Paris Attack

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Paris Attack

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken

Cute. So what's your solution?

[jk]

Re: Paris Attack

Cute. So what's your solution?

i didn't say i had one. i just said yours was wrong. i think any "solution" will likely be as complex as the problem: i.e. very.

your solution reminded me of a christian "solution" to the albegensian heresy. when the catholic forces finally conquered the last hold out city, beziers, the bishop ordered the military commander to kill all the cathars. the population of beziers was mixed, however. some residents were loyal catholics, some cathars. when the bishop was asked how to tell one from the other, he replied: "kill them all. the lord will know his own." 20,000 people were executed, men, women and children.

simple, huh?

[Master Shake]

Re: Paris Attack

I've seen the Mohammed as child rapist/paedephile meme a bit(and a bit more lately).

I've always focused on the incongruity of rigid adherence has with progressive western women's rights, rigid caste(believer/non believer) disparity in rights, rationalization of unethical/immoral behavior, etc.

I don't know about rape, but as far as the child wife accusation thing goes with Mohammed, I think it's first worth having a look back at the common marriage ages of MY ancestors(or is that ALL ancestors?) to compare and contrast.

I wonder if there's much of a difference.

Different times and different rules when you're an old woman/man if you make it to 40.

Half the average life expectancy, half the average age of marriage perhaps?

The Prophet consumated his marriage to Aisha when she was all of nine.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/childbrides.htm#s3

I guess you can play the moral or temporal relativism card, but 54 year old men having intercourse with pre-pubescent girls just seems wrong no matter what culture or time period that you are in.

[Mega]

Re: Paris Attack

I think poor housing doesn't help either:-

[jk]

Re: Paris Attack

The Prophet consumated his marriage to Aisha when she was all of nine.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/childbrides.htm#s3

I guess you can play the moral or temporal relativism card, but 54 year old men having intercourse with pre-pubescent girls just seems wrong no matter what culture or time period that you are in.

and if, in fact, you disapprove of this behavior attributed to mohammed, that implies what exactly about how we should deal with muslims today?

[vt]

Re: Paris Attack

http://bernardgoldberg.com/heres-ide...aa76-298495041

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

joe sacco in the guardian on "satire"

[click or double click to expand- for me the first time it expands only a little, then i need to click AGAIN to make it readable]

the "free speech" argument may be more complicated than you think.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5564[/ATTACH]

I applaud the author's attempt(it's always a good idea for some to pull back on the reigns even with absolute clarity), but isn't there a significant difference between:

racist stereotypes of black people and jews

and

caricature of mohammed

Again, I applaud the author's point of pulling back the reigns for some introspection, but I don't see it as a fair comparison, at best it's a very rough one(in my mind)

-----

One awkward topic I would like to see cartoonists/authors have the courage to cover is the conversation about equality.

In the west, most of us believe in the concept of individual equality(opportunity, outcome, gender, racial, etc).

But what about cultural equality?

Each country has it's own dominant culture as well as smaller slices of cultures that are either indigenous or imported.

Are all cultures equal?

Is it too awkward to discuss relative cultural contribution to(and withdraws made from) humanity?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

The Prophet consumated his marriage to Aisha when she was all of nine.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/childbrides.htm#s3

I guess you can play the moral or temporal relativism card, but 54 year old men having intercourse with pre-pubescent girls just seems wrong no matter what culture or time period that you are in.

Let's be clear, I'm no fan of pedaephiles.

I've seen all too often the "tea boys" in Afghanistan. Disgusted enough with it to refuse meeting with anyone known to keep them, to my detriment.

But whether a 100 years ago in the west, or whether today or 1000 years ago in dirt poor developing world countries, dirt poor humanity has a habit of getting hitched immediately once physiologically capable of bearing children.

[jk]

Re: Paris Attack

I applaud the author's attempt(it's always a good idea for some to pull back on the reigns even with absolute clarity), but isn't there a significant difference between:

racist stereotypes of black people and jews

and

caricature of mohammed

i think the commonality is questioning "satire" as drawings MEANT to offend certain people.

Again, I applaud the author's point of pulling back the reigns for some introspection, but I don't see it as a fair comparison, at best it's a very rough one(in my mind)

-----

One awkward topic I would like to see cartoonists/authors have the courage to cover is the conversation about equality.

In the west, most of us believe in the concept of individual equality(opportunity, outcome, gender, racial, etc).

But what about cultural equality?

Each country has it's own dominant culture as well as smaller slices of cultures that are either indigenous or imported.

Are all cultures equal?

Is it too awkward to discuss relative cultural contribution to(and withdraws made from) humanity?

how do we assess "cultural contributions" except with our own culture-bound values? if not those, what values do we use?

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Paris Attack

i didn't say i had one. i just said yours was wrong. i think any "solution" will likely be as complex as the problem: i.e. very.

your solution reminded me of a christian "solution" to the albegensian heresy. when the catholic forces finally conquered the last hold out city, beziers, the bishop ordered the military commander to kill all the cathars. the population of beziers was mixed, however. some residents were loyal catholics, some cathars. when the bishop was asked how to tell one from the other, he replied: "kill them all. the lord will know his own." 20,000 people were executed, men, women and children.

simple, huh?

Your example is irrelevant. No one is talking about killing Muslims.

It's instructive that you have to try to draw that analogy though, equating "Islam doesn't belong in the West" with "kill all the Muslims".

I suppose from the universalist viewpoint of a progressive (don't know if you identify as one, but your point here smacks of it), the decision not to allow Islam in the West would be kind of like a death - the death of progressivism, the death of the idea that all human beings, especially Westerners and exotic Third Worlders, are equal.

It's also instructive that you have no suggestion for a solution. You could do what the rest of the progressives in Europe are doing today: organize a march and wave some cardboard signs proclaiming "Je Suis Charlie Hebdo". I'm sure that when the jihadists see that, they will decide you are right and give up their beliefs, or maybe just move back to Islamic lands. If that doesn't work, you could always try apologizing to them for all the wrongs white men have committed...that seems to be another prominent progressive strategy.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Paris Attack

In the west, most of us believe in the concept of individual equality(opportunity, outcome, gender, racial, etc).

But what about cultural equality?

Each country has it's own dominant culture as well as smaller slices of cultures that are either indigenous or imported.

Are all cultures equal?

Is it too awkward to discuss relative cultural contribution to(and withdraws made from) humanity?

The West's current culture is progressivism, the belief in universalist equality of all humans.

This belief is objectively wrong, however. The races are not equal. The genders are not equal. The religions are not equal. Cultures are not equal. (Some send men to the moon and cure diseases, some rape virgins in the belief it cures AIDs, or make potions out of murdered albinos.) The inequalities of these groups is self-evident to any objective observer.

The discussion we need to have is one that wakes Westerners up to the reality that human beings and human tribes and groups are NOT equal, and to try to behave as if they are is eventually suicidal for the society that attempts it.

For example, the French avow that everyone can be French, and allow in so many Muslims that they currently make up 10% of the population. The result is that there are already areas in France that are no longer French, that have become no-go zones for native French. If the trend continues, the French will be dispossessed in their own land. Progressive belief in equality of all ==> societal suicide.

You have to have the cultural confidence to say (a) we are a people, a nation, and we deserve to have a land of our own; (b) we will not let other peoples occupy or settle our land; they have their own lands and can live there, and if they don't like their cultures then they are the ones to agitate there to change them; and (c) our culture is right for us and is the culture that will prevail in our lands. And we allow others to have their own cultures in their own lands.

In the end, although I prefer our culture, which puts men on the moon and cures diseases, to a culture that rapes virgins to cure AIDs, I recognize the right of those people to have their own culture in their own lands and do as they will. And I insist that my people be left to have our own culture, they way we like it.

So it's not a matter of cultural inferiority, it's a matter of realizing that progressive egalitarianism is a nice dream but is not the way the world actually is.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

i think the commonality is questioning "satire" as drawings MEANT to offend certain people.

Should be not all be offended in some shape or form on occasion?

What does the world look like when no one is offended?


how do we assess "cultural contributions" except with our own culture-bound values? if not those, what values do we use?

Tangibles?

Tangibles that relate to improvements in human quality of life and standard of living?

Root source culture of patents/intellectual property?
Root source culture of most popular/valuable apps?
Root source culture of scientific innovation?
Root source culture of entrepreneurial activity(proportional value/gain)?
Root source culture of terminal degrees in hard sciences?
Root source culture of criminal convictions?

I know it can be nebulous and convoluted. Throwing up an example of Christian Barnard's heart transplant could provoke a response that it's on the backs of discriminated blacks, and that it's not possible to build a Dreamliner plant in a Syrian parking lot, despite all the recently available space.

But where there's smoke there is often fire is there not?

Even though some of that smoke may be drone strike related, certainly there's enough smoke to warrant some investigation isn't there?

Where is the candor and honesty in asking why have some cultures contributed so much to the human experience, often despite persecution, while others have not in modern times?

[astonas]

Re: Paris Attack

You have to have the cultural confidence to say (a) we are a people, a nation, and we deserve to have a land of our own; (b) we will not let other peoples occupy or settle our land; they have their own lands and can live there, and if they don't like their cultures then they are the ones to agitate there to change them; and (c) our culture is right for us and is the culture that will prevail in our lands. And we allow others to have their own cultures in their own lands.

You mean like this?


If your logic were indeed valid, the United States would not have a right to exist. Every single criterion you list applied to the native americans and their culture, just as much as it applies to your twisted and despicable vision of "American" culture now.

The one and only difference? Those natives were not militarily advanced enough to enforce their claim.

That's why what you are REALLY saying boils down to "might makes right." If we have the ability to replace a culture with our own, we are "right" to do so. (Since we already have, and since you wish to defend it, it is presumably "right".) Being deluded enough to treat your logic as valid implies that if others seek to do the same with us (colonize here) then whoever is stronger should win.

Since we are generally militarily stronger at the moment, that can work out just fine for us ... for a while.

Until someone figures out how to penetrate our walls with their culture.

That's 9/11. And other similar attacks worldwide since then.

But by your logic, things like that have to happen, don't they? To find out which culture deserves to exist in a space. After all, "we will not let other peoples occupy or settle our land" is an idea that requires testing of the word "let" to establish the "right" to settle. That's how we won the right to exist here. Shows of force.

So we'd get a state of constant war between all cultures, each grabbing whatever land they can from any others, whenever they think they can do so. And being fully justified in practicing whatever shows of force they wish whenever they can't take land outright. (If might makes right, and all cultures are in an eternal war for dominance and space, then each culture has to do what it takes to assert itself, if only in self-defense.)

This is the inevitable and ultimate consequence of your repugnant excuse for ethics. Eternal terrorism, for everyone in the world.

Are you really stupid enough to believe that this is not only a war that can be won, but also a war that we should be eager to make happen? That this is the best way for a world to work, the best way to resolve cultural differences?

Some may well like that idea. I'd say it sounds like an incredibly inane desire. That such a miserable excuse for morality is itself the enemy, and the fact that a few islamic nuts believe exactly the same logic IS ITSELF THE PROBLEM. In other words, though you may not yet have examined it closely enough to realize it, you are espousing precisely the same core idiocy that all terrorists do.


I cannot imagine that an iTulip reader could be so incredibly stupid, and so I choose to believe that you haven't thought your drivel through fully enough to understand its inescapable logical consequences.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

You mean like this?


If your logic were indeed valid, the United States would not have a right to exist. Every single criterion you list applied to the native americans and their culture, just as much as it applies to your twisted and despicable vision of "American" culture now.

The one and only difference? Those natives were not militarily advanced enough to enforce their claim.

That's why what you are REALLY saying boils down to "might makes right." If we have the ability to replace a culture with our own, we are "right" to do so. (Since we already have, and since you wish to defend it, it is presumably "right".) Being deluded enough to treat your logic as valid implies that if others seek to do the same with us (colonize here) then whoever is stronger should win.

Since we are generally militarily stronger at the moment, that can work out just fine for us ... for a while.

Until someone figures out how to penetrate our walls with their culture.

That's 9/11. And other similar attacks worldwide since then.

But by your logic, things like that have to happen, don't they? To find out which culture deserves to exist in a space. After all, "we will not let other peoples occupy or settle our land" is an idea that requires testing of the word "let" to establish the "right" to settle. That's how we won the right to exist here. Shows of force.

So we'd get a state of constant war between all cultures, each grabbing whatever land they can from any others, whenever they think they can do so. And being fully justified in practicing whatever shows of force they wish whenever they can't take land outright. (If might makes right, and all cultures are in an eternal war for dominance and space, then each culture has to do what it takes to assert itself, if only in self-defense.)

This is the inevitable and ultimate consequence of your repugnant excuse for ethics. Eternal terrorism, for everyone in the world.

Are you really stupid enough to believe that this is not only a war that can be won, but also a war that we should be eager to make happen? That this is the best way for a world to work, the best way to resolve cultural differences?

Some may well like that idea. I'd say it sounds like an incredibly inane desire. That such a miserable excuse for morality is itself the enemy, and the fact that a few islamic nuts believe exactly the same logic IS ITSELF THE PROBLEM. In other words, though you may not yet have examined it closely enough to realize it, you are espousing precisely the same core idiocy that all terrorists do.


I cannot imagine that an iTulip reader could be so incredibly stupid, and so I choose to believe that you haven't thought your drivel through fully enough to understand its inescapable logical consequences.

I tend to be of the belief that you don't really own something, unless you can successfully defend it.

Isn't that the case of earlier inhabitants in North America?

They were unable to successfully defend their land and disparate but locally dominant cultures, so it's no longer their land and dominant culture?

-----

Increasingly, my view is of two extremes:

One extreme is a minority believing it is acceptable to use violence to pursue their rigid, obsolete, and dangerous ideology.

On the other extreme I see a minority believing it is acceptable to use rhetoric to pursue a naive, excessively progressive, and dangerous ideology.

There's a lot of mass media coverage on the former, but what about the latter?

Is it not dangerous for people to confuse technological progress with social progress?

Don't some sheltered "excessive progressives"(with voices/audiences to match) display almost child-like naivete about the greater world around them and the lack of human evolution in terms of baser human behavior?

There is no human physiology/psychological equivalent to Moore's Law.

We may be quickly approaching the technological bridge of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek, but aren't we still psychologically living in caves?

In my mind, while I am embarrassed and disgusted by any unjustifiable backlash, violent or otherwise, directed at muslim communities over this(outside of a calm, cool, collected look at immigration, assimilation, integration policies), we do have some robust law enforcement, security, and stability to mitigate the risk of a pogrom.

I am more concerned about "excessive progressive" attitudes by people living on the "right side" of the Brave New World who think Moore's Law somehow applies to human beings and their behaviors.

Not exactly dangerous in terms of murdering people with AK47s for their scribblings, but dangerous in it's extreme naivete.

What do you reckon?

[jk]

Re: Paris Attack

Your example is irrelevant. No one is talking about killing Muslims.

It's instructive that you have to try to draw that analogy though, equating "Islam doesn't belong in the West" with "kill all the Muslims".

no, just vilify anyone with that religion. it's the broad sweep, the lack of subtlety or granularity, in your "solution" that reminded me of beziers.

It's also instructive that you have no suggestion for a solution.

fermat's last theorem was posed in 1637. for hundreds of years, mathematicians would occasionally come forward and say they had a proof. they were always shown to be wrong. those that pointed to the errors did not have proofs of their own. nonetheless, finding the errors was important work.

in 1993 andrew wiles, after 6 years of work on the problem, proposed a solution. however, AN ERROR WAS FOUND! only after 2 years more work was the error patched over. finding errors in incorrect solutions is part of the process of working on a problem.

finding error is always useful. it is not logically equivalent to finding alternate solutions.