Funny Events of the "Woke" world

[Silvanus]

But you're doing the same thing. You've outright stated, in almost these exact words, that protest is fine, as long as there's no book burning.

Yes, because book burnings and protests without book burnings have substantially different outcomes. I fail to see how treating things differently if they have substantial differences is semantic.

There's certainly loss if book burning is banned as a form of protest, though.

What is that loss?

Source needed.

Again, you have the non-violent protester vs. the violent offenders.

It would be actually easier to address the non-violent protester than the violent offenders given the nature of violence, that doesn't make it the correct thing to do.

Yet addressing the nonviolent protester doesn't prevent the violence. Preventing book-burning does. You've overlooked the entire point of the Danish government doing it.

Which, again, is true of every protest ever.

Yet again ignoring likelihood. One is extremely likely to lead to foreseeable violence. Most protests are not.

Except all your focus has been on X as opposed to Y, by that analogy.

Yes, solely because everyone obviously agrees the violent people are more responsible for their own actions. There's no discussion to be had, except for all of us sitting around and saying, 'yeah its bad'.

I don't even know if we're living in the same reality at this point. But snark aside, no, it doesn't tell me anything about Bob. Again, if someone says "Bob burnt a cross," I can certainly infer his motivations, but that's it.

You're genuinely telling me that if you heard that someone had gone down the street with a burning cross, you wouldn't be able to draw any likely conclusions from that? From the fact that it's an extremely widely recognised racist practice, heavily associated with the KKK? You're not being serious.

I'm not sure how I didn't, given I was responding to what you said, but if the question is simply whether it's okay to burn crosses, then of course it is. Burn all the crosses you want. Why the hell would I oppose burning crosses when I've said numerous times that I'm fine with people burning any number of objects in protests? Protest against the Catholic Church, protest against Christianity, protest against the LRA, heck, go for it.

Even though its very clearly a racist intimidation tactic?

 

[Hawki]

Yes, because book burnings and protests without book burnings have substantially different outcomes.

Um, do they? Plenty of protests without book burning have been met with violence.

I fail to see how treating things differently if they have substantial differences is semantic.

It's semantic because you're taking away one minor thing. And if it's a thing that did result in differences, that's on the people responding given the disproportionate reactions.

What is that loss?

Freedom of expression, not to mention that it makes religion more of a sacred cow.

Yet addressing the nonviolent protester doesn't prevent the violence. Preventing book-burning does. You've overlooked the entire point of the Danish government doing it.

I've already addressed that the Danish government can do it for the sake of realpolitik, that doesn't make it morally right.

Yet again ignoring likelihood. One is extremely likely to lead to foreseeable violence. Most protests are not.

Which, again, says more on the people reacting to it.

Yes, solely because everyone obviously agrees the violent people are more responsible for their own actions. There's no discussion to be had, except for all of us sitting around and saying, 'yeah its bad'.

Great. So if you agree that violence is bad, then why are we even debating this?

You're genuinely telling me that if you heard that someone had gone down the street with a burning cross, you wouldn't be able to draw any likely conclusions from that? From the fact that it's an extremely widely recognised racist practice, heavily associated with the KKK? You're not being serious.

You said burning crosses, you didn't say burning crosses in that specific context. When you say "burning crosses," my first thought in the context was handheld crucifixes, about the size of the book in question.

But if you're referring to that specific context, if someone had a burning cross down the street, I think it would be reasonable to assume that intent. If, however, a burning cross was outside the Vatican, I wouldn't assume it was racist.

Even though its very clearly a racist intimidation tactic?

Again, you're assuming that all actions have the same context. I've already laid out the differences between a Christian terrorist group (the KKK) burning crosses and anti-Christian(ity) protests that might involve burning crosses. That it's racist in one context doesn't make it racist in the other. And if you believe that, then the KKK has pretty much given Christianity a buffer against protest, which would probably make the KKK quite happy.

 

[Silvanus]

Um, do they? Plenty of protests without book burning have been met with violence.

A tiny minority.

It's semantic because you're taking away one minor thing. And if it's a thing that did result in differences, that's on the people responding given the disproportionate reactions.

Just because a difference relies on people doesn't make it any less substantive. Law is entirely about human behaviour, and judging its impact on society. The differences in the effects of behaviour are the entirety of how laws are formed.

Freedom of expression, not to mention that it makes religion more of a sacred cow.

Freedom of expression doesn't suffer much when the authorities don't tolerate harassment and abuse. Expressions of directed hate towards groups of people aren't particularly worthy or valuable to society.

Great. So if you agree that violence is bad, then why are we even debating this?

?? Because we have disagreements over other aspects of the issue. Honestly, if you thought anyone here was actually excusing the violence, then you were either not paying attention or strawmanning.

You said burning crosses, you didn't say burning crosses in that specific context. When you say "burning crosses," my first thought in the context was handheld crucifixes, about the size of the book in question.

But if you're referring to that specific context, if someone had a burning cross down the street, I think it would be reasonable to assume that intent. If, however, a burning cross was outside the Vatican, I wouldn't assume it was racist.

So now we're on the same page about the context, are you fine with it? In that context?

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

So to step into this whole argument about burning books etc.

Surely arguing in essence "But the issue is the reaction of people to the act" well isn't that a cowardly thing to ban it because of what people might do?

Also kind of really insulting to people to go "yeh we don't think your specific group can be trusted to not try and murder people if some-one sets fire to a book"

I don't want to see stupid Blasphemy laws return.

You're genuinely telling me that if you heard that someone had gone down the street with a burning cross, you wouldn't be able to draw any likely conclusions from that? From the fact that it's an extremely widely recognised racist practice, heavily associated with the KKK? You're not being serious.

Depends which way up they were carrying it really.

Upside down I'd just assume it was the Satanist Church.

Even though its very clearly a racist intimidation tactic?

again context really.

Are we talking upright or caried or laying on the ground. Not all ways are racist intimidation tactics.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

A tiny minority.

I'd say far more than you think as a protest happening peacefully and a protest happening with no violence are two different things.

Just because a difference relies on people doesn't make it any less substantive. Law is entirely about human behaviour, and judging its impact on society. The differences in the effects of behaviour are the entirety of how laws are formed.

It shouldn't be legislation based on not offending people.

Laws like that have been repealed and repealed over the years for good reason from the Video Nasties to the basically destroying of the obscene publications act.

If you want to argue for that then I guess we're repealing gay marriage because some god botherers are offended by it still.

Freedom of expression doesn't suffer much when the authorities don't tolerate harassment and abuse. Expressions of directed hate towards groups of people aren't particularly worthy or valuable to society.

Depends on the standard of harassment and abuse. I personally wouldn't want some head of an oil company claiming he was being harassed and abuse if climate activists were outside his office with placards with his face on and devil horns added to his picture.

Nor would I want bankers to be able to claim that if people were chanting "We all know what rhymes with wanker and you are some of the biggest."

So now we're on the same page about the context, are you fine with it? In that context?

I mean people could just be at the Lewes fire festival and it not be a racist intimidation tactics.

 

[Silvanus]

Surely arguing in essence "But the issue is the reaction of people to the act" well isn't that a cowardly thing to ban it because of what people might do?

It'd be cowardly if legislators were just aiming to protect their own safety. But of course, the violence is never just focused on those who actually committed the act, or the government.

Also kind of really insulting to people to go "yeh we don't think your specific group can be trusted to not try and murder people if some-one sets fire to a book"

It's not insulting to anyone to acknowledge the fact that right now, in our reality, violence is a very likely outcome. That's true.

I don't want to see stupid Blasphemy laws return.

Me neither.

Depends which way up they were carrying it really.

Upside down I'd just assume it was the Satanist Church.

again context really.

Are we talking upright or caried or laying on the ground. Not all ways are racist intimidation tactics.

Context has already been established.

It shouldn't be legislation based on not offending people.

Laws like that have been repealed and repealed over the years for good reason from the Video Nasties to the basically destroying of the obscene publications act.

If you want to argue for that then I guess we're repealing gay marriage because some god botherers are offended by it still.

Nobody here is arguing for criminalising something based on offence.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I don't want to see stupid Blasphemy laws return.

They never left.

They became public order offences. Because if you go out and do something which is going to cause sufficient offence to people as to endanger public order, then that is a crime and you can be arrested for it.

In fact, one consequence of framing religious offence as an issue of public order is that actions which cause offence to larger demographic groups tend to be treated more severely. In other words, in most European countries it would not be an offence against public order to publicly denounce the prophet Mohammed as a paedophile. However, it would be an offence to claim that Jesus was a paedophile, as this would offend more people and thereby cause a greater risk of breaching public order.

This has gone to the European court of human rights multiple times, and the court has always ruled in favour of the right of national governments to limit speech in the interests of public order. The ECHR has upheld national bans on films that might cause offence to Christians on the basis that they might represent a public order risk in a country with a large Christian community. Public order is considered a legitimate reason to limit speech.

The only time this is ever in doubt is when the offence is directed against a minority group, because despite the claims of right wing pundits, the public order risk posed by offended Muslims is considerably less than that posed by offended Christians simply because there are fewer of them.

In the late 80s, an artist in the US placed a crucifix in a tank of urine and photographed it. It became a famous work of art, in part because Christians went fucking mental over it. The artist received countless death and bomb threats. People who worked at galleries that exhibited it received death threats. Exhibitions had to be cancelled or were forced to close due to protests and legal challenges. People have attacked the image with hammers and other tools. Copies of it have been destroyed and vandalized while on display. Do you want to see it? Do you want to see what caused the entire Christian world to lose their fucking minds?

Spoiler: The religion of piss strikes again

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

They never left.

They became public order offences. Because if you go out and do something which is going to cause sufficient offence to people as to endanger public order, then that is a crime and you can be arrested for it.

In fact, one consequence of framing religious offence as an issue of public order is that actions which cause offence to larger demographic groups tend to be treated more severely. In other words, in most European countries it would not be an offence against public order to publicly denounce the prophet Mohammed as a paedophile. However, it would be an offence to claim that Jesus was a paedophile, as this would offend more people and thereby cause a greater risk of breaching public order.

This has gone to the European court of human rights multiple times, and the court has always ruled in favour of the right of national governments to limit speech in the interests of public order. The ECHR has upheld national bans on films that might cause offence to Christians on the basis that they might represent a public order risk in a country with a large Christian community. Public order is considered a legitimate reason to limit speech.

The only time this is ever in doubt is when the offence is directed against a minority group, because despite the claims of right wing pundits, the public order risk posed by offended Muslims is considerably less than that posed by offended Christians simply because there are fewer of them.

Oh you mean like another person who has in recent years been deemed right wing?



So no people don't challenge stuff just when it's minorities and accept the church getting pissy.

In the late 80s, an artist in the US placed a crucifix in a tank of urine and photographed it. It became a famous work of art, in part because Christians went fucking mental over it. The artist received countless death and bomb threats. People who worked at galleries that exhibited it received death threats. People attacked the image with hammers. Copies of it have been destroyed and vandalized. Do you want to see it? Do you want to see what caused the entire Christian world to lose their fucking minds?

Spoiler: The religion of piss strikes again

To that I answer "the Satanic Verses" and leave you to google.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Freedom of expression doesn't suffer much when the authorities don't tolerate harassment and abuse.

Nah, "authorities" just shift definitions of criminal offenses to support extant power structures and favor sociopolitical in-groups. Y'know, like how I alluded to earlier:

It's "harassment and abuse" to call a cops fascist pigs, not "Constitutionally-protected free speech". And when cops beat the person who said it (best-case scenario, halfway) to death, it's "faithful execution of the law" rather than "police brutality", "aggravated assault", or "murder".

It was "breach of the peace" to recall Prince Andrew's pedophilia which is a matter of public record at Lizzy's funerary procession, but shouting racial epithets at Meghan Markle was "free expression".

It's "terrorism" to exist publicly as Palestinian, but "self-defense" to snipe unarmed children at protests.

"Those who call for censorship in the name of the oppressed ought to recognize it is never the oppressed who determine the bounds of censorship".

 

[Silvanus]

Nah, "authorities" just shift definitions of criminal offenses to support extant power structures and favor sociopolitical in-groups. Y'know, like how I alluded to earlier:

It's "harassment and abuse" to call a cops fascist pigs, not "Constitutionally-protected free speech". And when cops beat the person who said it (best-case scenario, halfway) to death, it's "faithful execution of the law" rather than "police brutality", "aggravated assault", or "murder".

It was "breach of the peace" to recall Prince Andrew's pedophilia which is a matter of public record at Lizzy's funerary procession, but shouting racial epithets at Meghan Markle was "free expression".

It's "terrorism" to exist publicly as Palestinian, but "self-defense" to snipe unarmed children at protests.

"Those who call for censorship in the name of the oppressed ought to recognize it is never the oppressed who determine the bounds of censorship".

So, because the the authorities abuse the rules, we should therefore not try to prevent genuine harassment and incitement to violence?

Authorities just as often abuse free speech absolutism, weaponising it to target out-groups and fabricating justifications.

 

[Terminal Blue]

To that I answer "the Satanic Verses" and leave you to google.

Salman Rushdie is not living in hiding because he offended random Muslims with his silly little book. He's in hiding because a head of state ordered his assassination (because the book featured an unflattering depiction of a character with a suspicious resemblance to said head of state). That state sends him a letter each year reminding him that they still intend to assassinate him.

There's a complex relationship of religious and secular rhetoric in that case because Iran has a very weird government, but at the end of the day if a head of a state, especially the head of a brutal, authoritarian state with a history of carrying out assassinations and acts of terrorism for political gain, makes a public statement that they want you dead, then it doesn't really matter if it's Ayatollah Khomeini, Kim Jong Un or Barrack Obama.

So no people don't challenge stuff just when it's minorities and accept the church getting pissy.

You just posted a video of a senior church figure being invited onto national television in order to get pissy about an extremely weak piece of religious satire. That is what we call "acceptance".

But it's a weak comparison. Burning a Quran isn't satire, it's desecration. The same would be true of burning a Torah scroll, not that any of these losers have the massive space-hopper sized balls or complete lack of self awareness to ever do such a thing. The problem with the piss Christ wasn't satire, but percieved desecration (because God forbid our magic statue of a man being literally tortured to death should be sullied by contact with some wee). Host desecration is common as an anti-catholic statement because for some reason it makes a lot of Catholics really fucking mad to put their special Jesus biscuits in the toilet or the bin. Desecration of sacred objects is liable to cause people a specific and very visceral kind of offence, and if you do it in public you may well get arrested.

And sure, you might be the kind of extremely unlikable person who thinks nothing should be sacred and everyone has a responsibility to endure whatever offence anyone wants to subject them to, which I suppose is at least consistent. Bear in mind though, you live in a society with an entire discipline of law related to when and how you can display an image of Mickey mouse. Why have you meekly accepted that a corporation can legally own the concept of a particular cartoon mouse and claim exclusive right to control that concept and to protect its value, and yet you're offended by the idea of religious people feeling a sense of ownership over objects they consider sacred?

 

[CM156]

I don't feel like I have much to add about this particular instance, other than to say I am very happy to live in a country that has already litigated the "is burning sacred symbols an act of free speech, legally speaking" question and come to the conclusion of "yes." With the added bonus of "if you keep complaining, we're only going to burn more." Is that a tad juvenile? Yes. Am I bothered by that fact? Not in the slightest.
EDIT: Also the Heckler's Veto and Assassin's Veto are both invalid excuses to justify restrictions.

 

[Hawki]

A tiny minority.

So, by your reasoning, a tiny minority of protests are met with violence (a bit debateable, it really depends on the country), but the chances of violence substantially go up when certain books are burnt.

...you realize that doesn't reflect well on the people reacting, right?

Just because a difference relies on people doesn't make it any less substantive. Law is entirely about human behaviour, and judging its impact on society. The differences in the effects of behaviour are the entirety of how laws are formed.

Yes, law accounts for human behaviour. There's any number of heinous actions in human behaviour (rape, murder, theft, etc.) that the law exists to deal with.[/quote]

...you realize that the expressions of hate/abuse are coming from the people reacting to the burning, not the book burner, right?

This behaviour, however, is from one specific group of people* against one specific action that wouldn't meet similar reactions under normal circumstances.

*Also, to be clear, you can get similar behaviour from other groups. It doesn't even need to be a religious text that's being burnt to get such reactions.

Freedom of expression doesn't suffer much when the authorities don't tolerate harassment and abuse. Expressions of directed hate towards groups of people aren't particularly worthy or valuable to society.

Really? Because you've just mentioned expressions of hate/abuse in the context of the book burner, not in the context of the rioters.

So now we're on the same page about the context, are you fine with it? In that context?

Which context? I gave you two different contexts. Dwarf's given you other contexts. An action can take place in any number of contexts, and I gave you my specific stance on two of them.

If you're asking whether I'm okay with burning crosses because the KKK did it, then yes, of course I am. That's a silly question. It's on the same level as the nonsense Asita pulled with "you know who else burnt books? Nazis!" As if that's meant to be some kind of trump card.

 

[Hawki]

It's not insulting to anyone to acknowledge the fact that right now, in our reality, violence is a very likely outcome. That's true.

Again, surely that says more about the group reacting than the group burning, right?

There's uncounted millions of books in the world, only a few would get this kind of reaction. Do the math.

 

[Silvanus]

So, by your reasoning, a tiny minority of protests are met with violence (a bit debateable, it really depends on the country), but the chances of violence substantially go up when certain books are burnt.

...you realize that doesn't reflect well on the people reacting, right?

Obviously!

Really? Because you've just mentioned expressions of hate/abuse in the context of the book burner, not in the context of the rioters.

You've still not got your head around the fact that someone can be against more than one thing. If you keep doing that, you're never going to be addressing what I'm actually saying.

Which context? I gave you two different contexts. Dwarf's given you other contexts. An action can take place in any number of contexts, and I gave you my specific stance on two of them.

If you're asking whether I'm okay with burning crosses because the KKK did it, then yes, of course I am. That's a silly question. It's on the same level as the nonsense Asita pulled with "you know who else burnt books? Nazis!" As if that's meant to be some kind of trump card.

You and Dwarvenhobble both gave a bunch of alternative contexts that stripped the act of its danger. Obviously I'd be fine with book burning if it was in an entirely different context without the damage.

Again, surely that says more about the group reacting than the group burning, right?

Obviously! What a pointless question.

 

[Asita]

If you're asking whether I'm okay with burning crosses because the KKK did it, then yes, of course I am. That's a silly question. It's on the same level as the nonsense Asita pulled with "you know who else burnt books? Nazis!" As if that's meant to be some kind of trump card.

I believe I asked you to stop pretending to be talking to/about me with the strawmen you attributed to me. That was an aside, not a trump card. Once again, the original post:

I mean bluntly, I want you to take a step back a minute and think about what you're championing. We aren't talking about cases where you were clearing off your bookshelves and tossed your copy of <religious text>. We're talking about cases where you'd be making a public display of burning books specifically to - at best - express your contempt towards that faith and its members. And let's not lie to ourselves and pretend that isn't the point. It's a purely performative gesture with the sole purpose of communicating how much the burner hates those people.

Take a step back from your opinions on those religions for a minute and ask yourself this: Is book burning really a hill that's worth dying on?

You got pissy at me because the image I linked involved the Nazis (said image being #7 in Google Image search results for "book burning", following 4 other Holocaust images) and defended myself as having given proper consideration to using the image rather than invoking it fallaciously. The only reason we talked about it for so long is because you kept trying to use that choice of image to besmirch my character. Now please, stop.

 

[Absent]

The problem (and the geopolitical point of such provocations/manipulations) is that quran burning forces you to react (no reaction is also a reaction) and, as such, take a stance that is unavoidably for/against this side or that side. Especially at state levels. Because it's not presented as discussing among secular people about the valid expressions of secularity, it's about apologizing for the offense and forbidding it, therefore treating it as such. Validating its perception and definition. Whereas an opposite stance can also be "it happens, it's no big deal, get used to it, they do that sort of stuff with our symbols aswell". Accepting to treat is as a big deal (even "as a big deal for the sufficient reason that it is a big deal to you") can be justifying the outrage's violence. Especially when the excuses aren't directed at the silent "collateral damage" muslims but at the threatening islamists.

There's an awkward implicit, in the interaction between those who sacralize something and those who don't. There's an untold "we don't care about this thing you care about". And it's usually put aside, just "don't ask and we won't shock each others". But such actions collapse the schroedingerian implicit into an explicit : we care or not, and we show it. It lights latent antagonisms. And defusing them requires to diminish this antagonism. Here : to care about that blasphemy. And caring about blasphemy is a thing that our societies have been (and still are) struggling to get away from. We have our own religious fundamentalists, trying to shape society around what offends them. We have our own provocations re-asserting (or failing to re-assert) that nope, you won't shape our rules around that. Like all cultural and political currents, these things are differing from country to country, and are strenghtening each others between countries. The say of religion in society is a global stake.

And of course, it's all on a complex continuum. From Charlie Hebdo authors getting beaten up by christian fundamentalists after a talk show (the editor-in-chief lost a couple of teeth back then), to the condamnation for blasphemy of the tame greek parody of an orthodox mystic supposed to routinely perform miracles. The indirect stakes abound, and cannot be fully separated from each others. And these stakes are independant from the original intents. They cross each others awkwardly, between pragmatism, selected (concrete, abstract, immediate or far-reaching) concerns, double standards, oppositions between "nothing is a blasphemy" and "nothing concerning THEIR religion is a blasphemy", etc. Lots of people disagreeing on similar grounds, lots of people agreeing for opposed reasons.

And what annoys me in this thread's discusson is the impression that each side sees it as a solved dilemma, a simple matter with an obvious response. The provocative force of this action, again provocation/manipulation, is that it touches on genuine and genuinely unsolved contradictions. Possibly unsolvable ones. And I don't think any strong one-sided stance can be justified there.

 

[Eacaraxe]

So, because the the authorities abuse the rules, we should therefore not try to prevent genuine harassment and incitement to violence?

I'm generally not a fan of granting precisely those responsible for oppression authority to ban speech, expression, and association, in the name of stopping oppression, yes. It has a tendency to not work entirely well for the oppressed.

It's a bit like the chickens inviting the fox into the henhouse for a hot cup of tea.

Authorities just as often abuse free speech absolutism, weaponising it to target out-groups and fabricating justifications.

And by what methodology does that generally play out, and what is the excuse for it? Let me give you a hint:



"Of two billion people on Earth, he alone may not speak in Germany".

 

[CM156]

And what annoys me in this thread's discusson is the impression that each side sees it as a solved dilemma, a simple matter with an obvious response. The provocative force of this action, again provocation/manipulation, is that it touches on genuine and genuinely unsolved contradictions. Possibly unsolvable ones. And I don't think any strong one-sided stance can be justified there.

It's pretty hard to come to an accommodation with a stance that you don't have a right to do something you ardently believe that you do.

 

[Ag3ma]

It's pretty hard to come to an accommodation with a stance that you don't have a right to do something you ardently believe that you do.

Whilst I see what you're getting at, I can't help but feel that's an argument as valid for serial killers as it is for people who want to burn Qurans.