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Post by dradtke on Nov 2, 2009 17:07:05 GMT -5
Personally, I wouldn't call the Yale Press example "deference to sensibilities." I would call it "fear of getting my building blown up", given the violence caused by the cartoons in the first place.
For instance, if I thought Jeff's avatar looked silly, I wouldn't say so publicly because I respect Jeff and don't see a need to hurt his feelings. However, if i thought Doug's avatar looked silly, I wouldn't say so because Doug has guns and might blow my ass off. Same action on my part, but whole different motivations.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Nov 2, 2009 17:11:13 GMT -5
Well everyone has their own cross to bear.
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Post by omaha on Nov 2, 2009 17:12:51 GMT -5
It's sad when an institution that includes "veritas" on its crest would be so easily quieted.
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Post by theevan on Nov 2, 2009 17:20:30 GMT -5
Personally, I wouldn't call the Yale Press example "deference to sensibilities." I would call it "fear of getting my building blown up", given the violence caused by the cartoons in the first place. For instance, if I thought Jeff's avatar looked silly, I wouldn't say so publicly because I respect Jeff and don't see a need to hurt his feelings. However, if i thought Doug's avatar looked silly, I wouldn't say so because Doug has guns and might blow my ass off. Same action on my part, but whole different motivations. LOL, David! (Um, good post too) |
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Post by Cornflake on Nov 2, 2009 17:28:05 GMT -5
"Personally I think it speaks a lot for Christianity that people can be rude to it and it doesn't kill people in return. The idea of free speech is guided by that 'while I might not agree with what you say, I will defend to the death your ability to say it' ideal. Christianity is trying to uphold that ideal a lot more than other religions are and I think that is a nod to Christians."
Christianity is more tolerant these days--mostly--because the Enlightenment occurred in Christian nations. I don't think Christianity itself deserves any kudos for the difference you observe. The idea of tolerating religious dissent used to be as weird in Christendom as the idea of tolerating a cancer cell. The spreading of falsehoods was seen as a threat to the whole community.
There's a terrific book called the Ornament of the World about Spain when it was under Muslim rule. The Muslims were mostly very tolerant of Jews and Christians. When the Spanish Christians took the country back, they kicked out the Jews and Muslims who wouldn't convert, and even a lot who had.
As others have noted, "Islamic terrorism" has little to do with religion, any more than Catholic-Protestant differences in Ireland are primarily about religion.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2009 17:37:25 GMT -5
I guess you could do it like the Bogart movie where everything is seen from his eyes. Doug--wasn't that "The Lady in The Lake," directed by the late Robert Montgomery, who also stars as detective Phillip Marlowe? There's one scene in which we do see him, or rather he sees himself, in a mirror. Since the action is through his eyes, that's the only time he's visible on screen. Interesting gimmick, for the 1940s. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2009 17:47:59 GMT -5
Moderate and succinct Cornflake. *nods* .
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Post by Russell Letson on Nov 2, 2009 17:48:29 GMT -5
But then the corrupt stepchild that dominated western Christianity 'back then' got what it deserved...a major fracture. Though credit can be spread far and wide, I give credit for the core essentials that led to a gentler, more Christ-like church to the Scottish enlightenment. Are you conflating the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment? As for "Piss Christ," it's a classic conceptual/annoyance piece that deserves to be ignored by people who have a grown-up notion of what art is. (While I'm not a big fan of adulthood, I draw the line at the infantile and even much of the adolescent.) The technical aesthetic term I use for guys like Serrano is "asshole"; the one for his customers is "suckers." Except when it's "pretentious suckers." Who are often also "assholes." |
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Post by Doug on Nov 2, 2009 18:10:19 GMT -5
I guess you could do it like the Bogart movie where everything is seen from his eyes. Doug--wasn't that "The Lady in The Lake," directed by the late Robert Montgomery, who also stars as detective Phillip Marlowe? There's one scene in which we do see him, or rather he sees himself, in a mirror. Since the action is through his eyes, that's the only time he's visible on screen. Interesting gimmick, for the 1940s. You remember more than I do. Bad guy, plastic surgeon, bandages, woman (don't remember the relationship) Late 40s convertible. Somewhere near the cusp of when Bogart went from a bad guy to a good guy. |
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Post by theevan on Nov 2, 2009 18:34:15 GMT -5
Are you conflating the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment? No I'm not. That was deliberate. The Scottish contribution to Enlightenment was quite different than the French version. Its influence was different as well. Ref:  Good book. |
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Post by dickt on Nov 2, 2009 19:30:05 GMT -5
But then the corrupt stepchild that dominated western Christianity 'back then' got what it deserved...a major fracture. Though credit can be spread far and wide, I give credit for the core essentials that led to a gentler, more Christ-like church to the Scottish enlightenment. Are you conflating the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment? As for "Piss Christ," it's a classic conceptual/annoyance piece that deserves to be ignored by people who have a grown-up notion of what art is. (While I'm not a big fan of adulthood, I draw the line at the infantile and even much of the adolescent.) The technical aesthetic term I use for guys like Serrano is "asshole"; the one for his customers is "suckers." Except when it's "pretentious suckers." Who are often also "assholes." I guess you're not one of the four out of five intellectuals, then. |
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Post by epaul on Nov 2, 2009 19:49:02 GMT -5
I think you're fairly ignorant of what Islam is, and has been Paul. There's a good deal of beautiful, relevant, tolerant belief in Islam. And Christianity may, currently, not be so big on killing people for disagreement, does not mean that it was historically not done, or in the future might be. There are lots of very tolerant muslims, and a number of butt heads. The same thing can be said for Christians today. No, Rick, I am familiar with Islam. And I have read enough of the Quran to know it is a primitive, superstitious, tribal collection of largely war-ridden nonsense. I have lost patience with the plucking of three or four poetic verses out of a book that is filled with a thousand pages of tribal-centric drivel and calling it a book of peace and beauty. It is a book of peace and beauty only if you ignore 90% of what is in it. Nor am I particularly impressed with comparisons of the Koran to the Old Testament as a defense of the Koran as I have a dim view of the Old Testament as well. 10% beauty, 90% superstitious, tribal nonsense. The saving grace of the Bible is very few westerners take it literally. Even those who say it is the literal word of God don't take the whole darn thing literally. All pick, choose, and sift, even those who decry the pickers, choosers, and sifters. The trouble with the Koran is that most Muslims take the entire book literally, and it is a book filled with hate, fear, and general crap. Every so often, a westernized Muslim is put in front of a microphone or camera to offer up a nice, sweet, tolerant view, but they are oddities. And if they went the homeland and spouted such heresy, they would be stoned. Islam is filled with ugliness. Pointing out the ugliness of other religions doesn't change the nature of Islam an inch or an ounce. It is tribal. It is narrow minded. There is no tolerance for any other faith. It is misogynistic. It suppresses knowledge. The Koran is a perfect reflection of the backwards, insular, mean-sprited, fear-ridden Bedouin culture that produced it. If only the damn religion would go away. It is doing the world or its followers no favors. |
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Post by Cornflake on Nov 2, 2009 20:04:47 GMT -5
It was almost thirty years ago that I read most of the Koran "interpreted"--in theory, it couldn't be translated--and was repelled, to the extent that I couldn't bear to finish it. I don't know if I trust the reaction of the guy I was then...very ignorant but very arrogant, and basically hostile to all religion. I didn't have such a strongly negative reaction to the Old and New Testaments at that time, though. I remember a faculty member at Union Theological saying that most of the faculty disliked the Koran. Maybe I should try to reread the Koran with fresh eyes but I don't really want to.
I'm increasingly convinced, though, that modern westerners who aren't religious usually have almost no ability to read religious texts in the sense in which they were composed or meant to be taken. For that matter, many religious adherents can't do so, either.
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Post by omaha on Nov 2, 2009 20:07:40 GMT -5
Are you conflating the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment? As for "Piss Christ," it's a classic conceptual/annoyance piece that deserves to be ignored by people who have a grown-up notion of what art is. (While I'm not a big fan of adulthood, I draw the line at the infantile and even much of the adolescent.) The technical aesthetic term I use for guys like Serrano is "asshole"; the one for his customers is "suckers." Except when it's "pretentious suckers." Who are often also "assholes." I guess you're not one of the four out of five intellectuals, then. The issue isn't that four out of five intellectuals approve of "Piss Christ". The issue is that four out of five intellectuals kow tow to Islamic intimidation. |
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Post by Supertramp78 on Nov 2, 2009 20:16:58 GMT -5
"The issue is that four out of five intellectuals kow tow to Islamic intimidation."
BS. It is called reacting to death threats. You don't walk into a biker bar ans shout, "Motercycles SUCK!" It isn't kow towing to not say it. It is stupid and possibly suicidal TO say it. The fact that ONE out of FIVE (by your math) isn't trying to avoid a mail bomb is pretty impressive. Personally? Not worth it. I don't think Islam is filled with nuts. But the nuts that Islam DOES have are dangerous and not worth picking fights with.
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Post by omaha on Nov 2, 2009 20:21:37 GMT -5
To be clear, the "four out of five" stuff was started by Dick, not me. Its not "my math".
And one might be advised not to go to Mecca and start handing out copies of the Danish cartoons, but we're talking about Yale University Press.
And I put the fear of Islamic terrorism in the same general category I put fear of outrageous lawsuits: Its a convenient rock for the timid to hide behind, exaggerating the risk beyond all recognition.
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Post by bamfiles on Nov 2, 2009 20:34:52 GMT -5
The problem, IMHO, is that 4 of 5 intellectuals intellectualize the problem and fail to take the Muslim fundamentalists seriously whereas the Muslim fundamentalists prove daily that they are serious, deadly serious. Our choice is much simpler than the intellectuals would have us believe. This really is a kill or be killed situation. I don't blame the Quran or Koran, however it's spelled, but the people who use it to justify their actions. In that sense, it's little different from the Bible. It's not the book, it's the people who subvert the books for their gain. In either case, I doubt that God has anything to do with it. Terrorism, Muslim or Irish or American must not be accepted as a tactic for political gain. Intellectuals claim you can't have a war against a tactic. I think we must have a war against terrorism in all its forms and by all it's adherents. It is not an acceptable behavior, never was and never will be. As bad as America may be in the minds of intellectuals, we manage to change governments every few years without resorting to terrorism. That's rare in the world but it is the source of whatever moral superiority we have. We should be proud of it and we should continue to proclaim our pride about it to the world. As long as we apologize for our sins and ignore theirs, we are not helping the world progress. I'll get off my soapbox now.
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Post by mnhermit on Nov 2, 2009 20:38:22 GMT -5
I guess you could do it like the Bogart movie where everything is seen from his eyes. Doug--wasn't that "The Lady in The Lake," directed by the late Robert Montgomery, who also stars as detective Phillip Marlowe? There's one scene in which we do see him, or rather he sees himself, in a mirror. Since the action is through his eyes, that's the only time he's visible on screen. Interesting gimmick, for the 1940s. Actually he's thinking of 'Dark Passage' (1947), where until Bogart has plastic surgery almost everything is shot from his point of view. 'Lady in the Lake was made in the same year - it must have been a 'fad' at the time. I have to admit I prefer 'Dark Passage', almost solely because of Bacall. (- and a young Agnes Morehead - who played her stock character - isn't it amazing how some actors start out playing old?) |
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Post by Supertramp78 on Nov 2, 2009 20:43:01 GMT -5
Muhammad cartoonist targeted, FBI says
Posted by Carole Bass '83, '97MSL at 10:23 pm Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Two Chicago men have been charged with plotting to attack a Danish cartoonist whose drawing of Muhammad sparked violence abroad and controversy at Yale.
Kurt Westergaard’s satirical image of the Muslim prophet wearing a bomb for a turban was the best-known of a dozen Muhammad cartoons published by a Danish newspaper in 2005. Months after their publication, demonstrations turned violent in parts of the Muslim world. This summer, the Yale University Press reignited debate – nonviolently — when it decided to remove the cartoons from a scholarly book about the cartoons.
Westergaard spoke at Yale in early October, surrounded by tight security, as part of a brief North American tour. It was just two days later, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, that federal agents arrested David Coleman Headley as he tried to board a plane for Pakistan. The government accuses Headley and another man of conspiring, through something called “The Mickey Mouse Project,” to “commit terrorist acts against overseas targets” — including Westergaard.
Adds the New York Times:
Mr. Headley told agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he had initially targeted a building occupied by the Danish newspaper, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten in Copenhagen, but later proposed killing the paper’s cartoonist and cultural editor instead.
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Post by Cornflake on Nov 2, 2009 20:46:15 GMT -5
"The problem, IMHO, is that 4 of 5 intellectuals intellectualize the problem and fail to take the Muslim fundamentalists seriously whereas the Muslim fundamentalists prove daily that they are serious, deadly serious. Our choice is much simpler than the intellectuals would have us believe. This really is a kill or be killed situation. I don't blame the Quran or Koran, however it's spelled, but the people who use it to justify their actions. In that sense, it's little different from the Bible. It's not the book, it's the people who subvert the books for their gain. In either case, I doubt that God has anything to do with it. Terrorism, Muslim or Irish or American must not be accepted as a tactic for political gain. Intellectuals claim you can't have a war against a tactic."
I don't know where your generalizations come from but I don't understand who these "intellectuals" that you're castigating are. Terrosism is not an acceptable tactic. Virtually no one I've ever heard from or read disagrees.
"I think we must have a war against terrorism in all its forms and by all it's adherents. It is not an acceptable behavior, never was and never will be. As bad as America may be in the minds of intellectuals, we manage to change governments every few years without resorting to terrorism. That's rare in the world but it is the source of whatever moral superiority we have. We should be proud of it and we should continue to proclaim our pride about it to the world. As long as we apologize for our sins and ignore theirs, we are not helping the world progress. I'll get off my soapbox now."
I mostly agree with that, save the shot at "intellectuals" and how they view America as bad. This strikes me as, for the most part, utter fiction.
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