Quick Response to David:
Since David's comments to his post below are closed, here is a "comment" in post form: I'm not entirely sure I understand. David, are you criticizing the speaker for not believing in democracy? For not sharing a western style sense of civil liberties? For confusing "the state" with individuals in the state?
Agreed... just venting... but with good reason.
The quote provided seems like just another example of the latter, which is a good way to use private economic muscle in a way in which an private economic actor can further her idividual interests. I sold out of shares (bequethed to me) of Walmart for this reason (it didn't hurt that the stock seemed to have capped, anyway). Seems like the type of quote an friend of econ would appreciate :-)
She obviously feels insulted, probably similar to the way I felt when I first saw Piss Christ. I would have boycotted just about anyone associated with that monstrosity. Her reaction can be criticized (and the commenters raise valid issues), but ridicule is not the answer.
To call the original post “venting” is charitable. The latter half of the post is more rant than vent.
And now, "I'm not criticizing her..."? Please.
Good luck, Ms. Faleh. You would be reduced to warm goat milk and dates, at least until flies and vermin ate them.
Now, I will cease commenting due to other obligations, which is why I left comments close to begin with.
I think you can disagree with the speaker, specifically (I do) and the protest generally (or the threat of violence) without having to paint such a broad brush. Bernstein's heart may be in the right place, but the argument smells.
Our country is on the way to spending $400 billion to create an Islamic theocracy in Iraq. That is the goal of our foreign policy.
Does anyone here think that you would be able to print such images in Iraq in, say, 2010 without having your head lopped off?
The intellectual disconnect between people who - on one had tutt-tutt about those nutty Muslims getting riled up over cartoons while simultaneously supporting a foreign policy whose result will be to solidify the power of such groups is just mind boggling.
I'm not sure of truth of #1 (I'm not willing to assume it, at least), but your are right on #2 -- a boycott, to be successful, should be focused on the offender.
We could certainly make a rationale argument why Denmark is the offender, though -- perhaps someone is protesting the fact that there is *not* a blasphamy law there (or not enforced the way someone likes). (This would attempt to put us in the same category of those that wanted divestature from South Afircan countries for the percieved sins of the government there, but equate nonfeseance with malfeasance). But, I agree, that is a stretch.
The Chinese invented paper, printing (block and moveable type), the compass, gun powder, etc. without "freedom of thought." The West got not through social evolution but through the Arab world bringing to them. Please respond.
Why do so many people have such a hard time understanding why Moslems are offended? Here are some things that are not what Moslems are offended by, as I understand it:
- Western liberalism
- the failure of Western nations to stifle religious dissent
As I understand it, people are rioting (etc.) because a newspaper published an image very offensive to their fundamental beliefs. Enjoying Western liberalism does not require that you use your freedom of speech to offend other people.
It would be nice if everyone who got upset about this acted cooly and rationally, and sat down and wrote a letter to the Danish newspaper that chose to poke them in the eye. In a perfect world, we would all be able to distinguish between different Moslems and Danes, and angry Moslems would be able to focus their anger at specific Danes, and angry US bloggers would not lump all angry Moslems together (not saying that anyone here is doing that, but I've seen enough of it in the last day or so). Is anyone surprised that we don't live in that perfect world? They're boycotting Denmark because they lack an effective way to boycott the particular newspaper, and because they're pissed off.
Moreover, it's not clear to me that it's somehow "illegitimate" or dishonest for a foreign culture to cannibalize a hated foe's artifacts in the process of seeking to destroy that foe (or in the process of fighting another foe). We took Nazi rocketry advances that were produced by a culture we (ostensibly) loathed. The Romans derived military techniques -- like the manipular legion -- from enemies who had defeated them. The Vandals became Christian in the process of annihilating Roman civilization in Spain and North Africa. Colonial Americans kept England's language, faith, law, dress, manufactures, etc. while rejecting England's rule.
Islamists have basically said, "We hate the West, but we will take the things they have created and use them to destroy the people who made them. Then, we will build our Islamic utopia on the cinders left behind." It's brutal and its hostile to us, but I don't think it's intellectually dishonest. It might be dishonest if *after having destroyed* the West, Islamists adopted Western technologies and whatnot. But even then, it's not altogether clear to me that that would be so (after the Christian Romans purged the pagan temples of antiquity, in many cases they converted them into churches; in other cases, of course, they tore them down; Augustin used pagan Greek disputation techniques to defend and advance Christianity; etc.).
To the extent there is a war between civilizations, it is a war of wills. This is a test of will. If Arab nations can defeat European nations' will-power simply by boycotting their cheese, why should they go farther?
The opinion David quotes is almost identical to the opinions of people in the U.S. who want to boycott Disney for providing benefits to gay partners. Or to the recent American fundamentalists who are planning to boycott an evangelical Christian movie about missionaries in Ecuador because one of the actors is openly gay. Or, to the liberal American Christians who participate in boycotts of Israel.
There are many real and nontrivial differences between Islam and Christianity, but the willingness to engage to ridiculous boycotts b/c other people do things you don't like is a common phenomenon among all religions right now.
If I'm getting the pronoun generalizations correct, this is kinda funny and cuts to root. If Mr. Bernstein can tells me how he heats his house, fills his car, and travel on aeroplanes without using any resources from Muslim countries, making sure it's all non-Muslim countries oil, then I will totally support his contention that WE don't need THEM. Fact is, right now we do.
The absurdity is that this woman, who enjoys her freedom to practice her religion of hostility and intolerance of others, thanks only to our own extremely liberal values, is herself outtraged by this same liberalism that tolerates her beliefs when it results in things -- such as the cartoons -- which she herself does not like. She is thus desirous of having her cake, and eating it too.
You really need to some very basic history review here. 1500 years ago the Chinese had not yet invented any of these except for paper (which they did capitalize on, producing the most literate society on the planet until maybe the 19th century). Most of the other were invented between the 7th and 13th centuries (i.e., when you have them in a cocoon). China was unquestionably the richest, most powerful nation in the world until maybe the late Ming (16th century). They did, to some degree, "go into a cocoon" at that point in that they cut off much foreign trade and exploration for a number of reasons. But to say they didn't capitalize on the invention of paper, printing, etc. is as shockingly ignorant as saying that the US has failed to really make use of electricity. They spent far more time as the world's dominant power than the US has spend existing. You could at least spend 5 min. on Wikipedia before making such statements. I much prefer a liberal capitalist democracy to any other system I can think of, but to assume that only such a system could result in technological discoveries and the ability to capitalize on them is just factually wrong.
Why do you think she's outraged by "liberalism?" To borrow the example of someone above, when President Bush says he's outraged by court decisions permitting gay marriage, do you conclude that he's outraged by "democracy?"
Where to begin?
Confucius was not free to think? Taoism was suppressed? Buddhism did not take root?
Confucius's ideas, to state it simply, were in perfect accord with the needs of the Zhou state (or what remained of it). He was certainly free to think whatever he wanted (just like every human in the world is and always has been), but if he expressed thoughts that threatened the state
there is no reason to believe that would not have suffered as a result. In fact the writings connected with that tradition (along with many writings we would consider Daoist) were ordered burned by the Qin emperor in the bibliocaust of 213 B.C. Both schools of Daoism and Buddhism were suppressed and almost destroyed at numerous points in imperial history when they appear likely to threaten the state, had amassed too much money, fell out of favor, etc.
The Chinese emperor did not apppoint a commission in around 300 B.C. to scientifically analyze the principles of music as Pythagoras had done earlier in Greece?
Who was "the Chinese emperor" in 300 B.C.? What would later become China was in this period a series of independent states. There was no "Chinese emperor" and wouldn't be until 221 B.C.
they had freedom of thought. Because they honored their scholars
What do you mean by "freedom of thought"? They certainly didn't have freedom to express any thoughts they saw fit. And yes, they honored their scholars, but the civil service exam, the primary route to power, very carefully determined what opinions and thoughts those scholars could express.
It may be an exaggeration but I have heard that you could not be a street sweeper in ancient China if you were illiterate.
It is beyond an exaggeration. While they were certainly the most literate society in the world for many centuries, the literacy rate certainly never broke 10% at any point before the 20th century.
You seem to have a view of China based more on some New Age pamphlet than on the historical facts.
That made my day, thank you.
Why, that idea sounds familiar...
What are you talking about??? The first emperor died in 210 B.C. while still emperor. He appointed his first son to be his heir but a cabal of eunuchs led by Zhao Gao replaced him with the second son and caused the first to commit suicide. Later emperors who lost power when alive either did so because of inner court politics or because the dynasty was overthrown by another army or invaders. The idea that the Chinese people ever (before, say the last decade in Taiwan) had any kind of meaningful political freedom or freedom of expression (which is what matters, not some vague idea of "freedom thought") is simply wrong. Please cite a single reliable source to show the contrary.
And I also apologize for changing the main subject of this thread. For what it's worth, anybody who thinks shooting is an appropriate response to a cartoon needs a valium or two.
No, but I think it does require that you ascribe, at least minimally, to the maxim: Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me.
In the grownup world that many religious fanatics (of all stripes) seem unable to enter, people will piss you off but you should not threaten to kill them for it.
No, but I think it does require that you ascribe, at least minimally, to the maxim: Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me.
Liberalism hardly requires that you abandon whatever beliefs you have -- e.g., Islam -- or any sense of offense you might have when your beliefs are disrespected.
In the grownup world that many religious fanatics (of all stripes) seem unable to enter, people will piss you off but you should not threaten to kill them for it.
I cannot imagine that there is a single commenter here who thinks that it would be appropriate to threaten to kill people for publishing what that Danish newspaper published. You've found something we can all agree on.
I wonder if we are framing the debate properly, is it really western liberalism or secularism that is fulcrum of the debate ? It is a societal and cultural clash of values that defines freedom with different boundaries. Does that necessarily make one a barbarian for not adhering to a secularist point of view where anything goes (within societal limits) ? Is she not engaging in freedom of expression and speech ? Does said expression open her up to derision ? Certainly, in a free society it is essential for an individual to have a right to express a counter opinion, even vehemently so, short of taking any violent action.
Were these comments made in another cultural environment, i.e. muslim society, it would enjoy the support of a larger segment and not be subject to the criticism it encounters in this one. I do not think anyone of us would deny her the right to boycott or express her opinion, no matter how illogical one perceives it to be. This is nothing more than a clash of cultures in a societal arena where the speaker is in the minority.
Personally, am I offended by her opinion ? Not at all. Do I share it ? Definitely not. Do I defend her right to express it ? Without a doubt, as I also equally defend the right of those to criticize or defend her opinion. Did it deserve coverage in the Washington Post ? You decide.
If one can take a step back, one might see it is part of the microcosm of how some Christians view the secular agenda, and why they feel under attack. If a similar comment were made by a Christian shopper in a store about an offensive cartoon caricature of Christ, would it have received similar coverage or wouild it be accepted as the norm ? Why is there this sensitivity to offending a religious minority that deserves reportage, yet, if the religious majority segment of society is offended and reacts, it is somehow demonized ? Victimhood, the phenomenon that absolves one from personal responsibility and accountability, and champions a facade of tolerance that propigates intolerance. It is a double edged sword that cuts both ways, left and right, with each claiming the moral high ground.
Yes, and this is true of all sorts of political organizations. But if Disney is engaging in the offensive policy, boycotting Disney, as opposed to the state of Florida, is how you would rationally address your complaint.
You actually state what the point is later - that it is the intellectual hypocrisy of it. They claim they have a superior worldview, but have no problem taking the benefits of things that show that worldview in fact may not be so superior. The disconnect between Islam and the West is much greater than that between Rome and the barbarians it freely incorporated into its empire. And Rome taking the stirrup from the Parthians, or whatever, isn't quite the same as the much larger range of goods and services from the West that Islam has incorporated into itself.
Oh, and nice try at trolling by seeing we "ostensibly" found the Nazis abhorrent.
Okay, so my dates are off. What's your point? China DID go into a coccoon, and let the world pass it by. That's what you need to explain. If the western liberal democracies similarly stagnate and go into a coccoon, then you'd have a much stronger point.
Therefore, protesting Muslims are irrational. Q.E.D.
Well, I certainly don't recall any recent stormings of the Florida embassy after word spread about Disney's policy, and no Disney stores have been ransacked (or for that matter, Universal Studios stores, since in the mind of some protestors, this paper = Denmark = any European country).
Boycott CAN be a rational behavior, because the idea is to hurt the entity you dislike by depriving it of sufficient cash. Or, to at least get publicity for your plight. This reminds me of the time when, after learning that some Muslim extremists had try to seize the Kaaba in Mecca, some Pakistanis led a protest outside the American embassy. Any excuse to be a mob...
David writes: The problem is with those who threaten, engage in, or even merely support violence against the West, precisely because of its liberalism (including the fact that one could publish "blasphemous" pictures of Mohammed without being arrested), but meanwhile benefit from all the benefits that liberalism has provided them.
Does David think that the advances of Western civilization (i.e., antibiotics, anesthesia, no slavery, cars, refrigerators, television, and cell phones, etc.) are NECESSARILY tied to our willingness to tolerate speech that can be described as hostile to religion? Might the woman have a difference of opinion on the subject? I mean, perhaps the woman simply want to throw out the bathwater (tolerance for offensive speech) and keep the baby (antibiotics, anesthesia, etc.).
While I personally don't think that's possible, I would accept that someone could differ with my opinion.
So it's not that protesting Moslems are irrational, but that they're just looking for an excuse to riot? Got it: not irrational, but unruly. In any event, having that sort of reductive expanation for what's motivating them sure beats listening to what they're saying.
Hmm, DB, what about not rounding up tens of thousands of people on the basis of ethnicity alone and imprisoning them for several years without any process of law??? I think that to be an equally important liberal value. Unfortunately, you clearly do not, as evidenced by your admiration for the despicable racist Michelle Malkin.
So I'll get back to you in 1500 years.
Certainly England, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany don't have anywhere near the military power and influence that they had 200 years ago. I guess capitalism and democracy inevitably leads to division and warfare. The US auto industry is clearly no match for Japan's (and possibly S. Korea's before too long). Goofy Americans, we invent this great technology but just can't capitalize on it for more than 100 years.
I do think that getting the dates wrong by about a thousand years is not a trivial matter. We're not talking about June 19 vs. Nov. 11th here. Your point was that China inventing these things and failed to use them to advance its society. Given that they DID use them all to advance their society for 1000 years of so, and then for any number of reasons lost a lot of influence in the world over about 300 years, makes your point simply wrong. Are you going to say that the US failed to take advantage of electricity if it's not the world's dominant power in 2900? That would be silly. And we might also note that China presently has the world's 4th largest economy, nuclear weapons, etc.
Apparently, these irrational boycotters do not understand -- or do not care to understand -- that the actions of a newspaper are not the actions of the state or its people. Nor can the state regulate the actions of the newspaper.
This points to a fundamental misunderstanding of western, liberal governments by those subject to tyrannical states.
I would hope to see a posted apology from DB, but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe a spinoff anti-Muslim blog would address DB's needs and those of the VC's readers.
To the extent that antibiotics, anesthesia, and other medical advances have been made via scientific investigations that have been described, through much of Western history, as contrary to the teachings of Christianity, yes, those advances *are* tied to our willingness to tolerate speech, writing, and world views that are contrary to accepted religious thought and dogma.
(I am not describing science or scientists as "anti-religious", simply pointing out that many others have, and continue to do so.)
Or to put it more simply - "If God wanted man to fly, He'd have given us wings" is a thought not limited to Islam.
And just so I can get a fatwa too:
@>:^(
If those beliefs give such power to mere words that you find yourself compelled to punish those who utter them, then yes, I think 'liberalism' does require that you abandon those beliefs. Otherwise, what definition of 'liberalism' is being used?
Liberalism doesn't demand (or ensure) that you not be offended (that term only means "I don't like that" anyway), but it does demand that you accept the fact that sometimes it will happen when there is nothing you can do about it. That's part of the cost of living in a 'liberal' society.
Which is what? Agree with us entirely (including up to the point that you cannot even depict a historical figure in picture) or we'll take you hostage? Be my guest to follow along with that, but I won't.
I noticed that too. A conspiracy usually doesn't work that well if the conspirators are fighting amongst themselves (pearl of wisdom learned in Reservoir Dogs).
Wow. David Bernstien > Terrorists.
I think I can agree to that moral judgment. Not sure if it's the relevant one, though.
I understood that conspirators here undertook an express or implicit obligation to moderate the comments under their own posts, an obligation that Bernstein was unable to assume but Kerr was able to assume today.
If those beliefs give such power to mere words that you find yourself compelled to punish those who utter them, then yes, I think 'liberalism' does require that you abandon those beliefs.
Well, this has to be wrong, if by "punish" you have in mind something like an economic boycott. If, OTOH, you're talking about killing people who offend you, I didn't see any object to my suggestion that we all think that would be wrong.
According to CNN, "'Whoever defames our prophet should be executed,' said Ismail Hassan, 37, a tailor who marched through the pouring rain along with hundreds of others in the West Bank city of Ramallah." I would disagree with Mr. Hassan.
Liberalism doesn't demand (or ensure) that you not be offended (that term only means "I don't like that" anyway), but it does demand that you accept the fact that sometimes it will happen when there is nothing you can do about it. That's part of the cost of living in a 'liberal' society.
Hardly so. You can do all sorts of things about it, like speaking out, launching an economic boycott, organizing politically, etc. It would appear that many of the protesters are doing these things. I have yet to hear that anyone has been physically harmed, although the reports about gunmen in Gaza are disturbing enough.
As an aside, I find it rather hypocritical that officials and newspaper editors involved in this dispute appeal to freedom of speech in their defense, yet many of the countries in which these cartoons were printed have Holocaust denial laws. Denmark may not be guilty of this, but Germany and France are.
I'm going to wait for one of the people who complains that Muslims should be able to distinguish between Danes who buy different newspapers to say something about REL's ability to distinguish between Muslims.
Aside from Israel and Iraq II, how has the West dominated Muslims militarily in the last couple generations?
Recently, the West has used its military power to save Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and twice fought to protect Muslims (in Bosnia and Kosovo) from the Christian Serbs.
Again, this point neglects the fact that many of these countries do have laws that restrict freedom of speech in some respects, such as laws criminalizing Holocaust denials or laws against "inciting racial hatred." Considering that, I don't think the boycott calls are all that irrational.
I'm sorry, but this is arrant nonsense, which sounds less like it comes from actually knowing the history of science and technology and more like just reading off the usual PC TelePrompTer.
I have studied the history of science, not to mention science itself, and despite the much bruited -- and atypical -- case of Galileo, the growth of science and technology in the West has had very little influence from Christianity, either positively or negatively. People who think otherwise are usually in the grips of some ideological campaign for or against the church.
The most obvious pieces of evidence are that (1) other religious practises have coexisted with scientific advance (e.g. Islam and al-jabru [algebra] and al-kimiya [alchemy, later chemistry]), (2) the vicissitudes of the Christian faith have not corresponded to variations in scientific advance, e.g. the progress of the Reformation had no obvious correlation to the progress, or lack of progress, of the Renaissance or Enlightenment, and (3) luddism is not especially concentrated among the faithful.
Furthermore, I doubt even Mr. Bernstein's faith, that progress in science and technology has something to do with a "liberal" culture that tolerates political and sociological dissent. That just sounds like the usual liberal-arts-education arrogance talking: having your mind "expanded" by a "tolerant" education makes you a better thinker, and that's why we in the West have such great tech. Which proves that studying the poetry of Maya Angelou is just as practically useful as studying organic chemistry, yippee!
Yeah, right. How we're going to explain in this context the difference between the ancient Greeks (liberal thinking, technological sterility) and the ancient Romans (illiberal thinking, engineering marvels) is beyond me.
You ask me, the reason the West has great tech is simply its sloppy economic class structure, which proceeds possibly from the inability of the terminally argumentative Anglo-Saxon-Germanic (and Jewish) cultures to ever agree on the social myths and social structure they
want to enforce.
The loose structure means that for 1500 years it's been possible for a inspired striver to rise from the bottom of the economic heap to the top by inventing clever new technology. In short, the desire for personal success drives invention -- powers all those lonely hours at the bench or in the workshop, trying and trying again -- and the only contribution from the social structure is whether it tolerates or discourages the entrepreneurship that turns a good idea into personal wealth.
Lots of people have good ideas, in all cultures, at all times. It's not having the ideas that's the barrier to good tech. It's whether those ideas die with their creator, or get turned into actual products and processes that live and spread.
And as for why the modern Arab world doesn't have good tech, that answer's obvious, too: oil. Oil makes you wealthy just by your having it, not by your inventing or doing something clever. It's possession is essentially random, and unlike tech it doesn't get better for being spread around. It rewards a stratified social structure in which a small class of possessors lock out and lock down the social mobility of the remainder (cf. Saudia Arabia, Kingdom of). A society founded on oil wealth inevitably becomes inimitable to the loose social structure necessary to reward entrepreneurship. Oil wealth, taking the long view, is a Midas curse.
Those are pretty big "asides". The former is a 50+ year conflict in the heart of the Muslim World that has generated more Muslim-Jewish hostility than any other in history, and the latter is hands down the most talked about conflict in the world today.
Justin, last I checked, significant segments of judaism did not support the son of sam killings. Please correct me if I am wrong. If I am not wrong, your analogy is one of the worst analogies I have ever seen.
They aren't pretty big asides, unless you ignorantly lump every action taken by Israel as also taken by every other Western state (notwithstanding the unique position of Israel); or you want to argue that anti-Western extremism began in March 2003.
Intertesting. The same logic seemingly applies to the contrast between Jewish suffering in the Holocaust and the manner in which Zionist Jews established and maintain the State of Israel. Rabbi Michael Lerner put it best: "Jews did not climb out of the gas chambers of Europe to oppress another people." But I'm sure you'll find a reason why Israel and Zionism shouldn't be held to such reasoning themselves.
But the issue is not whether you or I would deplore physical attacks (of course we do), but whether it is possible to be a part of liberalism while at the same time believing such things as what Mr. Hassan said. I maintain that it is not possible, so if the Muslim world wants to enjoy 'liberalism' then its inhabitants will need to change their beliefs. (That's a big 'if', by the way.)
It might be hard to run those Western cell phones without it though. But it's the price I'm willing to pay...for freedom.
I'm sorry, but this is arrant nonsense, which sounds less like it comes from actually knowing the history of science and technology and more like just reading off the usual PC TelePrompTer.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with your judgement of my opinion, which does come from actually knowing science and history. And not at all from any support of a "PC" position, with or without teleprompter.
I am not attempting to make a position for or against any religious group. I am simply pointing out a long-standing trend towards inflexibility and dogma in most (if not all) long-lived faith systems, dogma that is at odds with the scientific system of observe-test-repeat *as well as* being at odds with economic and social flexibilty that also (imo) supports the rise of technology in the West.
The rise - and subsequent failure - of scientific thought in the Muslim world is an example of this, not a contradiction. Likewise, the codification of ritual and top-down social order in both Catholic Europe and Neo-Confucius China. In contrast, the Protestant revival of Christianity in Europe - combining increased social mobility and the idea of a direct God-man link, without need of the intervening Church - helped push scientific advancement.
Finally, while technology rejection is not necessarily linked to any one faith, one need only look at the Amish, certain leftist 'green' groups, ID, and the aesceticism of holy orders of all stripes to see a link between devotion to ideology and luddism.
In this:
That just sounds like the usual liberal-arts-education arrogance talking: having your mind "expanded" by a "tolerant" education makes you a better thinker, and that's why we in the West have such great tech. Which proves that studying the poetry of Maya Angelou is just as practically useful as studying organic chemistry, yippee!
you assume I hold a position which I absolutely do *not*. IMO, a humanities driven education (to distinquish it from a 'liberal arts' education, which suffers from being one of three different uses of the word "liberal" in your comment) serves to hinder the student by limiting their exposure to the scientific method. However, as anyone who has spent any length of time with either medical students or physicists can attest, over-concentration on scientific principles hampers ones ability to interact with other humans - a state for which an application of a little poetry could go a long way.
Please do not continue to assume that I have either a left-wing pov on the world or a hostility towards religion.
Arabic numerals are, of course, *Indian* numerals, but because they reached Europe via "Araby," the name stuck.
Crediting Muslims with "preserving" Greek culture is a little unfair, too, given that they "preserved" it in the sense that, when they sacked Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, they "preserved" a portion of what they stole (and destroyed much of the rest).
I certainly think there was much to commend the Muslim world in the past and much to commend it now, but
@ SP: First off, I threw in "ostensibly" because I think it's at least open to debate how much Americans hated Nazis for their *culture* as opposed to for their efforts to conquer Europe. I think the fascism / eugenics / anti-Semistism were actually quite consonsant with *some* Americans' attitudes. I say this is a vehemently pro-American Zionist Jew who thinks that Jews never had it so good as we've had it here (including, I think, in Israel in the days of the Judges, the Kings, or the Knesset).
Regardless, I still don't see what the problem is with believing you have a better *worldview* but nevertheless stealing the products of your enemies. Would it have been intellectually dishonest for us to steal Soviet technology and use it against them during the Cold War? ("Sir, we could steal their missile technology, but wouldn't that be tantamount to admitting that scientific inquiry can thrive even in a totalitarian brutocracy?") The woman doesn't appear to be advocating for a return to the Stone Age. She's advocating for the destruction of the secular west. While cell phones are a product of that culture, they aren't imbued with its characteristics.
Don't get me wrong -- some Muslims historically have taken and currently do take anti-technological views. Word is that the Ottomans, for example, were anti-clock for a long time because clocks contradicted the imams' call to prayer. But even if that were so, I don't think it's *dishonest* to say, "The clocks are a tool of Satan, but to destroy Satan, we will use his weapons and then, God wiling, redeem ourselves." It's risky business, to be sure, but it's perfectly rational and human.
Arguing against it is like saying that by firebombing the Japanese, we cannot claim to be opposed to killing civilians. The response is, sometimes killing civilians is necessary to establish a regime in which civilians will not be killed. The trick, of course, is to get past the egg-smashing stage and actually make an omelette. The Russians never got that and it's not altogether clear to me that the Islamists do, either. (The Chinese Communists apparently did.)
Your attack was on Muslims generally (who as a whole, or even generally, do not support violence - Hamas, you probably are too ignorant to realize, gets support from both the significant Christian Palestinian population as well as the Muslim Palestinian population, who make up an insignificant portion of the Muslim population as a whole). If you confined your attack to people who supported Hamas, you would have a starting point into the discussion, rather than simply writing a screed of thoughtless anti-muslim(religious version of "racism") which also had strong tinges of anti-Arab racism, since you made the (rather stupid) assumption that all Arabs are muslim.
Because inserting the word "debate" for the word "animosity" doesn't seem accurate. It seems to me that Kerr doesn't like Bernstein's arguments and is annoyed that Bernstein doesn't get shredded in the comments because he doesn't open up the comments so Kerr enjoys starting comments threads in order to allow the readers of this site to shred Bernstein.
You compared the acts of one man - Son of Sam to the organized violence against israelis perpetrated by Hamas and other islamic terrorist groups. I never addressed issue of the various supporters of Hamas, becuase to use your word, it is irrelevant. It was simply an example of one of many organizations that deserve much harsher critism than is currently being leveled at the newspapers.
If pointing out that muslims should be more upset about islamic suicide bombers than a cartoon drawing is racist, I fail to see it. Please explain to me why a cartoon drawing has drawn the ire of so many muslims, but the actions of islamic suicide bombers do not seem to provoke the same amount of attacks and critism.
"It seems to you" based on what, exactly? Kerr may disagree with Bernstein (who wouldn't?), but that doesn't translate into "animosity."
R Gould-Saltman
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/ then follow the link. It’s a lot more serious than this.
Personally, I am ambivalent on the issue of publication of the cartoons. Most are no more offensive than live footage of George W Bush parading as President. They are caricatures that use select identifiable features (stereotypes) of Muslims (e.g., a turban) to mock certain offensive features of the Muslim world (not Muslim culture). One irony is that the traditional representations of Muslims have more to do with Turks of the Ottoman Empire than they do with the contemporary Muslims.
So what's the ambivalence? On one hand, I want the protection of the freedom of expression. This is essential to a free society. On the other hand, it is easy to believe that there should be some kind of self-restraint on the part of the press to control sentiment that is directed at easily identifiable groups. If we allow ourselves to snicker at the mocking of reigious symbolism when we find the target "deserving", we invite similar treatment of all subjects that one group or another may find essential to their identity. Piss Christ comest o mind--something that may be a legitimate form of protest or even angry art, but is hardly mainstream. If we are going to gripe about superficial features that are attributable to specific cultures and traditions, then Piss Christ certainly qualifies for a very public display--no less so than the Danish cartoons.
The mood often changes--and I am no exception--when the targets are more vulnerable and are meant as stand-ins for the entire classes of people. (The only people targeted by the Danish cartoons are the radical, violent subset of the Muslem world, not Muslims in general.) For example, the traditional anti-Semitic and racist cartoons focus more on the mythical characteristics of Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, East Asians, etc. Although many harbor the prejudices, generally, expressions of those prejudices have become socially unacceptable. I would certainly count myself among those who would object to publication of an anti-Semitic or a racist cartoon in a newspaper. So do I have a double standard then, justifying the apparent anti-Muslim expression, but not anti-Semitic one? David Bernstein should think about that as well--is there a difference between what appeared in the Danish papers and what appears in Egyptian, Syrian and Gulf papers daily? And just to make the point more clear, we must justify this difference not only to ourselves, but to the members of the group that claim offense, i.e., in this case, Muslims.
Here, I think, a few more facts need to be considered. While there had been some complaints about the cartoons when they initially appeared, the protests did not take a transnational character and become violent until the last couple of weeks--the cartoons appeared in September (September 17, I believe). Most of the people protesting the publication are using it as an excuse for violence and have not seen the offending material.
Some of their objections are not credible--one of the main complaints that you hear from protesters is that depiction of the Prophet is prohibited by Islam. This is nonsense--the depiction may be prohibited by some sects or some clerics, but the prohibition is not universal (think of Friday as a fish day being the equivalent for the Christian world). Images of Mohammed exist in medieval manuscripts that are considered to be cultural treasures of the Islamic world. So what they are objecting to is actually an identification of Mohammed with violence or else they are simply following someone else's ignorant proclamation (where have we seen this before?). Furthermore, most of the cartoons have nothing to do with Mohammed, even when they do depict a stereotypical Muslim (or, more accurately, a stereotypical Ottoman Turk).
My view is that the cartoons are just a pretext and that protests are not legitimate. But that puts me in a position of judging the protesters and that's a place I don't want to find myself in (we all have our prejudices). Would ADL protesters in front of the Washington Post HQ be "not legitimate" if WaPo happened to publish a cartoon that some found to be anti-Semitic? There is usually a qualitative difference between ADL protests and Hamas-stirred protests in Gaza, but the distinction need not be so clear-cut. Every protest brings its share of zealots.
That brings me to another point that Muslim protesters seemt to miss completely. What is the intent of the Danish publication? Generally, we think of Scandinavian societies as fairly liberal so it is hard for most of us to ascribe nefarious motives to a Danish publication. But that's the trouble with stereotypes--negative or positive, they easily become dated. Much of Scandinavia and Benelux have become radicalized, especially on issues of immigration. There are substantial numbers of Muslim immigrant minorities in most of Northern Europe. That has led to a major political realignment to the right in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and, to a lesser extent, in Norway. Belgium has always had its radical right element so I don't know how much of a change occurred there. Add to the list Germany and France that have suffered this shift for almost a decade longer and the emerging picture is not pretty. My suspicion is that the cartoons were meant to be provocative because the current social climate in Denmark allows it. It is the same social climate, ironically, that has contributed to a stronger expression of anti-Semitism in Northern Europe as well--justified, to some extent, by the claim that Jews are provoking the Muslims, so, but that logic, Jews are the root of all evil. So, in defending the paper's right to free expression of opinion, we still should ask ourselves what their motive is. There is nothing wrong with saying, "You have a right to say what you did, but ..." Because of this, I have actually changed my opinion, in part, of the State Department position on the issue. I still think that their response is, as Reason Institute put it, craven. However, freedom of expression carries with it responsibility and it is this responsibility that State is trying to point to.
Even if the issues are clear enough, the resolution is not. Most of us find out judgment only extending to a single instance, sngle episode, and are not willing to make broad generalizations of how such things should be treated in general. This case makes for particular difficulties because much remains unclear. Most of us are speaking out of partial ignorance--I, for one, would like a lot more context of the story. I've looked around, I found ALL the cartoons and I've seen a lot of follow-up in the paper, but my Danish is non-existent, so I don't actually know what most of the stories say. I do know more about protests and protesters and I uniformly condemn them. And I do believe that the paper had the right to the publication. But that's where my certainty ends.
That is, you say, "Is this different from an ADL protest at the State Department over an anti-semitic comic?" and that every protest has its "share of zealots." But I think it's important to get down to brass tacks. These are not the sorts of protests one sees in the West by any group other than the racist-fascist groups (skinheads/neo-Nazis/Klansmen) and, during the 60's, from the most radical left. Have you read the signs from the London protest? "Get ready for the REAL Holocaust!" they crow. "Exterminate those who slander Islam" or "Massacre those who insult Islam." Perhaps most powerfully: "Freedom Go to Hell." In the Arab world, they are hoisting guns, burning flags, smashing effigies, threatening kidnappings, taking over buildings by force, etc.
Moreover, these "protests" are taking place against a background of nearly continuous terrorism in various forms for over forty years.
The question isn't whether people should be able to protest a racist cartoon (I query whether these cartoons can even be described as such, but let's assume they are). The question is what to do when the spokespeople of a huge portion of the world is threatening violence that they have a history of commiting and that threat is not just against the newspaper but against governments, civilians, indeed, "Europe" in general. (One poster reads: "Europe: Get Ready for Your 9/11.")
One option is to pretend that this is no different than the protests of the 60's (i.e., it will go away) or of the fascist-racist groups (i.e., it won't amount to any real threat). That seems to be the option you're adopting. I'll respond simply by providing a quote from Gibbon:
"The [Goths] still wore an angry and hostile aspect; but the experience of past times might encourage the hope that they would acquire the habits of industry and obedience; that their manners would be polished by time, education, and the influence of Christianity; and that their posterity would insensibly blend with the great body of the Roman people. ... Notwithstanding these specious arguments and these sanguine expectations, it was apparent to every discerning eye that the Goths would long remain the enemies, and might soon become the conquerors, of the Roman empire. Their rude and insolent behaviour expressed their contempt of the citizens and provincials, whom they insulted with impunity. ... [A] great number of Gothic deserters retired into the morasses of Macedonia, wasted the adjacent provinces, and obliged the intrepid monarch to expose his person and exert his power to suppress the rising flame of rebellion. The public apprehensions were fortified by the strong suspicion that these tumults were not the effect of accidental passion, but the result of deep and premeditated design."
I had not realized that Mr. Hassan's views were typical of "the Muslim world," but if CNN quoted him in a story, it must be true.
Dude, you've got to be pretending to be a Muslim. You're embodying too many stereotypes to be real. Like, boo hoo, we suck because of Israel, or Europe can't complain because they won't let me talk about holocaust-denial, etc.
The only thing that would put your performance completely over the top would be to refer to Israel as "the zionist entity."
At any rate, history has its "D" students. Fact of life, I guess.
Second, I don't see the cartoons as racist. They certainly have a subset of an identifiable minority as a target--and, as the protesters have demonstrated so plainly, a legitimate target--for derision. But what makes them a target is not their racial or religious make-up, but the ideology that far exceeds the religious doctrine they claim to defend. I should also point out that most, if not all of the cartoons in the paper came from other sources and did not provoke a reaction when they appeared individually. Of course, when you have a single political cartoon, some people may object to it (usually because they don't get the message or because they are embarrassed), but it is rare that it brings the kind of reaction that we see here. What happenned here is a combination of two factors--a thematic collection that escalates the message AND insidious organizing of protests with ulterior motives. Note that the protests coincided with Palestinian elections even though the cartoons have been out for months.
I also suggest you research the Pentagon reaction to a Toles cartoon in Sunday's WaPo (the cartoon mocking Donald Rumsfeld). The DoD brass totally misread the image and the message and chose to circle the wagons in protest. They chose to see what they wanted to see and were embarrassed by it. Had they read it as intended, they likely would have agreed with the sentiment.
Now, back to the Danish question. I saw the London photos on Malkin's site. I never doubted that that was going to be the message in these protests. Furthermore, this seems to be a typical reaction. Consider the report in the Independent:
The protests are organized and political. They have nothing to do with cartoons--just like the Afghan protests had nothing to do with Newsweek report of the Koran flushing (somehow I doubt that the Taliban read Newsweek regularly or read at all). The reaction is quite ironic considering the nature of the cartoons--cartoons portray violence spurred on by Islam and that exactly the reaction they elicited.
But, again, my concern was not with the protests and the protesters. The issue for me is the publication. The reaction is something comletely irrelevant to the issue proper.
Furthermore, note the sometimes comical nature of the reaction. For some reason (that I fail to comprehend), in addition to Danes and Norwegians, the French have also become a target for Palestinians. As a result they kidnapped and then released a German because they thought he was French. Apparently, their usual target--the Jews--were not available.
one other point for you, concerning your earlier comments on "algebra".
Although you display your apparent erudition by identifying the source of "Arabic numerals" and algebra as "Indians" and refer to person who coined the word "algebra" as "Persian". But little knowledge is a dangerous thing and along with this display of rudimentary knowledge, you also display profound ignorance.
First, the "word algebra" was not "coined" in Arabic and is not even an Arabic word. It is a Latin word that was meant to emulate a term that Latin translators could not interpret. The original Arabic word "al-Jabr" hardly refers to what we now identify as "algebra".
It is also a mistake to claim that "the Greeks and Indians came up with [algebra]." Your reference to Euclid and Hero is comical in this context. It is true that mathematicians in India had access to some of the algebraic methods later used by Arabic-speaking mathematicians. In fact, in some ways, Indian mathematics was more advanced (in their account of negative numbers, for example). But much of the background for both Indian and Arabic mathematics came from Mesopotamia, especially Babylon. Also, because of the lack of written record, it is not clear whether some techniques migrated to or from China. Whatever the case for Indian mathematics, giving credit to the Greeks is completely nonsensical. The Greeks have contributed in no small part to formal geometry and to number theory, but algebra was definitely not their strongsuit.
Western European civilization would not have been possible without a strong Muslim intellectual influence. If it were not for the Chalifate, we'd all still be eating turnips and gruel for most meals. Don't forget that it was the European Christian churches that were largely responsible for nearly complete disappearance of the Greek philosophical and mathematics manuscripts and it was the Europeans that behaved like savages next to the better educated Jews and Muslims up to the XIIIth century CE.
But I'm wondering that since the "Father of Algebra" whose treatise the name Algebra is derived from is sufficiently, to borrow a legal term, "fruit of the poisonous tree" that I'd be able to boycott it. I mean, I really hate Math and I really love the West.
(1) Taking issue with the fact that "al-jabr" not "algebra" was the Arabic word is more than slightly pedantic.
(2) I confess, I'm no expert on algebra, but my understanding is that the Greeks did most of the groundwork, with geometric algebra and then, later, with indeterminate equations, that after that the Indians relied combined their basics with what they learned from the Greeks and pushed things significantly further, and that it then reached the Muslims who made incremental improvements, before it made its way to the Europeans in the 16th century. It's credited to the Arabs (although much of the work was Persian, not Arab) because of the etymology of the word and because of the fashionable "Arabs saved civilization" meme that started, what, twenty-five years ago?
(3) "Western European civilization would not have been possible without a strong Muslim intellectual influence." This is the point I really, really don't get. Other than helping "restore" culture that the West had invented (and that was still extant in the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Land until the Muslims conquered / destroyed those areas), I'm not sure how much was done. The key elements of what we considered Western culture are Greek, Roman, and Germanic. What *influence* comes from Muslim intellectuals?
Moreover, given that Muslims were responsible for sacking the heart of Greek culture (the Byzantine Empire and its holdings) and the heart of Christian learning (the Holy Land, particularly Antioch), it seems a little unfair to credit them with saving us from turnips.
That said, I do love schwarma.
But apparently it's not a crime to depict all Muslims as followers of an extremist who derives satisfaction from exploding bombs.
But let's not make this overly hypothetical. If the protestors *were* merely objecting to a double-standard by France + Germany they *might* be justified. But in fact the protestors appear to expect every government to simply enforce Islamic law forbidding any and all depictions of Muhammed.
Their actions are thus, in reality, unreasonable even if we could cook up some hypothetical and partial justifications for them.
Go ahead and have the last word, since I know you're full of it and nobody else is paying attention.
Regarding Buck's observations about the possible motive of the Danish newspaper, if what I have read on the Internet is correct, this was a deliberate attempt on the part of that newspaper to strike back at what it perceived to be Islamic intolerance of freedom of expression, and hardly the random work of the cartoonists. It seems the paper urged, against their repeated stated desires, twelve cartoonists to depict their versions of Mohammed, as there had been threats against an author who wanted to publish a children's book containing depictions of Mohammed. The newspaper agressively persuaded the reluctant cartoonists to contribute drawings for this effort, for which each was paid 75 eurodollars.
While I agree with all the obvious points on this thread, I do find it unsettling that now those cartoonists are in hiding, fearful for their lives, while the newspaper takes a coy position and states that it never expected the cartoons to get such wide, international exposure. This is not a sympathetic position, imo, when it appears that the original publication of those cartoons was meant to be a political statement. Seems like the newspaper used the cartoonists as cannon fodder in a war it wanted to fight.
This is, of course, irrelevant to the issues being debated on this post, but the curious timing of when this "stale" story is breaking gives one pause.....
I also think it is morally inconsistent for our government to issue a statement urging self-restraint when it continues, via the ludicrous National Endowment Of The Arts, to fund so-called museums and other institutions which house "art" like the Piss Christ.
It is also morally wrong, imo, to punish people who say that the Holocaust never happened. If you're in for a dime in terms of freedom of speech, you should be in for a dollar.
Finally, as I can't stand the suspense, could David Bernstein please tell us whether or not he minds Orin Kerr starting comment threads about his commentless posts?
Seems more likely Orin got his permission to do so, but please clear up the mystery :)
"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a woman who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it!"
That would be Andrew Sullivan.
Hi Andy. :-)
There is something very odd about this statement coming from a man trying to claim that "the father of algebra" was "Persian" and not "Arabic" as a meaningful distinction. First, it is completely moronic to identify a field of knowledge with one person, even if that person's contribution to the field might have been fundamental at some point in time. There is more to relativity than Einstein and there is a lot more to even the algebra of Xth century Arabic mathemaitcs than al-Khoresmi. Second, if anything is "pedantic", it is making the distinction between "Arabic" and "Persian". For one, al-Khoresmi is not "Persian"--as his name implies, he or his family were from the Central Asian city-state of Khoresm. The lingua franca of the region was Arabic, the culture was Arabic and the fundamental philosophy was written in Arabic and based on the Arabic notion of Islam (there was no other kind, at the time, in fact). As for al-Khoresmi being the "father of algebra", it might be more appropriate to refer to him as a cataloguer of known methods. But even that is inaccurate, as his contemporaries writing in Arabic knew a lot more than what survived in the text that eventually made it to Europe. Omar Khayyam had a method for solving some cubic equations in general form--something that Europeans did not discover until much later (and something that Greeks knew nothing about).
This is a nonstarter. Greek mathematics was fundamentally opposed to the notion of algebra borrowed from the Babylonians. The Greeks had no contact with Indian mathematics, as far as we know, and any Indian mathematics that was of major significance was written well after the Greek mathematical culture faded into history. While mathematical works on geometry that existed in Arabic heavily borrowed from the Greeks (although astronomy was an odd hybrid of Babylonian, Indian and Greek ideas), anything having to do with algebra was recreated either from Indian or Babylonian mathematics (which, in turn, might have been based on Egyptian mathematics that far predated the Greeks). The idea of "indeterminate equations" came from an entirely different school of Hellenistic mathematics than what we recognize as Euclidean geometry. In many ways, the two schools were antogonistic to each other and refused to accept each others methods as legitimate. To claim that Arabic mathematics was simply an incremental improvement on the Greeks is silly, at best.
As for "Arabs saved civilization meme", it is just the opposite. The reification of the Hellenistic civilization has more to do with filial piety of European Christians than with Greeks' actual achievements. Surely, there are many landmarks of Greek mathematics worth noting. But there are quite a few that have been glossed over by the less scrupulous historians that predate the entire Hellenistic civilzation. For a while, it was a commonly taught idea that Greeks invented the writing system and that cuneiform and hierogliphic writing systems used in North Africa and Mesopotamia by earlier civilizations were inherently inferior. It turns out that not only was the Greek writing system--including the alphabet--based on a much earlier Semitic writing system, but the overlooked "inferior" systems were actually not particularly inferior. As someone has already pointed out, it was, in fact, the Euro-Christians that sacked Constantinople and desolated any remaining academic culture of the Byzantine empire. Roman "mathematics" on the other hand was of a far more practical nature than Greek mathematics and retarded development of scientific thinking in Western Europe.
It was in fact a massive translation effort by some enterprising monks (with the help of some Jews and Muslims) that brought science and mathematics to Europe--both the extant heritage from the Greeks and the far more expansive works of the Arabs/Moors/Persians (Arabic speakers). If you think that this is something that has only existed for the past quarter century, take a look at Aquinas. You will find that much of his philosophy is based on ideas of Muslim and Jewish philosophers, all writing in Arabic.
In a sense, Arabs did save Western Civilization, because both the Western Christian Church (eventually, the Catholic Church) and, especially, the Eastern Christian Church (Orthodox) suffered through periods of particular intolerance toward any kind of divergent learning, especially philosophy. The existing manuscripts were ALL discovered long after their content was translated into Latin from Arabic copies. Most of these manuscripts had to be recovered from parchments that were erased and overwritten with church documents. The Dark Ages were not as dark as popular culture would have us believe (especially in the East), but they were far more repressed in Europe than in the Chalifate. At the time al-Khoresmi compiled his algebraic thesis, Baghdad was the peak of civilization and, Khoresm and Samarkand were not too shabby either. The degree of learning both in the Middle East and the East was quite advanced.
That is quite obvious!
This is why you are so confused. "The West" did not invented culture. Most of "The West" was illiterate and barbaric by any standard. Rome--whose empire encompassed much of North Africa and the Middle East--was distinct from the rest of Europe in this regard, but it was hardly "Western Civilization"--that was a later invention to justify Europe being the heir to Roman cultural heritage.
Again, the destruction was internal--Muslims did not "conquer/destroy" the Byzantine Empire until long after it was completely decimated by the Crusades. Even then, pockets of learning existed both in the West and in the Byzantine Empire, but that is hardly a justification to set them up on a piedestal.
What you are confused about is the fact that the Arabic/Muslim culture of the IX-XVth centuries was by no means original and heavily borrowed from the people it conquered. This is not the same as seeing it as "preserving" the Western culture until the West was able to receive it back. Most of the Arabic culture was founded on non-Hellenistic conquests, even if much of Greek philosophy was incorporated into the learning system. There was no original mathematical thought in any of Europe prior to the XVth century--a time when Arabic civilization was already in a steep decline (largely due to a combination of Mongol conquest in the East and Christian conquest in the West).
It is simply stupid to pretend that the Arabs simply borrowed from the West. Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Ghazali (Algazel), Averroes, as well as a number of Jewish philosophers, had a profound influence on Western philosophical thought. The fact that popular culture does not recognize their contribution is the result of centuries of massive historical purges that elevated the Greeks to the role of culture-givers and eliminating all non-European cultures from consideration (even though the bulk of Hellenistic culture was not based in Europe). The Western origin of Western Civilization is as much a myth as the Illiad or the Oddysey.
Germanic? This is simply laughable!!! Germanic origin of Western "culture"??? No wonder people think that Bush is a great president!
minnie wrote,
I have now heard similar stories (like coming from similar sources) from three different people. This was my understanding. The whole process is reminiscent of someone trying to provoke a school-yard bully, who never fails to rise to the occasion. Several commentators, including some moderate Muslims, have observed that the reaction demostrates precisely the reason behind the theme of the cartoons. Neither side deserves any praise or defense. Both positions are quite indefensible.
As to Germanic I think it is you who are ignorant.
You might want to look at the history of English common law for a look at the Germanic roots of Western Civ.
English common law to make it plain and clear had Germanic influences through the spread of culture by the Vikings. Who are at least in some sense Germanic.
It is why English as it exists today has so many Germanic roots. The French stuff didn't come in in a big way until 1066.