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Conscript Rabbi
 
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| I want to raise another point. Since we have a sudden influx of posting visual material, I'd like to invite you to make thoughts on what would be the rules involving posting pictures.
I can see how a pic can illustrate a point, but can it be a point in itself? That may only indirectly be the case, and if we do not make it explicit, what comes of the discussion?
In addition, as stated before: in the P&R forum more is allowed, but it is also easier to offend. We need to rely on your wisdom to post in such a way that the atmosphere is maintained so that every one can still express their view.
In any case, I do not think it is proper use of the P&R forum to have posting pictures be legitimate for the posting of picture's sake alone, when otherwise it wouldn't have been.
May be not an offense of rules, but then again, also not necessarily very wise.
Hence we need some pointers here.
I'd like to show you two examples and they can be seen consecutively in the funny cartoon thread. Look at the first and the second picture.
Allow me to do some analysis. As cartoons go, they make exaggerations. The first one exaggerates the discussions around terrorism and how to deal with it within the US. We may assume that both characters in the cartoon as they represent a certain main stream American position, are likely to be, more or less evenly represented among posters. It could very well contribute or launch a discussion.
The second one exaggerates an American view of another culture (Islam / Taliban) of which the American has little knowledge or understanding. If there are two sides in the cartoon then it is Western vs. Islam/Taleban. One of which is hugely overrepresented and the other is at best underrepresented, if at all. Consequently, my feeling is, that the second one is playing a majority card as well as blunt satire which together makes it rather hard for anyone to stand up and make a point against it. Hence I fear it will choke discussion rather than enhance it. Consequently, I feel it is less appropriate in a discussion forum.
Your thoughts please. |
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First Lieutenant
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| RabiAkiva (1/22/2007)
Allow me to do some analysis. As cartoons go, they make exaggerations. The first one exaggerates the discussions around terrorism and how to deal with it within the US. We may assume that both characters in the cartoon as they represent a certain main stream American position, are likely to be, more or less evenly represented among posters. It could very well contribute or launch a discussion.
The second one exaggerates an American view of another culture (Islam / Taliban) of which the American has little knowledge or understanding. If there are two sides in the cartoon then it is Western vs. Islam/Taleban. One of which is hugely overrepresented and the other is at best underrepresented, if at all. Consequently, my feeling is, that the second one is playing a majority card as well as blunt satire which together makes it rather hard for anyone to stand up and make a point against it. Hence I fear it will choke discussion rather than enhance it. Consequently, I feel it is less appropriate in a discussion forum.
Your thoughts please.Should we avoid discussing the ethical or moral characteristics of Naziism simply because those who have intimate (and sympathetic) knowledge or understanding of Naziism are under-represented on 1BC? Should the lack of professing Nazis on 1BC make us self-conscious about debating, discussing, or in any other way illuminating the nature of Naziism, or the role of Naziism in world history? We could replace "Naziism" with "slavery," "trial by torture," "capital punishment," "revenge killing," "polyamoury" or any of a host of other controversial topics and the point I'm making remains salient. We should not feel a morale imperative to avoid discussing certain subjects simply because one side of the subject seems indefensible and undefended for the simple lack of propoents in our midst. This IMO takes political correctness to its utter, and ridiculous extreme. In my opinion, women feeling that it is morally preferential for them to cover their faces in public is not only wrong it is dehumanizing, and I will argue quite strongly for my right to argue in support of this opinion on 1BC; whether or not someone else will argue against it is irrelevant. |
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Conscript Rabbi
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| Scipio Africanus (1/22/2007)
Should we avoid discussing the ethical or moral characteristics of Naziism simply because those who have intimate (and sympathetic) knowledge or understanding of Naziism are under-represented on 1BC? Should the lack of professing Nazis on 1BC make us self-conscious about debating, discussing, or in any other way illuminating the nature of Naziism, or the role of Naziism in world history?
We could replace "Naziism" with "slavery," "trial by torture," "capital punishment," "revenge killing," "polyamoury" or any of a host of other controversial topics and the point I'm making remains salient.
We should not feel a morale imperative to avoid discussing certain subjects simply because one side of the subject seems indefensible and undefended for the simple lack of propoents in our midst. This IMO takes political correctness to its utter, and ridiculous extreme.
In my opinion, women feeling that it is morally preferential for them to cover their faces in public is not only wrong it is dehumanizing, and I will argue quite strongly for my right to argue in support of this opinion on 1BC; whether or not someone else will argue against it is irrelevant.
Nazism is quite the example, as for me, it symbolizes the greatest evil man can get to. So I will get to Nazism as well, but allow me to make a detour. Since what you are implying is Nazism and a host of other things, thus making an analogy between Nazism and many other issues.
First of all, you run a risk of making a false analogy here. If you agree with me that Nazism is about as evil as it gets, it makes it a little bit different from for example 'capital punishment', which may be something you and I object to quite firmly, but at least I do not think that anybody who is in favor has totally lost his senses, or must be utterly evil. I think he is very wrong, but I can take him seriously as a person and I am in fact quite willing to debate the subject, whereas Nazism, in my opinion is entirely undebatable.
I sense an implication in what you write towards what you call Islamofascism (a term I dislike) and since we are using examples such as veils for women, which is main stream Islam, you are sliding from the utter wrong Islamofascism, which is clearly reprehensible, to the position and dress of women in Muslem society, which you object to quite firmly similar to the way I object to capital punishment, but I would assume is of another order that Islamofascism and Nazism.
In addition, I'd like to point out the distinction between subjects that are so evil that they are not open to debate and subjects that you oppose to but are willing to debate, or are even interested to debate. In case you are interested in debate, there is no choice but to attribute some dignity to those who hold the opinion you want to debate even though you are strongly opposed to it, otherwise the foundation for a debate is not there.
What I am trying to reveal in this thread is that the foundation for debate is a certain free atmosphere in which the debaters can state their arguments and that anything that hurts that atmosphere will kill the debate and push aside the pure reasoning which should be the core of the debate. At some time we will have to pay attention also to language, because for a debate it is also pivotal we have a shared language and you as an anthropologist will agree with me that in this context language means more than just the syntax and grammar of English, but rather some symbolic universe that comes with it. We need to have some intersubjectivity. But even supposed we have that, we cannot have a debate when power comes into play.
I like jokes and find that the good ones are mostly very deep and convey subtle wisdoms that we can profit from, also in debate, but I wish to show to you that something can be presented as humor and really is power wielding in disguise and that is not only not funny, it is lethal for debate.
So here are the examples, among which we will have Nazism at the end for good measure.
Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film maker who was murdered by a Muslem militant, was an artist who had made provocative humor as his trade mark. To Muslems he used to refer as 'geitenneukers' (an invented Dutch word that I like not to translate but it involves certain activity with goats) and this was rather widely regarded as funny. I cannot sympathize with Mohammed B., the killer of Van Gogh, for shooting the man, but I can relate to the humiliation he and his fellow Muslems must have felt for being poked fun at as 'geitenneukers'. Not exactly a joke that contributes to mutual understanding between Dutch Muslems and Dutch Christians and seculars.
When I was a teenager, among my peers it was the funniest thing to make jokes about homosexuals. Since I had a homosexual sibling, I felt offended and tried to stand up, but this made the joke all the funnier for the others. At first they had nowhere to point the joke and now it was all directed towards me. This made me realize that this was not any more poking fun, but an expression of superiority: 'we are normal and you are weird'. And since I was alone there was near nothing I could do. The joke was not a joke anymore it was a way of riding the wave of majority. And in such a way that you are defenseless, because when you object, you are just a sissy who can't take a joke.
In Israel we make a lot of jokes about Jews, but the same jokes take on a rather different meaning when made by gentiles, especially when there is small amount of Jews around. For the same reason dumb blonde jokes are funny when made by women and much less when made by men. Etcetera
This is what I want to show. A good joke can take on an entirely different meaning in different circumstance.
Now here is to Nazism. I detest Nazism, but I love the German language and German culture and by those who have little understanding, the two are frequently made identical. So when Nazism is being discussed I have found myself quite often in the peculiar situation of standing up for anything else that is German. Imagine the irony, that consequently I was percieved as a Nazi apologist, just as my school peers came to be convinced I was gay.
Alternatively it has happened a couple of times on this forum, I found myself in a conversation with an American who was proud to know a bit of German and he suddenly made exclamations such as 'Deutschland ueber alles' or 'Sieg heil' which had me shocked and ask something along the lines: 'what the hell are you saying?' And then I was reprimanded 'you obviously hate everything German'.
SO here is where it comes to. If you are interested in debate, you have to come with reason. You will have to choose your words and the rest of your behavior very carefully. You will have to understand you are responsible for the debating atmosphere. A joke can be funny, but a joke that rides the wave of majority is not funny at all and it will marginalize the minority into an undebatable position.
Oh and does this look like political correctness? Yes, that is where political correctness comes from. That it has been taken to extremes as such that history books in middle schools need to carry just as many stories about women and blacks as about white men is a distortion. It doesn't make sensitivity wrong per se. |
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Hypocrisy is sin's reverence to virtue
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Edited: 1/23/2007 5:50 AM by RabiAkiva | | |
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