using outrageous, offensive and blasphemous comments for a point, but that is not a distinction between her speech and the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. That is precisely how they are the same.
And if you hire someone who thinks that using outrageous, offensive and blasphemous comments for a political point is the way to go about things, the offended people will associate you if those things. There is a difference between defending the right to speech and actively associating with those who say offensive things. (See for example why I don’t post on RedState even though I still have the access codes.)
“There had to have been that first copy, right?”
No. The New Testament was created out of an array of materials, by a variety of people, and edited and reedited, and so on; there’s a huge field of studies about both this and the origins of the Torah. There is no “original copy.”
These being the words of Publius:
Who is demanding that Bush not associate himself with Hannity?
Then we had this from Limagolf:
This, sir or madam, is just as wrong as the rest of the comment that preceded it – but it is particularly offensive in its lack of regard for anything except knocking down the straw liberals that you’ve erected in your head in order to avoid having to do any actual thinking about what those with whom you disagree might actually think or feel. How dare you?
I wish I could think of anything else to say in response to that which didn’t involve multiple grievous violations of the posting rules.
And then Frankly0 asked this:
Limbaugh’s supporters might be forced to admit that he was acting as a propagandist for the GOP at last? You are hereby cordially invited to take your own advice regarding thinking of matters political.
forgery is an odd word choice. what is being fraudulently copied?
the better question is simply to ask what evidence exists which dates the various original documents which we now call the Bible (King James version, of course).
Well, it’s pretty easily verifiable that there are source documents dating back to the third century AD. Puts at least parts of the New Testament rather chronologically closer to the time Mary was alive, if nothing else.
Prodigal: I had missed Limagolf’s comment about selling our own grandmother, which is a plain violation of the posting rules.
As for OCSteve’s hypothetical, we now have a test case:
I don’t see how not to read the quote as advocating killing European Muslims either. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, happens to Steyn as a result. I suspect not much.
Is this an inelegant way of admitting that there are no real facts to back your position? This sounds like you’re recasting it as a difference of opinion where no facts can reasonably intrude.
What facts am I to use to prove a hypothetical? Hypothetical facts?
I provided an example of a newspaper explicitly stating they refused to publish out of fear for their staff’s safety.
I provided a couple of examples of people being fired and they were just kind of blown off. Part of the students’ complaint against the professor was that “he had insulted them and their religion” (the article I linked says “summarily fired”, others say “summarily suspended”, but he has lost his insurance so suspended at this point doesn’t seem likely). As well as getting him fired/suspended: “The Muslim students also sent out an email to a large population at DePaul declaring a fatwa on Klocek for insulting Islam.” It seems pretty clear that their issue was his remarks on Islam. I pointed out Graham, you indicate the same thing would have happened if he said it about Christianity or Judaism. I disagree. He was fired for his remarks about Islam. But Rosie can equate ‘radical Christians’ with the 9/11 terrorists and she’s still on the tube.
I think there is room to argue about how prevalent this type of thing is, but you just pretty much blow off my points as “no real facts”. So why should I bother.
I’ll leave you with a thought experiment:
Take a large sign, put Amanda’s worst comment on one side of it and my hypothetical comment on the other. Take the sign and go hang out in front of a Catholic church on Sunday morning. Then take it and hang out at a Mosque on Friday afternoon. Are you equally comfortable both places?
There is no “original copy.”
I didn’t say or intend to imply there was a single author of the “New Testament”.
And yes I think there was a “first draft” for all the Gospels. If they were revised and edited on multiple occasions by mulitple parties after that, well, that was my point, wasn’t it?
I didn’t say or intend to imply there was a single author of the “New Testament”.
That should include “and single first copy of the NT”. I was talking about the individual books of the Bible.
you indicate the same thing would have happened if he said it about Christianity or Judaism
That was Gary – sorry.
I do. You can read the paragraph as stating his belief in the inevitability of ethnic violence arising when demographics radically change in democracies, rather than advocacy of such actions.
Christopher Hitchens has many outlandish and over-the-top ideological vices, but I don’t think advocacy of ethnic violence is one of them.
As for OCSteve’s hypothetical, we now have a test case
Not exactly – my hypothetical involves a presidential candidate, and I think that the dynamics of a presidential race are an important component.
Steyn’s been making outrageous claims for years – so I’ll agree with your “not much”.
Off-topic: Anna Nicole Smith is still dead.
“I provided an example of a newspaper explicitly stating they refused to publish out of fear for their staff’s safety.”
Actually, you provided a link to someone (Jeff Jacoby) claiming they did; if you have a link to the full, unedited, actual editorial, please do post it.
“I provided a couple of examples of people being fired and they were just kind of blown off.”
“Rebutted” is a more accurate description; feel free to argue with the points people made in response, if you wish to convince folks that these points were invalid.
I agree with Jonas Cord Jr.’s reading*, i.e., the violance that results from an inevitable demographic change is itself inevitable, and that’s what’s happening in Europe right.
“agree” meaning agree that you can read it as other than advocating ethinc violence.
“But Rosie can equate ‘radical Christians’ with the 9/11 terrorists and she’s still on the tube.”
Steve, our government has done things to actual Muslims that are far, far, far worse than anything on South Park or what Rosie O’Donnell or Amanda Marcotte has done and remained in power, and in fact there’s not been much public outcry about it, in part because the people they did it to were Muslims and we were collectively ready to assume that they were terrorists.
I also don’t see successful pundits saying that internment camps for Muslims may be necessary (yes, I know Malkin hedges, but come on.) Or Jewish Congressman get asked on CNN whether voters can trust them to be loyal Americans based on their religion.
Mohammed gets treated a bit more carefully than Jesus or Moses or Mary these days in the media, but actual Muslim human beings are treated much less carefully than actual Christian human beings. And not just in the media.
OCSteve: The Muslim students also sent out an email to a large population at DePaul declaring a fatwa on Klocek for insulting Islam
Unless one of the students was a mufti – which seems unlikely – they could not possibly have “declared a fatwa” on Klocek. Were these students Sunni or Shi’ite Muslims? Who was named as the mufti who made the fatwa? What was the fatwa? This is formal legal judgement by an Islamic scholar on a university professor would undoubtedly have some record outside an e-mail sent by students.
It seems pretty clear that their issue was his remarks on Islam.
For the students, yes.
But the Dean says the issue was his abusive language to the students about their religion. Are you saying that your experience of American colleges is that lecturers never get into any difficulty if they swear at or abuse students about the students’ religion? That, for example, a member of the Orange Lodge would be able to call Catholic students “papists” and taunt them about the child molestation scandals, perhaps implying that they as Catholics are implicated in child molestation, and expect to keep his job?
Just as the manager who fired Graham said that Graham had been in trouble before for “insensitive remarks”. Has Rosie O’Donnell ever asserted that the US is at war with Catholicism, or that Catholicism is a terrorist organization?
But Rosie can equate ‘radical Christians’ with the 9/11 terrorists and she’s still on the tube.
Actually, I believe what Rosie O’Donnell said was: “Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country where we have separation of church and state.” Unless you’re thinking of some other comment where she said that “radical Christians” (like those who bomb clinics and kill doctors in pursuit of their religious goals) are no better than “radical Muslims” (who also bomb and kill in pursuit of their religious goals). You can disagree with that: you can argue that Christian terrorists are not the same as Muslim terrorists: but it is not nearly as offensive – or as untrue – as saying that Islam is a terrorist organization, or that the US is at war with Islam.
I can’t agree with an alternative reading. First of all the use of the word “enemy” is rather obvious. And I don’t know how to see the phrase “cull ’em” as anything other than a call to violence against the “enemy.”
To me, it is rather obvious who the enemy is in this reading.
OCSteve: Take a large sign, put Amanda’s worst comment on one side of it and my hypothetical comment on the other. Take the sign and go hang out in front of a Catholic church on Sunday morning. Then take it and hang out at a Mosque on Friday afternoon. Are you equally comfortable both places?
If you make that “equally uncomfortable”, yes. Deliberately setting out to be pointlessly offensive to people on their way into worship would make me feel very uncomfortable. I would feel less physically unsafe (and therefore probably more uncomfortable) doing it by near a mosque, since where I live, Muslims are a minority group, frequently subject to violent attacks (two of the mosques in my city have been firebombed within the past five years) and I would expect the Muslims entering the mosque to protest by calling the police or by asking me to leave. Whereas the Catholics are not a minority, and while they might just call the police, they might equally decide to beat me up.
“Off-topic: Anna Nicole Smith is still dead.”
So is Generalissimo Franco. Guess which death likely has a larger effect on the world now (my vote is for the one dead more than a day).
It’s not clear to me that we can really fairly compare the reception of anti-Christian and anti-Muslim sentiments unless we’re willing to equalize circumstances some. Maybe if we were also at war with randomly selected Christian nations, referred from time to time to our war as a jihad, had high-ranking officials and prominent voices in the public sphere talking about the fundamental vices of Christianity and the desirability of wiping it all out, abducted and tortured random bystanders who happened to “look Christian”, subjected random Christians to being yanked off planes and interrogated because they were carrying copies of the Book of Common Prayer, and studiously avoided all serious discussion of the body count racked up in our war against this week’s designated enemy Christian nations, then we might have a more useful context.
All of which is to say that I agree with those who say that some – maybe a lot – of the Muslim violence against (from my point of view) stupid and banal cartoons is accumulated rage and frustration grabbing the nearest convenient outlet. That happens. In American history, the burning of the Gaspee and the Stamp Act riots come immediately to mind. And the Stonewall rioting, come to that – it wasn’t that the police there were doing anything they hadn’t done countless times before, it was just one damn thing too much. This is not to excuse the violence, and indeed I think its instigators ought to be up on damn serious charges, most particularly the ones using fraudulent misrepresentations alongside the real things in their rabble-rousing exhibits. I would like to think that if I were in the rioters’ position, I’d be among the vast Muslim majority that isn’t rioting. But it does seem to me counterproductive to try talking about this as if Muslims of the world don’t have anything else on their minds, like the world’s superpower on a berserk rampage against them.
as a datapoint for OCSteve’s hypothetical, this guy protests outside the vatican embassy pretty much every weekend (and has since 1998), he says he’s been subject to “insults, death threats, rude gestures, spitting, even egging and more”.
DTM: Guess which death likely has a larger effect on the world now (my vote is for the one dead more than a day).
One couldn’t tell from the media coverage, unfortunately.
I’m sorry, people who are arguing that Islam is not being treated any differently in critical or satiric discourse are just flat out wrong. Spending years in predominantly secular circles, where Christianity is freely and routinely criticized in the harshest possible terms, similar conversations about Islam are considered completely inappropriate.
So, if someone in your circles said that Christianity was a terrorist organization run by Satan, the response would be “duh”, but if a similar thing were said about Islam, the response would be “die, Infidel!”?
If so, I humbly suggest that you try moving in different circles.
And, regardless of whether or not you take that suggestion, I add that you ought not generalize from your particular circles to all of Western society, or even just the US.
Part of the students’ complaint against the professor was that “he had insulted them and their religion”
Ten will get you twenty that right now, at this very moment, some educator (professor, TA, high school teacher, whatever) is getting admonished for “insulting [students’] religion” or, more generally, insulting their belief systems. Check out Horowitz’ site some time, although I wouldn’t recommend sticking around for too long.
John Miller,
That sentence is describing what he thought the Serbs had “figured out.” Is there a reason why I should figure Hitchens endorses this that’s not mind-reading?
If I say, “What the Nazis figured out – as others have previously and will in the future – that killing Jews is politically popular” – do you figure me a Fascist? Most will take me to be a pessimist, I think.
Carleton Wu,
You’re being silly. If they have a bad sense of humor, the response might be a chuckle at the Christianity comment. At worst the response would be “you can’t be serious,” followed by a discussion. With Islam, the reaction would be at least a wince, if not a lecture about how inappropriate the comment was.
I’m not generalizing to all of Western society. I’m just saying in my experience, secular people are being completely unprincipled about this. I enjoy unfettered conversation about religion, and Islam is mostly out of bounds.
Jonas Cord: If they have a bad sense of humor, the response might be a chuckle at the Christianity comment. At worst the response would be “you can’t be serious,” followed by a discussion. With Islam, the reaction would be at least a wince, if not a lecture about how inappropriate the comment was.
Prior to WWII, in English fiction (you can check this for yourself in, for example, Dorothy L. Sayers) perfectly nice, decent writers saw no harm in a bit of anti-Semitic banter about how awful the Jews are or throwing a standard anti-Semitic stereotype of a Jew into a novel. Post WWII, with the discovery of the worst extremes of anti-Semitism, any anti-Semitism looked ugly and dangerous.
While individual Christian sects may have been persecuted or discriminated against (and anti-Catholicism was certainly rife in some parts) Christians have never been subject to discrimination or persecution as Christians in the US. Therefore, if you make a comment that Christianity is a terrorist organization run by Satan, it is unlikely to be taken as a signal that you believe that the US should invade all Christian countries, kill their leaders, and convert the population to worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whatever your particular brand of faith is.
Muslims in the US today have been accused of being traitors and terrorists by public figures: have been told that use of the Qu’ran to take oath undermines American civilisation: have been rounded up en masse and put in prison: have been deported: have been beaten up by bigots. Muslim staff on British Airways planes report that on arrival in the US they are quite literally persecuted by the local law enforcement – separated from the rest of the crew on arrival, interrogated for hours about their non-existant “connections” – to the extent that many are now refusing to fly transAtlantic flights, even though this means a pay cut. Add to this what Bush was calling a “crusade” on Islamic countries, and the presence of prison camps overseas where hundreds of Muslims have been kidnapped and imprisoned for years, even though many of them are known to be innocent. Under those circumstances, just as decent people felt uncomfortable about anti-Semitism after WWII, so may decent people feel uncomfortable about Islamophobia now.
“I enjoy unfettered conversation about religion, and Islam is mostly out of bounds.”
What, someone will stop you from discussing Islam here?
I should have mentioned, of course, that the religion in question would be Christianity.
Note about my quote: the excerpt with ‘cull them’ is from Steyn’s book as quoted by Hitchens; it’s not by Hitchens.
Not really, I mean offline. But I’m guessing if I were to unapologetically attack an Islamic theology, there would be quite a storm.
Jesurgislac,
A similar comment about Islam might be taken by some (I’m guessing you) as a signal that they believe the US should invade all Islamic countries, kill their leaders, etc. There is no legitimate reason to think that in the context of my social life however, never mind the population at large.
This is the sort of ridiculous error I make when I post from work…
I hope someone asks Steyn if that’s what he meant.
Jonas: There is no legitimate reason to think that in the context of my social life however, never mind the population at large.
Yet the US has actually invaded two Islamic countries within the past five years, and is making noises about invading a third.
But I’m guessing if I were to unapologetically attack an Islamic theology, there would be quite a storm.
Well, certainly if you attacked in an ignorant way or a way that made clear you were ignorant of the subject you were arguing about. But, if you feel that it’s fundamentally wrong to pray five times a day, or to fast during Ramadan, or to give charity, or to go on Hajj to Mecca, or to believe that there is only one God and that Muhammad was His last prophet, well, no apology necessary if you plan to attack any one or all of them, if you’ve got something interesting to say about why you do. Or was it some difference between Sunni and Shi’ia Islam that you wanted to attack, and if so, which?
OK – I give guys. My hypothetical would have come out exactly the same way as this situation did. My hypothetical offender would have gotten off with a pseudo apology and remained with the campaign. There is no more risk in insulting Islam than Christianity. Christians are just as intolerant of people insulting their religion.
I’m paranoid and delusional to look at what seems to be trends around the world and think it might be taking root here as well. There are no adherents of Islam trying to position themselves as a protected class. It’s all in my head.
I’ll just keep repeating that to myself and maybe it will sink in. Or maybe I’ll just go have a beer or six.
Jesurgislac,
If you think this is because of Islamophobia, well, I’ve got nothing to say. Islamophobia in some quarters certainly made it easier to happen, but it’s not the underlying cause by any means.
Of course I don’t, because you can’t possibly make a list of the least controversial aspects possible of the Islamic faith and expect that this would be what I or anyone else would be contesting.
OCSteve, do you think there’s anything to my claim that it’s easier to get away with insulting Christian theology but easier to get away with insulting Muslim people?
Jonas: Of course I don’t, because you can’t possibly make a list of the least controversial aspects possible of the Islamic faith and expect that this would be what I or anyone else would be contesting
Actually, those are the five pillars of Islam – those would be the most controversial if you intended to attack Islamic theology. Anything else, you would most likely find at least some Muslims in agreement.
OCSteve: I’m paranoid and delusional to look at what seems to be trends around the world and think it might be taking root here as well. There are no adherents of Islam trying to position themselves as a protected class. It’s all in my head.
And the odd thing is, I think you intend to be sarcastic. But if you can see any signs of adherants of Islam positioning themselves as a “protected class” in the US, you really need to show examples of this happening. Have a glass of wine.
Jesurgislac,
The most controversial to Muslims, sure. They are the least controversal aspects of Islam to secular and tolerant Westerners, which is what I meant.
You’re absolutely correct! Which is what, to my mind, is so incomprehensible about the silence about such issues in secular circles. That’s all I’m saying.
Which is what, to my mind, is so incomprehensible about the silence about such issues in secular circles. That’s all I’m saying.
Possibly, you come across as hostile and bigoted against Muslims when you raise issues of Islamic theology. Since I move in secular Western circles, and have certainly argued aspects of Islam and Muslim culture without getting hostility, hostile silence, or a storm.
You’re being silly. If they have a bad sense of humor, the response might be a chuckle at the Christianity comment. At worst the response would be “you can’t be serious,” followed by a discussion. With Islam, the reaction would be at least a wince, if not a lecture about how inappropriate the comment was.
Well, I admit that the comparison is silly, but only bc the former statement(as you helpfully point out) is so far beyond the pale that your friends would have no choice but to construe it as humor. The latter statement is close enough to the mainstream that they might take you seriously- or at least recognize that someone else who didn’t know you well might take you seriously.
If “we should deport all of the Muslims” is horrifying to your friends and “we should deport all of the Christians” is funny because of its distance from the cultural mainstream and fundamental implausibility, that indicates that the balance is tilted *against* Islam, not towards it. Just as “Im gonna kill you” is nonthreatening to a close friend in joking conversation, but may be a serious threat to someone you genuinely hate.
Katherine: do you think there’s anything to my claim that it’s easier to get away with insulting Christian theology but easier to get away with insulting Muslim people?
Sadly, I think you are most likely correct in this.
Jes: Friday evening cries out for beer. And with Katherine’s observation it may now be up to 7.
OCSteve: I haven’t really chimed in on this one. Part of the reason is just that we’re talking about hypotheticals, which we can all imagine as we see fit, and we’re basing what we say on a zillion different episodes, each of which has a zillion different intriguing details all its own, which undoubtedly struck us differently. I mean: any degree, however slight, of a tendency to remark on and remember episodes that confirm one”s own beliefs in some way would be bound to produce a disagreement rather like this one.
Plus, I think a lot turns on questions of relative power. I sometimes get the sense that to some parts of the right (I’m not thinking of you now), the left seems very powerful. (What with controlling the media, Hollywood, the entirety of the federal bureaucracy, and so on.) To us, the idea that we control the media makes us laugh, and meanwhile we note that until recently we were in the minority of all branches of government, while Republicans like Bush and his enablers in Congress were tearing up the Constitution etc. So possibly what different people think follows from e.g. an episode in which “the left” gets all up in arms about something varies: if you think the left is powerful, this might seem like a big threat; if not, you’d think: well, the opprobrium of the left, like the condemnation of the national association of professional ukelelists, doesn’t seem likely to scare anyone. (And we laugh a hollow laugh.)
Which is all to say: I don’t think this argument can really be resolved clearly, by adducing evidence. Different people get mad at different things, in different ways, and they have different amounts of power to back up their anger.
Which just leaves me thinking: I want to stick up for everyone who deserves it, and stand in the way of people who think that attacks alone will let them get their way. Which attacks are worst — ?? Honestly, I don’t know.
(also “easier to get away with attacking Christian theology” is actually only true in some contexts…plenty of places in this country where I’d wager that’s not true.)
Hrm. I would think it relevant that in the wake of 9/11, Muslims were actually the target of hate crimes, and they continue to bear heightened surveillance (rightly or wrongly). That reinforces their “otherness” and naturally leads to demands for protection (and I thought religion actually IS a protected class).
“OCSteve: I haven’t really chimed in on this one. Part of the reason is just that we’re talking about hypotheticals, which we can all imagine as we see fit, and we’re basing what we say on a zillion different episodes, each of which has a zillion different intriguing details all its own, which undoubtedly struck us differently. I mean: any degree, however slight, of a tendency to remark on and remember episodes that confirm one”s own beliefs in some way would be bound to produce a disagreement rather like this one.”
I don’t understand why we have to be hypothetical. To my knowledge, best selling authors attack Christianity in far worse than anything found in the “Satanic Verses”, yet Salman Rushdie is the one who is under the death fatwa.
In fact, the Da Vinci Code, got made into a major motion picture without any Vatican death pronouncements. My fundamentalist Christian parents went to see it.
I’m paranoid and delusional to look at what seems to be trends around the world and think it might be taking root here as well.
There, Id just say unrealistic. We are not Saudi Arabia, nor are we France. Thinking that Muslims in America will behave more or less like Muslims in Iraq or the Netherlands or anywhere else is *exactly* the same error that makes you think that holding up a sign outside an American mosque is more dangerous than holding one up outside of a Catholic church. (btw, for your health, do not try your experiment in working-class Boston. You’ll likely be safe in front of the mosque, but I wouldn’t want to see how you fare in front of the church).
You would recognize this error if it were applied to groups of people you knew better. For example, when Islamic leaders compare US interventions in the ME to the Crusades it sounds bizarre to us. Or if someone told you never to reveal the fact that you’d had an abortion to a Christian bc they’d tear you limb from limb, you’d see that as silly exaggeration, or possibly offensively prejudicial.
I don’t understand why we have to be hypothetical. To my knowledge, best selling authors attack Christianity in far worse than anything found in the “Satanic Verses”, yet Salman Rushdie is the one who is under the death fatwa.
We’re not comparing the religious tolerance found in Saudi Arabia/Iran/Afghanistan to the tolerance found in the US. Or, if we are, I don’t know why we are since they’re obviously dramatically different.
Comparing the things said in America about Islam (and the reaction/consequences) to the things said in America about Christianity (and the reactions/consequences) is the matter at hand, IMO.
[And, to my knowledge, best-selling authors in the US say much worse things about Islam than anything found in the Satanic Verses, and not only are they unfatwa-ed, they’re still on the bestsellers list].
and not only are they unfatwa-ed
Heh, may we all remain unfatwa-ed.
Hilzoy: Part of the reason is just that we’re talking about hypotheticals
Part of the reason is you wanted to torment me today so you stuck me on the front page. 🙂 (kidding, feel free, I can take it.)
To us, the idea that we control the media makes us laugh
It makes us cry 🙁
The rest of your comment is spot on. (I think that’s British – I must have got there from “bloody”, which flowed naturally from vagina…)
OT: I don’t know whether those of you who don’t read FDL know that Donita Sparks, originally of L7, posts there about music. Today she has put up one of the alltime great videos, in the sense of “great” that means unbelievably kitschy, so much so that it achieves a form of campy immortality. It’s here. Don’t stop after a few verses, thinking the rest will be more of the same. You’ll miss Thor blowing up a hot water bottle until it explodes.
Thinking that Muslims in America will behave more or less like Muslims in Iraq or the Netherlands or anywhere else is *exactly* the same error that makes you think that holding up a sign outside an American mosque is more dangerous than holding one up outside of a Catholic church.
Apart from the occasional nut our muslims are not behaving violent. We had a few small demonstrations after the cartoons, and a few flag burnings, no more. Yeay, Theo van Gogh got killed by a nutter, but he is now one of the 32 people in the Netherlands that are sentenced to life without parole.
Pim Fortuyn was a murder with much more impact yet his killer only got 20 years and nobody speaks about the danger of animal rights activists taking over. Yet they even have seats in parlement now, with their own political party…
Oh that last part was bad. I actually did not intend it to come out that way – it was just a reference to the other thread.
🙂
that should be violently I think, and I don’t know where that second y in yeah came from.
OCSteve: (I think that’s British – I must have got there from “bloody”, which flowed naturally from vagina…)
I can’t decide if this is a poor or clever choice of words. But then, I got a chuckle out of “white, hot, sticky Holy Spirit”.
Looks like I cross-posted with OCSteve.
OCSteve: when the, I dunno, Giuliani campaign decides to hire you as a blogger, I am so going to send that comment out to every media outlet I can think of.
And since we control them all…
lol
In fact, the Da Vinci Code, got made into a major motion picture without any Vatican death pronouncements. My fundamentalist Christian parents went to see it.
My impression is that the Da Vinci code plugs into a lot of impressions that fundamentalists Christians have about Catholicism, unless you are saying that your parents are fundamentalist Catholics. In fact, the most optimistic thing I could think of is that most Catholics and most Americans are completely oblivious to the historical level of anti-Catholic sentiment that gripped this country 150 or so years ago, to the point that when the Vatican sent marble blocks for the Washington Monument, they were taken and thrown into the Potomac because it was thought that they would send a secret signal to all of these hidden Catholics to force god fearing Protestants to acknowledge the Pope as the world’s spiritual leader.
Paranoia: It’s an American tradition
During Kerry’s campaign, I read that he was the first practicing Catholic to be running for President since Kennedy in 1960, and that in 1960, there had been serious arguments about whether the US should have a Catholic for President since he would obviously owe first allegience to the Pope. (Which didn’t seem to cross anyone’s minds in 2004, even though the Pope then was publicly and firmly anti- the Iraq war and the death penalty.) Instead, lots of Republicans were arguing that the Catholic thing to do was vote for Bush, because Kerry was pro-choice…
Off topic Update: ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Foxnews (.com) all confirm: Anna Nicole Smith still dead.
Sometimes I really do think we deserve not to survive as nation.
I provided an example of a newspaper explicitly stating they refused to publish out of fear for their staff’s safety.
Just to be clear, a feeling of fear is not a solid indication that anyone is actually in danger. People tend to be pretty crappy at risk assessment — ask anyone you know whether they’re more afraid of being eaten by a shark or being hit by lightning. You stuff the news with constant self-reinforcing stories about how Muslims will riot at the drop of a hat, and, well . . .
In fact, the Da Vinci Code, got made into a major motion picture without any Vatican death pronouncements.
Yes, but . . .
“I thought the following: (1) the newspaper was just being pointlessly rude”
There is no such thing as pointless rudeness. Rudeness is like mother’s milk to the publishing world. Polite newspapers are good for nothing but keeping the homeless warm. They all are, or soon will be, out of business.
The fact that you don’t understand this explains why you are sitting smugly at home rather than lying dead in the street, a martyr for freedom of the press.
Just to muddy the waters, we might consider the number of people attacked verbally and physically for being atheist, pagan, or something else by people claiming to do so in the name Christ versus Christians subject to assault by non-Christians. The last I checked, attacks from professed Christians on others outnumber the others a lot.
As far as the mass media go, Steve, I wonder if it might be helpful to distinguish liberalism in the sense of any kind of moderately coherent worldview – the sort you might get from Hilzoy, or Katherine, or Amanda Marcotte, to take three people who do all have actual worldviews – from the sort of sleazy pursuit of envisioned lowest common denominators that seems the stock in trade of Hollywood most of the time. Did you ever see Robert Altman’s movie The Player? If not, I recommend it; friends in film tell me it’s a devastatingly accurate generalization. And the thing is, it’s not a liberal culture. It’s barely a culture at all. It’s a bunch of dominance displays and grasping. It’s a never-ending spiral of efforts at crowd control and manipulation, and it is as hostile to my values and Hilzoy’s as it is to yours. To the extent that anything any of us – “us” including you as a sensible person with a worldview here – appears, it is usually because someone thought there was a buck in it, and not necessarily our bucks at that.
Hollywood didn’t create its fantasies of suburbia in the ’50s for moral reasons, but to make a buck. Executives then supported that effort by pandering to others’ desire to be told that they were seeing works made with moral intent. Now they see other opportunities. But none of it’s about anything except a kind of commercialism that even most libertarians would rather temper with an ethic of some sort.
And what about the reaction to The Last Temptation of Christ? Or Corpus Christi?
“My impression is that the Da Vinci code plugs into a lot of impressions that fundamentalists Christians have about Catholicism”
SPOILER WARNING IF YOU SOMEHOW BOTH DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW BUT MIGHT CARE:
The Mary as the wife of Jesus thing and the supression of that fact to destroy the mystical power of the feminine motivation works just as well against both major forms of Christianity.
Oops. Fix links, repeat comment.
—
And what about the reaction to The Last Temptation of Christ? Or Corpus Christi?
The Mary as the wife of Jesus thing…
Now that WOULD be a scandal. I think you mean Mary Magdalene, though.
Elie Wiesel assaulted.
Sebastian, your point seemed to be that your fundamentalist parents weren’t prevented from seeing a bad movie and this was proof that no one stood up against the anti Catholic bashing of Hollywood. My point is that there is a lot of ridiculing of various aspects of Christian sects/faiths, making this claim of Amanda insulting the Church is just outrage mongering. I hope you would agree, but with you, I really can’t be sure.
Slightly related to this is Tucker Carlson’s latest dip into the waters of religious analysis
One important point might be that the book and movie don’t have a hateful tone (I assume).
However, some people weren’t happy about the portrayal of albinos
“One important point might be that the book and movie don’t have a hateful tone (I assume).”
Why is that important? Satanic Verses didn’t have a hateful tone either. It is Rushdie who is under the death fatwa, not Brown. And that is my point. Balsphemy against Islam gets you a death fatwa. Blasphemy against Christianity gets you a motion picture deal with Tom Hanks.
“Balsphemy against Islam gets you a death fatwa. Blasphemy against Christianity gets you a motion picture deal with Tom Hanks.”
Is it possibly due to the fact that you’re using passive voice, and switching subjects and objects?
It’s a classic way to bait-and-switch.
That makes for an easy start to confusing the discussion.
Congrats on a fine use of passive voice. Too bad this isn’t Unfogged, where Ogged could declare “use of passive voice is banned!”
I was referring to the other controversy – maybe I lost the thread of the conversation.
“Blasphemy against Christianity gets you a motion picture deal with Tom Hanks.” Well, it’s more that a mild humanizing-of-Jesus mega-bestseller gets one such a picture. And that offending the fundamentalist leaders of Iran got one such a fatwa, since revoked by them.
“passive voice”
Really? If so I’m forgetting my English grammar. The other day in the New Yorker I read, “a nephew of Sigmund Freud’s” – do we use the genitive that way?
That is sometimes referred to as the ‘get passive’, though traditionally, that isn’t a passive. Here’s a good post from Language Log about some of the ins and outs, by Arnold Zwicky.
It is often grouped in a category named the Adversative passive, because the implication is often that something bad happens to the recipient. Because Japanese has this in a form where the subject is omitted, so that the literal meaning would be ‘The bag, it was stolen’, and Japanese students are told that English sentences demand a subject, they write ‘I was stolen my bag!’ which still gives me a little chuckle, though not as much as the distinction between ‘interested’ and ‘interesting’, which, when applied to ‘boring’ and ‘bored’, gets you sentences ‘I fell asleep in class, because I was boring’…
lj – fascinating, thanks. What about that genitive above? I say, “A nephew of X” with X not genitive for X not a pronoun. Also, why can’t I say “The nephew of mine”?
Sebastian Holsclaw: Balsphemy against Islam gets you a death fatwa. Blasphemy against Christianity gets you a motion picture deal with Tom Hanks.
Sure, but it gets you Ron Howard for a director, so it’s not like it doesn’t have its downsides. Anyway, if you’re puzzled as to why American film audiences are more interested in Eurocentric thrillers involving instantly-recognizable art and murderous albino monks than in a magical realist re-imagining of the life of Mohammed, then I can understand your confusion.
“Sure, but it gets you Ron Howard for a director, so it’s not like it doesn’t have its downsides.”
Apollo 13 is, IMO, a great movie.
I wouldn’t go so far as great, but it is the one Ron Howard movie I’ve seen that I would call quite good. However, in general, I find him to be a lackluster director.
LJ, that wasn’t the GET-passive, or any kind of passive for that matter. The GET-passive would be something like “If you blaspheme against Islam, you get fatwa-ed; if you blaspheme against Christianity, you get rewarded with a movie deal.” There aren’t even any past participles in Sebastian’s sentences.
However, “That nephew of mine” is English.
KCinDC – check out lj‘s link, which snoots on “past participle”.
I did check out the link (and I read it when it first came out). It says something about the term “past participle”, but not about the construction itself, which appears in the examples of GET-passive. Where do you see any examples anything like Sebastian’s sentences?
What verb is supposedly passive in those sentences? There is no verb form in them other than “gets”.
Was just pointing to something that amused me. I thought those sentences are active, but I’m now not sure – I’m also still working on understanding the article. “Having done X gets you Y” – seems like a reversal to me.
7a?
This seems like a more relevant Language Log post. I think Gary just made a very un-Gary-like mistake. Maybe he was tired.
I’m not sure what similarity you see with 7a, which has a past participle, “attacked”. And I don’t see the reversal you’re talking about. What would the equivalent unreversed sentence be?
This seems like a more relevant Language Log post. I think Gary just made a very un-Gary-like mistake. Maybe he was tired.
I’m not sure what similarity you see with 7a, which has a past participle, “attacked”. And I don’t see the reversal you’re talking about. What would the equivalent unreversed sentence be?
Ok, having discussed the issue with Mrs. R, I now think:
“Smeagol got a birthday present” = “Smeagol was given a birthday present”, morally speaking. The former is formally active, I think, the latter obviously passive, “Smeagol” functioning as an indirect object. The sentence in question is equal in that sense to “If you commit blasphemy, you will get a fatwa issued against you”, with “issued” being passive and “you” the IO. That is, the phrase means “a fatwa will be issued against you”, which is clearly passive. Thus I think the implied sentence is passive, morally speaking.
I also have the sense that writing “Blasphemy” for (loosely) “You commit blasphemy” is somewhat passive – that was my 7a guess – but I think the above takes priority.
I’ll take a look at your other link.
The whole GET passive thing is really interesting and will be the subject of TiO post tonite (I hope). Just a quick taste, our notions of passive and active are semantic notions that we map onto syntactic patterns. That the semantic does not always conform to the syntactic is the problem. However, I note for the record that every single one of the Language Log crew is a better linguist than I could ever hope to be, so read them first ;^) However, I’ll leave y’all with a few sentences to say if they are passive or not, with your reasons why
I stand amazed.
I got married.
I got three bagels yesterday.
I got tattoed by someone after I passed out last night.
I got wasted
“I stand amazed.” Active, but really something different – an equation, maybe.
“I got married.” Half-and-half – it’s something I did and something that happened to me.
“I got three bagels yesterday.” Plain active, and I shudder to think what that means in Japan.
“I got tattoed by someone after I passed out last night.” Plain passive – “I was xed”.
“I got wasted.” Plain active – “I xed”.
Reading all this, I sit astounded.
Wow, the grammar flame exploded! It has been said that Gary starts those from time to time.
And contra-Gary I don’t think anyone (except maybe him) was the least bit confused by my statement.
“And that offending the fundamentalist leaders of Iran got one such a fatwa, since revoked by them.”
Revoked to get diplomatic relations with the UK, but reinstated by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2005.
This apparently didn’t post so I’m reconstructing a post that may be a little past the use-by…
Jonas: I enjoy unfettered conversation about religion, and Islam is mostly out of bounds.
I’m not saying that this applies to you, Jonas, but IME “unfettered conversation” by Anglophones about non-European religions is almost always code for Orientalism and/or Eurocentrism. [The same is true for Americans on pretty much any non-European subject, actually, and possibly a still-wider version of the thesis could be formulated.] I’m not saying that one can’t criticize such belief systems without coming across as an ignorant boor — and I’m including myself in this category — it’s just that it’s awfully hard not to without some kind of fetters.
And that is my point. Balsphemy against Islam gets you a death fatwa. Blasphemy against Christianity gets you a motion picture deal with Tom Hanks.
I am reasonably certain that, as general rules, neither of these things is true; but if you believe otherwise, feel free to make your case.
And that is my point. Balsphemy against Islam gets you a death fatwa. Blasphemy against Christianity gets you a motion picture deal with Tom Hanks.
Will the strawman of comparing religious freedom in America to religious freedom in the Middle East please die a quick, painless death? The matter at hand is clearly whether Amanda’s statements would’ve been more or less accepted/dangerous/whatever had they been about Muslims (or protestant fundamentalists).
And constantly bringing up Rushdie as if his consequences were typical for Westerners blaspheming Islam is about as accurate as claiming that abortion doctor-assassins are representative of American Christianity.
OT since we have no open thread: did people see John Howard’s comments about Obama?
The Obama campaign’s response is pitch perfect:
Obama comes in for a lot of criticism in some circles (Kos, etc.) for being overly conciliatory, but so far his campaign’s been pretty good at hitting back against unfair attacks. Granted, he hasn’t many really hard tests yet–the madrassa story was just so absurd–but it’s encouraging the extent to which they seem to have their act together.
Anarch,
I’m not so sure how useful or relevant this particular notion is. I think that if you accept that premise, you’re left with this being a rather universal principle – i.e., unfettered conversation about religions that are not part of your own culture is code for “whatever-that-persons-culture-is-centrism.”
Personally, I’d like to see more cross-cultural debate about all manner of things – and the fact that everyone is bound to have blinders on about cultures other than their own doesn’t mean everyone should all pack up their bags and just argue amongst themselves, and only about themselves, from now on.
Jonas: I’m not so sure how useful or relevant this particular notion is.
Extremely useful and relevant when trying to discuss a culture or a religion that is not your own or which you know little about. IME, as in Anarch’s experience.
Further, in my experience, when someone says they want “unfettered conversation”, in general, that means they want to be able to be deliberately offensive.
Granted, he hasn’t many really hard tests yet
I really wonder what the Clinton machine is cooking up for him. It seems like he is pretty squeaky clean, and he has already confessed any minor youthful indiscretions.
It doesn’t seem like they have much to work with. His inexperience is the only thing I see so far to attack him on.
At this point maybe a neophyte as President is just what we need.
BTW – I really really like John Howard and think he has been our best ally throughout this – but even I found those remarks to be obnoxious. It certainly won’t hurt Obama as my knee-jerk reaction was, “Just who the hell do you think you are to be talking smack about an American Presidential candidate that way…” His response was right on.
Re. Katherine’s note on Howard vs. Obama:
Doesn’t Howard merit a sharp rebuke from other candidates, or from people in Congress and the White House? A foreign leader shouldn’t be intervening in a U.S. political race.
“I really wonder what the Clinton machine is cooking up for him.”
The vice-presidency?
I would guess that the closest thing to a smear attack would be an emphasis on HRC’s childhood in the heartland to make the implicit contrast.
Man, I’ve blasphemed against both Islam and Christianity, and nobody’s given me a thing.
Further, in my experience, when someone says they want “unfettered conversation”, in general, that means they want to be able to be deliberately offensive.
My experience is slightly different. Speaking in crass generalities, I wouldn’t say the offense will be deliberate; rather, the speaker intends to be deliberately indifferent to offense. YMMV and, once again, I’m talking of my track record and not Jonas in particular.
“Just who the hell do you think you are to be talking smack about an American Presidential candidate that way…”
Answer: George Bush’s biggest sycophant.
To be fair, Australian leaders have a 60-year history of sycophancy towards the US administration; it comes from a fear of invasion and a desire to be a ‘big player’ in world affairs. Generally, the political alliegances of both the Australian and US administrations has not mattered; Howard got on fine with Clinton and Labour Prime Ministers got on fine with Reagan. There’s been a slight bias towards Republican presidents, since they tend to favour more open trade.
The motivation for the comment is entirely domestic; Howard’s up for election this year, and the Labour party candidate (Kevin Rudd) does not appear likely to cram his own feet in his mouth the same way previous opposition candidates have. While I don’t like Howard much, he’s the only leader I know to support the Iraq war without much of a cost in popularity (until very recently), and is a more experienced politician than Bush or Blair. His instincts regarding the Australian electorate have been very good (which says some sad things about the Australian electorate). I think this is intended as a response to Rudd’s policy of withdrawl, and maybe to stir up a little fight with Obama in which he can make himself look good. Either that, or he’s finally gone off his rocker.
I think the reply from Kevin Rudd struck the right tone:
“Mr Howard must not allow his personal relationship with President Bush to impact on Australia’s long-term alliance relationship with the United States,” Mr Rudd said. “The alliance … has prevailed with such strength and certainty because it has always been above party politics.”
The previous Labour leader repeatedly and quite roughly attacked Bush, referring to him as “the most dangerous man in the world”. The attacks weren’t particularly popular, more I believe because of the tone than the content. This time, Rudd’s the one looking more statesmanlike than Howard.
Shinobi, thanks for the expert context.
Expert? Hardly – thanks for the complement, though :). One Australian’s political opinion, really. But hopefully it adds a bit more context.
“Expert, relatively speaking” then.
If anyone was ever in the market for an expert on Australian affairs (why? Who knows?), John Quiggin’s blog at http://www.johnquiggin.com and his contributions to Crooked Timber might be worth a look.
Anarch: rather, the speaker intends to be deliberately indifferent to offense.
In general, however, the speaker is perfectly aware that their following speech will give offense: the genuinely clueless don’t make preparatory remarks like “unfettered speech”.
A possibly uninformed take on Oz politics, one of the things that Howard was able to do was to utilize the vibe of Pauline Hanson and the One nation voters, yet make them palatable to the general electorate. At the risk of starting another foodfight, this seems like furtherr evidence for Neiwert’s theory about how extremism is brought into mainstream discourse.
It’s easy to lose track of a discussion, and I think I have. Again, the origins of my displeasure were the fact that amongst my friends & family, unfettered speech about any topic is the norm, with only one exception – Islam.
The vice-presidency?
Yup. That is a grand-slam for him with so little experience. Then he can run again in 4 years and he is invincible. I’ll call it now – Hillary/Obama.
Shinobi: I agree on the expert analysis bit. Thank you for the insight.
OCS – I’m betting on eight years…
Quiggen on Howard and race.
OCSteve, 4 years would be tricky. Are you assuming the Clinton/Obama ticket loses and then Obama runs against the incumbent Republican president in 2012, or is it that Clinton doesn’t seek reelection for some reason?
I just don’t get the “no experiennce” thing. Obama has made more efffective use of his time inn thhe Senate than eithher of the othher two candidates with Senatorial backgrounds.
Also, what happened to the connventional wisdom that Senators made bad candidates (because it gave the candidate too much baggage)? How did that morph into thhe assumption that more years in the Senate equates withh better experiennce for beinng President?
There is a diary on MyDD about Obama’s record of accomplishhments as a Senator. I followed the links to see the evidence and lo and behold! the links were to the long post hilzoy did on Obama a couple weeks ago! When are hilzoy’s posts going to come out as a book?
“Come out” as a book? That would make posts closet books which isn’t that weird of an idea really.
“And constantly bringing up Rushdie as if his consequences were typical for Westerners blaspheming Islam is about as accurate as claiming that abortion doctor-assassins are representative of American Christianity.”
Abortion doctor-assassins weren’t blessed by the pope. The fatwa was initially issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini. It was reissued by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That would be two of the very most important Shi’a leaders in recent history.
“Obama has made more efffective use of his time inn thhe Senate than eithher of the othher two candidates with Senatorial backgrounds.”
Asking because I haven’t paid enough attention to judge – is there evidence of this out there?
Well, not publicly, but to a Dan Brown way of thinking, there are secret societies of priest-assassins who have been covertly blessed by the Pope. Probably tasked by the Pope as well.
Sebastian: Abortion doctor-assassins weren’t blessed by the pope.
The Pope is supposed to be representative of American Christianity? Then why weren’t American Christians dead set against the Iraq war, and why aren’t they all dead set against the death penalty?
Those are rhetorical questions, Sebastian, which you need not answer. But harassment of and terrorism against health clinics where abortions can be accessed, and medical personnel who perform abortions, is one of the ugliest aspects of American Christianity, but even I wouldn’t say is representative of it. (I know too many thoroughly decent American Christians, who would never dream of associating themselves with the pro-life movement, since they prefer to oppose and prevent abortion, rather than harass and criminalize women.)
Well, there is the hilzoy post. Oddly Q and o had a thing abouut this, too. i can’t remember which wriiter. The writer wssn’t intending to praise Obama. The jist of the article was that there were some Domcrats who wanted to do good thigs inn thhe areas of ethics,lobbying,and energy independence but that thhe writer believed thhat othherr Democrats wouldnn’t allow it. Then the writer listed examples of specific legislation, all but onne inntroduced by Obama. Since that article and hilzoy’s Obama has been either sponosr or co sponosr of legislation about voter surpression and paper trails.
I need to do more research about HRC because the stuff that stays inn my mind about her is thhe stuff that irritates me–like voting for that idiotic flag burning legislation. I’m sure she was on the right side of many issues. I’d like to see what shhe provided the leadership for.
I forgot: Edwards had a very mediocre voting reocrd, from the point of view of a liberal. That was his voting record. I donn’t know if he was the leader of anything. I think he deserrves credit for havving identified populism as being an essential theme in this electoral environment.
Hmmm…ok, it’s marginally more likely that Pat Robertson would bless some fanatic-assassins, but I rather doubt his followers have the numbers that Roman Catholics do.
Possibly I’m wrong about that; in any case this was a rhetorical answer and you needn’t reply/rebut :]
ok, it’s marginally more likely that Pat Robertson would bless some fanatic-assassins
Didn’t Robertson actually bless some fanatic assassins? The ones after Hugo Chavez?
, but I rather doubt his followers have the numbers that Roman Catholics do.
That was where the conversation started, yes? It is not fair to say that the lunatic wing of Amerian Christianity, even as represented by Pat Robertson who is fairly mainstream in the US, is representative of American Christianity as a whole. Equally, it is not fair to say that the lunatic wing of Sunni Islam, even as represented by Ruhollah Khomeini, is representative of Sunni Islam as a whole.
I wonder if Sebastian would expand on the comparison he’s making between the Supreme Leader of Iran and the Pope. How are they analogous, exactly, except in the very broad sense that they are both high-profile religious leaders who are also political leaders? Is the implication that Shia worldwide must be obedient to the pronouncements of whatever Grand Ayatollah leads Iran in the same way that Catholics must be obedient to the Pope in order to be in the good graces of the church?
Or, put another way, is being an adherent of Shia islam an implicit endorsement of the Supreme Leader of Iran in the same way that membership in the HRCC is, generally speaking, an implicit endorsement of the Pope?
Because that’s not my impression of the way things work, but I’m open to correction on this point.
You have to transform my argument pretty far toward an absolute bent that isn’t there (“all Shi’a”, “every single Catholic person”, “must be obedient”) to be confused about the difference between the Ayatollah-issued fatwas and how far down the Christian hierarchies you have to travel to find a similar level of pushing for the killers of abortion doctors.
Even if the Ayatollah isn’t a strict one-to-one mapping of the pope onto Islam (which I understand full well he is not), the point remains that the preeminent leader of Shi’a Islam blessed, nay actually decreed that Rushdie be put to death for his fiction-writing. And then when that leader died, his replacement re-affirmed it.
There just isn’t a comparable Christian phenomenon in the modern world. There certainly isn’t for a comparable high-profile blasphemy–Brown. The fact Jesurgislac has to ridiculously invoke the abortion-doctor killers shows how far you have to stretch to get to anything comparable. And even in that case you have to go almost all the way down to the root to find any Christian leader willing to defend that, much less openly demand that it occur.
And the invocation of the lunatic wing in the discussion is so silly. The Ayatollah is not part of the lunatic wing of Shi’a Islam. He is mainstream, that is why I brought him up. That is why he is pertinent to the discussion. It is interesting to see how his position has changed as the topic changes. In the nuclear Iran discussions I’m always supposed to be comforted by the idea that the Ayatollah is really in charge. In this discussion he is apparently some fringe lunatic.
You can find Christians supporting atrocities in the modern world in the name of Christianity–people on the Christian right supported Renamo and Unita during the 80’s in the name of Christianity. And some of the conflicts in Latin America in the 70’s and 80’s had some Christian theological tinges. Rightwing Christians in Argentina thought they were defending Christian civilization against the commie hordes as they tortured people to death. And the most enthusiastic American support for the very worst Israeli policies comes from the Christian right for explicitly Christian reasons. And these aren’t just fringe groups either–they have real influence on policy or at any rate some of the policies they support are carried out.
So there is that sort of thing, which I’d compare to those Muslims who support terrorist groups. It’s not quite the same as a very prominent religious leader explicitly putting a death sentence on someone for blasphemy, however. Christians have gotten over that kind of behavior in the past few centuries, or at least I can’t think of counterexamples.
Abortion doctor-assassins weren’t blessed by the pope. The fatwa was initially issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini. It was reissued by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That would be two of the very most important Shi’a leaders in recent history.
Note that I didn’t claim that the two situations were identical, or even close to it. I merely pointed out that fatwas against Westerners for committing heresy against Islam are extraordinarily rare, as are abortion doctor killings.
That is, both are so astoundingly rare that they cannot be used to judge typical Islamic or Christian reactions. I said:
And constantly bringing up Rushdie as if his consequences were typical for Westerners blaspheming Islam is about as accurate as claiming that abortion doctor-assassins are representative of American Christianity.
I cannot understand how someone could honestly misread that as a claim that abortion doctor killings are representative of American Christianity.
Perhaps because you’re wedded to the idea that Rushdie is typical, so comparing him to abortion doctor killings must therefore be making a similar claim. Well, if you want to argue that Westerners who blaspheme Islam typically are subject to death fatwas (And that is my point. Balsphemy against Islam gets you a death fatwa.), please let us know.
This misreading enabled you to avoid my point- the Rushdie situation is a one-off, and not representative of the treatment handed out to Westerners who blaspheme Islam.
Which was itself a strawman sidetrack, since we were originally talking about differences in how Westerners treat blasphemers of Islam and Christianity. The claim that Amanda could say bad things about Christianity, but not about Islam because of possible Western backlashes and censorship. That is, no one is arguing that Islamic theocracies are more tolerant of speech than Western democracies, we are (IMO) arguing that saying bad things about Islam is accepted in America far more easily than saying bad things about Christianity or Judaism.
“Which was itself a strawman sidetrack, since we were originally talking about differences in how Westerners treat blasphemers of Islam and Christianity.”
Were we now? I seem to remember somebody mentioning the Danish cartoon incident and the context of free speech. (It was hilzoy in the main post).
The Rushdie incident was not a one off. The Danish cartoon incident is in the same vein.
“The claim that Amanda could say bad things about Christianity, but not about Islam because of possible Western backlashes and censorship.”
And there is support for that. The Cartoon Network response to the South Park episode on the issue is precisely on point. You can have Jesus take a crap on the American flag, but you can’t have Mohammed give someone a hat.
Were we now? I seem to remember somebody mentioning the Danish cartoon incident and the context of free speech. (It was hilzoy in the main post).
Uh, if you want to have a debate where you argue that the Western democracies have less censorship than Islamic theocracies and autocracies, go ahead. I don’t think anyone will be willing to take the other side- but if that’s what it takes for you to win the debate, have at it.
And if you think that this was what hilzoy was arguing, or even discussing, then I think you’ve misread her as badly as you misread my statement earlier.
If you want to have a debate where you argue that attacking, smearing, and belittling Islam are dangerous or socially unacceptable actions in the US, I have about a million counterexamples from blogs, newspapers, magazines, and public speeches. That is, approximately 999,999 more cases than ‘Western authors under death fatwas for blasphemy against Islam’. Denigrating Islam while in America is a)less dangerous than taking a shower and b)not a bar from earning a living as a pundit, political/social commentary author, or major Christian religious figure. It might bar one from national political role (eg president), but not from a regional one (eg Congressperson).
Of course, one can denigrate Christianity and also be a)safe and b)a popular figure in some circles (but not in others). Not a politician, not a major pundit, but popular blogger, author, musician, etc are all within reach. Of course, this all depends on the degree of ‘denigrating Christianity’. Being proudly atheist is Ok for some roles. Saying “Christianity is a terrorist religion” is very fringe & would damage many careers dependent on popular support.
If you want to argue, as you did initially, that the intentional and gratuitous insult to Islam was justified by the very outrage that resulted, Im afraid I have some very choice things to tell you about your mother. I will be making these statements because they will enrage you to the point of violence, and thus my statements will be, in retrospect, justified as a defense of free speech via its exercise in the face of intimidation.
you can’t have Mohammed give someone a hat– yet Falwell can call Mohammad a terrorist, or defend someone who called him a “demon-possessed pedophile” without consequence. Heck, he’s still one of the gatekeepers for the political ‘religious right’, someone John McCain recently made up with in order to make up some ground in that area. Someone with real political power.
And no fatwa either! Jerry must be blessed to have avoided one.
To the extent that this is true, isn’t it largely because many Muslims believe there to be a religious prohibition against depictions of Mohammed, while there is no parallel prohibition regarding Jesus in Christianity? Showing Jesus crapping on the flag may be irreverent to the point of offensiveness, but it doesn’t violate Christian doctrine. That is, depictions of Muhammed aren’t just personally offensive to Muslims, but are perceived to be offenses against Islam itself.
The Ayatollah is not part of the lunatic wing of Shi’a Islam. He is mainstream, that is why I brought him up.
Pat Robertson is mainstream in the US. He is also part of the lunatic wing of American Christianity: as, come to that, is George W. Bush, insofar as Bush depends on the lunatic wing of American Christianity to vote him in. Being in the lunatic wing does not – regrettably – mean being powerless.
Many Shi’ite Iranian Muslims do not support the Ayatollah or agree with his particular version of Islam. Muslims worldwide certainly don’t.
Many evangelical American Christians do not support Pat Robertson or agree with his particular version of Christianity. Christians worldwide certainly don’t.
Other than that, what Carleton Wu said.
Marcotte resigns.
Concerning pope not blessing abortion-doctor killers:
John Paul II did not endorse that directly but he tolerated quite outrageous comments by high officials of the Vatican.
I remember e.g. that Cafara (either a cardinal of the Curia or at least in a high position in it) publicly (an official speech if I remember correctly) decried that women having abortions could not be burned at the stake anymore.
There are some minor differences, J,. For one thing, one can publicly ridicule and excoriate Pat Robertson without fearing for one’s life.
Small difference, I know, but worth looking at.
Also, if Robertson has an army of pentecostal killbots at his disposal, they haven’t done anything that rises to attention. Of course, that just might be what makes them threatening: stealth.
To the extent that this is true, isn’t it largely because many Muslims believe there to be a religious prohibition against depictions of Mohammed, while there is no parallel prohibition regarding Jesus in Christianity?
Oh, for the days of the Iconoclasm…
“If you want to argue, as you did initially, that the intentional and gratuitous insult to Islam was justified by the very outrage that resulted, Im afraid I have some very choice things to tell you about your mother. I will be making these statements because they will enrage you to the point of violence, and thus my statements will be, in retrospect, justified as a defense of free speech via its exercise in the face of intimidation.”
Go to it. I suspect nothing you say about my mother will get me to kill you. Shall we test it?
“Pat Robertson is mainstream in the US. He is also part of the lunatic wing of American Christianity: as, come to that, is George W. Bush, insofar as Bush depends on the lunatic wing of American Christianity to vote him in. Being in the lunatic wing does not – regrettably – mean being powerless.”
You seem to have lost your own thread of logic. Pat Robertson was being compared to various Ayatollahs (is that the plural) as far as ‘lunatic’ fringes go. I believe you were suggesting that both Robertson and Khomeini were powerful yet part of the ‘lunatic fringe’ of their respective religions. Or maybe you were saying that they were both mainstream. Comparable in either case. Yet, did Pat Robertson order people to kill abortion doctors? Nope.
“To the extent that this is true, isn’t it largely because many Muslims believe there to be a religious prohibition against depictions of Mohammed, while there is no parallel prohibition regarding Jesus in Christianity?”
First of all there is an exact parallel in Christianity. In fact the Muslim ‘prohibition’ (scare quotes because by no means do all Muslims accept it) comes from the same prohibition against idols as is found in Judaism and Christianity. Second, you aren’t understanding the concept of being against icons at all. There are two portions of it. First the worry that you will worship the idol instead of the true God (or in this case that you will worship the Prophet instead of Allah). Not much worry about that from Cartoon Central. Second, that it is profoundly disrespectful to God or the Prophet to try to reduce him to a representation. As far as that basis, having Jesus crapping on the flag is quite comparable.
Ezra Klein has a new post on the Edwards campaign’s handling of Marcotte. I’m with him. Hasn’t the rule previously been that bloggers stop their personal blogging when they become part of a campaign?
Melissa McEwan has also resigned.
Might have had something to do with the rape and death threats.
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