Dark Places and Expression

[TheLeviathan]

Of course the cartoons are racist.....that's the point. Their satire is designed to speak to a truth by being over the top to make the point. No one is defending it for being good, clean fun and no matter how deliberately offensive it may be is really irrelevant.

 

I get his larger point but one could argue his very point against him as well. If solidarity with free speech is somehow an endorsement of racism...couldn't his argument against the cartoons mean he is somehow in solidarity with murder. Of course no one would suggest anything of the sort seriously. Couple his dubious thesis with that ridiculous, conspiracy type paragraph questions if they are Islamists (it's mind blowing to call their characterization an assumption - it really shows his motives) and you got a pretty worthless position IMO.

[gunnarthor]

Of course the cartoons are racist.....that's the point. Their satire is designed to speak to a truth by being over the top to make the point. No one is defending it for being good, clean fun and no matter how deliberately offensive it may be is really irrelevant.

You missed the point  If someone killed a bunch of Nazis in St. Cloud/Times Square/Washington DC no one would support that but the Nazi's wouldn't sell 3,000 copies of their Nazi newsletter, let alone 3 million.  So people are either ok with buying a racist magazine (or are too dumb to know it's racist) or think it's ok to support a racist magazine b/c it's mocking a religion they don't like/understand/tolerate etc.  

[TheLeviathan]

I didn't miss his point at all, but if his argument is fair about supporting the emotion of free speech means endorsing their specific acts....than he is endorsing murder by supporting the emotion behind being offended by the cartoons.

 

Since I find that argument stupid both way, I don't find much use for therticle.

[gunnarthor]

I didn't miss his point at all, but if his argument is fair about supporting the emotion of free speech means endorsing their specific acts....than he is endorsing murder by supporting the emotion behind being offended by the cartoons.

 

Since I find that argument stupid both way, I don't find much use for therticle.

Yeah, you missed the point.  You can be against the murders and, at the same time, not support the racist opinions of the victims.  You can support free speech and, at the same time, not buy the racist magazine.  

[TheLeviathan]

Yeah, you missed the point.  You can be against the murders and, at the same time, not support the racist opinions of the victims.  You can support free speech and, at the same time, not buy the racist magazine.  

 

Just like you can be for free speech, buy the magazine, and still not be endorsing racism.....no?

 

Especially since the proceeds are going to the victims.  But hey...who am I to use facts and common sense and get in the way of shouting "Islamaphobia!" and "Racism!" until the conversation is over?

[Squirrel]

Okay, this is obviously a hot button topic and we each have our own thoughts. If we can't even discuss this without getting irritated and annoyed with one another over varying perspectives, there is absolutely no hope. Before this becomes a war of words please take a step back and allow for some consideration of another's points even if in total disagreement.

[Squirrel]

Here is my perspective.  I don't think gunnar's post is irrelevant to the conversation.  In very broad terms this whole incident brings to fore clashing world ideologies, and freedom of speech has become part of that discussion.  Charlie Hebdo isn't just publishing satire for satire's sake.  They are publishing satire for a very pointed agenda.  While the freedom of speech discussion is an entirely different one, there are a lot of questions of responsibility surrounding this incident.  I find some of this satire ... reprehensible, quite frankly; but I think they still have right to create it and publish it.  And everyone has the choice to ignore it, not support it, support it, read it, buy it, protest it, whatever.  And the group being 'challenged' by the content do not have the right to respond in the violent manner they did.  I don't think anyone has that right.  But at what point does freedom of speech go too far?  At what point are those doing the poking at all liable?  And why the need to demean, belittle, offend, degrade?  Face it, this wasn't satire for humor regardless of any humor any found in it.  (And no, an emphatic no, I am not suggesting in any way, shape or form, that any of these victims deserved this, brought this on, should have been censored, or any such thing.)  But at what point does this go too far?  That said, no matter what group is being 'satired,' even for, to me, an agenda I do not support, no one has the right to take life, to respond so violently, in the name of anything, anyone or any Being.

 

But as we bury ourselves in Paris, Nigeria goes unnoticed.  To the broader sense ... ideologies.  There is no answer for it.  Maybe someday we all will learn how to live side by side no matter what our beliefs and/or disagreements.  Maybe for a start we check our anger and our easily offended sensibilities and quit accusing the other and try a little humility and think that maybe, just maybe, no one is 'right' or 'wrong.' 

 

That all said ... my above moderator note stands.  Please discuss.  Try not to get personal with it or take it personally.  At the end of the day, instead of holding someone else in disdain for something they said or something you think they meant, and remember that all lives count.

[TheLeviathan]

But at what point does freedom of speech go too far?

 

 

I think that question is relevant and I'm someone who is usually vocal about the limits of free speech.  I'm pretty sure between here and BYTO I've made that plain on issues especially surrounding speech at schools.

 

We do have responsibilities with it and I'm open to the suggestion that some of what these guys did was provocation merely for the sake of provocation.  I know that is something that causes a backlash, but it's a reasonable point you bring up.  

 

That said, the support this paper is getting now isn't because it was racist and that distinction is extremely important and one that the earlier author utterly ignored in his zeal to make a point.

[Squirrel]

I think that question is relevant and I'm someone who is usually vocal about the limits of free speech.  I'm pretty sure between here and BYTO I've made that plain on issues especially surrounding speech at schools.

 

We do have responsibilities with it and I'm open to the suggestion that some of what these guys did was provocation merely for the sake of provocation.  I know that is something that causes a backlash, but it's a reasonable point you bring up.  

 

That said, the support this paper is getting now isn't because it was racist and that distinction is extremely important and one that the earlier author utterly ignored in his zeal to make a point.

I agree completely.  But some still won't support the paper, and have a right not to, because of the content it represented, even if that support is going to the victim's families.  I, personally, would rather support the victims through a special fund, rather than buying a product I do not agree with.  It's a difficult choice, and sometimes one has to keep in mind the greater good, but is still a choice we are all free to make for individually using whatever strongly held beliefs one has. 

[Bark's Lounge]

Hey mom, Nigeria has been on my mind. The Southern half is majority Christian and the Northern half Muslim and the Northern half of the country is in the bush and Nigeria is a developing country outside of Lagos and I surmise that is no picnic either in a lot of areas of that city.

 

What can be done? I don't have much faith that Nigeria can tackle this atrocity alone. It's a damn mess.

[gunnarthor]

With all due respect Gunnarthor, your second entry on this thread said the following "Ignoring most of this thread", really, that sort of comes off as being disgusted with what we were communicating about or at the very least disrespectful. Do you think we are racists or something of that nature?

 

I can truly say that in my almost 3 years participating on this site, the posters who are participating on this thread have never shown any signs of being racist or anything of that nature. We were having a conversation. The events that transpired last week are screwed up and bring upon us the emotions of anger, despair and wanting a solution to put to an end these kind of actions.

 

The people who have posted on this thread mostly all have different belief systems, whether that be atheist, agnostic, buddhist, christian, etc., etc...

 

I think you are a great contributing member of this site Gunnarthor, but I can sense your anger. I guess I do not know why you feel that way when the rest of this thread was chill and accepting?

The reason I wrote "ignoring the rest of this thread" was b/c I didn't feel like reading 30 posts that hadn't been updated in a day.  I had no intention of being disrespectful to you.  Sometimes internet posts are not read in the manner intended.  My very real apologies if I offended you.

 

I thought Mr. Seymour's article on the Charlie Hebdo massacre was pretty on point and presented an point of view that too many people were either ignoring or afraid to address. That the murders were horrific but too many people were supporting racism and that the racist (and not satire) position of the magazine shouldn't be forgotten.  I don't think we should show our support for freedom of speech by buying racist material, even though we have that ability.  And I am more concerned that many people don't realize that the magazine is racist.  I thought Mr. Seymour's article, as well as the article written by the rabbi linked by another poster, were good starting points on this. The Washington Post had a slightly less strong article on that the other day.

 

My very first post in this thread indicated that I felt that religion was being unfairly blamed in the massacre and that the causation was more related to other issues such as poverty, racism, social structure etc and we (as a whole society, not Twins Daily) were ignoring them.  Those articles seemed to support that as well.

[TheLeviathan]

I agree completely.  But some still won't support the paper, and have a right not to, because of the content it represented, even if that support is going to the victim's families.  I, personally, would rather support the victims through a special fund, rather than buying a product I do not agree with.  It's a difficult choice, and sometimes one has to keep in mind the greater good, but is still a choice we are all free to make for individually using whatever strongly held beliefs one has. 

 

Absolutely, I understand not supporting the paper for their tact and for more directly contributing to their families.  I think that's a reasonable position to hold.

 

This publication does use ridicule and exaggeration to make its point and I understand why someone would be offended by that.  Where I disagree, fiercely, is in trying to constantly drag assesments of this issue into the realm of "racism" all the time.  If there is anything either side of this issue needs to keep as a paramount priority is to both avoid rushing to racist conclusions and avoid rushing to the notion that a conclusion is racist.

 

Sometimes the truth isn't pretty and we have to be willing to confront that honestly.

[TheLeviathan]

Hey mom, Nigeria has been on my mind. The Southern half is majority Christian and the Northern half Muslim and the Northern half of the country is in the bush and Nigeria is a developing country outside of Lagos and I surmise that is no picnic either in a lot of areas of that city.

 

What can be done? I don't have much faith that Nigeria can tackle this atrocity alone. It's a damn mess.

 

That's just it, so many of these situations abroad scream for intervention but nothing we do ever makes a damn bit of difference.

[ashbury]

I've never seen a print edition of the publication, and I doubt anyone else here has either.  I took a look at the online version yesterday but since I remember little of my high school French I got only a little out of it.  The recent collections of cartoons in major media have been helpfully captioned in English, but I have to rely on a faithful and nuanced translation because French (like most languages) has idioms and shared experience that IMO can lead you astray if you're not well versed in it by spending significant time there. 

 

My sense is that the publication is all about satire.  That they do not tolerate any sacred cows.¹  This can be mistaken for racism, when the actual intent a) can be the opposite, or b ) can be a weary above-it-all and cynical point of view of the world at large.  It's widely pointed out they make fun of the Pope, for example. Religions tend to take themselves seriously, making for traditional targets of satirists.  Being generally anti-religious wouldn't be the same as specifically racist.   For that matter, Islam crosses a large sampling of different races.  Again, I would be afraid to judge this magazine's actual intent for myself due to the language barrier, and have to rely on others, and I have read varying interpretations; perhaps its main thrust is just the one topic of religion and all else is a cover.

 

My older son took part in a campus "humor" periodical, nearly a decade ago.  I was appalled, not because of the highly offensive material (running the gamut from sexism to drugs to, well, sexism), but because it wasn't crisply done and funny.  I kept pushing my old National Lampoons into David's line of vision, as encouragement to set his sights a little higher if he wanted to keep pursuing this.  You can imagine how much effect dear old Dad had in this regard.  (You can also imagine his mother's view of the whole period of his life.)  Anyway, as these recent events unfolded, I can't help thinking about his old magazine which shall remain nameless.  The individual contributors each had their own point of view, but the overall POV of the publication was simply no sacred cows.  That's the freedom-of-speech aspect of the current tragedy for me, not the attempt to defend any specific article or cartoon.

 

^{1 _{A common metaphor that we almost forget in daily usage is taken from another religion, but it seemed to fit - see what I mean about idioms of a given language/culture being ripe for misunderstanding by someone only partially fluent?}}

[biggentleben]

That's just it, so many of these situations abroad scream for intervention but nothing we do ever makes a damn bit of difference.

 

And, frankly, involving ourselves as a country is what caused the terrorism to come to our homeland in the first place.  It's the biggest complaint I've heard from friends who were raised or lived abroad.  The US has a reputation of seeing themselves as the caretaker for the world, and much of the world laments that role.

[TheLeviathan]

Good post ashbury, I was struggling how to articulate that this kind of satire isn't just reducible to racism, even if the content is offensive.  You did a nice job of that.

[Bark's Lounge]

I wonder what would happen if the U.S. and the West abandoned the Middle East region? Would ISIL/ISIS/Daesch gain a foothold of a region and create a country? Would this mean that this "proposed country" would make a run at arming themselves with Nuclear weapons and because of this Iran would definitely up there game in that capacity because they are a predominantly Shiite nation and are a target of the Sunni ISIL.

 

I want nothing to do with the Middle East, but these kind of scenarios cause me headaches for sure.

[glunn]

Moderator note -- I just removed some posts in this thread that included personal attacks/bickering.  We don;t allow that here.  

 

http://twinsdaily.com/topic/8228-twins-daily-comment-policy-latest-revision-september-2013/

[diehardtwinsfan]

I wonder what would happen if the U.S. and the West abandoned the Middle East region? Would ISIL/ISIS/Daesch gain a foothold of a region and create a country? Would this mean that this "proposed country" would make a run at arming themselves with Nuclear weapons and because of this Iran would definitely up there game in that capacity because they are a predominantly Shiite nation and are a target of the Sunni ISIL.

 

I want nothing to do with the Middle East, but these kind of scenarios cause me headaches for sure.

That region has been at war with itself for more than 1000 years. There's so much hatred and animosity there that in all honesty, I don't they'd be able to create a super country. It would more than likely descend into a bloody war and move backwards 100 years.

 

You may see some countries borders shift, as the west unilaterally drew borders without consideration to the people groups that live in them (i.e. see the fear that some have towards a Kurdistan), but that would also start a war.

 

That said, we've been practicing an interventionist policy in the middle east now for far too long. It doesn't work, and I'd argue that alone has given groups like ISIS more sway than what they would have had we just left them alone. I find it rather hypocritical that a country that claims to pride itself in freedom has gone out of its way to control the lives of these individuals. I think the easiest thing to do is find a peaceful way out if one exists.

[Squirrel]

I find it rather hypocritical that a country that claims to pride itself in freedom has gone out of its way to control the lives of these individuals. I think the easiest thing to do is find a peaceful way out if one exists.

This.  And I risk getting this thread really off track, but it seems to me the loudest screamers of 'freedom' are the ones who want the greatest control of the outcome.  But then maybe that's my perspective from an admittedly biased point of view.  The peaceful way out ... until everyone can let go of the hate, that has been bred for as long as the conflict as existed, I'm not sure one exits.

[TheLeviathan]

This.  And I risk getting this thread really off track, but it seems to me the loudest screamers of 'freedom' are the ones who want the greatest control of the outcome.  But then maybe that's my perspective from an admittedly biased point of view.  The peaceful way out ... until everyone can let go of the hate, that has been bred for as long as the conflict as existed, I'm not sure one exits.

 

That's my concern as well.  This won't sit well with some but I have to honestly ask it - is anything but death going to end the hatred and violence for some of these people?  

 

I'm not sure what other recourse there is.  That isn't to advocate we drop bombs on them (I too side with the idea of getting the hell out of there altogether) but I'm not seeing how they stay alive and peace is achieved.  And if we let them stay alive, will it die off or is that a naive hope?

[diehardtwinsfan]

That's my concern as well.  This won't sit well with some but I have to honestly ask it - is anything but death going to end the hatred and violence for some of these people?  

 

I'm not sure what other recourse there is.  That isn't to advocate we drop bombs on them (I too side with the idea of getting the hell out of there altogether) but I'm not seeing how they stay alive and peace is achieved.  And if we let them stay alive, will it die off or is that a naive hope?

I'm with you. We don't need to drop bombs on them. They'll do it to themselves. The only way to stop them is to let them shoot at us instead. I personally am not comfortable risking the lives of our service men and women for that.

[diehardtwinsfan]

But he's wrong.  They really are about the religion and the KKK, or the Westboro Baptist church, or whatever else really is about the religion.  

 

That's not to say the religion itself is evil or vile or anything like that, but this particular strain of brutish behavior is being born of that religion.  Just like the maniacal behavior of Christians in the middle ages was being born of that religion.  Trying to distance these actions from Islam seems a tad silly when you look at what happened here.  Two men who believed what they were doing was honorable and following a specific code.  (They only killed men, spared women and children)  They praised their God and followed what they believed were the dictates of the prophet of their God.  They found much of their inspiration for these attacks from leaders within that religion.

 

Even a perversion of a religion is still about that religion.  We could argue what factors are driving that perversion, but the inherent power of religion over people is instrumental in why these things are happening.  Until we accept that, and acknowledge that it means nothing negative about the religion itself, we're not going to be able to help defeat that perversion.

I'd be real careful in blaming religion for the brutish nature of things. Extremism is extremism, and there's plenty of it to go around. While religion has certainly had it's fair share of extreme behaviors, it's hardly alone in that. The problem is the thinking that people need a reason to justify their anger/hatred and religious provides a very convenient excuse, but it's hardly alone.

 

It wasn't religion that allowed the atrocities at Abu-Gahrib to continue. It was hatred. It wasn't religion that caused Sandy Hook. After 9/11, when the British subway bombing occurred, the police gunned down an innocent man and even went so far to note that they'd do it again... and people rejoiced.

 

It's much the same with the French situation. Like it or not, the state accused these individuals of completing this task, and with out trial these folks were executed. Did they do it? Probably. But it's a callous view towards human life and liberties combined with plenty of anger and hatred over whatever that causes this. And there's a long list of folks (in both the religious and non-religious spheres) who are quite willing to look the other way and justify these actions. Many Muslims justify what happened in Paris, just as many non-Muslims justified what happened at Abu-Gahrib. At the end of the day, what's really going on is sheer utter depravity, something that mankind has plenty of and will continue to have plenty of until the day Christ returns. The extremism is everywhere, and very few of us can honestly say it doesn't touch us in some way.

 

Just as religion is the crutch for some to commit these types of crimes, it's a crutch for others to pretend that's why they happen. There's a much bigger problem here, and that's the core nature of humans. If you take away faith, I guarantee you that these events still happen.

[TheLeviathan]

I'd be real careful in blaming religion for the brutish nature of things. Extremism is extremism, and there's plenty of it to go around. While religion has certainly had it's fair share of extreme behaviors, it's hardly alone in that. The problem is the thinking that people need a reason to justify their anger/hatred and religious provides a very convenient excuse, but it's hardly alone.

 

 

How does identifying religion in this case (and the many like it) eliminate identifying other factors in other cases?  These extremists are using the Islamic faith to drive and justify their actions.   If they had run into Charlie Hebdo with a war cry about Buddhism or Neo-Conservative politics.....well, then that would be part of this issue.

 

But they didn't.  So they aren't.  I'm genuinely baffled by the apparent NEED people have to look the other way of intimately causal components of these actions.  These attacks do not happen without the Islamic faith (perverted though it may be).  Of course other violence happens for other reasons, but those situations aren't really relevant.

 

Like it or not, the state accused these individuals of completing this task, and with out trial these folks were executed.

 

 

I would imagine had they wanted to come peacefully the French government would've been happy to get their hands on them to find out more about what they knew and any other possible attacks.  You are insinuating they went out to kill these men, but that seems like a very dubious claim.

 

 

And sure, this is about human nature, but one of the core things we know about humans is that when you combine god, fear of death, and the allure of everlasting paradise and use it as motivation - people do all sorts of crazy ****.  Religion has a profound way of influencing behavior for both good and bad.  I'm not sure what good comes out of ignoring that.  These men did what they did because of what they thought their religion commanded of them.  You can't separate that from the story.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Levi,

 

I won't argue that religion has influence on people.  To me, that's a greater issue of power.  Power attracts the worst types of people, and it's those same people that have no problem using religion, governments, or anything else at their disposal in order to achieve whatever means they are attempting to achieve.

 

What' I'm saying though is that religions is more often than not a convenient excuse for such atrocities.  Anger and hate have far more to do with them.  But I'm arguing that if there was no Islam, these things would still happen.  That mess we have in the middle east right now has a whole lot more to do with meddling in the affairs of a people group who truly despise it.  If they were atheists, it would still happen.  There would simply be a different vehicle for it. 

 

But as I said before, these attacks do happen without Islamic faith.  Look at Sandy Hook.  The killer wasn't Islamic.  Look at Abu Gahrib.  The victims were Islamic, but this was done by our military while the chain of command at best turned a blind eye to it or at worst ordered it..  There was no religious motivation involved with either of these events (and I'd argue that Abu Gahrib is one of many reasons why this Paris attack happened).  What the people in the middle east do know is that they are at war with the west.  There may not be a declared war per say, but western troops have sat in their countries since the world wars and their way of life has been impacted.  None of this would change if they were not Islamic.  Islam may very well be a convenient crutch for these folks to gain some courage and justify their actions, but in my opinion, it's also a convenient crutch for the non-religious who think that somehow the world's problems would go away without religion.  They won't.  You'll still have the Paris attacks of the world.  You'll still have the Sandy Hooks.  Your problem, at it's very core is human nature. 

[TheLeviathan]

Diehard, you're falling victim to the same traps this conversation always seems to lead to. This not about Islam being bad, it's about Islam having a disproportionate amount of extremists and how we can help that religion heal those problems.

 

1). You imply they had the intention to murder and then found religion as a way to cover it. That's not the reality here and it irks me we choose to be in denial. These men found religion and then through it developed the willingness to die as martyrs for their prophet. They didn't find religion as an excuse, their religion emboldened murderous vengeance. Was it a deeply perverted take on their religion? Sure, but their religion was a deeply intwined, causal part of their actions and both how and why they carried them out.

 

2). As I said in my first reply, I'm not someone that believes if religion was gone there would never see violence and we'd have some utopia. Something else would take its place, but that's not the reality of the world. We live in a world that is deeply divided and nothing divides as deeply or passionately as religion.

 

If you want just one example....when Israel was first setup up and attacked, nations with deeply rooted hate still banded together in the name of Israel's destruction. Not even nationalism can compete with religion. Just the nature of religion and the power it has.

 

Religion is the strongest fuel for that rotten core of human nature that exists today, but I'm not calling for the end of religion or Islam. But it seems so silly to be in denial about the role of religion in this problem. It is central to the problem and the solution, but you won't get a healed Islam pretending it isn't central to the issue.

[TheLeviathan]

Sometimes it's scary to compare what we view as hateful/wrong here to what is done elsewhere in the world.  

[glunn]

I'm with you. We don't need to drop bombs on them. They'll do it to themselves. The only way to stop them is to let them shoot at us instead. I personally am not comfortable risking the lives of our service men and women for that.

 

I wonder how many bombs, guns and cases of ammunition are manufactured in the Middle East.  It seems to me that the civilized world should stop supplying so many weapons.

[Bark's Lounge]

In remembrance of Moaz al-Kasasbeh.

 

I usually hate the martyr concept, but for this brave young man, a martyr he will be forever.

 

I hope his death is avenged and this is the starting gun to the real undertaking of eradicating ISIS, executed by a unilateral Arab army.

[TheLeviathan]

In remembrance of Moaz al-Kasasbeh.

 

I usually hate the martyr concept, but for this brave young man, a martyr he will be forever.

 

I hope his death is avenged and this is the starting gun to the real undertaking of eradicating ISIS, executed by a unilateral Arab army.

 

Let's hope what is created in the aftermath isn't every bit as bad, but instead a step forward into the modern world.  That seems to be part of the problem over there.