“If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch,” Francis said while pretending to throw a punch in his direction.
He added: “It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”So... the pope just endorsed the use of violence against those who "insult the faith of others." Well, you know what, Frankie? Fuck you. After taking the cardinals to task for developing spiritual alzheimers I thought you might be cool, but apparently you're just another in a long line of walking talking hypocrites. It is you who seem to have the spiritual alzheimers, as you have obviously forgotten Matthew 5:39. Or don't they teach that one in seminary any more?
[Beat.]
Yes, I really did just tell the pope to go fuck himself, I'm that pissed off. You know what you don't do if you want to advance yourself as an advocate of peace? You don't fucking endorse violence as an acceptable response to speech, no matter how fucking offensive it is! So fuck you, pope Francis, and the horse you rode in on. Think of all the suicide bombers who will hear your words and conclude from them that they are on the righteous path. The blood of their victims will be on your hands and your tongue.
God damn what is the world coming to when an atheist has to school the pope on his own scriptures?
According to The Independent's Charlie Hebdo: Pope Francis says if you swear at my mother – or Islam – 'expect a punch':
ReplyDelete>> But recently the Vatican and four prominent French imams issued a joint declaration that denounced the attacks but also urged the media to treat religions with respect.
>>
>> Francis, who has urged Muslim leaders in particular to speak out against Islamic extremism, went a step further when asked by a French journalist about whether there were limits when freedom of expression meets freedom of religion.
>>
>> Francis insisted that it was an “aberration” to kill in the name of God and said religion can never be used to justify violence.
So your implied extrapolation from "punch" → "murder" seems unwarranted.
Are you seriously defending the pope on the grounds that punching someone in the nose is an acceptable response to offensive speech, even if murder might not be? Where (and how) exactly do you draw the line?
ReplyDeleteAnd how should I respond to someone punching me in the nose? After all, if you want to be a literalist, then I will point out that Jesus said, "If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also" and my nose is not my cheek. (He also didn't specify what I should do *after* I turn the other cheek.) So when the pope punches me in the nose because something I said offended him, am I justified in punching him back? What if I hit him harder than he hit me? What if the pope says something that offends *me*? Can I punch the pope? (That's not a hypothetical, by the way. I am *deeply* offended by the pope's blatant hypocrisy.)
The whole point of Matthew 5:39, it seems to this atheist, is that physical violence should be avoided *even as a response to physical violence*. It follows then that physical violence is NEVER EVER an acceptable response to speech, no matter how offensive, full stop. Anyone who doesn't get that has broken morals.
I understood the pope to be speaking realistically, not idealistically. Was the vitriol in your blog post sustainable by 'punch', or did it really require 'murder', if not the Inquisition?
ReplyDeleteThis issue is difficult for me, because throughout K–12, I was mocked and ridiculed. I was only physically assaulted once, and that by someone who had lots of bark but only ended up biting me. So it was almost entirely words, those things ostensibly protected by freedom of speech. And yet, compared to most of my peers, my life was hell. I had no friends. This was maintained not by physical force, but by words. And so, for me to give carte blanche to the use of words is for me to approve of this dynamic continuing.
Before I continue, do you believe I suffered real harm, such that a punch could constitute less harm than what I suffered?
> I understood the pope to be speaking realistically, not idealistically.
ReplyDeleteWhat difference does that make? Violence is never justified as a response to speech, no matter how offensive, full stop. [1]
> Was the vitriol in your blog post sustainable by 'punch', or did it really require 'murder', if not the Inquisition?
I have no idea what you mean by "sustainable". But it was prompted (and, I believe, justified) by the pope's hypocrisy.
Not that I need justification. I should be free to tell the pope (or anyone else) to fuck themselves without fear of violent reprisals whether or not I am justified.
> This issue is difficult for me, because throughout K–12, I was mocked and ridiculed.
Join the club. That happened to me too. So I definitely understand the burning desire to punch someone in the nose. But the difference between a child and a mature adult is the ability to recognize that acting on that desire will make the situation worse, not better.
> This was maintained not by physical force, but by words.
So? Are you saying that you would have been morally justified at launching violent reprisals against your tormentors? (And you call yourself a Follower of Jesus???)
> And so, for me to give carte blanche to the use of words is for me to approve of this dynamic continuing.
I don't know the details of your situation (maybe you should tell me some time). But I can tell you that in my case, in retrospect, my getting picked on was largely due to me acting like a jerk a lot of the time. I still look back on some of the things I did and said back then and I cringe. I should have read Matthew 7:3. If I had, I might have addressed the situation by changing my behavior sooner rather than thrashing for years trying to blame everyone around me for my own failings.
---
[1] How do we know this? Because physical violence destroys habitat for memes.
> What difference does that make?
ReplyDeleteOne takes into account what people are actually like, while the other pretends that people are different than how they actually are.
> I have no idea what you mean by "sustainable".
Your argument seems to lose much of its power if one finds out that the pope is fully against the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. It seemed framed such that first it's a punch, then it's a beating, then it's a lynching.
> So? Are you saying that you would have been morally justified at launching violent reprisals against your tormentors?
Christianity doesn't really do "morally justified" [in this sense]; the point is that the law is replaced with grace and mercy, for those who choose to live by grace and mercy instead of the law. Sans Christianity, I'm inclined to say 'yes', if there is no other effective way to bring attention to the wrong that is going on.
> (And you call yourself a Follower of Jesus???)
You seem shocked that it might actually be hard to follow Jesus, and that I, or the pope, would actually admit this.
> But I can tell you that in my case, in retrospect, my getting picked on was largely due to me acting like a jerk a lot of the time.
I'm sure I did some of that myself. But if being harmed is justification for retaliation, I say that it is completely arbitrary to make an artificial barrier between psychological harm and physical harm. Physical harm has the benefit of easier-to-ascertain evidence.
> [1] How do we know this? Because physical violence destroys habitat for memes.
Why is the word 'physical' required, here?
>You don't fucking endorse violence as an acceptable response to speech, no matter how fucking offensive it is!
ReplyDelete...
> It follows then that physical violence is NEVER EVER an acceptable response to speech, no matter how offensive, full stop.
You position on free speech is very much in the spirit of Terminiello v. City of Chicago; yet you may find something to object to in a review of all the cases.
It would also be prudent, perhaps, to wait for clarification, as the news media often gets the story wrong. This usually a good idea when something strikes you as bizarre.
There is also selective outrage here - quick to condemn the Pope from a news article, but ignore the actions that Kathy Vrabeck and Jon Dunn enable in your state.
One can also poke at your "NEVER EVER" standard. Especially when the violance is perpetrated by the State (used broadly here for city, county, State, and Federal governments). Recall that if you break a law, eventually men with guns come to arrest you.
So do you support:
1. The FDA restricting how pharmaceutical companies can market drugs?
2. The FDA restricting medical claims on herbs and vitamins? Colloidal Silver?
3. The SEC compelling certain speech, and forbidding false statements?
4. Restrictions on speech in political campaigns?
5. Free speech for corporations and unions?
6. Restrictions on speech over broadcast radio and television?
7. Additional criminal penalties for a crime that is committed and "hate speech" is spoken?
8. Removing a heckler from the State of the Union speech?
Some situations may involve the State, others may not:
A good response to speech you don't like is to leave the area - walk away, get away from the speaker.
1. What if you can't leave? Someone is harrassing you with speech and you can't get away.
A. You would think you would appeal to the authority holding you in place to solve the problem.
i) what if the authority in change doesn't care or does nothing?
ii) or the authority does something, but it is ineffective?
Would some level of violence be justified in these cases?
What about emergency situations or to save the life of another? Is any level of violence justified in these situations?
1. You come across a man directing young school chilren to run across a freeway, "That's it kids, just run across - dodge the cars, you'll be ok ... that's it, run now, go go go!" You can't convince him to stop saying that.
2. You're a soldier on a combat mission. Another soldier is making a lot of noise, which threatens to reveal your position to the enemy. Would it be justified to jump on top of him to shut him up? What if he stands up and yells, "Hey, we're over here!". Would it be justified to shoot him?
3. A person is urging arson of an unoccupied structure - "Burn this bitch down!"
@Publicus, you might like William Cavanaugh's The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. One of the things he talks about is how the religious/secular dichotomy is used to delegitimate violence in the name of religion, and legitimate violence in the name of the State. One of the functions of the legitimation is of course that it becomes taken-for-granted, pushed below the conscious level.
ReplyDeleteThere's also this, from French sociologist Jacques Ellul's Hope in Time of Abandonment:
ReplyDelete>> We have to try to understand the meaning of this inhuman insanity. To scorn is to condemn the other person to complete and final sterility, to expect nothing more from him and to put him in such circumstances that he will never again have anything to give. It is to negate him in his possibilities, in his gifts, in the development of his experience. To scorn him is to rip his fingernails out by the roots so that they will never grow back again. The person who is physically maimed, or overwhelmed by mourning or hunger, can regain his strength, can live again as a person as long as he retains his honor and dignity, but to destroy the honor and dignity of a person is to cancel his future, to condemn him to sterility forever. In other words, to scorn is to put an end to the other person's hope and to one's hope for the other person, to hope for nothing more from him and also to stop his having any hope for himself. (47)
This can be done entirely with words.
> It would also be prudent, perhaps, to wait for clarification, as the news media often gets the story wrong.
ReplyDeleteWell, in this case we have video, so there can be no doubt that the pope said what he said. And the clarification did not come from the pope, it came from apologists at the vatican.
But as long as we're clarifying...
> > It follows then that physical violence is NEVER EVER an acceptable response to speech, no matter how offensive, full stop.
>
> You position on free speech
Please go back and look at the context. That is not my position, that is my interpretation of what Jesus said.
My position is that physical violence is never justified in response to OFFENSIVE speech (no matter how offensive). Obviously there should be limits to free speech: fire in a crowded theatre. Libel. Yadda yadda yadda. But saying something that offends religion must not be out of bounds because that gives anyone the power to shut down any speech simply by saying they are offended.
> This can be done entirely with words.
Words can be very hurtful, no question about it. That is not the issue. The issue is whether physical violence can ever be an appropriate response to offensive speech. Jesus and I say no. You and the pope say yes.
But even that is not the issue. The issue is that you and the pope are *hypocrites* when you claim to follow Jesus (or even try to follow Jesus) but nonetheless endorse physical violence as an appropriate response to offensive speech. Hypocrisy is a great evil. (Why? That is a good question. See if you can figure it out.)
How do you see the pope as endorsing physical violence as a response to offense? All I heard him say is that this is what he will do, and we're not even sure whether he was joking, saying that this is what he personally would do, or saying that this is what many will do—regardless of whatever 'should' you throw in their faces. I didn't hear him say that the Roman Catholic position is that it is proper to respond to verbal offense with physical violence. Can you quote where he said that, or demonstrate how he implied that?
ReplyDeleteLikewise, nowhere have I endorsed physical violence as a response to offense, under the paradigm of "being a follower of Jesus". After all, followers of Jesus are called to suffer injustice and not demand justice, nor enact justice on their own terms. But notice: the "being a follower Jesus" paradigm is predicated upon followers of Jesus willingly suffering injustice. If you ask what the just response is, that will not necessarily line up with what followers of Jesus are called to do!
If group A has more verbal power than group B, it is not just to allow them to do ever-better approximations of 'scorn', per Ellul's definition in a previous comment. I would obvious prefer justice be obtained without physical violence. However, I can easily see injustice being ignored as the harm is increased. If you're in group A, it is incredibly self-serving to say that you ought to be allowed to continue what you're doing, while group B is denied any 'moral' recourse for redress. I see the place of physical violence as a way to force people to accept that true harm has been done. Yes, such violence can spiral out of control. But in the situation I describe, the psychological violence is already spiraling out of control.
Is it not clear that I am presenting physical violence as a second-best solution to growing injustice, for those not willing to simply suffer arbitrarily large amounts of injustice, after the pattern set by Jesus? The situation in which I say physical violence will happen is a situation which is already unjust, for this is no effective recourse for justice. However, if we declare that situation 'just', then I question whether it is wrong—under those bad standards—to resort to physical violence. If you say "no", then you approve of arbitrarily amounts of psychological harm being dealt out, with absolutely no effective way to combat them. I have a hard time tolerating such a situation.
> But saying something that offends religion must not be out of bounds because that gives anyone the power to shut down any speech simply by saying they are offended.
ReplyDeleteI agree. The context here is that the listener is free to ignore the speaker.
>Words can be very hurtful, no question about it. That is not the issue. The issue is whether physical violence can ever be an appropriate response to offensive speech.
Can physical violence been justified for harrassment? What if the means of harrassment is "offensive speech"?
>Hypocrisy is a great evil. (Why? That is a good question. See if you can figure it out.)
Evil? Isn't hypocrisy just a competitive behavior that increases the reproductive success of the hypocrite and decreases the reproductive success of others? In the end, that's all that matters.
> Can physical violence been justified for harrassment?
ReplyDeleteIt depends on what you mean by harassment. If I literally, physically get in your face and start yelling at you, then yes, of course. But then it's not the content of the speech that is at issue, but the manner in which it is delivered. That is absolutely not what the Charlie Hebdo controversy is about. No one is being forced to read Charlie Hebdo.
> Isn't hypocrisy just a competitive behavior that increases the reproductive success of the hypocrite and decreases the reproductive success of others?
That remains to be seen. Hypocrisy is a fairly recent phenomenon on the evolutionary stage, so the jury could still be out on its reproductive success. But here's the cool thing: we humans actually have some say in the matter.
But yes, I suppose if enough people support hypocrisy then it might end up winning. Evolution does not guarantee good outcomes.
> How do you see the pope as endorsing physical violence as a response to offense? All I heard him say is that this is what he will do,
ReplyDeleteWell, the pope holds himself up as a moral leader, so I expect him to set a good example. And when he fails to set a good example, I expect him (not his minions) to man up and admit that he didn't set a good example. Until and unless he does that, I think I'm justified in assuming that the pope said what he said as an example of what he considered to be morally acceptable behavior. (Note BTW that "endorse" and "encourage" are not synonyms.)
Furthermore, in his original comments he went on to offer justification for his hypothetical actions, namely, that "you cannot insult the faith of others." So that is another reason to believe that he actually meant exactly what he said.
> Likewise, nowhere have I endorsed physical violence as a response to offense
That's true, but you seemed to be hinting at it pretty strongly. And you also seem to be defending the pope. It has always been very difficult to get straight answers out of you about what you actually believe so you leave me with little choice but to read between the lines occasionally. If I got it wrong, I apologize.
> Is it not clear that I am presenting physical violence as a second-best solution to growing injustice
It wasn't clear to me. Is that what you're doing? Because that doesn't really change anything. I still disagree with you.
> If you say "no", then you approve of arbitrarily amounts of psychological harm being dealt out, with absolutely no effective way to combat them. I have a hard time tolerating such a situation.
Not that I want to minimize the pain you suffered in your youth (and remember, I went through that too), but I do not accept your premise that it is possible to deal out "arbitrary amounts of psychological harm" with speech (barring libel, threats and incitements to violence of course). But that is a red herring anyway, because it is CERTAINLY not the case with the matter at hand. We're talking about a cartoon and insulting the pope's mother. Anyone who gets their knickers in a twist over things like that just needs to grow up.
> Well, the pope holds himself up as a moral leader, so I expect him to set a good example.
ReplyDeleteOkay; I personally find him a breath of fresh air. He's more real, instead of some guy on a pedestal.
> Furthermore, in his original comments he went on to offer justification for his hypothetical actions, namely, that "you cannot insult the faith of others."
Let's put what he said another way. "Insult the faith of others and they may reign violence down on you, whether or not you or they think that they 'should'." This is simply a fact of life, and wishing it were different merely makes you naive. So go ahead and insult the faith of others if you want, but don't be surprised at the consequences.
> That's true, but you seemed to be hinting at it pretty strongly.
I think that it is wrong to let verbal harm accrue with no redress for justice. I think expecting people to simply take it, without responding in the ways they can which work, is lunacy. I'm not convinced it's even rational to do the Jesus thing unless you believe in resurrection. So, I'm not going to give the Jesus answer for those who do not claim to follow Jesus.
> And you also seem to be defending the pope.
I don't think your vehemence was warranted, especially given all that the pope has been doing. It is as if because he failed your expectation on this matter, he's a worthless piece of trash. Or to use your words specifically: "just another in a long line of walking talking hypocrites". It's really starting to sound like "perfection or fail". I don't think that's fair.
> It has always been very difficult to get straight answers out of you about what you actually believe so you leave me with little choice but to read between the lines occasionally. If I got it wrong, I apologize.
Understood.
> I still disagree with you.
This fucks over the people who have little verbal power and just have to take whatever verbal abuse is flung in their direction.
> But that is a red herring anyway, because it is CERTAINLY not the case with the matter at hand.
France has done more to Islam than allow it to be insulted. For example: France's Le Pen: ban non-pork meals in schools. Charlie Hebdo can easily be seen to symbolize this animus toward Islam. I find it hard to believe that this is all over just a cartoon. My sense is that the cartoon is merely a proverbial straw.
> I personally find him a breath of fresh air. He's more real, instead of some guy on a pedestal.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. But in this he is being hypocritical.
> "Insult the faith of others and they may reign violence down on you, whether or not you or they think that they 'should'." This is simply a fact of life
But it's not. I just told the pope to go fuck himself and no one is rioting in the streets. Responding to insults with violence is a phenomenon unique to radical Muslims.
> I think that it is wrong to let verbal harm accrue with no redress for justice.
So we're back to an eye for an eye. Not even an eye for an eye, it's now a (black) eye for an insult. You really consider that progress?
> This fucks over the people who have little verbal power and just have to take whatever verbal abuse is flung in their direction.
Life isn't always fair. That is a fact. But the skills you need to deal with verbal abuse can be learned, and that is a much more effective way of dealing with the problem than seeking "justice". That, too, is a fact. One of the keys is to realize that people who insult you usually do it because they are covering up some pain of their own. Some of the people who were mean to me in high school turned out to come from abusive homes. Hard-core alcoholism. Beatings. Serious shit. I didn't realize this until much later. I don't have many regrets in my life, but that's one of them.
> I find it hard to believe that this is all over just a cartoon.
Yes, it is rather incredible. Sadly, it's a pretty reliably reproducible result.
Do you really believe that the sole motivation behind the attack on Charlie Hebdo was the cartoons? Do you think that the following had little to no impact?:
ReplyDelete1) Colonization of Muslim countries.
2) Carving the Middle East up into arbitrary nations after WWI.
3) The West meddling with Middle East nations during the 20th century.
4) The West taking economic advantage of the Middle East and enforcing stability over justice.
5) France's discrimination against Muslims within its own borders.
When I said that I find it hard to believe that this is just about a cartoon, I meant to say that I suspect the cartoons are merely insult added to injury.
I am not privy to the details of what goes on inside the head of a Muslim rioter or suicide bomber. But I can point out a few facts:
ReplyDelete1. The rioters and bombers *say* that they are rioting over cartoons. They have done so on many different occasions, over many different cartoons, and in many different places. The data overwhelmingly support the theory that they are in fact rioting over cartoons, or at least that that is what they believe they are rioting over.
2. Neither Charlie Hebdo nor Jyllands-Posten had anything to do with 1-4, so if that's a factor, then the rioters and bombers are just idiots. Maybe a few of them really are that stupid, but I can't imagine all of them are. There are just too many of them for the central limit theorem not to apply even in the face of strong self-selection.
3. (5) might be a factor. CH is rumored to be rather xenophobic, but I don't speak French so I can't tell. But if that's really the motivation, why don't they say so?
It is true that the Arab world (not the Muslim world -- there is a difference) does have a long list of legitimate grievances against the West. None of that has any bearing on the matter at hand: is physical violence ever justified as a response to offensive speech? I say no, you and the pope say yes. I say you're both wrong, and I can use your own theology as part of my argument against you. That makes you not only wrong, but hypocrites. You must confess your sins and repent your evil ways before you can receive absolution.
1. I get that this is what they say, and I believe it is part of the reason. I'm just not convinced it's the whole reason.
ReplyDelete2. So there's no way that CH, nor J-P, could at all symbolize 1–4? "Not only can we Westerners kill you and manipulate your governments, but we also spit in your face!" It's almost as if responsibility for 1–5 has been delocalized, so that whomever Muslims act out against, it's considered 'unjust'. It's like they're just screwed. What I don't like is this, and I see it as inevitable that they'll inflict pain and suffering on others until the pain and suffering inflicted on them or their ancestors is acknowledged and made right.
3. I don't know. What I do know is that in shame-based cultures, your reputation is everything. An attack on your reputation is an attack on your person. Perhaps this has something to do with the matter? I also just wonder whether they could gather enough support for their actions without 1–5.
> None of that has any bearing on the matter at hand: is physical violence ever justified as a response to offensive speech? I say no, you and the pope say yes. I say you're both wrong, and I can use your own theology as part of my argument against you. That makes you not only wrong, but hypocrites. You must confess your sins and repent your evil ways before you can receive absolution.
You cannot use my theology against me, because it says to not operate according to law, according to 'deserve', according to 'justice'. Instead, it says to let people sin against you AND NOT DEMAND JUSTICE. That's what Jesus did. He let injustice happen to him, and didn't open a can of whoop-ass on people as a result. The injustice of society was revealed through the scapegoat mechanism taking out someone who was not even the slightest bit guilty. (Unless you define 'justice' by "what society says".)
So when you ask me what I think is just, that's going to be a different answer from what I think a "follower of Jesus" should do. You don't seem to be processing this claim of mine and I don't know why.
> You don't seem to be processing this claim of mine and I don't know why.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what you mean by "not processing." Here are two direct quotes from you in the above discussion:
"... it [my theology] says to let people sin against you AND NOT DEMAND JUSTICE. That's what Jesus did."
"I think that it is wrong to let verbal harm accrue with no redress for justice."
FYI, I actually agree with both of those statements. Where you and I part company is when you (and the pope) endorse *physical violence* as a way to obtain justice for offensive speech.
But we seem to have a really fundamental disconnect here. If Jesus says that you should not demand justice, then those who demand justice are not following Jesus. And yet, you seem to be demanding justice while claiming to follow Jesus. That sounds like the very definition of hypocrisy to me. What am I missing?
> FYI, I actually agree with both of those statements. Where you and I part company is when you (and the pope) endorse *physical violence* as a way to obtain justice for offensive speech.
ReplyDeleteI think if nothing else is working and increasing injustice is accruing, that other means for demonstrating that dignity-degrading harm is occurring are justified. This does not immediately imply that a Christian ought to do them, because Jesus calls his disciples to willingly endure injustice, showing it for what it is as Jesus showed the injustice of society for what it was.
I understand about escalating violence. I also understand about harm that is done which nobody will acknowledge, and how it has to hurt the appropriate people enough for it to be acknowledged. You seem to be saying that it is never right to force the acknowledgment of harm, as if forcing it is never required because it 'should' never be required. That is what confuses me: what is your suggestion for situations where there is no societally-declared-'just' manner of recourse for accruing injustice?
> If Jesus says that you should not demand justice, then those who demand justice are not following Jesus. And yet, you seem to be demanding justice while claiming to follow Jesus. That sounds like the very definition of hypocrisy to me. What am I missing?
First, I can only imperfectly follow Jesus. To say that this is being hypocritical is only correct if I am claiming to follow Jesus better than I actually am. I don't think I'm doing that—am I? Christians generally admit that they are not as they think they ought to be.
Second, I can still talk about what I think is just, even if I myself try to willingly endure injustice. What's problematic with doing this? Operating according to grace and mercy instead of law is hard; the next-best option is to act according to law, instead of lawlessness. And so, I can encourage the shift from 'lawlessness' → 'lawfulness' → 'grace and mercy'.
> situations where there is no societally-declared-'just' manner of recourse for accruing injustice
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the situation. Sometimes civil disobedience is called for in the name of justice. Sometimes even violence is called for in the name of justice. But you see, I can advocate for justice non-hypocrtically because I don't claim to follow a deity who demands that you not seek justice.
> I don't think I'm doing that—am I?
Yes, you are. See the next point...
> I can still talk about what I think is just, even if I myself try to willingly endure injustice.
There is a big difference between talking about what you think is just and advocating for justice as a moral ideal. It's the difference between, (1) "If someone insults my mother, I will punch them in the nose. But I will do that not because violence is morally justified, but because I'm a fallible human being with anger management issues. Afterwards, I will eventually recognize that my actions were not morally justified. I will feel shame. I will repent and seek forgiveness." and (2) "If someone insults my mother, I will punch them in the nose. And my violence will have been morally justified. The moral culpability for my violence rests with the person who insulted my mother, not with me."
You and the pope are taking position #2. That position by itself is not hypocritical. But taking position #2 while at the same time holding up Jesus as a moral ideal, that is hypocritical. Seeking justice either is a moral ideal or it is not. It can't be both. (And, BTW, justice is a bit of a red herring here because punching someone in the nose for insulting your mother is not justice, it's vengeance. Whereupon I must of course refer you to Romans 12:19.)
> the next-best option is to act according to law
OK, fine, but in civil societies it is against the law to punch someone for insulting your mother. No matter how you slice this, you and the pope are wrong.
> But you see, I can advocate for justice non-hypocrtically because I don't claim to follow a deity who demands that you not seek justice.
ReplyDeleteI can advocate for justice as well. However, I can also note that "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind", and thus note the need to employ mercy in the system of justice. What is mercy, but the shifting of consequence of injustice from one party to another? What people will willingly accept injustice in order that mercy may be dealt?
> There is a big difference between talking about what you think is just and advocating for justice as a moral ideal.
Hmmm, I may see part of the problem. When you say 'just', do you mean according to the Platonic Form of Justice, or according to the de facto form of justice? I say it's unfair if Muslims must adhere to Justice, while the West must only adhere to justice. See, Justice would not let injustice accrue with no recourse for addressing it. On the other hand, justice can and I think in the West, does. According to Justice it is wrong to incur greater harm than was incurred on you, but that is also never necessary. According to justice, I can easily see incurring greater harm as being the only option other than just taking the beating that the more powerful and more numerous send your way.
When you say 'a moral ideal', that makes me think of Justice. It's actually pretty easy to talk about what to do and how to think if all your ideals obtain. The problem is when, in society, they don't. How do you work best within a broken system? I honestly don't see you admitting that the rules can be different when you're working within a broken system, than when you're working within an ideal system.
> You and the pope are taking position #2.
No, we aren't. You are assuming that the pope thinks everything that he would do is what he thinks he should do. That is not so. I've never said that #2 is what one should do: I've noted instead that the Charlie Hebdo cartoons were probably a proverbial straw.
P.S. You might enjoy Paris attacks show hypocrisy of West's outrage: Chomsky.
> I can advocate for justice as well.
ReplyDeleteOf course you can. But if you advocate for justice while simultaneously claiming to follow a deity who commands you (and I am using YOUR words here) to not demand justice, then you are a hypocrite.
> What is mercy, but the shifting of consequence of injustice from one party to another?
No, the shifting of consequence from one party to another is scapegoating, not mercy. Mercy is the waiving of consequence. (BTW, mercy and justice are not mutually exclusive. But neither are they synonymous.)
> You are assuming that the pope thinks everything that he would do is what he thinks he should do.
All I can do is take the pope at his word. Look at what he actually said again:
"If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch in the nose. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others."
That is a clear endorsement of a certain kind of physical violence (a punch in the nose) as an appropriate response to certain kinds of offensive speech, specifically, insults against religion and mothers. I don't see how he could possibly have made it any clearer that he believes that the moral culpability lies with the insulter and not the puncher.
(I believe your interpretation of the pope's statement is colored by your high regard for the pope as a person. Consider your reaction if a mafia don had made the essentially equivalent statement, "If you insult my mother you can expect a punch in the nose. It's normal. You can't insult someone's family.")
> When you say 'a moral ideal', that makes me think of Justice.
No, what I meant by that is what *you* consider the moral ideal, the circumstance that should be strived for. It doesn't actually matter how you define justice. You can substitute *any* condition for "justice" as long as it is something that can be either sought after or not sought after. Let's use "physical pleasure" instead of "justice". The hedonist believes that physical pleasure should be sought after. Or take "material possessions" instead of justice. The capitalist believes that material possessions should be sought after ("greed is good"). Neither a hedonist nor a capitalist can claim to be a Christian without being a hypocrite because Jesus teaches that neither physical pleasure (Matthew 6:31) nor material possessions (Matthew 19:21) should be sought after. Likewise, Jesus teaches that justice should not be sought after (Matthew 5:39). (This is YOUR interpretation of that verse, BTW. Your exact words were "let people sin against you AND NOT DEMAND JUSTICE", emphasis in original.) We don't need to quibble over the precise definition of the word "justice" just as we don't need to quibble over the precise definition of "physical pleasure" or "material possession." All we need to do is observe that Jesus demands that when bad shit happens you're supposed to just sit there and take it. That's what it means to be a Christian. And that's one of the many reasons I am not a Christian, because I will not just sit there and take it. I will demand justice. I DO demand justice. And I REJECT any deity who tells me that I should not.
Justice. Jesus. Non-hypocrisy. You can only choose two. (Substitute "physical pleasure" or "material possessions" for "justice" and you get the same result.)
> No, the shifting of consequence from one party to another is scapegoating, not mercy.
ReplyDeleteSo if I intentionally break your arm and you waive the consequence, nothing is shifted? If I intentionally smash your car with a sledgehammer and you waive the consequence, no debt is shifted?
> That is a clear endorsement of a certain kind of physical violence (a punch in the nose) as an appropriate response to certain kinds of offensive speech, specifically, insults against religion and mothers.
Yeah I just don't see it that way. What you can expect is realism, not idealism. To expect the world to operate as you think it should is naïveté.
> (I believe your interpretation of the pope's statement is colored by your high regard for the pope as a person. Consider your reaction if a mafia don had made the essentially equivalent statement, "If you insult my mother you can expect a punch in the nose. It's normal. You can't insult someone's family.")
I would believe him, perhaps more than the Pope. :-p
> No, what I meant by that is what *you* consider the moral ideal, the circumstance that should be strived for.
The moral ideal is for every person to look for how he/she can benefit his/her neighbor. The moral ideal is that society strive toward ever-increasing excellence, truth, goodness, and beauty. These ideals aren't all that helpful when talking about super-broken situations. Ever see a very theoretical computer scientist try to say how things should be done in real life situations where the data isn't clean, the systems aren't necessarily reliable, and the language and libraries don't make everything nice and neat?
> Likewise, Jesus teaches that justice should not be sought after (Matthew 5:39). (This is YOUR interpretation of that verse, BTW. Your exact words were "let people sin against you AND NOT DEMAND JUSTICE", emphasis in original.)
Yes, I was stating an approximation of my view because you get all frustrated when I try and only ever say what is strictly true of my view. If you want to get really technical, Mt 5:39 could be talking only of an insult, given that to be slapped on the right cheek by a likely right-handed person means a back-handed slap, which was apparently an insult. You see Paul violating Jesus' instructions in Acts 23:1–5.
My claim is that justice cannot be properly meted out, and that someone has to be shafted. Christians are called to voluntarily be shafted as they try to make the situation better, especially by reaching out to the poor, oppressed, orphans, and widows. You know, the people who generally get the shaft of justice. Do you really think justice is possible, here-and-now, whereby nobody gets shafted?
> So if I intentionally break your arm and you waive the consequence, nothing is shifted?
ReplyDeleteYou asked "What is mercy, but the shifting of consequence of injustice from one party to another?" I believe there is a useful distinction to be made between the transfer of moral responsibility between parties, and the transfer of moral responsibility into the aether. I don't really care whether you use the terms "scapegoating" and "mercy" to make this distinction, but it's a useful distinction to make and these are perfectly serviceable words so we might as well use them.
> Do you really think justice is possible, here-and-now, whereby nobody gets shafted?
Perhaps not. But that doesn't stop me from striving for it, from holding it as the the moral ideal, the circumstance to be desired.
> What you can expect is realism, not idealism.
In general perhaps, but not from the pope. Being an idealist is his job.
And, BTW, I think he was being an idealist. I think when he said "You cannot insult the faith of others" he meant, "It is morally wrong to insult the faith of others." I think the pope really believes that. And I disagree in the strongest possible terms.
> I believe there is a useful distinction to be made between the transfer of moral responsibility between parties, and the transfer of moral responsibility into the aether.
ReplyDeleteIt's just not clear that the latter is actually possible. If I intentionally break your arm, there is a burden to be borne. It can be entirely borne by you, or partially borne by me (your arm would still be broken). The burden cannot be magicked away.
Any time an offense is committed, someone has begun to believe more strongly that said offense is justifiable, at least in some circumstances which actually obtain. How does "the transfer of moral responsibility into the aether" not simply try to pretend away this fact?
> Perhaps not. But that doesn't stop me from striving for it, from holding it as the the moral ideal, the circumstance to be desired.
Oh, I agree. There is still the question of who gets shafted in the meantime. One can examine how effective I can be at fighting injustice if I always fight strongest, or in my judgment equally strong, for my own just treatment. My suspicion is: not very.
> In general perhaps, but not from the pope. Being an idealist is his job.
Yeah I'm just not sure that's the most effective way to be pope. It's certainly the prettiest, but I'm tired of that kind of pretty.
> And, BTW, I think he was being an idealist. I think when he said "You cannot insult the faith of others" he meant, "It is morally wrong to insult the faith of others." I think the pope really believes that. And I disagree in the strongest possible terms.
I would want an actually nuanced version to get anywhere close the level of vitriol you displayed in your blog post. For example, I think some kind of insulting is used as part of a scorning process, per Jacques Ellul's definition of 'scorn' which I posted above. I think scorn is morally wrong.
Here's a test particle: do you think Pope Francis would think cartoons making fun of the sale of indulgences are morally wrong? Contrast that to the repeated issue of the statement that anyone who believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is a pox on society and ought to be marginalized, by the influential.
> It's just not clear that the latter is actually possible.
ReplyDeleteOf course it is. There is no law of conservation of moral responsibility. Moral responsibility is a human invention, kind of like money. We can decide that moral responsibility needs to be conserved (hence scapegoating) or we can decide that it doesn't (hence forgiveness) just as we can decide to use gold as money (hence a supply governed by the laws of physics), or fiat currency as money (hence a supply governed by central banks).
> I would want an actually nuanced version to get anywhere close the level of vitriol you displayed in your blog post.
The post was intentionally provocative in the hopes that it would goad the pope into punching me in the nose. More seriously, it was designed to encourage the reader to engage in the thought experiment of what would actually happen if the pope really punched me in the nose as a response to my post, and which of us would then have the better claim to the moral high ground.
> do you think Pope Francis would think cartoons making fun of the sale of indulgences are morally wrong?
Since the church doesn't sell indulgences any more, I can't say. But a cartoon making fun of current church practice would absolutely be morally wrong according to the pope. He said so explicitly: "You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others."
> Moral responsibility is a human invention, kind of like money.
ReplyDeleteI thought moral responsibility was a way of describing actual causation. Isn't that the ideal, at least?
> We can decide that moral responsibility needs to be conserved (hence scapegoating) or we can decide that it doesn't (hence forgiveness) [...]
You write as if forgiveness costs nothing, as if it is entirely free. And yet, it is not free for you to forgive me when I intentionally break your arm, requiring nothing of me in return. Damage was done and now the burden has to be borne. The only question which remains is who will bear it: 100% you, or part you and part me.
> More seriously, it was designed to encourage the reader to engage in the thought experiment of what would actually happen if the pope really punched me in the nose as a response to my post, and which of us would then have the better claim to the moral high ground.
See here for Pope Francis' own clarification, which appears to match my own argumentation.
> But a cartoon making fun of current church practice would absolutely be morally wrong according to the pope. He said so explicitly: "You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others."
Because Pope Francis surely couldn't have meant that if you insult the faith of others, you risk spurring them to respond just like people are tempted to punch you if you insult their mother. The pope couldn't possibly have meant that people will only take so much abuse before they lash out, and that pretending that they ought not lash out because "free speech is a fundamental human right" is to live in lala land. The problem with living in lala land is that people die as a result.
I'll give your interpretation more credence if and when the Roman Catholic Church declares it to be a mortal sin to say anything that the pope decides to construe as insulting. Until then, I'm just not inclined to believe that the pope is an obtuse idiot.
> I thought moral responsibility was a way of describing actual causation.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's simply an accounting method.
> Isn't that the ideal, at least?
Sure. If there were a way of describing actual causation w.r.t. morality then there would be an objective moral truth that could be measured. If there's a way to do that, it's news to me. But maybe you know something I don't.
> You write as if forgiveness costs nothing, as if it is entirely free. And yet, it is not free for you to forgive me when I intentionally break your arm, requiring nothing of me in return.
Really? What does it cost me? My arm is already broken. Will punishing you make my arm heal faster?
(And notice, BTW, that you have now escalated from offensive speech right past nose punching and are now up to arm-breaking.)
> Pope Francis' own clarification
I'll have to write a separate post about that.
> Pope Francis surely couldn't have meant...
These things are not mutually exclusive.
> I'm just not inclined to believe that the pope is an obtuse idiot.
No, of course he isn't. He's just an apologist for physical violence as a response to offensive speech. I'm not saying it's an indefensible position, I'm just saying that it's wrong. I further say that it violates the ostensible tenets of the religion the pope professes to believe in, and hence when he takes this position it's not only wrong but hypocritical. I stand by that. But please don't put words in my mouth.
> No, it's simply an accounting method.
ReplyDeleteSo if I intentionally break your arm, the idea that I'm 'morally responsible' is something that's just 100% fabricated out of nothing? I get that we can't attribute moral responsibility perfectly.
> Really? What does it cost me? My arm is already broken. Will punishing you make my arm heal faster?
I can pay you money. That's a 'punishment' which helps offset the unfair situation I put you in. I could also do tasks for you that are harder or impossible for you to do with a broken arm, while your arm heals. I could also make it less likely that other arms will be intentionally broken in the future. There are alls sorts of things I can do to offset the advantage I gained and the disadvantage you suffered.
> (And notice, BTW, that you have now escalated from offensive speech right past nose punching and are now up to arm-breaking.)
Yep; certain things are more clear with a broken arm than punched nose.
> These things are not mutually exclusive.
Change what I said to: "Pope Francis surely couldn't have exclusively meant ..."
> But please don't put words in my mouth.
It isn't obtusely idiotic to be so flagrantly hypocritical in an environment like the one that exists in the modern world?
My interpretation is the Pope is showing how man instinctively protects itself by attacking (physically or by slander) against a perceived attack against its self (ideas). I think Jesus turned the other check to help man strive for a more enlightened response.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the blog (found after watching your qm talk.)
It Rains on the Righteous and Unrighteous
ReplyDelete>The capitalist believes that material possessions should be sought after ("greed is good").
If you accept the moral premise of property rights, capitalism is about freedom. Free choices and free markets.
>All we need to do is observe that Jesus demands that when bad shit happens you're supposed to just sit there and take it. That's what it means to be a Christian. And that's one of the many reasons I am not a Christian, because I will not just sit there and take it. I will demand justice. I DO demand justice. And I REJECT any deity who tells me that I should not.
Jesus demands selfless love. This is why one may forgive another rather than demand justice - or restitution.
Jesus is also known to have demanded justice - and protect sheep from wolves.
Christianity, though, is hard to summarize in a few sentences.
> Christianity, though, is hard to summarize in a few sentences.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have no idea how much of the Catholic Catechism I would agree with, amen to the fact that any attempt to reduce Christianity to a few sentences will be an extreme approximation that can easily be misunderstood. I don't know why anyone would expect any differently; life certainly cannot be lived by a few sentences, unless you sneak in enormously complex concepts such as 'agape' and 'truth'.
Ron, it's your anterior cingulate cortex
ReplyDeleteIf we look at the scientific research, it's clear that humans don't have moral reasoning, they have moral rationalization. Emotion preceeds, and predicts, the cognitive judgment of a moral issue. If the emotion conflicts with the "higher cognition" of the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) develops a rationalization for emotional response. So you don't author your moral reasoning, you edit it.
But wait - you're rational, right? Sorry, the same research shows that emotion directs "rational" thinking as well. Indeed, free will is an illusion, your "decisions" can be tracked in an fMRI before you are conscious of them. Moral reasoning and antisocial behvaior can be traced to brain structure. Your autobiographical memory influences your moral sensitivity to issues of justice and care. How about honesty? Honesty depends on the brain you were born with.
Ron, you apparently have a highly emotional response to hypocrisy. Your ACC is then maxed out rationalizing why you find it morally wrong.
Hypocrisy cannot create such an intense cognitive moral judgment, as being against hypocrisy is irrational, as follows:
1. Everyone is a hypocrite - including you. If you then condemn hypocrites, you commit ... double hypocrisy.
2. Hypocrisy is a consquence of the evolution of the brain. It is not a moral fault, but a natural outcome of how different parts of the brain evolved over time in response to different selective pressures.
3. It ignores the benefits of hypocrisy; inducing hypocrisy has been used to help people stop smoking, encourage young adults to use condoms, and reduce racism.
It is also irrational to condemn the Pope for hypocrisy, as follows:
1. One mistake does not define a person (cognitive errors: overgeneralization and labeling)
2. The Pope either is, or is not, a hypocrite (cognitive error: black-and-white thinking)
3. Not considering the other statements he made during the interview (cognitive error: disqualifying the positive)
4. Not considering his statements made at other times and focusing only on his one error (congnitive error: magnification)
Confirming evidence of your ACC driving your behavior is your atheism, which is a response to the distriss you feel when thinking about God. In addition, while you strongly condemned the Pope, you posted no such condemnation of the actual terrorist murderers of Charlie Hebdo; this is explained by the fact that the murderers were not acting hypocritically - they were acting according to their nature, no matter how dreadful.
Illusion. Science. Hypocrisy. You can only choose two.[1]
[1] Actually, that's an example of black-and-white thinking. There are more than 2 choices.
@Luke:
ReplyDelete> So if I intentionally break your arm, the idea that I'm 'morally responsible' is something that's just 100% fabricated out of nothing?
More like 90%. Humans do have an evolved moral intuition which is the basis for the idea of moral responsibility. But the detailed accounting that leads to ideas like "an eye for an eye" or "consecutive life sentence" is pure invention.
But don't make the mistake of thinking that simply because it's "fabricated out of nothing" that therefore it has no value or impact. Money is also fabricated out of nothing, but it's still mighty powerful stuff.
> I can pay you money.
That's true, but it misses the point. Consider an alternative scenario, where I break my arm in a accident and falsely claim that you broke it intentionally. In that case you could also pay me money, and that payment would have exactly the same material benefit to me as the case where you in fact broke my arm intentionally. But the *moral calculus* in that case is completely different. If you actually broke my arm intentionally then (most people would agree) you paying me money constitutes just restitution, whereas in the latter case your paying me money would be unjust extortion. So it's not the money that matters in the moral calculus. Money (also a human invention BTW) is just one mechanism by which moral debts can be settled. But moral debts exist independent of money and can be settled by means other than money and so the "physics" of morality is both distinct and different from the physics of money.
> Pope Francis surely couldn't have exclusively meant ...
Of course he could have. But that's not what he *SAID*.
> It isn't obtusely idiotic to be so flagrantly hypocritical in an environment like the one that exists in the modern world?
Of course not. Why would you even think that? Hypocrisy and stupidity are almost completely orthogonal to each other.
@Publius:
> Christianity, though, is hard to summarize in a few sentences.
Really? I was given to understand that it's pretty easy: we are sinners. Sinners go to hell. The only way to avoid this fate is God's grace. We have been offered God's grace by virtue of the fact that God took on human form, came to earth, died on the cross, and was resurrected. Is that not correct?
> humans don't have moral reasoning, they have moral rationalization
That's our natural state, yes. But that doesn't stop us from coming up with better ideas. Just because we sometimes (often?) rationalize that doesn't preclude us from reasoning if we choose to.
> Everyone is a hypocrite - including you.
Perhaps, but I try very hard not to be a hypocrite. If you ever see me engaging in hypocrisy I encourage you to call me out on it.
> Confirming evidence of your ACC driving your behavior is your atheism, which is a response to the distriss you feel when thinking about God.
I feel no more distress when thinking about God than I do when thinking about any other fictional character in human literature.
@Ron
ReplyDelete> But the detailed accounting that leads to ideas like "an eye for an eye" or "consecutive life sentence" is pure invention.
Ahh, I've been using 'moral responsibility' in the restricted sense of being causally responsible, instead of also including the praise and blame aspects. I'm happy for praise and blame to be telos-dependent; Alasdair MacIntyre argues in After Virtue that all attempts to avoid a teleological foundation of morality have failed, ending in something like emotivism. In my experience, he is correct.
What I've been trying to get at is how burdens that are produced by moral wrongs are shared, or not shared. How much war and suffering is caused by refusal to share? I think understanding Jesus as telling his followers to share these burdens helps one understand what he's saying in a way that allows one to see Jesus as advocating enduring injustice on the one hand, while looking forward to justice on the other.
> That's true, but it misses the point.
Given that I provided examples other than money, was I really missing the point? I took something of value away from you when I intentionally broke your arm; if I am to bear some of that burden, I must give you something of value. Whether that is money or something money can buy (e.g. someone to clean the gutters on your house now that you cannot) is quite immaterial in my presentation.
> Of course he could have. But that's not what he *SAID*.
So? What you inferred is "not what he *SAID*", either.
> Of course not. Why would you even think that? Hypocrisy and stupidity are almost completely orthogonal to each other.
If it is effective and not too difficult to make someone look bad by pointing out hypocrisy, and your goal is to not look bad, it is very stupid to make it tremendously easy for others to point out hypocrisy in you.
> if I am to bear some of that burden, I must give you something of value
ReplyDeleteNo, that's not true. I could, for example, break your arm. That way you would bear some of my burden in the sense that you would have firsthand subjective experience of my pain which might make it easier to empathize and might deter you from breaking arms in the future. But it doesn't give me "something of value" in the same sense that your giving me money does.
Like I said, this is not about the mechanism by which moral debts are settled, this is about the idea that there is such a thing as a moral debt to be settled. It's the difference between you intentionally breaking my arm and my intentionally lying about how my arm was broken.
> What you inferred is "not what he *SAID*", either.
I'm not the only one who read the pope's comments the way I did, so I think my reading is defensible. And in light of the pope's subsequent backpedalling on the issue I think he would agree with me. You and I may just need to agree to disagree on this.
> it is very stupid to make it tremendously easy for others to point out hypocrisy in you.
OK, I concede the point: what the pope said was stupid. (Please don't go on now to confuse saying stupid things with being stupid. They are absolutely not the same.)
I'm not sure where the arm breaking discussion is going at this point. I'm trying to establish that Jesus calls on Christians to endure more than their fair share of suffering—of bearing that burden—in order to increase the amount of justice in the world. It is predicated upon the idea that perfect justice cannot be obtained, at least for the foreseeable future, and therefore at least one party is going to get shafted. The question then is whether you are willing to be part of that party, or do your best to not be part of it.
ReplyDeleteI think this was all to demonstrate that Jesus does not advocate the his followers do what is maximally just, such that there is a potential difference between:
(1) What is the just course of action.
(2) What is the course of action a follower of Jesus would take.
Can you see now why there could be a difference here, how it could be legitimate, and not hypocritical, irrational, etc.?
> I'm not the only one who read the pope's comments the way I did, so I think my reading is defensible.
Everyone loves to find a religious figure who is hypocritical. This love, in my observation, has the habit of biasing interpretations such that it can be fulfilled more frequently. Personally, whenever I find something which is ostensibly negative about a person, I try to confirm it pretty directly before giving it much weight. This is my way of extending dignity to other people, of 'hoping for the best'. Perhaps these two things help explain our difference of interpretation.
>> if I am to bear some of that burden, I must give you something of value
ReplyDelete>No, that's not true. I could, for example, break your arm.
Revenge. Retribution. Or corporal punishment. Ducking the common scold.
>That way you would bear some of my burden in the sense that you would have firsthand subjective experience of my pain which might make it easier to empathize and might deter you from breaking arms in the future. But it doesn't give me "something of value" in the same sense that your giving me money does.
It also doesn't bear your burden - it creates a new burden in someone else.
> It also doesn't bear your burden - it creates a new burden in someone else.
ReplyDeleteThis all depends on what you mean by "bearing my burden." Luke said:
"if I am to bear some of that burden, I must give you something of value."
implying that giving me something of value was both necessary and sufficient to bear at least some of my burden according to his moral calculus. But my arm is still broken even if Luke writes me a check. It's true that I'm better off with the check than without it, but that's true whether or not my arm is broken.
Most people would consider the following two situations to be morally distinct, despite the fact that their economic outcomes are identical:
1. You break my arm and voluntarily give me $X as restitution.
2. You break my arm. I retaliate by pulling a gun on you with my good arm and threatening to shoot you unless you give me $X, which you do.
The only way you can really bear my burden of having a broken arm is to somehow arrange for my arm to become unbroken at the cost of having your own arm broken. (And to *really* bear my burden you've have to arrange for this to be done retroactively.) The moral calculus of an-eye-for-an-eye recognizes that this is not possible and settles for the second half of the loaf. The moral calculus of restitution recognizes that this is not possible and substitutes a different burden (a financial one in this case) for the actual burden. But I must reiterate for the third time that all this is beside the point. What matters is that there is a calculus of moral debt that is INDEPENDENT of the mechanisms chosen to settle those debts.
BTW, note that this is true even in Christian theology. For Jesus to actually bear the burden of sin he would have to become a sinner. Jesus is really just the ultimate scapegoat.
> implying that giving me something of value was both necessary and sufficient to bear at least some of my burden according to his moral calculus.
ReplyDeleteI don't see how there is any 'moral calculus' going on; your life was on one trajectory before your arm was broken. After it was broken, the trajectory changed. You couldn't clean your gutters as you planned. What I can do is push the altered trajectory closer to the original trajectory. I probably cannot do it perfectly, as you note.
My point, again, was that I can shoulder more of that burden than a given system of justice calls for. I claim this is a necessary component of being a follower of Jesus. Therefore, what is 'just' is not what I, as a follower of Jesus, strive to do. You wanted to call out an incoherency in my argumentation; this is my explanation for why there is no incoherence.
> The only way you can really bear my burden of having a broken arm is to somehow arrange for my arm to become unbroken at the cost of having your own arm broken.
This is why I was careful to include the first word in "some of that burden".
> BTW, note that this is true even in Christian theology. For Jesus to actually bear the burden of sin he would have to become a sinner. Jesus is really just the ultimate scapegoat.
See 2 Cor 5:21. Surely you know that there are strong connections between Jesus and the actual scapegoats in the OT? Jesus broke away from any possible system of 'justice' that is worthy of the name, by offering to suffer so that others don't have to, or at least so their suffering is alleviated.
@Luke:
ReplyDelete> I don't see how there is any 'moral calculus' going on;
"Moral calculus" is just the label I chose to attach to the reasoning process that leads you to say things like:
> I can shoulder more of that burden than a given system of justice calls for
We can call it something else if you don't like the term "moral calculus."
> This is why I was careful to include the first word in "some of that burden".
Yes, I got that. Note that I was responding to Publius, not you. (I'll try to be more diligent about including @ tags.)
But just to be clear, you said:
"if I am to bear some of that burden, I must give you something of value"
There are reasonable interpretations of the phrase "bear some of that burden" for which that statement is false.
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> > I don't see how there is any 'moral calculus' going on;
> "Moral calculus" is just the label I chose to attach to the reasoning process that leads you to say things like:
> > I can shoulder more of that burden than a given system of justice calls for
> We can call it something else if you don't like the term "moral calculus."
You still aren't acknowledging how I am situating the discussion. I say it can be the case that what is just is to respond with violence, while simultaneously the follower of Jesus qua follower, ought not respond with violence. The way that the Christian is being 'unjust' is that she is willing to accept damage against herself, instead of demanding justice for herself. If we admit that perfect justice is a long way off, then someone in the system has to endure injustice. This appears to defeat your position that my two answers to this situation seem in conflict, seem hypocritical.
To repeat, I'm talking about justice as-implemented, not Justice the Platonic Form. If a given system of justice allows continual damage to accrue against a person without that person having nonviolent recourse within the system, I claim he is justified in some level of violence. If the other person is unwilling to accept that (i) you are suffering, or at least (ii) that the suffering is too much, what can you do except to make him suffer? I believe we have scientific results which show that physical suffering activates the same pathways as nonphysical suffering; need I find them?
> "if I am to bear some of that burden, I must give you something of value"
> There are reasonable interpretations of the phrase "bear some of that burden" for which that statement is false.
Suppose I concede this point. Does this criticism materially affects the case I'm trying to build? (I could quibble and say that you're worried about the incidence of intentional arm-breaking needs to go down; my imprisonment or being fined can contribute to said deterrent. Here, I'm bearing some burden. Suppose, however, that I escape any consequences, but you care really strongly about the matter. Then you could start campaigning against intentional arm-breaking, without any help from me. But is it worth quibbling?)
> You still aren't acknowledging how I am situating the discussion.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am. I just don't agree with your position.
> it can be the case that what is just is to respond with violence
Not to offensive speech. Violence is never ever justified as a response to offensive speech. (Yes, violence can be justified in other cases, but the topic under discussion is offensive speech.)
If you really want to maintain this position, consider this: I find the call to prayer offensive. To me it symbolizes ignorance, false beliefs, and unjustified violence. Not only that, but Muslims want to ram it down my throat (or at least into my ears) so that I have no choice but to listen to it. This is in stark contrast to the CH cartoons. To see those, you had to actually seek them out. So... would I be justified in retaliating violently against Muslims for sounding the call to prayer? I would answer that question with a resounding "NO! Of course not!" (Because, of course, I believe that violence is never a justified response to offensive speech, even -- perhaps especially -- if I'm the one offended.) But if *your* answer is "no" then I wonder how you distinguish between my offense and that of a Muslim that makes violence justified in their case but not in mine.
> The way that the Christian is being 'unjust' is that she is willing to accept damage against herself, instead of demanding justice for herself.
It seems a little bizarre to me to characterize that behavior as "unjust". I'd choose a word with a more positive spin: selfless, altruistic, noble, gracious. "Unjust" has a strong negative connotation, so to use that word seems perverse. But as always, I don't want to quibble over terminology.
> If a given system of justice allows continual damage to accrue against a person without that person having nonviolent recourse within the system, I claim he is justified in some level of violence.
I get that, but your argument is based on two premises that I don't accept. I reject the premise that offensive speech can cause enough damage to justify a violent response (see above), and I reject the premise that Muslims don't have a non-violent recourse. For example, the Muslim community could stand up and say: "You know, when we see images of the Prophet it causes us a great deal of emotional pain. We get that this might not make a whole lot of sense to you infidels, but take our word for it, it hurts. A lot. So while we recognize your right of free speech, we humbly request, out of consideration for us, your fellow humans, that you choose not to exercise that right." I'll bet, if they tried that, it would actually be a lot more effective than blowing shit up.
> Yes, I am. I just don't agree with your position.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it that you don't agree with?
> Not to offensive speech. Violence is never ever justified as a response to offensive speech. (Yes, violence can be justified in other cases, but the topic under discussion is offensive speech.)
The topic at hand is the full set of causes which prompted the attack on Charlie Hebdo as well as the environment which allowed it to be carried out. (That is, I doubt these were 'lone wolf' attacks.) I don't believe that it was a mere insult which was the sole cause. Instead, I suspect that something much closer to 'scorn', as defined by Jacques Ellul, is in play.
My position has been quite consistent: I have never said that violence would be a justified response to a one-off insult. Instead, I have noted that regularly dispensed insults can accrue and actually build up injustice. Regularly dispensed insults can turn into scorn, such that it has real-life consequences for those scorned. One interesting place that the power of words has been explored has been in gender studies; see Judith Butler's performativity. Something tells me that you are either sticking to the one-off insult concept, or otherwise denying the amount of power words can have.
> If you really want to maintain this position, consider this: I find the call to prayer offensive.
Yep, we'd have to talk about what kind of damage can be done by that which is categorized as 'offensive'. We can see if the words of an minority group without significant political power can harm you in anything like the way that the words of a dominant group with much political clout can damage minorities.
> It seems a little bizarre to me to characterize that behavior as "unjust".
I'm not going to whitewash it: the Christian is volunteering to be fucked over by people who don't give a shit. That is precisely what Jesus did by choosing to die on the cross instead of foment an insurrection. By using terminology such as 'selflessness', the evils of society are ignored.
> I'll bet, if they tried that, it would actually be a lot more effective than blowing shit up.
If you were wrong about this, would it matter re: your argument? This is an empirically testable statement after all; it may have even been tested for all we know.
Ron>(Because, of course, I believe that violence is never a justified response to offensive speech, even -- perhaps especially -- if I'm the one offended.)
ReplyDeleteDoes "speech" include photographs?
Does "speech" include "expressive actions," such as flashing your headlights to oncoming drivers to warn of a police speed trap?
Does "speech" include wearing a T-shirt with "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" printed on it? What about a T-shirt with "Palin 2016" on it?
@Luke:
ReplyDelete> What is it that you don't agree with?
That violence is ever justified as a response to offensive speech, or even to scorn, and for the same reason: there is no objective way to decide what constitutes scorn, and so to endorse violence in response to scorn is to endorse violence for any reasons whatsoever.
> By using terminology such as 'selflessness', the evils of society are ignored.
Do I understand you correctly, that you are accusing me of ignoring the evils of society because I call Christians "selfless" rather than "unjust"?
> If you were wrong about this, would it matter re: your argument?
No. But it's an experiment worth doing regardless.
@Publius:
> Does "speech" include photographs?
Yes. (Does it include child porn? No. But that's because the production of child porn involves actual harm to children. Does it include child-porn anime? Yes.)
> Does "speech" include "expressive actions," such as flashing your headlights to oncoming drivers to warn of a police speed trap?
Yes, of course. (I have a hard time imagining anyone objecting to that.)
> Does "speech" include wearing a T-shirt with "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" printed on it? What about a T-shirt with "Palin 2016" on it?
Yes, of course. It even includes wearing a T-shirt that says, "There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet" or "Jesus is Lord."
@Ron:
ReplyDelete> That violence is ever justified as a response to offensive speech, or even to scorn, and for the same reason: there is no objective way to decide what constitutes scorn, and so to endorse violence in response to scorn is to endorse violence for any reasons whatsoever.
I realize the difficulty presented by "no objective way", but you are merely trading one form of injustice for another. You are trading the injustice of people reacting violently to speech which did not cause harm that is properly proportionate to the harm done by the speech, for the injustice of enduring harm from speech with no legal recourse.
I am curious about how much harm could be done in ways such that there is "no objective way" to measure them. If neither science nor law can determine how much harm is being done to you, then you either get to exert power through the legal system or be screwed with no effective recourse.
Once again, I really do understand how violence makes things escalate. But sometimes I think it's alright for things to escalate, if nobody is admitting the nature of the problem beforehand. I wish we could do better and better jobs catching problems earlier and earlier. But this is not a perfect world, and if we immediately condemn those who use violence, I claim we will have a distorted conception of what is going on. Such a distorted conception will harm efforts at making things better.
> Do I understand you correctly, that you are accusing me of ignoring the evils of society because I call Christians "selfless" rather than "unjust"?
No, I think you aren't making a strong enough connection between the "selfless" actions and the injustice of society. When I shirk my duties to society, I hurt people. If I see someone selflessly helping the poor and oppressed, I am not immediately made aware that perhaps my shirking of my duties has resulted in harm coming upon these selfless helpers. I would prefer to make the causal connection more direct.
> No. But it's an experiment worth doing regardless.
I agree; it would reveal whether you or I have a better model of human nature (along this dimension), and if we want to make the world suck less, having the best model of human nature possible is important.
> You are trading the injustice of people reacting violently to speech which did not cause harm that is properly proportionate to the harm done by the speech, for the injustice of enduring harm from speech with no legal recourse.
ReplyDeleteBut you have a legal recourse: don't read Charlie Hebdo. This is what gives Charlie Hebdo the absolute claim to the moral high ground here: they did not shove their message into anyone's face. You had to go out of your way to see the cartoon in question. Hell, you had to *pay* to buy a copy of the magazine. If you take the initiative to read Charlie Hebdo and you get offended, then that is entirely on you.
I get offended when I watch Fox News. That does not give me the moral license to bomb Fox studios.
> you either get to exert power through the legal system or be screwed with no effective recourse.
Exactly right. That is what it means to live in a civilized society. Civilization is not perfect. It has its costs. But it beats the hell out of the alternatives.
BTW, this is the reason Martin Luther King is so revered. If anyone had a cause that would justify violence, he did. And yet he rejected violence. *That* is following Matthew 5:39.
> But you have a legal recourse: don't read Charlie Hebdo.
ReplyDeleteThose who do read Charlie Hebdo, form their opinions of Islam partially from it, and then reify those opinions by how they live, materially impact the lives of Muslims. Surely you understand that one must ideologically legitimize stuff like France's Le Pen: ban non-pork meals in schools?
> I get offended when I watch Fox News. That does not give me the moral license to bomb Fox studios.
You're not in the kind of minority group that constitutes Muslims in France, nor Muslims in colonized (or otherwise majorly influenced, e.g. the 1953 Iranian coup d'état) countries. You have effective verbal recourse to attacks on your way of life, attacks on your identity, whether legal or cultural.
> > you either get to exert power through the legal system or be screwed with no effective recourse.
> Exactly right. That is what it means to live in a civilized society. Civilization is not perfect. It has its costs. But it beats the hell out of the alternatives.
Civilization with occasional outbursts of violence is still civilization.
> BTW, this is the reason Martin Luther King is so revered. If anyone had a cause that would justify violence, he did. And yet he rejected violence. *That* is following Matthew 5:39.
Yep; if you look at the Integrated Bus Suggestions, you find:
>> 8. Be loving enough to absorb evil and understanding enough to turn an enemy into a friend.
This is explicitly a call to endure injustice! However, everyone has a limit for how much injustice they can endure before lashing out or in (that is, engaging in self-hatred and self-destruction). Furthermore, the only people with the moral authority to call people to endure injustice are those who are doing it themselves. Those who instead wish to be treated justly deserve to have others respond in kind. Harm for harm. This is what actually happens; pretending it is otherwise does not make it so.
> Those who do read Charlie Hebdo, form their opinions of Islam partially from it, and then reify those opinions by how they live, materially impact the lives of Muslims.
ReplyDeleteThe statement "Those who read X form their opinions of Y partially from having read X, and those opinions can materially impact the lives of Y" is true for any X and Y. This is the nature of speech. Saying things changes people's opinions about things. That is the whole point.
> Surely you understand that one must ideologically legitimize stuff like France's Le Pen: ban non-pork meals in schools?
No, I don't understand this. In fact, I have no idea what "ideologically legitimize" even means.
> You're not in the kind of minority group
Actually, I am. I am an atheist. We're the most hated minority in America according to recent polls. More than gays, more than Muslims, more than blacks. There is not a single "out" atheist in Congress. There may not even be one in any state legislature.
> Civilization with occasional outbursts of violence is still civilization.
Civilization is a continuum, not a dichotomy. Civilization with occasional outbursts of violence is less of a civilization that one those outbursts.
> everyone has a limit for how much injustice they can endure before lashing out
Note that the injustices endured by blacks in 1950s America were not limited to offensive speech. They were the victims of systematic state-sponsored discrimination and violence. *That* is what would have made violence morally justifiable, and that is what lent the moral weight to MLK's rejection of violence.
> The statement "Those who read X form their opinions of Y partially from having read X, and those opinions can materially impact the lives of Y" is true for any X and Y. This is the nature of speech. Saying things changes people's opinions about things. That is the whole point.
ReplyDeleteAre you against hate speech laws, on the basis that no matter how predictable it is that a population will be driven to commit violence merely because of the exercise of free speech, the exercise of that speech is still protected?
> In fact, I have no idea what "ideologically legitimize" even means.
How does one get a population to consider that some idea is legitimate? A wonderful example is articulated in William Cavanaugh's The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. He argues that the distinction between 'religious' and 'secular' was largely ideological, to shift authority from the religious to the State. Quite bluntly, the idea was to convince people that it is wrong to die in the name of your religion, but right to die in the name of your state. Thus we had nationalism and saw how utterly peaceful that was. Anyhow, this shift of authority, this shift of legitimacy, didn't happen magically. It had to be orchestrated.
> Actually, I am. I am an atheist. We're the most hated minority in America according to recent polls. More than gays, more than Muslims, more than blacks. There is not a single "out" atheist in Congress. There may not even be one in any state legislature.
Would you explicate the oppression you, personally, experience, day to day? Something that comes to mind is that those in power have frequently pretended to hold to the religion of the people, but in fact have not. While this certainly is an imposition, I just wonder how much of an imposition it is, compared to other relevant populations.
> Note that the injustices endured by blacks in 1950s America were not limited to offensive speech.
Neither are the injustices endured by Muslims in France right now "limited to offensive speech".
> Are you against hate speech laws
ReplyDeleteIncitement to violence is one of the legitimate exceptions to the absolute right of free speech (for obvious reasons). But inciting violence is not the same as predictably producing violence. Inciting violence requires intent to produce violence. I'm pretty sure it was not the intent of the publishers of Mohammed cartoons to produce violence, notwithstanding that they may have known it was likely to do so.
> ideologically legitimize
OK, I still don't see the difference between "ideologically legitimize" and "advance an argument for." The idea that it should be wrong to die for a religion but right to die for a state seems to me like a defensible position.
> Would you explicate the oppression you, personally, experience, day to day?
I don't personally experience much discrimination because I am fortunate enough to be able to afford to live in a part of the country where atheists are accepted, kind of like gays. But atheists who come out in the south or the midwest do suffer discrimination, and occasionally even violence, largely at the hands of good God-fearing (SI-)Christians.
> Neither are the injustices endured by Muslims in France right now "limited to offensive speech".
That may be, but now you are advancing a different argument than the one the Pope did, and which is the topic of my post. Also, note that no matter what sorts of injustices Muslims are experiencing the situations are not comparable because you can't change your race. People do change their faiths.
Notwithstanding the above, I'll take the bait: what kinds of injustices are Muslims in France enduring?
> Incitement to violence is one of the legitimate exceptions to the absolute right of free speech (for obvious reasons).
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether those reasons are so obvious; you have on one hand an absolute, and the other a pragmatic restriction on that absolute. Which pragmatic restrictions are allowed and which are not? Note, by the way, that not all such restrictions need to be legal ones; some of them can be cultural ones. Just look at what's 'politically correct'.
> OK, I still don't see the difference between "ideologically legitimize" and "advance an argument for." The idea that it should be wrong to die for a religion but right to die for a state seems to me like a defensible position.
When you attempt to ideologically legitimize something, you aren't honestly engaging with what other people believe. You might not even be honestly engaging with the facts. See, for example, the conflict thesis: it was used to legitimize an animus toward religion and yet it was based on fallacy after fallacy. Or take the idea that religion increases a person's predilection toward violence in contrast to non-religion: this is believed by many, and yet it's really not clear at all that the evidence supports it!
If Islam is stupid, if it is dangerous, if Muslims cannot be trusted, then restricting their freedoms and persecuting them becomes the safe thing to do, the right thing to do. If one cannot expect much of anything good to come from them—see Ellul's 'scorn', again—then how bad can one really feel in perpetuating and intensifying all this?
> I don't personally experience much discrimination because I am fortunate enough to be able to afford to live in a part of the country where atheists are accepted, kind of like gays. But atheists who come out in the south or the midwest do suffer discrimination, and occasionally even violence, largely at the hands of good God-fearing (SI-)Christians.
Sounds like standard human behavior. It would be interesting to compare & contrast the way atheists are treated in the South, to how Muslims are treated in France.
> That may be, but now you are advancing a different argument than the one the Pope did, and which is the topic of my post.
Well, this is all predicated upon the idea that the only appreciable causes for the attack on CH were the cartoons, instead of them being a proverbial straw. I find that extraordinarily hard to believe that the cartoons were anything but a proverbial straw.
> Notwithstanding the above, I'll take the bait: what kinds of injustices are Muslims in France enduring?
Three are France's Le Pen: ban non-pork meals in schools, French burqa and niqab ban: 'Muslim women are being scapegoated', and France slammed by Amnesty International for discrimination against Muslims.
> Which pragmatic restrictions are allowed and which are not?
ReplyDeleteThe ones that prevent objective harm.
> When you attempt to ideologically legitimize something, you aren't honestly engaging with what other people believe. You might not even be honestly engaging with the facts.
OK. So? You aren't required to honestly engage with what other people believe or with the facts. "Freedom of speech" means you get to say stupid shit and false shit. The appropriate response to people saying stupid and false shit is to say that it is stupid and false, not to kill them.
> If Islam is stupid, if it is dangerous, if Muslims cannot be trusted, then restricting their freedoms and persecuting them becomes the safe thing to do, the right thing to do. If one cannot expect much of anything good to come from them—see Ellul's 'scorn', again—then how bad can one really feel in perpetuating and intensifying all this?
What does this have to do with freedom of speech?
> Well, this is all predicated upon the idea that the only appreciable causes for the attack on CH were the cartoons, instead of them being a proverbial straw. I find that extraordinarily hard to believe that the cartoons were anything but a proverbial straw.
What can I say? The evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory that the cartoons were the cause. The perpetrators said it was the cartoons. If their real goal was to draw attention to other, more substantive grievances, they have nothing to gain by keeping this motive hidden. Also, this has happened before, in Denmark, which does not have the same historical pattern of colonization and discrimination as France. Yes, it is a bit bizarre that people would get violent over cartoons, but all the evidence indicates that this is actually the case. That is one of the reasons Islam makes some people queasy.
> Three are...
The third is really a re-hash of the other two. So on one side of the ledger we have the government refusing to cater to religious dietary restrictions in school-lunch programs, and requiring people not to hide their faces in public. Do you seriously want to compare that to centuries of slavery, economic discrimination, lynchings?
> The ones that prevent objective harm.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't help; hate speech can cause violence just like cartoons can cause violence. In both cases, we still attribute blame to those who managed to be successfully incited. Why is hate speech a 'more valid' influence? If you want to talk about intent, I will have to ask whether intent to scorn, per Ellul's definition, is worse than mere intent to offend. At what point does it get bad enough to abridge that speech?
> OK. So?
My point is that it could easily be the case that CH legitimates oppression of Muslims, and that under your rubric, they can probably forever get off without significant negative repercussions. My experience is that when the law, representing lower-case justice, does not allow for upper-case Justice to be served, people will ultimately take the law into their own hands. They won't do a better job at Justice, but they'll have the injustice swing the other way, for a time.
> The appropriate response to people saying stupid and false shit is to say that it is stupid and false, not to kill them.
This only works if those being targeted have anything like the cultural power required to meaningfully respond.
> What does this have to do with freedom of speech?
Certain exercises of the freedom of speech legitimize persecution. Really, all those exercise are, are attenuated versions of hate speech. They take much longer to have their effects. And so, apparently, they get off without significant negative repercussions.
> If their real goal was to draw attention to other, more substantive grievances, they have nothing to gain by keeping this motive hidden.
My general impression is that the kinds of people who commit violence aren't all that articulate in these matters. This doesn't preclude looking for what makes their actions sufficiently legitimate, in their own eyes. If they couldn't point to a litany of stuff like the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, would you get anything like the level of violence we see?
> Do you seriously want to compare that to centuries of slavery, economic discrimination, lynchings?
Nope, they are much less serious. Nevertheless, they are a start toward treating Muslims as second-class citizens. Combine that with stuff like the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, and I think you can have some serious animosity toward the imperialistic, intolerant West which claims to be all about freedom and tolerance.
> That doesn't help
ReplyDeleteWhy not? It's an objective standard against which restrictions on speech can be assessed. Whether or not banning a particular kind of speech meets that standard will always be a judgement call, but at least it's a standard. And in many cases there is a consensus: defamation, shouting fire in a crowded theatre, child porn: out of bounds. Satire: not out of bounds.
> hate speech can cause violence just like cartoons can cause violence
Yes, of course, but the causal chain matters. If I say, "Jews are sub-human animals" and someone reads that and kills a Jew, that is a very different situation than if I say, "Allah is not great" and a Muslim ends up killing *me* as a result.
> it could easily be the case that CH legitimates oppression of Muslims
Yes, it could. It could also be that the moon landings never happened and it was all a conspiracy. Do you have any *evidence* to support this theory? Because AFAICT you are utterly alone in advancing it.
> This only works if those being targeted have anything like the cultural power required to meaningfully respond.
But is that the case here? Is there legal discrimination against Muslims? Are they banned from becoming citizens? From running for office? From publishing their own magazines? Are they restricted from traveling? Do they have to use designated Muslim water fountains?
> My general impression is that the kinds of people who commit violence aren't all that articulate in these matters.
Yes, but there are a billion Muslims in the world. If your theory were true, I would think that among their number could be found at least one capable of advancing your theory on their behalf, and that they would not have to rely on a Christian to come to their rescue.
> some serious animosity toward the imperialistic, intolerant West which claims to be all about freedom and tolerance
I have never denied that Muslims have some legitimate grievances against the West. That does not justify terrorism.
> Satire: not out of bounds.
ReplyDeleteYou keep writing as if it's a complete unknown whether a given piece of satire will be held offensive by Muslims and lead to suicide bombers et al. As far as I'm aware, Muslims are actually quite specific about what they find offensive. It's like they've carved out this tiny little area and said, "By respecting that, you respect us. Make fun of whatever you want, but treat that as sacred."
We also disagree on whether this satire was a proverbial straw or not. Perhaps it is the case that the West is effectively saying: "We can colonize you; we can arbitrarily divvy up your land into nations; we can manipulate your governments; we can economically oppress you; and on top of all that, we can spit on what you hold to be most important!" I simply cannot accept that were people to not do place this proverbial straw, that speech would become radically un-free. That makes no sense to me; it is crazy alarmism.
> Yes, of course, but the causal chain matters. If I say, "Jews are sub-human animals" and someone reads that and kills a Jew, that is a very different situation than if I say, "Allah is not great" and a Muslim ends up killing *me* as a result.
Muslims will kill you if you merely utter the words "Allah is not great"?
> Do you have any *evidence* to support this theory? Because AFAICT you are utterly alone in advancing it.
Well, I have personal experience that mockery legitimates discrimination. I'm aware that some portion of school shootings in the US are due largely to bullying of the school shooters. It doesn't seem that much of a stretch to say that in a society where Muslims are already greatly distrusted, mockery would increase this distrust. It seems easy to see how distrust supports discrimination.
To the extent that there is "*evidence*", it will be historical and sociological. Are you one of those people who scoffs at much if not all of what goes under the heading of 'sociology'?
> Is there legal discrimination against Muslims?
That depends on how you view the head coverings and school lunches. There is a necessary element of interpretation in these matters. What I'm more interested in whether the amount of discrimination is going up, down, or staying the same, and what would cause those changes. I think ideological legitimization is a key element to the "up" direction.
Oh, you mentioned the # of atheists in office as a measure of hatred toward atheists in the US. I tried to find some Muslims in the French government and couldn't find any. According to Euro-Islam.info: "There are no Muslim members of the national legislature, but there are now several French representatives to the European Parliament from Muslim backgrounds."
> I have never denied that Muslims have some legitimate grievances against the West. That does not justify terrorism.
If the West is allowed to hurt them, without them being able to able to hurt the West back in anything approximating a proportionate amount (hurt can mean fines, imprisonment, and other sanctions), then what is happening is not 'justice'. In that case, I say Muslims are capital-J Justified in responding in a way against our lower-j justice, because our justice isn't.
> As far as I'm aware, Muslims are actually quite specific about what they find offensive. It's like they've carved out this tiny little area and said, "By respecting that, you respect us. Make fun of whatever you want, but treat that as sacred."
ReplyDeleteNo, Muslims are not at all consistent about this. Read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad
But even if they were consistent it wouldn't matter. Muslims do not get to dictate what non-Muslims may and may not do. They can ask politely for their traditions to be respected, but if their request is not honored they have to suck it up and deal with the fact that in a free society you sometimes have to put up with people doing and saying things you don't like.
> Muslims will kill you if you merely utter the words "Allah is not great"?
Are you kidding? ISIS will kill you for being the wrong kind of Muslim! And capital punishment for apostasy is an explicit element of Muslim teachings. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam
> Oh, you mentioned the # of atheists in office as a measure of hatred toward atheists in the US. I tried to find some Muslims in the French government and couldn't find any.
Yes, the situation for Muslims in France and atheists in the U.S. is very similar in many ways. No atheist would even *dream* of using the fact that we are discriminated against as a justification for violence.
> If the West is allowed to hurt them...
Western/Islamic relations is a complicated topic, way beyond the scope of this discussion. You are not going to make a place to stow centuries worth of historical baggage by letting someone bomb a magazine.
> No, Muslims are not at all consistent about this. Read:
ReplyDeleteOkay, so instead of "Never visually depict Mohammad", it's "Maybe it's only ok to artistically depict Mohammad, and maybe only symbolically, but maybe not." It seems like the spirit of my point is pretty valid, and that you're nitpicking, now. Westerners have pretty solid guidelines if they wish to show respect to Islam. It's not like Muslims will suddenly take offense at a random thing, which is something you were claiming or intimating.
> But even if they were consistent it wouldn't matter. Muslims do not get to dictate what non-Muslims may and may not do. They can ask politely for their traditions to be respected, but if their request is not honored they have to suck it up and deal with the fact that in a free society you sometimes have to put up with people doing and saying things you don't like.
I get that this is your position. It follows, logically, that the West can have a history of shitting on Muslims, and then can top it off with spitting in their faces. We should be able to do the latter, without ever appreciably repenting for the former and doing the appropriate reparations. In all this, Muslims must act according to the West's rules while in the West. As long as you acknowledge that this is what you're calling 'justice' or 'freedom', then we can finish off this tangent.
> ISIS will kill you for being the wrong kind of Muslim!
Please don't use ISIS to well-represent Islam.
> And capital punishment for apostasy is an explicit element of Muslim teachings.
Yep. This doesn't apply to CH-related matters, though.
> No atheist would even *dream* of using the fact that we are discriminated against as a justification for violence.
I don't see why I ought to believe this claim. Folks like you have a huge vested interest in following the law, and the same probably holds for many who are atheists, given how atheism tracks with socioeconomic status.
> Western/Islamic relations is a complicated topic, way beyond the scope of this discussion. You are not going to make a place to stow centuries worth of historical baggage by letting someone bomb a magazine.
Hey, I'm trying to understand how people actually work, and not how Enlightenment ideals dictate they work. The world should be peaceful, but it ain't. Is the pragmatic route to achieve said peaceful to first go your route (absolute protected speech modulo your particular pragmatic restrictions) or my route (respect at least in word until you are willing to do it in deed)?
> Westerners have pretty solid guidelines if they wish to show respect to Islam. It's not like Muslims will suddenly take offense at a random thing,
ReplyDeleteActually, taking offense at a cartoon seems pretty random to me. But that is beside the point. What matters is "if they wish to show respect to Islam." It is everyone's prerogative not to show respect to Islam (or any other religion) if they so choose.
> It follows, logically, that the West can have a history of shitting on Muslims, and then can top it off with spitting in their faces.
This is an incoherent statement. It is true that the West can have a history of oppressing Muslims, and then top it off with offensive speech. Not only can the West have such a history, the West has in fact does have such a history. It does not "follow logically" from anything, it is simply a fact.
Now, we can ask whether the West was morally justified in oppressing Muslims or in speaking offensively against them. The answer in the first case is: no. Oppression is never morally justified. One can then further ask what the remedy for this moral transgression ought to be. One possible answer is that the remedy ought to be the forfeiture of the West's fundamental right to free speech. I think that answer is wrong, but it's a possible answer, and there might be an argument to be made for it. But if you want to make that argument then make that argument. Don't simply conflate oppression and offensive speech. They are not the same thing.
> Please don't use ISIS to well-represent Islam.
Why not? They say they are Muslims. Who am I to dispute them?
> > No atheist would even *dream* of using the fact that we are discriminated against as a justification for violence.
> I don't see why I ought to believe this claim.
Try doing a Google search for e.g. "Atheist claims discrimination is justification for violence" and see if you can find a counterexample.
> Hey, I'm trying to understand how people actually work, and not how Enlightenment ideals dictate they work. The world should be peaceful, but it ain't.
Actually, the world is more peaceful now than it has ever been. And since you say you are interested in how people actually work, here is a data point: the more secular a country is, the lower the rate of violence. The road to peace is paved with reason.
I think there's something hypocritical about singing praises of freedom of speech with huge debts of evil actions are left un-repented of and/or without reparations. It screams to me that Western values include oppressing the weak and getting away without significant consequence, and then requiring, per 'justice', that the weak get insult added to injury. Because if we can't say whatever the hell we want, civilization will collapse, while we are simultaneously allowed to collapse the civilizations of others.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I suggest. The West could vow to not depict Mohammad visually until we've given appropriate reparations to those we've fucked over in a way that cannot be construed as 'just' or 'civilized'. We could show that we believe in actual justice. Maybe, after we did even some of that, we could demonstrate that verbal disrespect doesn't accompany actual demeaning of dignity via various kinds of oppression and meddling. Maybe we could undercut the animosity toward the West, leaving people with fewer reasons to act violently toward the West.
> > Please don't use ISIS to well-represent Islam.
> Why not? They say they are Muslims. Who am I to dispute them?
The key is "well-represent". We established that there are probably multiple natural kinds of Christianity, right? That is, if you separate Christians into at least a few groups, one can assert significantly more properties of members of those groups, than if you merely go by SI-Christian. I claim the same goes for Islam, as well as, say, Marxism. Probably Liberalism as well.
Let's take an example. ISIS supports slavery, whole-heartedly. How many other Muslims do, today? Could it be that elements in ISIS' ideology, other than the explicit support of slavery, also serve to legitimize slavery?
> Try doing a Google search for e.g. "Atheist claims discrimination is justification for violence" and see if you can find a counterexample.
Do you really think I couldn't find any such thing if I examined the history of Communism in the USSR or China? Who knows, China's Cultural Revolution could perhaps be construed as a response to discrimination by the cultural elite.
> Actually, the world is more peaceful now than it has ever been.
Are you aware of Noam Chomsky's thoughts on achieving totalitarianism in democracy via propaganda instead of violence? If he's right, then it seems imaginable that "more peaceful" ⇏ "better".
> And since you say you are interested in how people actually work, here is a data point: the more secular a country is, the lower the rate of violence. The road to peace is paved with reason.
I will take such data more seriously once said countries stop depending on slavery, refuse to purchase from those implicated in huge abuses such as have been shown to exist with mining of semiconductor-relevant metals in China, refuse to employ clothes by people who perpetuate abuses such as has happened in Myanmar, and refuse to screw with governments in order to keep oil supplies stable. The West profits greatly by having oppressed peoples provide goods at extremely low prices.
History has always had regions where the rich live, where it's nice and pretty. Accompanying those regions and supporting those regions are places where it's very much not nice and pretty. Now, it just happens that the nice regions are entire countries.
Luke, I'm pointing to center field
ReplyDeleteGenocide has killed more than 100 million people since the late 19th century. A despised ethnic or social group is the target of annihilation and is carried out in extreme and intimate brutality (including rape, torture, and mutilation of defenseless victims). The goal is not only the complete elimination of the targeting population, but it is to be inflicted with great suffering.
Genocidal mass murderers are men, work in large teams, and operate within a supportive social context - operating with impunity. Most (>95%) of the perpetrators had never harmed a living soul - and after the genocide, most will never again physically hurt another person. These men are devoted fathers and loving husbands, have normal friendships, and are economically successful - in short, fully functional and well integrated members of society. These men are not traumatized by their actions - unlike surviving members of the targeted population, or bystanders (who suffer for years afterwards) - they view their acts as distinct from their "normal" lives and the social and pyschological norms of civilized society.
How do men become genocidal murderers? It takes years of preparation, moving through specific social and psychological steps. The targeted population is separated out ("us vs. them"), symbols may be forced upon them (identification), and their humanity is denied (dehumanization). Next special army units or militias are organized, hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda, and the victim population is identified and separated from the society. Next, a crisis event (either real or staged) begins the "extermination," the victim population no longer considered being "human." The final step is denial, where the perpetrators deny they committed any crimes.
Thus it was in 1994 that the Hutu majority in Rwanda killed over 500,000 of the minority Tutsi from April to July. Leading up to this spasm of barbarism was years of social preparation. The tabloid Kangura ("Wake Others Up!") published vitriolic articles dehumanizing the Tutsi as inyenzi (cockroaches). Radio station Radio Television Libre des Milles Collines indirectly and directly called for murder, at times providing the names and locations of people to be killed. In the days leading to, and during, the massacres, government-owned Radio Rwanda rebroadcast this content to villages and towns across the country. Prior to than, in 1990, the army began arming civilians with hand weapons such as machetes and training Hutu young in combat (a program of "civil defense").
Genocide Mega-Meme
ReplyDeleteWhat was the primary tool of the social conditioning to enable genocide? Offensive speech. That speech as not harmless. Each bit of offensive speech carried with it a little bit of violence, a piece of the genocide. Each repetition of the "Tutsi are inyenzi" is building the mega-meme" of genocide - that the Tutsi are not human, they have harmed the Hutu, they are plotting against the Hutu, and they deserve to be not only be killed, but suffer.
Could it be possible, then, that certain offense speech - i.e., "incitement to genocide" - is best countered by some level of violence?
Wait, you want non-violence first? Let's examine some of those approaches and their outcomes:
Publish the truth --> this is outlawed
Speak the truth --> these people are murdered
Advocate non-violence --> these people are murdered
Organize self-defense --> this is outlawed
Leave the country --> this is outlawed
Ask for help --> no one comes to help you
If non-violent approaches are blocked, does that justify a violent solution?
You may stand by your principle that violence is never justified by "offensive speech," but holding to this principle has a price. In this case, the price is paid in blood - enough to fill 200 Olympic-size swimming pools. This is not a hypothetical cost - 100 million people are dead from past genocide, and there is a new incidence of genocide about every decade.
Owning it and making the rules
ReplyDeleteLuke:
>It follows, logically, that the West can have a history of shitting on Muslims, and then can top it off with spitting in their faces. We should be able to do the latter, without ever appreciably repenting for the former and doing the appropriate reparations. In all this, Muslims must act according to the West's rules while in the West.
Now I found this an interesting observation. The West does what it pleases - and also defines the rules about how one can protest it.
Thanks for these details, Publius. It's chilling stuff, but I have a desire to learn more about it, given how many people seem in utter denial about how this stuff works. (Ron may be perfectly aware; I don't know enough to say either way.) On my list is to understand how Germany was "prepared" for the Holocaust to happen.
ReplyDeleteI'm not even sure how far I am from Ron on free speech; I see it as incredibly important. However, I believe that words actually have power, and that there are ways to irresponsibly use this power. And so, I suggest voluntary curbing of this powerful freedom, in a way I see as pretty reasonable. As far as I know there, are plenty of ways to criticize the perceived badness of Islam without hitting Muslims' violence-buttons. If the true purpose of freedom of speech is to allow people to "pursue 'the good'", that purpose does not seem appreciably abridged by voluntary restraint in a few areas, when all things are considered.
Then again, perhaps in an alternate universe where the West doesn't have a history of screwing over Muslims, there would still be enough motivation for them to murder cartoonists who visually depict Mohammad. I find this hard to imagine myself, but my imagination could be flawed. All I can do is work with the best model of human nature I have, updating it with evidence as that evidence flows in.
What I'm very reticent to do is demand justice on issues less severe than where I've been unjust, myself—or where my nation has been unjust and is still benefiting from that unjustice, while the other party is still suffering the ill effects. I think this is a very rational thing, and I think it matches up with human nature. Apparently, Ron disagrees, or at least disagrees with this formulation. Given how much back-and-forth we've had so far, I'm not all that hopeful for mutual understanding. Maybe an in-person meet-up would help; I do get to see him every few months.
@Publius:
ReplyDelete> providing the names and locations of people to be killed
I have no idea how this is relevant. Incitement to violence is one of the exceptions to the fundamental right of free speech.
> What was the primary tool of the social conditioning to enable genocide? Offensive speech.
No. To get to genocide, at some point you have to transition from mere offense to incitement to violence. That is where the line is drawn. And the *reason* that that is where the line is drawn is because it is an objective standard.
@Luke:
> I believe that words actually have power
Yes, of course they do. What would be the point of using them otherwise?
> there are ways to irresponsibly use this power.
Yes, of course. Words are a tool. Like any tool, they can be used for good or for evil. Our disagreement is simply that you (and the pope) say that mere offense is a level of evil that justifies violence as the appropriate remedy, and I disagree.
> in an alternate universe where the West doesn't have a history of screwing over Muslims
You keep bringing this up, but it's a complete red herring. Two wrongs don't make a right. The appropriate remedy for the West's historical screwing of Muslims is not to to allow Muslims to work out their anger by killing journalists.
> Incitement to violence is one of the exceptions to the fundamental right of free speech.
ReplyDeleteOk, so I will incite to violence, but so gradually and with such plausible deniability that nothing can be actually pinned on me. Maybe I'll contribute only 0.01% of the cause to get people to think mass-murdering some group is ok.
> Our disagreement is simply that you (and the pope) say that mere offense is a level of evil that justifies violence as the appropriate remedy, and I disagree.
You can't establish that the pope meant this, especially given his clarification. What I am saying is that if justice is defined not by Western ideals, but Western practices, then it is arguably just to respond to insult added to un-repented of, un-reparated injury with violence. If the violence gets enough PR, maybe enough people might ask what provide sufficient legitimation for the attacks. And really: how much violence was that, in comparison the the violence the West has perpetuated against Muslims?
> Two wrongs don't make a right.
No, but a wrong can amplify the signal until someone actually does something about it. Because sometimes, nobody gives a fuck if you say you're hurting, until you make them hurt badly enough. Only in pretend-land is such intensification of evil to the point of detection not necessary to achieve actual, global justice (instead of ignoring injustices done because they're sufficiently far away in spacetime).
> Ok, so I will incite to violence, but so gradually and with such plausible deniability that nothing can be actually pinned on me.
ReplyDeleteAnd your point would be...? The fact that it's possible to get away with immoral behavior doesn't change the fact that it's immoral behavior.
> You can't establish that the pope meant this
Perhaps, but it's pretty clear that *you* mean it. You have gone out of your way to try to justify the CH attacks again and again and again. If you want to disavow the pope as an ally, that's fine with me.
> if justice is defined not by Western ideals, but Western practices
From such an absurd premise one can prove any number of absurd conclusions.
> a wrong can amplify the signal until someone actually does something about it.
Indeed it can, but that doesn't make it right. Ted Kaczynski's manifesto would have languished in obscurity if he hadn't started blowing up innocent people.
> And your point would be...? The fact that it's possible to get away with immoral behavior doesn't change the fact that it's immoral behavior.
ReplyDeleteI'm offering an implicit critique that one can rigorously outlaw speech which is causally linked to violence. Whatever criteria you use will ultimately be arbitrary in an important sense.
> Perhaps, but it's pretty clear that *you* mean it.
I've tried very hard to present a nuanced position, which I claim you are now oversimplifying. Perhaps at this point, it would be better to suspend this conversation until we can converse in person.
> From such an absurd premise one can prove any number of absurd conclusions.
But then you are condemning Muslims for acting in ways that are probably not even as bad as how the West has acted! The West bombs journalists when it finds that convenient. But since this is done in the name of freedom, it's ok. Muslims have to act better than the West, in order to be considered as good as the West.
> > a wrong can amplify the signal until someone actually does something about it.
> Indeed it can, but that doesn't make it right.
I guess I see you as advocating for a system which in no way guarantees that injustices will be rectified. It allows for some people to be regularly screwed over with no recourse. I think such a system is bad, in part because it assumes a model of human nature which is fallacious.
In my view, one ought to condemn violence when there was a better way that the violent person or persons ought to have known about, which they did not try, and which had a good chance of working. When no such route exists, or when it is a sham, then I actually have a hard time condemning violence. That's because violence is merely one way to hurt people, and I'm not going to stand behind a system which justifies some forms of hurt and demonizes others, while pretending to stand on the moral high ground.
Contrary to your "That is what it means to live in a civilized society.", I don't think my view leads to anarchy and chaos, nor to totalitarianism. Indeed, if justice means that people don't hurt each other unless there are consequences for this, I see my view as more just than yours. I understand that there are ways to cause incredible amounts of harm which do not fall under the category of 'violence'. If I give undue weight to 'violence', I give an advantage to those who are good at causing other kinds of harm. Those people tend to be precisely the ones in power.
See, violence is actually the final resort to the little guy who has no other way to tell the world that the world is fucking him over. You would deny him this; you might even demonize him for this. I don't think this leads to creating a world which is just for everyone. On the contrary, I think it legitimizes certain forms of extreme injustice.
> The West bombs journalists when it finds that convenient.
ReplyDeleteReally? Like when?
> But since this is done in the name of freedom, it's ok.
No, it's not.
> I guess I see you as advocating for a system which in no way guarantees that injustices will be rectified.
True, there are no guarantees. Sometimes bad guys get away with doing bad shit. That's just the way the world is. But that doesn't mean that one ought not to hold up justice as the ideal toward which one ought to strive. But killing innocent people is not justice, and if a westerner were to kill a journalist for something that she wrote I would condemn it every bit as unambiguously as I condemn the CH bombings.
BTW, instead of getting lost in the tar pits of the CH bombings why don't we look at a different example: the attack on the USS Cole. That is commonly regarded as an act of terrorism morally equivalent to the CH bombings, but it wasn't. The Cole was a legitimate military target. Does that help us find some common ground here?
> Really? Like when?
ReplyDeleteI linked this earlier: Paris attacks show hypocrisy of West's outrage: Chomsky. Here's an excerpt:
>> He further said that, “The scene in Paris was described vividly in The New York Times by veteran Europe correspondent Steven Erlanger: “a day of sirens, helicopters in the air, frantic news bulletins; of police cordons and anxious crowds; of young children led away from schools to safety. It was a day, like the previous two, of blood and horror in and around Paris…”
>>
>> …The scene, Erlanger reported, “was an increasingly familiar one of smashed glass, broken walls, twisted timbers, scorched paint and emotional devastation.”
>>
>> He, however, argued that these reports were are not from the January 2015 attack. “Rather, they are from a report by Erlanger on April 24, 1999, which received far less attention. Erlanger was reporting on a NATO ‘missile attack on Serbian state television headquarters’ that “knocked Radio Television Serbia off the air,” killing 16 journalists.”
>>
>>“There were no demonstrations or cries of outrage, no chants of ‘We are RTV,’ no inquiries into the roots of the attack in Christian culture and history. On the contrary, the attack on the press was lauded. The highly regarded US diplomat Richard Holbrooke, then envoy to Yugoslavia, described the successful attack on RTV as ‘an enormously important and, I think, positive development,’ a sentiment echoed by others,” Chomsky lamented.
> But that doesn't mean that one ought not to hold up justice as the ideal toward which one ought to strive.
There's a difference between such upholding, and condemning those who do not fully abide by it when one's own culture does not fully abide by it. The critical question is how one thinks about moving toward that ideal, and whether one demands that others live up to higher "stepping stone" standards than oneself.
> BTW, instead of getting lost in the tar pits of the CH bombings why don't we look at a different example: the attack on the USS Cole. That is commonly regarded as an act of terrorism morally equivalent to the CH bombings, but it wasn't. The Cole was a legitimate military target. Does that help us find some common ground here?
Not really, because I think a lot of the West's oppression of the Middle East has caused untold suffering for civilians. Until we produce reparations, I find it hard to criticize them acting in the same way we did. We will only have repented of those actions once we attempt to make right what we fucked up.
Genocide = SUM(microgenocides)
ReplyDelete>> providing the names and locations of people to be killed
>I have no idea how this is relevant. Incitement to violence is one of the exceptions to the fundamental right of free speech.
It's part of telling a concise, yet complete, narrative of the Rwanda Genocide. That speech is part of the "incitement" and "triggering" of the genocide. That such speech could be broadcast countrywide and be considered socially acceptable illustrates the success of the prior social conditioning.
>>What was the primary tool of the social conditioning to enable genocide? Offensive speech.
>No. To get to genocide, at some point you have to transition from mere offense to incitement to violence. That is where the line is drawn. And the *reason* that that is where the line is drawn is because it is an objective standard.
Wrong! Offensive speech is a key tool in conditioning the population to commit mass murder. In Rwanda, the print tabloid Kangura, plus 42 new journals, printed offensive hate speech against the Tutsi. Literacy in Rwanda is 66%, and those who knew how to read were accustomed to reading for others. Written words were often underscored by graphic cartoons. Offensive hate speech was also broadcast by radio. The government even distributed free radio receivers. These media delivered a consistent message that the Tutsi were not human, were creating grotesque Tutsi-Hutu hybrids, were infiltrating Hutu areas, were scheming to restore the old monarchy, and that Hutu had to strike first or be killed by Tutsi attacks (and the Tutsi were digging large pits for mass graves). In March 1993, Kangura published, "We began by saying that a cockroach cannot give birth to a butterfly. It is true. A cockroach gives birth to another cockroach...The history of Rwanda shows us clearly that a Tutsi stays always exactly the same, that he has never changed. The malice, the evil are just as we knew them in the history of our country. We are not wrong in saying that a cockroach gives birth to another cockroach. Who could tell the difference between the Inyenzi who attacked in October 1990 and those of the 1960s. They are all linked...their evilness is the same. The unspeakable crimes of the Inyenzi of today...recall those of their elders: killing, pillaging, raping girls and women, etc."
Call a person a cockroach 1 time? Offensive speech.
Call a person a cockroach 2 times? Offensive speech.
Call a person a cockroach a million times? Genocide.
Each of those offensive statements carries a "microgenocide" with it. No individual statement can be said to justify a violent reaction. Yet you let them accumulate, and the population is primed and ready for perpetrating mass murder - which they will not consider morally wrong, nor feel any remorse. They will not only kill their victims, they will torture them first, because those victims are guilty and they deserve to suffer for their wickedness.
Bright lines and objective standards are often impossible when one is dealing with human behavior.
>The Cole was a legitimate military target.
ReplyDeleteAttacked illegally, if you think the terrorists are bound by Articles 43 & 44 of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention.
For nitpicking, Ron didn't say the Cole was legitimately attacked, only that it was a legitimate target. Whether that's relevant, you figure out. I will add the following from Wikipedia's USS Cole bombing § Rules of engagement:
ReplyDelete>> Petty Officer Jennifer Kudrick said that if the sentries had fired on the suicide craft "we would have gotten in more trouble for shooting two foreigners than losing seventeen American sailors".[37]
That page also references Asymmetric warfare, which is simply the obvious fact that a massive power differential requires the side with less power to be more devious. We Americans may owe our independence to asymmetric warfare. Of course, we weren't terrorists, right?
It strikes me that the greater power setting "rules for warfare" is manifestly self-serving. Are we really surprised that vastly weaker powers are going to opt for terrorism, given their options? I'm actually somewhat worried that the West is going to experience an extreme response to all the drone strikes in the Middle East; perhaps something like a dirty bomb. A small suitcase nuke manually brought to a nuclear plant would be incredibly effective in spreading radiation and poisoning millions.
Ultimately, it's either both groups looking out for each other and trusting each other, or power vs. power. Those are the two fundamental kinds of 'spirits' (as in "spirit of the law"). Letters of the law only serve to shape the spirits and increase their inertia. Power does love rationalizing in order to legitimize its use:
>> In the Enlightenment tradition, rationality is typically seen as a concept that is well-defined and context-independent. We know what rationality is, and rationality is supposed to be constant over time and place. This study, however, demonstrates that rationality is context-dependent and that the context of rationality is power. Power blurs the dividing line between rationality and rationalization. Rationalization presented as rationality is shown to be a principle strategy in the exercise of power. Kant said that the possession of power unavoidably spoils the free use of reason. We will see that the possession of more power soils reason even more, that the greater the power, the less the rationality. The empirical study is summed up in a number of propositions about the relationship between rationality and power, concluding that power has a rationality that rationality does not know, whereas rationality does not have a power that power does not know. I will argue that this asymmetry between rationality and power forms a basic weakness of modernity and of modern democracy, a weakness that needs to be reassessed in light of the context-dependent nature of rationality, taking a point of departure in thinkers like Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and Foucault.[2] (Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice, 2)
@Publius:
ReplyDeleteHow do you figure the Cole was attacked illegally? I read the passages you cited and I don't see it.
> How do you figure the Cole was attacked illegally? I read the passages you cited and I don't see it.
ReplyDeleteOne spirit behind those rules is to distinguish combatants from noncombatants, so that civilians are unlikely to be unwittingly killed. Look at the quote from the USS Cole bombing page: it's a worry about killing civilians. It would look really bad if the US were to have shot dead two foreigners who mistakenly drove their boat too near to a US naval vessel, foreigners who can't understand all the languages tried to warn them to stay a certain distance away.
I'm not going to expend the effort to find the best fit of the extant rules to the situation, but I do recognize that they are attempting to avoid the unnecessary death of noncombatants. The attackers of the Cole did their best to avoid looking like combatants, because otherwise they would have been shot and their plan foiled. They were surely betting on the US being good little boys and following the rules of engagement.