> At what point does the demand that Western art doesn't do something that offend Islam itself become westernphobic.
The standard response is that there can be no such thing as Westernphobia because the West is powerful and Islam is weak, just as there can be no such thing as anti-white racism because whites are powerful and nonwhites are weak.
tell that to white people in Kenya or South Africa... I don't have the link handy right now, but I read they are routinely in danger of rape/murder because of anti-white hate.
Thus apparently extends to gender or rather sexuality as well recently.
I've been banned for asking why my sexuality - heterosexual, is excluded, actually not even asked why but if a flag representing my sexuality existed, since there were a bunch of flags that represented every possible spectrum, even asexuality.
I am not at all racist, my best friend has dark skin, but I also can't help but notice that on social networks there's always that black* group/tag/community never do you see white,red, yellow, only ever black.
I do find that quite racist and exclusive.
If we're all the same, why does such distinction exist?
If you want representation for red-skinned people you should go to the popular tourist spots in Spain and find some British people. Outside of that I don't think there are many people who'd identify themselves that way.
That is such a myopic, stupid take. How do you even know? Are you somehow deluded enough to believe that even in western countries nobody has to fight for basic human rights? Fuck, half of Americans’ basic human rights are in flux right now, have you been paying attention?
I'm late here, but you broke the site guidelines extremely badly. We ban accounts that post like this, regardless of how wrong another comment is or you feel it is.
There are places in the world where this is not true, particularly Zimbabwe and South Africa. By the western definition of "white," which includes Arabs and middle easterners, this is not true even in the most "tolerant" parts of the west.
> I am not at all racist, my best friend has dark skin, but I also can't help but notice that on social networks there's always that black* group/tag/community never do you see white,red, yellow, only ever black. I do find that quite racist and exclusive.
That is not remotely true, if I log into Reddit I can find subreddits with white, black, Spanish, German, Japanese, Indian, French, Jamaican, etc. topics as well several subcategories such as Valencian etc. I am not sure what or where you are looking.
I don’t think Native Americans go by red or East Asian people yellow as well honestly. What social networks are banning you?
> I don’t think Native Americans go by red or East Asian people yellow as well honestly.
You're wrong about that; the Chinese do refer to themselves as yellow. (It's not a native tradition there - it's taken from the old Western taxonomy. But it's still current.)
Yes and I take issue with that, $phobia isn't wrong just because of the power imbalance. Further these aren't monolithic entities, the power distributed between people is unequal. I've been denied a job because they were looking for a manageress (by a woman), who has the power in that situation?
If you want me to treat you equally, you need to hold us both as equals, anything less is hypocrisy.
This isn't Western art, it's classical Persian art, done by Muslims for Muslims. This is beyond stupid, it's plain fanaticism. These students should be sent to Iran or Afghanistan to get their feelings right. I have absolutely no patience for this sort of fascism disguised as victimisation.
Your lack of patience notwithstanding, it helps to take into consideration the fact that Islamic cultural practices vary from place to place. Saying that something is Persian doesn't fully capture the context. Sudanese Muslim culture is extremely conservative and until recently included laws against apostasy. The student who complained comes from this cultural background. Persians are generally from a different sect of Islam and have their own cultural complications.
Right or wrong, that's the context.
One fact of religious tolerance is that one person will inevitably view as sacred something that another person views as stupid. Drawing lines around certain practices is a challenging task for society as a whole. I personally don't believe that reducing everything to "fascism" is productive.
Your suggestion that people be deported to Iran or Afghanistan is among the most common racist retorts against Muslim people and indicates a lack of tolerance for what is in reality a fairly complicated issue that can only be solved by mutual respect.
That's the point. This student obviously doesn't have any respect for the country and the culture he's currently living in. He has a point to make and a war to wage.
And that's not xenophobic to say that; I've hosted an Afghan refugees for months. I didn't try to feed him pork, and he didn't try to stab me for eating ham or not praying for Allah. There are decent people everywhere. You can be an oppressed refugee, and still be a fascistic, intolerant moron; you can be a white cis male billionaire and still be a good person (this one's tough though). Being a victim buys you no moral superiority at all. Being a decent person only does.
Firstly the article says the student is a girl. How much do you really know about her and her attitude if you didn't read that part of the article?
Regarding your experience with a refugee...doing good isn't a cache of poker chips. You can't justify judging a person today based on using something good that you said/did yesterday.
I don't think it's right to say something along the lines of "we might as well send this Sudanese person to Afghanistan for objecting to an image depicting something they consider sacrilegious."
I think you are wrong to frame the situation as a renegade student who is out to wage war. This (along with "if they don't like it, deport em") is a pretty common racist trope that is used to put Muslims down. Not saying that's your intent.
Religious freedom in the US is usually viewed in a way that differs from Europe (esp. France). Rather than forcing people to act or think secularly, Americans try to respect other people's boundaries as they are. It's a fundamentally different concept. No idea where you're from, but based on your attitude toward the meaning of "mutual respect" I'm guessing France.
It is likely that a Sudanese Muslim will view a depiction of the Muslim prophet as impermissible, and that a Persian Muslim will not. Why conflate the two?
There's more context in the school newspaper. [0] "'I am showing you this image for a reason. And that is that there is this common thinking that Islam completely forbids, outright, any figurative depictions or any depictions of holy personages. While many Islamic cultures do strongly frown on this practice, I would like to remind you there is no one, monothetic Islamic culture,' the professor said before changing to the slide that included these depictions."
The lecturer was aware that the images would be considered by many Muslims as forbidden. The head of the university's Muslim Students' Association was in the class. The lecture was on video and undoubtedly reviewed by the administration before they chose to let the adjunct professor go.
To me, it seems like this was a self-own by the lecturer rather than some kind of "war" waged (as you put it) by a student.
I strongly disagree. The professor said that she was about to show the picture and people who didn't like it had the option to not look at it. It was a planned, extremely deliberate aggression from the student to make a point about her intolerant, hateful interpretation of Islam. By going in a US University she knew that she would be exposed to ideas that will challenge her backwards beliefs.
I think intolerant religion must not be tolerated in an open society. I think that a society has absolutely no obligation to try to be amenable and welcoming to any ideology. When I travel in a Muslim country, I don't go around at noon during Ramadan eating ham sandwiches and drinking beer. That student is doing exactly that. She's literally spitting in the face of the country that hosts and educates her.
Yes, the professor may have tried to teach her students about the complexity of the world. That's the very definition of her job, after all!
The next step for a person like this student ends in a Samuel Paty or Charlie Hebdo. My advice is to deport her back to her miserable, war-torn, fascistic backward country she shouldn't have left.
Tolerance is great, but must be with at least a modicum of reciprocation. As Paul Claudel said "Tolerance? There are houses for that."
It is not prohibited by the Quran at all, at least I’ve never found a reference in the Quran that indicates that it is forbidden. Please do correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been many years since I last read the Quran.
The Bible however, does actually forbid it: Exodus 20:4
I seem to remember that Jehovas Witnesses actually practice this as they take the words of the Bible literally.
I’m by no way an expert on theology, mainly interested on a hobby level, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Most Jews and Christians interpret this text as prohibiting the creating and worshipping of idols, not of prohibiting images in general. As long as it's not being directly worshipped, or being created for that purpose, you're fine. As always for any text, it's important to read the text before and after it. I think its context makes it clear that the text is addressing just idols.
As evidence, consider the vast number of practicing Jews and Christians who were or are artists. Also consider the vast number of churches which have artwork (like stained glass and statues).
“In Exodus 20:4 God condemned the carving of statues for the sake of worshipping them as idols–a blasphemy the Catholic Church also condemns.
In Exodus 25:18-20, on the other hand, God commands Moses to carve statues for a religious purpose: two cherubim which would sit atop the Ark of the Covenant.
Notice that these angelic images were to serve such an exalted purpose (not because the statues themselves were in any way intrinsically exalted but because of the use to which they would be put) that God was very exacting in the instructions he gave Moses as to the materials to be used and the posture in which they were to be carved.
Similar divine commands to carve statues and embroider images of various religious objects are found in Exodus 21:6-9, Numbers 21:6-9, 1 Kings 6:23-28, and 1 Kings 7:23- 39. In each case, the statue or embroidered image was intended by God for a religious use.
Although the worship of anything, not just statues, in place of the True God is idolatry, there are times when statues are not just tolerable but recommended.
Just as those Old Testament statues were ordered fashioned by God to reminded the Israelites of heavenly realities, Catholic statues of Jesus and the angels and the saints serve the same purpose.”
This is a nonsensical conclusion because obviously the Muslim world doesn’t perceive western art in this way. I do think there is a distinct difference between expecting respect from people that you share space with. Someone will surely reply about the violence some people partake in. Violence is never okay and is the route of maybe 0.5% of people, so I think basing how you interact with an entire demographic of people on that is myopic.
Historically speaking, prohibiting depictions of Muhammad are a recent concept in Sunni Islam, especially the Saudi driven Wahhabism which is extremely conservative. Over history art as always been a huge part of Islamic life. This painting has been revered for centuries. The only reason this time it caused the school to go berserk is a single student complained, leading to overreaction in fear. Details: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/08/an-art...
I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that being Islamophobic is actually a good thing overall, given the content of Islam as written in the Quran and Hadith, and the actions of Mohammed.
If it were to be implemented in full in any of our Western societies today, it would result in a misogynistic, brutal, intolerant regime that infringes severely on what we understand as universal human rights. Just look at Afghanistan for an example. We should definitely be "phobic" of this.
> If it were to be implemented in full in any of our Western societies today, it would result in a misogynistic, brutal, intolerant regime that infringes severely on what we understand as universal human rights.
Yes. That one sucks too. They both suck. It's not a zero sum game, religious beliefs are not a good basis for societal norm regardless of the name of the religion.
It's incredibly sad seeing Shia extremism making its way to North America. This was only a few months ago too. What's even scarier about this case was that the Iranian government issued a fatwa on the victim in 1989, and then Iranian state media celebrated the attack 30 years later.
According to a perverted, fundamentalist view of Islam. Islam is much more diverse than Iran and Saudi Arabia. The fact that they manage to impose their sectarian practices as standard Islam in much of the world is very problematic.
This optimistic view of the Islamic world is, sadly, inaccurate. For example, as of 2013, an overwhelming majority of Muslims wish to make Sharia the law of the land:
This pessimistic view of Islam is equally inaccurate. From your own link:
> In most regions, fewer favor other specific aspects of sharia, such as cutting off the hands of thieves and executing people who convert from Islam to another faith.
Just as most Christians believe that Christian values should guide the law of the land they live in and just as most Christians don't support setting bears on children that mock priests.
>and just as most Christians don't support setting bears on children that mock priests.
I’m not Christian (anymore) but I’m pretty sure this isn’t a thing in canon law.
In contrast, the major strains of Islam are refreshingly clear in their treatment of apostates and unbelievers. Even a “kinder, gentler” interpretation retains the seeds of this dogma unless it rejects the Quran, which Islam holds to be the literal word of God. If you don’t hold with that, you’re not Muslim by definition.
Religious flamewar and slurs ("a rabid dog") will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN, regardless of which group you have a problem with.
"In Europe" often doesn't makes sense as a generalisation. Both the UK and France have a significant Muslim population. That does not extend to Europe in general though. France is ~6% Muslim with large communities. Poland is well <0.1% with anti-islam ideas being common.
They have very large representations compared to every other major non-christian religion in european countries. Islam is also the fastest growing religion in the world, by far.
On top of that, it is the religion that gets in unproportional amount of media time in every european country due to all the problems it represents.
> There were increases in the number of people who described themselves as “Muslim” (3.9 million, 6.5% in 2021, up from 2.7 million, 4.9% in 2011) and “Hindu” (1.0 million, 1.7% in 2021, up from 818,000, 1.5% in 2011).
Germany is also ~6% Muslim. But one could argue whether Germans are a significant part of "Europe". Belgium is ~5% but that's just the seat of the EU, not a real country. Spain is ~3%, which is "interesting" given the history of Moorish conquest of Iberia and the Treaty of Grenada and the Inquisition. 2-3% in Italy, but Catholics and Muslims have a long tradition of living together in harmony. Poland's % may be a result of anti-Islam sentiment rather than a cause. But again, are Germany, Spain, Italy, and Poland really part of Europe? "Europe" is just a collection of EU members anyway, if it means anything at all. Which means Turkey will soon be "in Europe".
> which is "interesting" given the history of Moorish conquest of Iberia and the Treaty of Grenada and the Inquisition.
Why? In Spain either you converted to Christianism 500 years ago or you got expelled. Most of Moors which came into Iberia where from modern Morocco origin and a few from Algeria. And a lot of them have "interesting" beliefs, such as drinking in private.
Also, every Moroccan has satellite TV and for sure they follow the Spanish soccer Liga.
They are very aware of Flamenco in Andalusia and the tiling from toilet rooms, which are the same in Andalusia and Morocco, or pretty close. Thus, they get assimilated fast in Spain to the Western values.
Precisely. It is interesting it is not more given the history and proximity to Morocco. It is interesting it is not less given the expulsions and forced conversions.
France keep strong historical links with several North African countries that were its french-speaking former colonies. This probably generated a lot of migration between France and Africa fullfiling the requisites to be granted French citizenship.
In the case of Germany is probably because they received a lot of Turkish workers after WWII.
I'm French and there were many muslim kids in my school when I was a kid (a few decades back). This type of "incident" didn't happen in those days. I don't remember religion ever being an issue. These kids would often respect ramadan and not eat pork, but this was the only visible religious thing, and nobody really cared about it.
I don't know what exactly has changed, who are the extremists and where they got their ideas, but something has changed.
It's a gorgeous piece of art and I am truly surprised that even the faithful would see this as blasphemous. Islamic art is really underappreciated in the west.
That's definitely not Islamic art, though. Islamic art quite notably does not depict humans or animals, and instead combines calligraphy and geometric patterns (and floral, maybe? I'm not entirely sure). You should definitely check that out too, though, it's beautiful!
As for this art piece, I think it would certainly cause some controversy. I'm a Muslim myself, and afaik depictions of living beings are discouraged, and depictions of the Prophet (PBUH) are a no-no (though perhaps I should mention that I do believe firing that teacher was absolutely the wrong decision, and what she did was not at all an instance of Islamophobia).
Sunni Islamic art doesn't depict humans or animals, but my understanding is that's actually not a universal characteristic of Islam. You'd know better than I do, but Ken White (who is not a Muslim) pretty stridently takes the university to task for universalizing the anti-art stance to all of Islam, as opposed to the specific sects involved. Is he wrong?
No, he's not wrong. It's definitely not a universal stance. My own belief (based on my sect) is that the depictions that the Prophet (PBUH) banned were done so to discourage idolatry among muslims (much more relevant at that time than now).
Beyond that, there is little to suggest that Islam explicitly forbids art depicting humans. In the case of prophets though, I think it is discouraged (by muslims) largely to prevent misattributing features or misrepresenting them (and of course, mockery as well).
I should add, there is probably a bit of miscommunication when people use the term "Islamic art". Some may mean art that does not violate Islamic principles (whatever those may be to them), others may take it to refer specifically to the typical aniconistic style of art that has now become synonymous with "Islamic art" (at least that's what I, admittedly, thought of in my previous comment), or perhaps art originating from muslim territories / made by muslims, etc.
He's wront imo, and it's important to keep in mind the almost complete opposition in belief between sunni islam and shiism, w.r.t idolatry and iconoclasm. The difference is so wide that I don't think it makes sense to speak about a universal islamic characteristic on that subject.
Just as an example, in sunnism even the grave of the prophet Mohammed (pbuh) is basically completely anonymous and unremarkable, to the point where you wouldn't know about it even if you were right in front of it. That's to avoid any grave worshiping, or ritualistic "pilgrimage."
Shiism, on the other hand, involves a LOT of rituals around saint worshipping, huge shrines, and important relics. Because of that, representations of saints and even the prophet are a lot, lot less problematic (and even mainstream, with portraits of Husayn being common in religious ceremonies). Even then, Persian art was historically even less restrictive than the mainstream modern shia tendency of not really representing the prophet itself anymore.
Now, you might say that this proves Ken White's point, but it really doesn't!.
The reality is that for most muslims, sunnism being the biggest denomination by far, there is really no debate that this type of representation is completely forbidden. There is also virtually no disagreement on the subject between the different sunni branches (who usually are pretty similar in general anyways). The only rift is between sunnis and shias, but it is so wide that it makes no sense to even lump the two groups together in this conversation. It's not just a sectarian disagreement over interpretation that could be open for debate, it's almost two completely different approaches and beliefs.
So basically those "specific sects" would basically include 99.99% of practicing sunnis, all branches of sunnism, and every sunni religious authority. That's more than 80-85% of muslims, including shias. So there is definitely some universality of opinion here.
Sorry, I guess I should have said "Persian" art? I'm having trouble finding the origin of the painting, this is about it:
"The illustration was originally found in a work of history called “The Compendium of Chronicles” (or “Jami al-Tawarikh” in Arabic) by Rashid al-Din Hamadani (1247–1318), a Persian physician and bureaucrat who served the Mongol conquerors of Iran in the 13th and 14th centuries."
Dunno if I agree all Islamic art doesnt depic humans, that does not agree with what I've seen in museums. Also, since it's a representation of an event that occurred in islam, I thin kit's not entirely unfair to say it's "islamic art" even if it was created by a Persian jew.
That's a reference to South Parks great 200/201 episode, which are all about that topic and in which Kyles speech at the end got censored. Despite there is no single frame, where Muhammad is shown. But the speech probably contained too much uncomfortable truth :
This isn’t about separating religion from school. It’s about having sensitivities for peoples way of life. There are a lot of things you wouldn’t be able to get away with outside of depicting Muhammad in art. And none of them related to Muslims.
Not sure if the professor felt existential about it but she said:
“I am showing you this image for a reason. And that is that there is this common thinking that Islam completely forbids, outright, any figurative depictions or any depictions of holy personages. While many Islamic cultures do strongly frown on this practice, I would like to remind you there is no one, monothetic Islamic culture,”
*person. One student complained and that's the reason the original comment advocated deportation. Let's say that we were able to find one person of Christian faith who is intolerant, what country should Christians return to? Does this include a lack of religious beliefs? Where do we send anyone who fails to believe in God, much in the same way as one other person on the planet?
Nope no obligation, but just as we say for freedom of speech in some other context, like for instance, say you were to use a pejorative term to a person it may apply to, you may not have the "obligation to give any remote fuck" about how they feel about it, likewise that doesn't prevent you from getting punched in the face or being perceived by others as lacking tact/self-awareness.
don't understand your comment. maybe I should have put and/or. downvoted because I go against the grain here, clearly though, everyone must concede you don't live in a vacuum and social/biological dynamics do not bow down to your personal cultural ones. if you've never been punched in the face before I encourage you try your very best to and only then can I take what you say on these sorts of matters seriously.
> does not imply an obligation from me to give any remote fuck
I don't think this attitude suitable in the diverse community where there are different ethnics or religons. People should care what the other find things unconfortable and should be aware that what you think acceptable is may not so for the others.
Of course if you mean let them do their own things and you do not mean offense or insult them, I thank you for your understanding.
I'm pretty sure everyone is aware that getting stabbed to death is "uncomfortable". I'd certainly not not "give a fuck" if it happened to me because I literally looked at somebody the wrong way.
I certainly do abhor any violence when it could be avoided when we respect each other's view and values. Especially if anyone resort to stab others because they feel offended.
What I mean, you shoud consider to stop yourself before you do things that controversial. Or do you keep silence if other people do things that you find offensive? Some other may not keep silence and may resort violence, and it is not limited to islam. Once again, I do not like violence or oppression when we can avoid those by respecting each others and talks nicely when any conflict happens.
We can avoid violence by _not responding violently_ to feeling offended. Being offended is not the same as being physically harmed. Those people who respond with violence to the non-violent acts of others should be censured. Their ideologies deserve ridicule and suppression to the extent that they condone such violence.
I have zero tolerance for people who push their religious views on others and also use their religion to justify violence. This goes for Islam just as much for Christianity. I don't hear much about Christians beheading people over insulting Jesus in Europe though.
> I have zero tolerance for people who push their religious views on others and also use their religion to justify violence.
Those who push their religious views on others and also use their religion to justify violence are extremely minority, majority of muslims do not do those things. And "bad muslims" always in those media or news because who would read articles about "nice muslim". So you should know what I mean.
And insulting *any* religions is not acceptable and deserve to be punished. As for beheading punishment though, I do not have enough knowledge to comment about it.
> And insulting any religions is not acceptable and deserve to be punished.
Why?
I believe all religions are a bunch of bullshit. Almost all of them regard this belief as a mortal insult. Should I get punished for that?
The only tenable way to treat religions in a liberal democracy is like any other belief. You get full freedom to practice any one you want, or none of them, or even more than one at the same time for all I care, but you don't get any special status or moral authority.
≥ I believe all religions are a bunch of bullshit. Almost all of them regard this belief as a mortal insult.
You may believe in no religion, but I don't think you should say that in public. Especially in front of any religius person you say "your religion is bullshit!".
> Should I get punished for that?
Maybe if that as insult to others.
> The only tenable way to treat religions in a liberal democracy is like any other belief. You get full freedom to practice any one you want, or none of them, or even more than one at the same time for all I care, but you don't get any special status or moral authority.
I agree to this point. But you do not automatically have right to insult other's believe.
This is insanity. This is like saying insulting Republicans or Democrats should be punishable.
There's nothing particularly special about religion that should give it protection from criticism or "disrespect" or being insulted (also, who decides what is an insult? the religious fruitcakes? naw dawg, fucking no). Anything else is such authoritarian insanity that it feels like you're arguing in bad faith, and it just gives religious extremists the protection they need to force their ass-backwards views on everybody else while literally murdering people who they perceive as having "insulted" them or their religion.
If you want to protect "good Muslims", you need to accept liberal values that include being able to "insult" a religion without fear of violent attack.
> As for beheading punishment though, I do not have enough knowledge to comment about it.
What the fuck does this even mean? You think there's some conceivable situation where it's justified to react to "being insulted" with a beheading? You can fuck right off with the rest of the extremists.
> There's nothing particularly special about religion that should give it protection from criticism or "disrespect" or being insulted (also, who decides what is an insult? the religious fruitcakes? naw dawg, fucking no)
Sure enough we do not need law about this. But should we actively offending others because we do not agree to them when we can go by beeing nice each other. Even if we do not share what is critism what is insult, I apologize if you feel offended.
> If you want to protect "good Muslims", you need to accept liberal values that include being able to "insult" a religion without fear of violent attack
Even if there is no violence, anyone should not insult others. And anyone who do violence or murder should be punished by law.
≥ You think there's some conceivable situation where it's justified to react to "being insulted" with a beheading?
No, I think there's no conceivable situation where it's justified to react to "being insulted" with a beheading.
> You can fuck right off with the rest of the extremists.
When I ask anyone to be nice to each other is extremist, well sorry.
Of course violence and terrorist is not right regardless of any reason.
It's not even an ideology if you look at it that way but it is a state religion by design, that has various implementations depending on who's to benefit. It prescribes universal obligations which they have in common. Some other dogmas are subject to interpretation.
So the question needs to be cast in another light, sure. It's a hard problem that isn't solved by calling on an ideology.
Something that everyone can practice has to have a few simple rules that everyone can follow. That doesn't make it an ideology. It is a complex set of intervowen systems that are carried in no small part at the state level, communicated by language which is in fact a very complex system. That's an ideology insofar as the word may be related to idioma, as it were.
Why are you assuming they are foreigners? Why do you assume these were not natives in their own country who held these feelings anyway? Do you observe and respect any festivities in the calendar at all? Christmas? Thanksgiving? Easter? Passover? Diwali? Why are these not "dumb superstitions", but other people's are?
You don't get to decide how somebody else is going to react to something, you only get to decide if you care.
You don't get to tell them to stop believing in Islam because they're in a country where that is a minority belief, you only get to decide if you care about offending them.
In this specific case, the lecturer clearly did care - she warned before the course and shortly before the lecture moved to showing that image. That's the issue here, not whether displaying the image was contentious or not: she showed due diligence and her faculty decided it was insufficient. So what would have been sufficient?
That we can have a debate about, but some BS about "western values" and a strawman argument about "submitting" to "superstitions" is not even worth me caring about, other than to call you out as making a statement completely typical of far right-wing xenophobes and racists. Please don't do that here.
Great response. I’m surprised to see xenophobia on HN.
This story is about overbearing administrators infringing on academic freedoms, not Islam vs Western Values. But a lot of people have the Islam v The West hammer, so they’re going to use it in this nail.
>... her faculty decided it was insufficient. So what would have been sufficient?
>That we can have a debate about, but some BS about "western values" and a strawman argument about "submitting" to "superstitions" is not even worth me caring about, ...
Difficult to have an argument about after the fact. "You are free to leave" seems to be the exact argument that was made, beyond that there is no argument that would have been sufficient. If that's not enough, it is because of superstition, for lack of a better word. And this caused a panic reaction. It would be superstition even if the sides were switched and Feedome of Speech were the deeply held, now insulted believe that would include for example showing religious imagery in class (often forbidden in school charters to create a neutral environment).
From what I read I guess that Freiheit der Lehre (freedom of lecturing) is fairly constrained and lecturers are generally treated not with the same respect as a professor for whom they work. So it is to some a degree a systematic, institutional proble about powerstructures. Not worth the risk can become either you are not worth it, subjectively, or you are btter than that, optimistically speaking. Now I don't have a cromulent quote handy on collectively held believes. Suppose there is no mainstream concensus on that.
While the OPs comment is needlessly coarse, a charitable reading still gets at something important, something you evade addressing by repeating what are effectively tired liberal relativist platitudes about neutrality.
What this firing, and events like it, demonstrate is that there is a zero sum game where foundational beliefs are concerned. Here, the game is between liberalism and (this form of) Islam. If the professor isn’t punished, liberalism wins. If the teacher is punished, this Islam wins. You can’t accommodate both. An Achilles’ heel of liberalism is the notion that it can accommodate everyone, that liberalism is some kind of neutral absence of beliefs that can somehow accommodate fundamental differences and become the basis of a universal society of Man rooted in nothing. Vulgar consumerism has tried to fill that void, but appetite is no basis for a society, to put it mildly.
I disagree that this has to be a zero sum game. There are many courses of action that could have been taken before, during and after the lecture by the lecturer, the students who felt affected by the lecture, and the faculty administration, none of which would have to involve punishing anybody and that would have led to a better outcome.
For example, somebody, somewhere, could have created a forum for a more socratic method to discuss these images and people's reactions to them to help improve understanding on all sides.
Saying "I'm going to do something offensive, and if you're offended that's your problem because I've told you, and I've told you I don't care about that offence", is about as constructive as a response of "I have been offended, and even though I was warned I was about to be offended and did not take the appropriate measures I was offered to protect myself from that offence, I will complain that I was offended".
Rhetoric (in the philosophical teaching sense), is a hell of a move to double down on when you're dealing with topics where the discussion itself can have real consequences.
It is not a "tired liberal relativist platitude" to suggest that a contributory cause of the issue here was all sides involved stopped caring about consequences to others, and instead all erred towards self preservation while maintaining an insistence that rhetoric will work and dialectism would fail.
Self-preservation might be rational as a mammalian instinct, but in a philosophical setting (and a lecture touching on images of theological subjects surely is such a context), it's that conservatism that is tired and relativist: true liberalism (not libertarianism), was the essential lightning rod that was missing from the conversation.
this is whataboutism. there's plenty of shit in the west too -- and plenty of people are protesting about it right now. do you give a free pass to a murderer just because there are plenty of murderers who never get caught?
Edit as this is flagged by many people already: My opinion is all art and historical text should be discussed and talked about. Apparently an attempt to share the context is not very appreciated here.
No horse in the race but I find it important to try to understand the perspective from all sides.
At least that swastika thing was on a bulletin board in a dorm, I think it would be much harder to object to one being shown in context in a history class, for example.
Or on anti-Nazi media like the Wolfenstein series of computer games. For Wolfenstein 3D at least, Germany made them replace all the swastikas with neutral imagery before the game could be released there.
It is not similar at all. Kids all over the world draw swastikas on bathroom stalls and such, just to provoke. Rarely do they get beheaded/stabbed as a consequence, though.
Swastikas are not acceptable, but very few have any strong personal feelings about it. The prophet of this ideology, however, is like a (glorified) family member to 1/4 of the world's population, and you can very easily get killed for depicting him. The most recent and well-known case was the stabbing of Salman Rushdie.
what difference ? The clockwise version (࿕) is called swastika in Hinduism, and is the exact same symbol as what the Nazis used.
It used to be (until the 1930s) used in art quite a lot all over Europe.
You can still find it high up on the facade of old houses.
And Yes, some people are offended by it, but when you explain both the building and the symbol predate Nazism, they usually calm down.
You mean like how a Swastika is shorthand for "I support the extermination of Jews and black people"... An image of Mohammed is shorthand for "I support stoning women who don't cover their faces"?
Perhaps the bigger question is, should purportedly liberal institutions feel obliged to implement their own version of Islamic apostasy law, as is the case here?
> Dr. López Prater’s situation was especially precarious. She is an adjunct, one of higher education’s underclass of teachers, working for little pay and receiving few of the workplace protections enjoyed by tenured faculty members.
I hope this bit doesn’t get lost in the conversation. Tenure seems to be extremely hard to get, even for very smart people who (in my opinion) fully deserved it.
Absent a radical retrenchment of reactionary-style teaching institutions, I don't see how "getting tenure" is a viable strategy going forward. The institutions have radically shifted their construction to be administration/student-centered rather than professor-centered. It may be that tenure as an institution could not survive the massive growth of the university system. Like any guild, membership growth must be limited. Tenure is a kind of life membership that simply cannot be conferred willy-nilly. Modern university economics simply will not support it. The trend is to disempower labor. Meanwhile, existing tenures are precious resources inspiring perverse behavior. In some ways, the tenure system has badly back-fired for professors, hastening their proletarianization (like doctors in the hospital system). It hasn't helped that most professors have been complicit in their own disenfranchisement, refusing to fight for their non-ideologically-aligned cohort, supporting the administrators in their anti-professor actions on behalf of student-customers. The whole thing is a mess but tenure is done. We may as well lament the loss of the guilds at this point. The barn is open, the cow is gone.
> I don't see how "getting tenure" is a viable strategy going forward.
It's not, which is why many schools are moving away from tenured faculty and more toward contract instructors. They're paid like regular faculty (not pennies like adjuncts) but aren't on a tenure track. 3-5 year contracts give better job security than a typical job, but not a guaranteed job for life.
3-5 year contracts are maybe better than employment at will for faculty but they are of a kind with deleveraging the profession vis a vis the institution. The institutional character has shifted to big-E Education. Like big-H Health it is a rationalization of the industry that disempowers the "productive" professionals in favor of the "managerial" professionals (administrators) who manage the economic relationships (means of production/distribution) of the whole shebang. Maybe the death of tenure will augur a new age of unionization for faculty (I have my doubts).
Honestly I feel like it gives me more leverage. Every 3-5 years the administration has to be ready for me to walk, and they need to make competitive offers to keep me. These are not like tenured positions that only open up once a generation, so it's actually worthwhile to see what else is out there, so threats to leave for greener pastures are more credible.
I wonder if it will really depend on market demand for your specialization. Free agent poetry profs may have to wait tables and go begging but STEM profs can write their own ticket? What kind of university does that create? I think it sounds better than it is. High-skill jobs always have some built-in leverage. Heck, this is HN. We all know this. But technics is not merely crystallized knowledge at a point in time. After a while, all but the top 20% are competing at a disadvantage. Factor in reach/amplification technologies and I wonder if the university's pursuit of market efficiencies isn't going to expose contract work as more precarious than not.
>Every 3-5 years the administration has to be ready for me to walk, and they need to make competitive offers to keep me.
That is easy to say when you don't have family. Children don't do well being pulled out of school and moved to different school, they can suffer academically, emotionally and socially from having their lives disrupted. Then you have to consider your spouses career.
This is as much about the relative lack of power held by adjuncts. It’s easy for a college to fire an adjunct, as there are so many more ready to grab the spot.
This is getting serious. We're not talking of a display of arguably shocking or tasteless caricature; they're up in arms about a piece of classical 14th century Muslim art. This is fascism and nothing else. These students are no better than Nazis burning Jewish books and white supremacists burning Qurans.
Imagine the harm a group of those fanatics can achieve if one student can make a whole University comply to his intolerant whims. Karl Popper famously said that an open and tolerant society must manage carefully the intolerant...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
You realize there are 2 million Muslims living in America without any problem right? Take your bigotry elsewhere, HN is typically more elevated than that.
I read the GP comment more charitably than that in the context of the thread in general terms.
More like "if one arbitrary student (of no particular description) can cause this much damage, how much damage can multiple like-minded students (of any particular alliance) cause?" And that question would apply to secularists Muslims Christians etc. equally.
Not necessarily "if one Muslim can do this, how much damage can lots of Muslims do?"
But maybe I'm wrong? I could see how you got that impression upon rereading the comment.
I have no qualms with Muslims anywhere. However I despise fanatics be they Muslims or Christians or Jews or whatever religion. I hate equally the Talibans, the Ayatollahs, the Zionist far-right in Israel, the racist nationalist Hindus, and the crazy racist Bible-thumpers in the US.
But not one single of them asked the university to readmit the teacher. None emailed or marched in front of the university to support the teacher. This is a big part of the real problem.
This was the wrong decision. Liberal institutions in the west have begun to increasingly yield to the demands of extremist minority views and doing so only emboldens them. You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country but everyone else is a protected class. Even speaking positively or respectfully discussing the protected classes in a vaguely defined wrong way spurs outrage and likely costs you your job. Its interesting watching institutions act outraged over Florida's "don't say gay" bill while instituting their own version of it that just targets everything else.
It seems like it. It seems like the university didn’t even clearly understand that Muslims are divided on this topic before taking action.
> Liberal institutions in the west have begun to increasingly yield to the demands of extremist minority views and doing so only emboldens them. You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country but everyone else is a protected class.
This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points.
Really? If you speak ill of "white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men" will you lose your job? Will you lose your job in liberal universities if you speak ill of Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, African Americans? In case of perceived bias, I'm a swing voting (95% Dem) Jew.
Yes, depending on what you say, absolutely. If I stood in my classroom and made blanket disparaging statements about cis men or Christians or white people, I guarantee students in those groups would go to the admin and complain. If what I said was bad enough, I’d likely be fired.
To be clear when I wrote my post I had in mind classroom instruction. The first two links are about comments made outside of the classroom, by tenured professors nonetheless. Hard to fire them for almost anything, but it does happen from time to time. The Drexel professor was later placed on administrative leave and then resigned.
The Yale link was about a lecture given by someone not affiliated with the University.
> you’ll be fired and disowned by the college in under 48 hours:
Yes, much easier to do with adjuncts compared to tenured professors.
The worst thing is that the white left decides what is offensive or not. I’m Asian and most of the things they claim as racism against Asian are so cringe, literally nobody cares.
Yes, it's cringe because it's said as a laughing matter and can have no consequences nowadays or it mostly doesn't.
I used to think this way too before and I am still not liberal but the thing with racism is, the start might be jokes but once it's systematic because "nobody cares it's just jokes" those same words might start to hit differently.
The liberals can be overreaching about such matters, but I personally think racial slurs shouldn't be tolerated a lot.
The point is, banning things does not solve problems. It just complicates things, force people to act in certain ways to make sure they aren't racist, instead of being genuine. When I'm accepted into interviews for jobs that aren't going to hire me anyway... it just wastes my time and their time.
The problem isn't much about racism, it is about some people act like jerks. And people can be jerks with or without racism.
The point of banning racism is so people don't feel comfortable doing it in public
Because once that's there, systematic racism is going to be back, things won't stop at the random jerk level.
Being a jerk might be because someone had a bad day etc, it's not loaded, you can counter it and it's not organized hate.
But racism is different, racism targets anyone who looks like you, and it's usually organized efforts and loaded with ideas about dehumanizing people.
sometimes things escalate and this same random jerk might murder you if they think there is a high chance they will escape the justice system because you're basically a subhuman under the new laws that these lighthearted racists passed.
You can't make everyone good and decent, but you can for sure punish the racists and limit their access to power and that's what banning does in this case.
What would be illegal under this law? If a couple guys are sitting having a beer at home discussing their opinion on the difference in races and how some are better than others would that be illegal? If the neighbor overhead and turned them in, how long would they go to jail for over this private conversation that had previously been protected by the 1st? Would you advocate taking their children away from them? Does this law extend to people saying bad things about whites? What other speech would be outlawed as dangerous? What political ideas are banned? The 1st amendment exists for a very important reason. Restricting speech is a slippery slope that can rapidly lead to the party in power staying in power by banning opposing ideas.
Modern progressivism does distinguish instances of “punching down”, yes. That’s no secret and is not intended to be.
That’s not the point, though. Turning this into a “what about the white men!” whinge is blatantly misrepresenting this scenario as the result of “modern progressivism” when it’s actually something else.
I believe that you’re not going to find many proponents of the sort of progressivism that the “white about the white men!?”crowd fight against, that are actually in favour of this decision. Furthermore I believe that you’d find plenty that are against it.
Around the proponents of this ideology are concentric circles of people making misguided attempts to “capitulate to this PC culture”, often as an ass-covering tactic. By the time you get to a layperson perceiving ‘the culture’, it’s a xerox of a xerox of a xerox created by various corporate HR, PR, and marketing departments. Then, of course, you’ve got the people revolting against Big Org #836 mandating wearing pronoun pins in the office when that’s clearly not something any trans person would advocate for. The collective facepalming at misguided attempts to pander to “LGBTQIA+” is a big part of the current queer community / culture. This is just the community I am familiar with. I imagine it’s the same elsewhere.
I don’t believe that this is much of a ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy. It’s pretty easy to draw a logical bound between those that believe in the cause, and the rest.
I do not believe that this action was taken as a genuine act of modern progressivism. It’s a typical corporate ‘make this go away and don’t upset the minorities with megaphones’ action. But we’ve got some great keywords like “university” and “Muslim” which opportunists obnoxiously use to fuel the culture war.
> Modern progressivism does distinguish instances of “punching down”
And many would argue the concept of this being "punching down" requires at least a subconscious belief that those groups are somehow beneath other groups in the first place. Furthermore, why support punching at all?
Is it? When non-puppy-kicking people are willing to publicly say "I don't kick puppies, but I agree with the puppy kickers' view that the sky is blue", the correct reaction is not to reevaluate puppy kicking (much less trying to subtly taint those people as crypto-internalized-puppy-dislikers).
> You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country but everyone else is a protected class.
White, cis, hetero, Christian, men as a class are some of the most protected and powerful people in this country. POTUS, Supreme Court Chief Justice, Speaker of the House Representatives, Senate Majority Leader, Attorney General, Director of FBI... all white, all men, all straight, all cis, all but one Christian. All state governors are currently white.
This is not to say that a white, cis, hetero, Christian man cannot face hardship or discrimination. But to pretend such people as a class aren't systematically protected in our society, when this class sits on top of most power structures in society, serves to dilute the entire idea of anti-discrimination, which honestly seems to be much of the point in making such claims.
This is a logical fallacy though. Looking at the current makeup of a group doesn't prove systemic discrimination. Look at the NBA for instance, would we assume there are rules favoring black players which would explain their over-representation?
It's a common fallacy where people assume equal inputs, so if the output doesn't match something must be amiss. But the assumption was incorrect to begin with. Not everybody is equal, and different demographic cohorts may in fact over/under perform others for any number of reasons.
Sometimes even the worst people have a point. Ideas can't be thrown out just because they happen to be shared by bad people. It's the intellectual form of judging a book by its cover. It's the reason political echo chambers get so ridiculous and the country is so divided. An idea is just an idea and should be judged on it's own merits.
> This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points.
Doesn't make it inaccurate. Trying to cudgel GP into submission by casting aspersions of being "alt-right" affiliated is evidence of it being true, even. The gaslighting is unwelcome.
> It seems like the university didn’t even clearly understand that Muslims are divided on this topic before taking action.
Of course, I'd assume most muslim don't care about this event, besides a minority of fanatics. But I don't think it even matters. A art history teacher should be free to discuss a painting in their class no matter what "Muslims" think.
Clearly the issue is with the school here. Not the teacher, and not the "muslims". This complaining student should have been explained that her demands are not legitimate.
I disagree with the alt-right categorization. I am thankful I am not a teacher who has to lead a discussion in a liberal arts school.
I am asian(Indian) and while I have heard / seen plenty of offensive content against my ilk, I have never felt threatened / fearsome or the need to play the victim card like the Ms. Wedatalla.
>“Who do I call at 8 a.m.,” she asked, when “you see someone disrespecting and offending your religion?”
> institutions act outraged over Florida's "don't say gay" bill
Were you upset of the 'don't say gay bill'? It's an example, not just of a single school acting to restrict academic freedom and freedom of expression in general, but the actual government enforcing this on ALL schools. That should be enraging to anyone who cares about freedom. A elementary school teacher was fired not too long ago for reading 'A need a new butt', because Christians found it offensive.
I think the decision to fire this guy was wrong, but this sort of action is hardly the sole domain of the 'left', the 'right' is doing plenty of censorship in schools all by itself.
The bill in Florida was perfectly reasonable.
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third
parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur
in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-
appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students according to state standards.
3rd grade classrooms are not places of intellectual freedom. They are places of indoctrination. A third grader does not have academic freedom, there is no countervailing point in the classroom. It is completely different than a university setting. According to the t xt of the bill, I can't think of any good reason for a teacher to want to violate the law unless they want to push their own agenda onto the children. And that should not happen in a public school.
Why can't the banning depictions of mohammad also be 'perfectly reasonable' because it university classrooms are not places of intellectual freedom, they are places of indoctrination. I can't think of any good reason for a teacher to want to violate this policy unless they want to push their own agenda onto the students. See how generic your defense is? It can be used for anything you disagree with.
'I need a new butt', was a book on the schools reading list. Was firing that teacher perfectly reasonable also? Was a funny book about butts indoctrination?
Critical race theory is being muzzled at the university level by the government in florida. Are you angry about that overreach by state?
> Critical race theory is being muzzled at the university level by the government in florida. Are you angry about that overreach by state?
Critical race theory needs to be treated the same as other pro-discrimination ideologies. Either they're all ok or none are ok. Picking and choosing one type of racial discrimination to support is in fact racist.
After all, Ibram X. Kendi who is generally regarded as the foremost proponent of Critical Race Theory argued in his book How to Be an Antiracist that, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” This is a fundamental position of Critical Race teachings.
Many would argue it's reasonable for parents to not want this sort of "good racial discrimination" being taught to their kids.
Well then I don't get it. Putting up depictions of Mohammad can easily be viewed as inflammatory discrimination against Muslims, but that's ok?
Again, I don't think this teacher should have been fired. But the arguments against it in these comments seem hypocritical when support is given to other types of censorship only because they happen to disagree with what was being suppressed.
> Well then I don't get it. Putting up depictions of Mohammad can easily be viewed as inflammatory discrimination against Muslims, but that's ok?
Although it was unnecessarily inflammatory in my opinion, it isn't a universal belief among Muslims that Mohammad can't be depicted and it certainly isn't a core tenet of Islam. If anything, one would argue that depictions of Mohammad should be treated the same as depictions of Jesus, Moses etc.
> Although it was unnecessarily inflammatory in my opinion, it isn't a universal belief among Muslims that Mohammad can't be depicted and it certainly isn't a core tenet of Islam. If anything, one would argue that depictions of Mohammad should be treated the same as depictions of Jesus, Moses etc.
Exactly my point. Arguments could be made about the validity of any of these topics. There is no consistent basis, just 'This is censorship because topic is bad in my opinion, but other topic can be censored without issue because I disagree with it'.
Ibram X. Kendi is making a few points in the quoted passage.
The first is that it's not enough to just say "no more discrimination" after the entire system has already been set up to discriminate. That just results in a system that perpetuates discrimination.
To illustrate with an example: you and I sit down to play a game of Monopoly. Except instead of letting you play from the beginning, I tie you down and you have to watch me play the game alone until I control the bank, and have hotels on every space. At this point, I untie you and invite you to join me playing by the usual rules of the game.
"But that's not fair, you're obviously going to win." you say
"How is it not fair? We're both playing the game by the same rules."
--
The second point he's making is that there's no "end" to discrimination. The entire idea is just nonsense given the dynamics he describes, and it shouldn't be a goal much like eliminating all bias to appear fair and balanced, or vowing to never make a mistake again in order to be competent. Even if you declare it at an end, and try your hardest to end it in practice, discrimination still happens. It should be our goal to think long and hard about how to deal with discrimination rather than to endeavor to eliminate it.
Your analogy doesn't work because it assumes anything that happens to your ancestors necessarily affects you directly for every generation that comes after, forever. Your monopoly example is using a game that you and I play in directly against each other, when the reality is we have no idea how much positive or negative impact the ancestors of any given person has had on their lot in life.
Do you think people in Appalachia or a trailer park near you who have lived in generational poverty are some how benefited by their skin color? That would assume upper class people associate themselves with lower class, just due to skin color. But we know really that it's based on in groups and out groups. To test this, ask the average upper or upper middle class educated white person to describe the average trailer park dweller with the same color skin, and see their response.
It also assumes a lot of things based on skin color alone. If the concern is that we want to help those who need financial assistance, or educational assistance or whatever then there are ways to do that with means testing, not by relying on a Sherwin Williams color chart held up against your skin.
> anything that happens to your ancestors necessarily affects you directly for every generation that comes after, forever.
No, that's not what I said. The point is that the state of the system interplays with the rules governing the system. You can't ignore the state of the system and declare the game fair by looking at just the rules.
> when the reality is we have no idea how much positive or negative impact the ancestors of any given person has had on their lot in life.
I mean, we do though. Generational wealth is a thing. American slavery isn't even the distant past; the last person born into slavery died within living memory.
> If the concern is that we want to help those who need financial assistance, or educational assistance or whatever then there are ways to do that with means testing
Right, which involves a process of discrimination to correct for past discrimination.
> not by relying on a Sherwin Williams color chart held up against your skin.
Of course there are better ways to do things than this terrible strawman you built.
> I mean, we do though. Generational wealth is a thing. American slavery isn't even the distant past
70% of generational wealth is lost by the 2nd generation, 90% by the 3rd generation[1][2][3], and it grows even more distant each generation after that. American slavery was around 15-20 generations ago, meaning there is almost zero generational wealth left in the same family hands from slavery. Also, a tiny percentage of American are even descended from a slave holding family in the first place..
So if 15-20 generations isn't long enough, how many more generations into the future would you say we need to discriminate against people based on skin color before we can call it enough? And what do we do about the millions of poor people with the wrong color skin, just keep discriminating against them due to their race and hope they don't take it personally?
> Of course there are better ways to do things than this terrible strawman you built.
It's not a strawman though. If you're basing preferential treatment on race, how exactly do you determine that? Race isn't a scientific thing, so we have to either take people at their word or use a color chart. Is there a different method you had in mind?
But the discussion of slavery kind of misses the larger point; that systemic discrimination was not in fact dismantled in America with the end of chattel slavery. Other systems replaced the intent, and those persisted long past the Civil War, well into recent history to today.
> It's not a strawman though. If you're basing preferential treatment on race, how exactly do you determine that?
No one is holding up color scales to people’s skin, and no one suggested doing so, certainly not me. That’s how your argument is a straw man.
It sounds like you are trying to make a different argument now, and if you want to make that one without building a straw man, please do so.
I gave you the data that shows your claims of generational wealth trickling through to an entire race of people, are false. You haven't addressed that.
You are the one making the argument that we need racial discrimination to right past wrongs. I gave you the reasons that is not only immoral, but unworkable. So if you have some method to make your vision of present & future racial discrimination a net benefit for society, I would like to hear it. Logically it isn't possible, so I'm curious to hear your proposed solution.
You supplied three links about how wealthy families lose fortunes over time, I don't think they're really relevant to the discussion. They don't address anything we're talking about here, which is how some groups are systemically held back by building wealth in the first place.
1) You are the only one here arguing about race-based policies. Neither I nor the passage you quoted by Ibram X. Kendi make such an argument (if Kendi makes the argument that racial discrimination is necessary, I don't agree with that. But the passage you quoted isn't making that point). I don't know if he makes that argument elsewhere, but as far as this discussion goes, that's something you're arguing against, not what I'm arguing for. In that sense, this argument of yours is a continuation of your strawman argument from before.
To be clear: not all discrimination is racial discrimination, and you don't need to racially discriminate to fix the effects of racial discrimination. Saying we need discrimination is not the same as saying we need racial discrimination.
2) Although this discussion surrounds race and focuses on rectifying past racial discrimination, we don't have to turn to future racial discrimination to rectify it. The point is that we do have to discriminate, however. I believe even you recognize and admit the need for that, because you suggested as much in your earlier post.
For example, we can recognize the impact racist policies like redlining had on minority communities. We can fix this past discrimination by investing in those areas, which of course involves discrimination. We don't have to decide who gets those dollars based on race, but we are basing who gets those dollars on past racial discrimination.
3) If you want to implement a policy based on race, obviously you can just ask the person what their race is. It's okay to let people self-report sometimes. Or market the program to people who are in the specific community you are targeting and ask for proof of residence. There's lots of things you can do, but literally no one has color swatches or endeavors to implement such practices. That's a strawman.
> You are the only one here arguing about race-based policies. Neither I nor the passage you quoted by Ibram X. Kendi make such an argument (if Kendi makes the argument that racial discrimination is necessary, I don't agree with that. But the passage you quoted isn't making that point)
He does, and it forms the foundation of the book "How to be an Antiracist" which is where it is made, and the book is one of the most widely cited books from those who support the concept of racial equity (ie racial policy preferences to achieve specific outcomes by skin color). If you don't support racial preferences/discrimination that's good, but it certainly seemed like you were defending it throughout this exchange. And by backing Kendi, you are backing a racist. It's certainly within your rights, I just don't agree with it.
> If you want to implement a policy based on race, obviously you can just ask the person what their race is.
Why would we ever want the government to participate in racial discrimination though? We've seen that never ends well and only leads to resentment and divisiveness.
> He does, and it forms the foundation of the book "How to be an Antiracist"
Did you read the book? The foundation of the book is right in the title: to fight racism it's not enough to be not racist, one must be antiracist. The book is about defining this term and explaining that premise. The book makes a lot of points, some good, some strained, but I don't believe "racial discrimination is necessary" is one of them. I'd challenge you to find some quotes that support your position. And no, the one you already quoted does not fit the bill.
> And by backing Kendi, you are backing a racist.
Point in fact I was defending a specific point you raised, not "backing" anybody.
> Why would we ever want the government to participate in racial discrimination though?
I wouldn't and you wouldn't, but some people have wanted this in a misguided way.
> I don't believe "racial discrimination is necessary" is one of them.
Did you read the book?
Racial equity (as opposed to racial equality) by definition requires racial discrimination. There is no other way to achieve the "desired" equitable outcomes other than racial preferences. It's a point acknowledged in Kendi's work along with every other "antiracist" author of note.
Yes, and I did not get your interpretation at all. Considering the fact that in our discussion you've misrepresented a quote from Kendi, and built strawmen to argue points never made by Kendi or myself (to the point you couldn't even recognize my argument, instead favoring to argue against the strawman you've built), I'm wondering if you haven't strawmanned the entire book.
In a previous post I asked you to substantiate your argument with quotes from the book, but you haven't. If you don't want to substantiate your argument I think we're done here.
> Racial equity (as opposed to racial equality) by definition requires racial discrimination.
This idea is unrecognizable to me. It seems more like a caricature of what progressives and anti-racists believe than what they actually believe (which is a common thread that unifies your posts). If we want to try at a definition, here's one as good as any:
"Racial equity is a process of eliminating racial disparities and improving outcomes for everyone."
"Racial equity is achieved when race no longer factors into or determines one’s socioeconomic outcomes. It is when everyone has what they need to thrive, no matter where they live or how they identify."
So we have a definition for racial equity used by a notable antiracist org (united way) that explicitly says racial equity is achieved in through an absence of racial discrimination, not through it.
Again, bring some quotes or some other source to support your position and we can have a discussion.
> There is no other way to achieve the "desired" equitable outcomes other than racial preferences.
You also insisted that the only way to determine someone's race is to use a color chart (and also your view of race is very narrow -- it's not about skin tone), so I think your imagination is lacking. In fact if you actually listen to anti-racists (which is distinct from pretending to listen and then putting the words in their mouths you wish they had said), you'd hear that equity is achieved through anti-racism, which is not just reflected racism as you are claiming.
> "Racial equity is a process of eliminating racial disparities and improving outcomes for everyone."
Uh huh. Now show us how you change racial disparities without using racial preferences/discrimination. By definition, it's not possible. Policies have to consider race first and tilt scales in order to achieve these objectives.
I'd encourage you to try and find some actual examples that run counter to this, and see for yourself.
Honestly no, elementary thru highschool is not the same as intellectual free wheeling college. Lower levels are there to teach you the basics needed to survive they are not there to present sexual ideas to kids and challenge social norms. Parents are free to educate their kids outside of school how they want. I'm fine with elementary school kids not learning about homosexuality and transexuality. I actually voted Republican for the first time in my life to support this bill.
You are allowed to insult brown people of other faiths without repercussion. Honestly there are only two faiths that can get you cancelled with a high degree of success. To phrase this as some anti-christian white-only intifada is dis-genuine.
The fact that people describing themselves as progressive are fighting to forbid blasphemy has got to be the worst “freedom is slavery” newspeak in the last decade. When did it become acceptable for one sect to dictate what we are allowed to talk about? They are the enthusiastic useful idiots for dark age theocrats, the exact translation of our despicable white nationalists and Christian supremacists.
That is unfortunately a feature of modern-day progressivism. There are a number of other 'blasphemies' that it condemns (that are actually often censored on HN too, in the name of civility) as well.
I miss the progressivism of old, where there was more of an emphasis on tolerance even when one disagrees.
Yeah the more I learn about history in my spare time, the more corollaries I see with medieval papal censorship and suppression of freedom of thought, and some movements today going in that direction.
I yearn for the, looking back, somewhat balanced days where not everyone was head deep in politics, and we could have useful debates about maybe health care or national budget, without degenerating into blanket character attacks. Then after the debate, everyone is at least cordial.
Just finished the first season of white lotus. Did not expect to see some good dichotomies of two generations interacting with one another (re: the scuba family)
Well, if it makes you feel any better, I would describe myself as progressive, and I think the actions of the university —letting the professor go, if described accurately in the article — were clearly ludicrous and indefensible, and I can’t think of a single one of my friends or acquaintances who would think otherwise.
> The fact that people describing themselves as progressive are fighting to forbid blasphemy has got to be the worst “freedom is slavery” newspeak in the last decade.
Thankfully this isn't happening, so crisis averted I guess.
If Muslims are not OK with their religion and its figures being talked about in ways that are not within the rules of their religion, they shouldn't bring it up, and we should act as if it doesn't exist. You think your prophet was righteous? I don't care, I can't talk about him anyway, so it won't be part of my world of ideas. This has been my position on this topic since I got scolded by a Muslim for not referring to Islam's prophet with the obligatory "s.a.s."
If LGBTQ are not OK with their gender and the movement's figureheads being talked about in ways that are not within the rules of their safe spaces, they shouldn't be shoving it down everyone's throats constantly, and we should act as if they don't exist. You think being LGBTQ is important? I don't care, I can't talk about them anyway, so it won't be part of my world of ideas. This has been my position on this topic since I got scolded by some transgender person for not referring to them by their preferred pronouns.
The intolerance that many trans-rights activists show to those who don't accept that a man with a 'female gender identity' is a woman is similar to the intolerance that many followers of Islam show to non-believers.
No-one on the gender critical side has been beheaded yet, but there is a surprisingly large "kill the terfs" movement that parallels the extremism of Islamists.
They aren't committing atrocities because they don't have the resources for that, not because they are ethical and chose not to. Weakness is not a virtue, we shouldn't give them credit for it.
What makes you come to the conclusion that they would "commit atrocities"? On the one hand there is constant and widespread violence perpetrated against the LGBTQ, on the other there are vague threats by a couple of anonymous accounts, and your conclusion is that "they aren't committing atrocities because they don't have the resources"? I find this comment really insensitive, to say the least.
Let me rephrase it: they were not given a choice of committing something or not, so we don't know what they would choose if they were. I'm not saying they would (I see now that my comment can be read as if I did), I'm just saying that not having this choice is not a virtue.
It's like if someone said the Elon Musk is bad because he invested X amount of money into Y, and I'm better because I didn't (suppose I'm broke and I spend my days in a basement playing games). The "I'm better part" is flawed because we don't know what I would do if I was given his choice.
What you're reading as "intolerance" is likely a defense and self-preservation mechanism.
Let's put this whole subthread in perspective. Someone told a story about how they "got scolded" and then two replies later the conversation has drifted to the idea that LGBTQ don't exist, their movement parallels one of the most inflammatory boogeymen you can use in US political discourse, and the only reason they haven't come for our heads yet is because they aren't powerful enough. The conversation usually drifts from here to "Well how do we stop them from getting power?", at which point it gets really ugly. It's a subtle move from "these LGBTQ don't even exist" to "these LGBTQ shouldn't exist", and unfortunately we've seen the consequences of that kind of thinking more often recently. The usual solutions are: make their existence illegal through the political system we control, or exterminate them with violence.
And this gets me back to the defense mechanism. It's unfortunate, I agree. In a better world there would be room for nuance and polite discussion to foster understanding. Unfortunately in the real world, things go really quickly from a misunderstanding to actual violence. The real kind, not the suspected kind. So to prevent that real violence, you get a "nip this at the bud" kind of responses to things that may be benign or just a misunderstanding. Unfortunately deadnaming and misgendering are followed often enough by violence, that even when it's not intentional the response can be harsh. The sad part is that this way of interacting is not productive for anyone, but survival mechanisms are usually a last resort, not something meant to be polite.
I'm sincerely sorry that my comment on a totally unrelated topic has led to such comments; if I had known that someone would bring up a supposed similarity with LGBTQ struggles I would have completely refrained from commenting. I guess deleting the original comment now doesn't make sense either.
There's a difference though: You were talking about them, and not some public figure you are supposed to be following. When you are talking about me to my face, I'd really like you to use the proper form of address, otherwise you are insisting on being disrespectful.
So, imagine your grandfather was in the nazi camps, he struggles to stay alive every day, he doesn't lie, cheat, or do anyone wrong, he does stand his ground, he defends the weak, feeds the poor even if it's his own food, how would you feel if someone mocked him in your face? called him a warlord, a traitor, a nazi associate, made derogatory cartoons of him etc.
And this just doesn't come close to what he did and the battles he fought and the pain he's been through, all done to praise God and obey his commands, all to spread the message of God to the world, and he's been reciting a verse about the Idols and how they've wasted a lot of lives along with another verse, and he cries and raises his hands to the sky saying: Oh God my people, my people.
as in "God I am afraid for my people".
Not sure why any Muslim would scold you about that, as far as I am aware it's not obligatory but strongly encouraged
This encouragement doesn't apply to non-Muslims, like at all.
I think there are shortcomings on our side speaking of explaining our religion to the western audience but trust me it's not easy because any conservative Sunni Muslim who speaks out is being silenced and you're being left with Shia and liberal Muslims, and you're not going to get anything related to Islam from these people, for now you can follow Daniel Haqiqatjou and Sheikh Uthman Ibn farook.
One final thing I have to clarify is, Shia aren't representatives of Islam, why? simple as their books are based on dreams this is the short version, the long version is something you have to research for yourself.
Is Islam at all compatible with secular values in the same country?
In the end, you will have one of the two encompass the other. Either you have a secular country living by democratic, progressive law which allows people to be Muslims modulo this. Or you have a Muslim country living by Shariah law, but tolerating secular non-believers in it.
First won't work because Muslims (in the traditional sense) won't tolerate some other framework encompassing their worldview. They have taboo topics nobody should ever question, and secular ideology based on science will question things.
And second won't work because Shariah law gives very concrete directions on dealing with non-believers.
Please point out every comment I made in this thread and then point out which of those comments made “wild assumptions” and how they are “wild” based on the content of the comment being replied to.
Also, defamation does not mean what you think it means.
> Is Islam at all compatible with secular values in the same country?
It is. There are plenty of more or less practising Muslims who behave perfectly well and are strongly opposed to theocracy. In the same way that there are plenty of white Christians who don’t feel the urge to take a gun and mow down blasphemers.
> And second won't work because Shariah law gives very concrete directions on dealing with non-believers.
It’s a false dichotomy. Lots of Muslims do not believe that Shariah law should be applied. On the Christian side there have been debates for centuries about this sort of issue, and pretty much nobody believes that the laws in the Old Testament should be applied or have any relevance nowadays. By painting the whole of Islam as being one simple shade of fundamentalism, we contribute to making the situation worse. People need to realise that there are old Muslim traditions that don’t advocate for stoning people, and that what we take for standard Islam is the creed of a particular cult and not universal.
To underline the point, nearly half of American Catholics are pro-choice. Religions really aren't a monolith, even when the stern Official Doctrine is quite clear.
> pretty much nobody believes that the laws in the Old Testament should be applied or have any relevance nowadays.
The Ten Commandments are in the Old Testament, and there are lots of conservative Christians in the U.S. trying to get them posted in courtrooms and public school classrooms.
> Lots of Muslims do not believe that Shariah law should be applied.
I feel that one big difference of Islam is that it makes the rules very explicit, from how the government should be organized to the last detail of how you should wash your hands (and how often). Christianity, on the other hand, has very few concrete regulations, but instead a ton of metaphysical, mystical and ethical things from which people are trying to deduce those regulations.
So Christianity was easier to steer away from being a concrete manual for life to being a philosophical thing, a matter of choice that people who live within secular ethical framework can voluntarily practice. My question is, if you do the same to Islam will it still be Islam given how deeply the practical instructions are ebedded in it?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, I have a rather rudimentary education in both topics.
"Christianity, on the other hand, has very few concrete regulations"
Well, have a look in the old Testament then.
There are very explicit rules about how to treat homosexuals and heretics for example and they are not nice.
(I like the brick testament - famous bible quotes illustrated with Lego stones)
So it is really not that simple. But the basic comparison between Jesus and Muhammed, well the one seemed to be mostly a love preaching hippie and the other mainly a warlord. But I know I have met Muslims who were devout believers, but who would never use violence, except to defend themself.
And also doesn't Christianity give some good excuses to question or review these? Especially, considering that New Testament builds up on top of the Old Testament. I'm asking about the stuff around the quotes you've shown (otherwise we could fall for confirmation bias).
Please understand me correctly. I'm not saying Christianity doesn't have cruel or bad things. I'm saying it doesn't give one concrete, final, unchangeable set of rules. With Christian rules, it's easier to find excuse to augment or re-interpret them. I'm not saying there's no rules.
"I'm saying it doesn't give one concrete, final, unchangeable set of rules."
Like I said, it is complicated and up for debate. I have heard many conflicting viewpoints about it. Some take the whole bible literal, including the literal laws of the old testament - and they are not just a few, but many, many explicit laws about everything.
More are mainly literal about the 10 commandments. And for some the only law is Jesus saying: "Love other people like yourself".
Since being raised catholic, I know quite a lot about the bible and less about the coran, but as far as I understand "With Christian rules, it's easier to find excuse to augment or re-interpret them." this is possible there as well, as Mohammed also said conflicting things, was softer in the beginning and harsher in the end, so you can also pick what you like. Hijab for example is not an explicite rule. And about Homosexuals, well, you probably won't find anything tolerant in the coran about it, but I think you won't find something in the bible either. What matters to me, is what people are doing.
> And also doesn't Christianity give some good excuses to question or review these? Especially, considering that New Testament builds up on top of the Old Testament. I'm asking about the stuff around the quotes you've shown (otherwise we could fall for confirmation bias).
To some extent, yes. Also, there is a long tradition of theological debates in Christianity, right from the beginning. Christians are much more comfortable with the idea that the Bible should not be taken literally.
Of course, there are 2 points that show up immediately when you say that. First, some Christians are literal fundamentalists so a long tradition is not enough. Second, Islam also has a long tradition of theological debates, and many different views and movements. I am not familiar enough with the History of Islam in the 20th century, but the fact is that there are lots of aspects that we associate with the religion without second thoughts that are actually Wahabbi practices. The rules against sex and alcohol are no less strict in the Old Testament than in the Quran. There is no reason why Islam would have to be more literal than any Christianism.
> With Christian rules, it's easier to find excuse to augment or re-interpret them. I'm not saying there's no rules.
That’s because we let a fundamentalist sect (well, mostly 2) redefine a whole religion.
That’s a bit disingenuous. It’s easy to see who is Muslim and who is not: you just need to ask them. I don’t see a reason to say they aren’t when they identify themselves that way and believe in that religion. I am not saying that only moderates are true Muslims, just that there are more believers than the fundamentalists.
> Not every Italian eats Tagliatelle and joins the Mafia but it's still an Italian recipe.
I’d be surprised if Italians were the majority of tagliatelle-eating people these days.
Wahhabism is a view of the religion. It is the mirror image of Christian supremacism, just with a different book and different sound bites but with the same goal of subjugation. I would not say that all Christians are murderers, either.
> Is Islam at all compatible with secular values in the same country?
Yes it is. I don't know about Shariah law, but all muslims I know are just like anybody else. I think you're conflating some zealots with a large group of people who are mostly secular (just like lots of christians don't do anything christian besides celebrating Christmas and the occasional funeral at the church). The real issue here is some school administrators bending over because a fanatic complained.
> In India, a Lady, Nupur Sharma merely quote the Hadith about Mohammad's marriage to Aisha and she had to go underground.
This is not equivalent to the case in question (to be clear about my stand, I think the firing of the lecturer was completely wrong). However, there are few things to consider in Nupur Sharma case:
1. Nupur Sharma is not a random Lady, she was the spokesperson of the ruling party BJP. As part of the ruling party, she had the responsibility of acting as is appropriate for a national-level party member. More so as being the spokesperson, her views could be seen as the views of the party. See point #3 on why this is relevant.
2. Her comments were not part of some art history or philosophical discussion. By her own admittance, she couldn't accept the insulting of Hindu god Shiva and retaliated by making comments about prophet Mohammad.
3. Her comments were not made within the confines of a classroom where free academic discussion is paramount; she went on three national TV channels and basically tried to make the same comments deliberately knowing well that in a deeply religious country like India, such actions have far reaching consequences. My personal view is that one should be free to insult any god, Hindu or Muslim or any other religion; however, practicality demands that care should be exercised by members of political parties on such public platforms (if she was a Muslim leader who insulted a Hindu god, the point would still stand i.e. her behavior was irresponsible).
My comment points out the difference between the two incidents i.e. the lecturer's behavior was NOT irresponsible and Nupur Sharma's was. Death threats are not justified in either case under any circumstances.
I don't think this belongs on Hacker News. It's an issue worth discussion, but it's an a category of general controversial news that gets plenty of discussion elsewhere. Also there is no technical, scientific, or engineering context to it.
Anything as prominent in humanity and history as religion is certainly that. However, flamewars destroy intellectual interest (put bluntly, they're predictable, nasty and dumb), and it's nearly impossible for a large community to discuss religion without religious flamewar (the most predictable, nastiest, and dumbest of all flamewar). That's unfortunately the other issue with stories like this, besides the run-of-the-mill controversy that you correctly point out.
i believe that flagging my comment was not an attempt to avoid flamewars, but plain censorship of a honest intellectual question that any society taking a stance, against or in favor of multiculturalism (that is, hosting non-integrated completely different cultures within its borders), must confront sooner of later when things like this lecturer's ordeal start happening.
The article was a concrete instance of the abstract dilemma i posed in my comment, so it was on-topic and necessary imho.
You can call it censorship if you want—people mostly use that word nowadays to express a feeling—but the moderation point is that you plainly broke HN's rules with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34298516, and doing that will get you banned here.
Not sure why it's a fireable offence since precautions were taken. Give a strike or whatever and debate it's relevance to the course of "art history".
I don't think the painting itself is significant, it could just be referenced. The context of why the painting is banned inside of Islam is relevant as previously there was a lot of idol worship and even nowadays figureheads like Jesus are now claimed to be God, stuff like "Jesus is Lord". But this moves more into theology than art history now.
Reminds me a bit of Kanye being banned on the new free speech platform Twitter and people saying it wasn't an actual Swastika, it was an UFO cult symbol, it being tied to the older peace symbol of Hinduism etc.
Well, when I said relevant or not relevant, significant or whatever, I mean in terms of the class "art history".
It's not like any of the painting depictions had any notable art styles nor new techniques, from what I can tell. So I think it crosses moreso into the intersection of religion and art, that's why historical context becomes relevant. If you deem context irrelevant then why include any of it unless the art has some different quality about it?
I think there was art novelty with the decorations of churches and mosques though.
293 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 342 ms ] threadDoes that mean that virtually all Western art is islamaphobic?
At what point does the demand that Western art doesn't do something that offend Islam itself become westernphobic.
The standard response is that there can be no such thing as Westernphobia because the West is powerful and Islam is weak, just as there can be no such thing as anti-white racism because whites are powerful and nonwhites are weak.
I am not at all racist, my best friend has dark skin, but I also can't help but notice that on social networks there's always that black* group/tag/community never do you see white,red, yellow, only ever black. I do find that quite racist and exclusive. If we're all the same, why does such distinction exist?
It's not all about race and sexuality.
Non property owners are discriminated against?
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
Look for the etymology of the term "slave". You will be surprised.
That is not remotely true, if I log into Reddit I can find subreddits with white, black, Spanish, German, Japanese, Indian, French, Jamaican, etc. topics as well several subcategories such as Valencian etc. I am not sure what or where you are looking.
I don’t think Native Americans go by red or East Asian people yellow as well honestly. What social networks are banning you?
There is a heterosexual flag here if you need one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_flag
You're wrong about that; the Chinese do refer to themselves as yellow. (It's not a native tradition there - it's taken from the old Western taxonomy. But it's still current.)
If you want me to treat you equally, you need to hold us both as equals, anything less is hypocrisy.
Right or wrong, that's the context.
One fact of religious tolerance is that one person will inevitably view as sacred something that another person views as stupid. Drawing lines around certain practices is a challenging task for society as a whole. I personally don't believe that reducing everything to "fascism" is productive.
Your suggestion that people be deported to Iran or Afghanistan is among the most common racist retorts against Muslim people and indicates a lack of tolerance for what is in reality a fairly complicated issue that can only be solved by mutual respect.
That's the point. This student obviously doesn't have any respect for the country and the culture he's currently living in. He has a point to make and a war to wage.
And that's not xenophobic to say that; I've hosted an Afghan refugees for months. I didn't try to feed him pork, and he didn't try to stab me for eating ham or not praying for Allah. There are decent people everywhere. You can be an oppressed refugee, and still be a fascistic, intolerant moron; you can be a white cis male billionaire and still be a good person (this one's tough though). Being a victim buys you no moral superiority at all. Being a decent person only does.
Regarding your experience with a refugee...doing good isn't a cache of poker chips. You can't justify judging a person today based on using something good that you said/did yesterday.
I don't think it's right to say something along the lines of "we might as well send this Sudanese person to Afghanistan for objecting to an image depicting something they consider sacrilegious."
I think you are wrong to frame the situation as a renegade student who is out to wage war. This (along with "if they don't like it, deport em") is a pretty common racist trope that is used to put Muslims down. Not saying that's your intent.
Religious freedom in the US is usually viewed in a way that differs from Europe (esp. France). Rather than forcing people to act or think secularly, Americans try to respect other people's boundaries as they are. It's a fundamentally different concept. No idea where you're from, but based on your attitude toward the meaning of "mutual respect" I'm guessing France.
It is likely that a Sudanese Muslim will view a depiction of the Muslim prophet as impermissible, and that a Persian Muslim will not. Why conflate the two?
There's more context in the school newspaper. [0] "'I am showing you this image for a reason. And that is that there is this common thinking that Islam completely forbids, outright, any figurative depictions or any depictions of holy personages. While many Islamic cultures do strongly frown on this practice, I would like to remind you there is no one, monothetic Islamic culture,' the professor said before changing to the slide that included these depictions."
The lecturer was aware that the images would be considered by many Muslims as forbidden. The head of the university's Muslim Students' Association was in the class. The lecture was on video and undoubtedly reviewed by the administration before they chose to let the adjunct professor go.
To me, it seems like this was a self-own by the lecturer rather than some kind of "war" waged (as you put it) by a student.
[0] https://hamlineoracle.com/10750/news/who-belongs/
I think intolerant religion must not be tolerated in an open society. I think that a society has absolutely no obligation to try to be amenable and welcoming to any ideology. When I travel in a Muslim country, I don't go around at noon during Ramadan eating ham sandwiches and drinking beer. That student is doing exactly that. She's literally spitting in the face of the country that hosts and educates her.
Yes, the professor may have tried to teach her students about the complexity of the world. That's the very definition of her job, after all!
The next step for a person like this student ends in a Samuel Paty or Charlie Hebdo. My advice is to deport her back to her miserable, war-torn, fascistic backward country she shouldn't have left.
Tolerance is great, but must be with at least a modicum of reciprocation. As Paul Claudel said "Tolerance? There are houses for that."
The Bible however, does actually forbid it: Exodus 20:4
I seem to remember that Jehovas Witnesses actually practice this as they take the words of the Bible literally.
I’m by no way an expert on theology, mainly interested on a hobby level, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
As evidence, consider the vast number of practicing Jews and Christians who were or are artists. Also consider the vast number of churches which have artwork (like stained glass and statues).
In Exodus 25:18-20, on the other hand, God commands Moses to carve statues for a religious purpose: two cherubim which would sit atop the Ark of the Covenant.
Notice that these angelic images were to serve such an exalted purpose (not because the statues themselves were in any way intrinsically exalted but because of the use to which they would be put) that God was very exacting in the instructions he gave Moses as to the materials to be used and the posture in which they were to be carved.
Similar divine commands to carve statues and embroider images of various religious objects are found in Exodus 21:6-9, Numbers 21:6-9, 1 Kings 6:23-28, and 1 Kings 7:23- 39. In each case, the statue or embroidered image was intended by God for a religious use.
Although the worship of anything, not just statues, in place of the True God is idolatry, there are times when statues are not just tolerable but recommended.
Just as those Old Testament statues were ordered fashioned by God to reminded the Israelites of heavenly realities, Catholic statues of Jesus and the angels and the saints serve the same purpose.”
If it were to be implemented in full in any of our Western societies today, it would result in a misogynistic, brutal, intolerant regime that infringes severely on what we understand as universal human rights. Just look at Afghanistan for an example. We should definitely be "phobic" of this.
Similar to fundamental Christianity then?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10655679/Teacher-30...
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20211015-the-violence-sho...
Remember that in US this happened not a long time ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabbing_of_Salman_Rushdie
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad#Conte...
According to a perverted, fundamentalist view of Islam. Islam is much more diverse than Iran and Saudi Arabia. The fact that they manage to impose their sectarian practices as standard Islam in much of the world is very problematic.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/04/30/the-worlds-m...
> In most regions, fewer favor other specific aspects of sharia, such as cutting off the hands of thieves and executing people who convert from Islam to another faith.
Just as most Christians believe that Christian values should guide the law of the land they live in and just as most Christians don't support setting bears on children that mock priests.
I’m not Christian (anymore) but I’m pretty sure this isn’t a thing in canon law.
In contrast, the major strains of Islam are refreshingly clear in their treatment of apostates and unbelievers. Even a “kinder, gentler” interpretation retains the seeds of this dogma unless it rejects the Quran, which Islam holds to be the literal word of God. If you don’t hold with that, you’re not Muslim by definition.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
On top of that, it is the religion that gets in unproportional amount of media time in every european country due to all the problems it represents.
UK Census 2021 (England and Wales): https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/cultural...
Why? In Spain either you converted to Christianism 500 years ago or you got expelled. Most of Moors which came into Iberia where from modern Morocco origin and a few from Algeria. And a lot of them have "interesting" beliefs, such as drinking in private.
Also, every Moroccan has satellite TV and for sure they follow the Spanish soccer Liga.
They are very aware of Flamenco in Andalusia and the tiling from toilet rooms, which are the same in Andalusia and Morocco, or pretty close. Thus, they get assimilated fast in Spain to the Western values.
In the case of Germany is probably because they received a lot of Turkish workers after WWII.
I'm French and there were many muslim kids in my school when I was a kid (a few decades back). This type of "incident" didn't happen in those days. I don't remember religion ever being an issue. These kids would often respect ramadan and not eat pork, but this was the only visible religious thing, and nobody really cared about it.
I don't know what exactly has changed, who are the extremists and where they got their ideas, but something has changed.
As for this art piece, I think it would certainly cause some controversy. I'm a Muslim myself, and afaik depictions of living beings are discouraged, and depictions of the Prophet (PBUH) are a no-no (though perhaps I should mention that I do believe firing that teacher was absolutely the wrong decision, and what she did was not at all an instance of Islamophobia).
Beyond that, there is little to suggest that Islam explicitly forbids art depicting humans. In the case of prophets though, I think it is discouraged (by muslims) largely to prevent misattributing features or misrepresenting them (and of course, mockery as well).
I should add, there is probably a bit of miscommunication when people use the term "Islamic art". Some may mean art that does not violate Islamic principles (whatever those may be to them), others may take it to refer specifically to the typical aniconistic style of art that has now become synonymous with "Islamic art" (at least that's what I, admittedly, thought of in my previous comment), or perhaps art originating from muslim territories / made by muslims, etc.
Just as an example, in sunnism even the grave of the prophet Mohammed (pbuh) is basically completely anonymous and unremarkable, to the point where you wouldn't know about it even if you were right in front of it. That's to avoid any grave worshiping, or ritualistic "pilgrimage."
Shiism, on the other hand, involves a LOT of rituals around saint worshipping, huge shrines, and important relics. Because of that, representations of saints and even the prophet are a lot, lot less problematic (and even mainstream, with portraits of Husayn being common in religious ceremonies). Even then, Persian art was historically even less restrictive than the mainstream modern shia tendency of not really representing the prophet itself anymore.
Now, you might say that this proves Ken White's point, but it really doesn't!. The reality is that for most muslims, sunnism being the biggest denomination by far, there is really no debate that this type of representation is completely forbidden. There is also virtually no disagreement on the subject between the different sunni branches (who usually are pretty similar in general anyways). The only rift is between sunnis and shias, but it is so wide that it makes no sense to even lump the two groups together in this conversation. It's not just a sectarian disagreement over interpretation that could be open for debate, it's almost two completely different approaches and beliefs.
So basically those "specific sects" would basically include 99.99% of practicing sunnis, all branches of sunnism, and every sunni religious authority. That's more than 80-85% of muslims, including shias. So there is definitely some universality of opinion here.
Dunno if I agree all Islamic art doesnt depic humans, that does not agree with what I've seen in museums. Also, since it's a representation of an event that occurred in islam, I thin kit's not entirely unfair to say it's "islamic art" even if it was created by a Persian jew.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TMHIYDHMSE
"If there's anything we have learned, is that terrorizing works"
"If you don't want people to make fun of you anymore, all you need are guns and bombs"
Schools should be too ( only partial now)
Not sure if the professor felt existential about it but she said:
“I am showing you this image for a reason. And that is that there is this common thinking that Islam completely forbids, outright, any figurative depictions or any depictions of holy personages. While many Islamic cultures do strongly frown on this practice, I would like to remind you there is no one, monothetic Islamic culture,”
https://hamlineoracle.com/10750/news/who-belongs/
Some cultures are just more violent ( eg. Look at fifa world cup and marocco people through Europe).
Are you denying that they are more violent?
"or"
I don't think this attitude suitable in the diverse community where there are different ethnics or religons. People should care what the other find things unconfortable and should be aware that what you think acceptable is may not so for the others.
Of course if you mean let them do their own things and you do not mean offense or insult them, I thank you for your understanding.
Edit: to clarify what I mean.
What I mean, you shoud consider to stop yourself before you do things that controversial. Or do you keep silence if other people do things that you find offensive? Some other may not keep silence and may resort violence, and it is not limited to islam. Once again, I do not like violence or oppression when we can avoid those by respecting each others and talks nicely when any conflict happens.
Edit: typo and be more clear
Those who push their religious views on others and also use their religion to justify violence are extremely minority, majority of muslims do not do those things. And "bad muslims" always in those media or news because who would read articles about "nice muslim". So you should know what I mean.
And insulting *any* religions is not acceptable and deserve to be punished. As for beheading punishment though, I do not have enough knowledge to comment about it.
Why?
I believe all religions are a bunch of bullshit. Almost all of them regard this belief as a mortal insult. Should I get punished for that?
The only tenable way to treat religions in a liberal democracy is like any other belief. You get full freedom to practice any one you want, or none of them, or even more than one at the same time for all I care, but you don't get any special status or moral authority.
You may believe in no religion, but I don't think you should say that in public. Especially in front of any religius person you say "your religion is bullshit!".
> Should I get punished for that?
Maybe if that as insult to others.
> The only tenable way to treat religions in a liberal democracy is like any other belief. You get full freedom to practice any one you want, or none of them, or even more than one at the same time for all I care, but you don't get any special status or moral authority.
I agree to this point. But you do not automatically have right to insult other's believe.
If you want to protect "good Muslims", you need to accept liberal values that include being able to "insult" a religion without fear of violent attack.
> As for beheading punishment though, I do not have enough knowledge to comment about it.
What the fuck does this even mean? You think there's some conceivable situation where it's justified to react to "being insulted" with a beheading? You can fuck right off with the rest of the extremists.
Sure enough we do not need law about this. But should we actively offending others because we do not agree to them when we can go by beeing nice each other. Even if we do not share what is critism what is insult, I apologize if you feel offended.
> If you want to protect "good Muslims", you need to accept liberal values that include being able to "insult" a religion without fear of violent attack
Even if there is no violence, anyone should not insult others. And anyone who do violence or murder should be punished by law.
≥ You think there's some conceivable situation where it's justified to react to "being insulted" with a beheading?
No, I think there's no conceivable situation where it's justified to react to "being insulted" with a beheading.
> You can fuck right off with the rest of the extremists.
When I ask anyone to be nice to each other is extremist, well sorry.
Of course violence and terrorist is not right regardless of any reason.
As for punishment, I don't mean death punishment. At max should be jail or fine.
So the question needs to be cast in another light, sure. It's a hard problem that isn't solved by calling on an ideology.
You don't get to decide how somebody else is going to react to something, you only get to decide if you care.
You don't get to tell them to stop believing in Islam because they're in a country where that is a minority belief, you only get to decide if you care about offending them.
In this specific case, the lecturer clearly did care - she warned before the course and shortly before the lecture moved to showing that image. That's the issue here, not whether displaying the image was contentious or not: she showed due diligence and her faculty decided it was insufficient. So what would have been sufficient?
That we can have a debate about, but some BS about "western values" and a strawman argument about "submitting" to "superstitions" is not even worth me caring about, other than to call you out as making a statement completely typical of far right-wing xenophobes and racists. Please don't do that here.
This story is about overbearing administrators infringing on academic freedoms, not Islam vs Western Values. But a lot of people have the Islam v The West hammer, so they’re going to use it in this nail.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
>That we can have a debate about, but some BS about "western values" and a strawman argument about "submitting" to "superstitions" is not even worth me caring about, ...
Difficult to have an argument about after the fact. "You are free to leave" seems to be the exact argument that was made, beyond that there is no argument that would have been sufficient. If that's not enough, it is because of superstition, for lack of a better word. And this caused a panic reaction. It would be superstition even if the sides were switched and Feedome of Speech were the deeply held, now insulted believe that would include for example showing religious imagery in class (often forbidden in school charters to create a neutral environment).
From what I read I guess that Freiheit der Lehre (freedom of lecturing) is fairly constrained and lecturers are generally treated not with the same respect as a professor for whom they work. So it is to some a degree a systematic, institutional proble about powerstructures. Not worth the risk can become either you are not worth it, subjectively, or you are btter than that, optimistically speaking. Now I don't have a cromulent quote handy on collectively held believes. Suppose there is no mainstream concensus on that.
What this firing, and events like it, demonstrate is that there is a zero sum game where foundational beliefs are concerned. Here, the game is between liberalism and (this form of) Islam. If the professor isn’t punished, liberalism wins. If the teacher is punished, this Islam wins. You can’t accommodate both. An Achilles’ heel of liberalism is the notion that it can accommodate everyone, that liberalism is some kind of neutral absence of beliefs that can somehow accommodate fundamental differences and become the basis of a universal society of Man rooted in nothing. Vulgar consumerism has tried to fill that void, but appetite is no basis for a society, to put it mildly.
For example, somebody, somewhere, could have created a forum for a more socratic method to discuss these images and people's reactions to them to help improve understanding on all sides.
Saying "I'm going to do something offensive, and if you're offended that's your problem because I've told you, and I've told you I don't care about that offence", is about as constructive as a response of "I have been offended, and even though I was warned I was about to be offended and did not take the appropriate measures I was offered to protect myself from that offence, I will complain that I was offended".
Rhetoric (in the philosophical teaching sense), is a hell of a move to double down on when you're dealing with topics where the discussion itself can have real consequences.
It is not a "tired liberal relativist platitude" to suggest that a contributory cause of the issue here was all sides involved stopped caring about consequences to others, and instead all erred towards self preservation while maintaining an insistence that rhetoric will work and dialectism would fail.
Self-preservation might be rational as a mammalian instinct, but in a philosophical setting (and a lecture touching on images of theological subjects surely is such a context), it's that conservatism that is tired and relativist: true liberalism (not libertarianism), was the essential lightning rod that was missing from the conversation.
I'll be sure to ask the gays
No horse in the race but I find it important to try to understand the perspective from all sides.
Apparently its similar to showing a swastika or hail hitler. People have been punished for that as well: https://www.thefire.org/cases/george-washington-university-j...
Not just Wolfenstein 3D, the same thing happened even with the Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus
But that law was retarded and they recently repealed it. It's now okay to depict fictional nazis and nazi iconography even in Germany.
Swastikas are not acceptable, but very few have any strong personal feelings about it. The prophet of this ideology, however, is like a (glorified) family member to 1/4 of the world's population, and you can very easily get killed for depicting him. The most recent and well-known case was the stabbing of Salman Rushdie.
Swastika is welcome, the nazi version of it isn't.
The better and most appropriate term is Hakenkreuz, that the Nazis themselves used.
I dunno if that is quite right! Context matters.
This would not have caused problem in Malayasia, Maldives, Indonesia, Bahrain, among many other countries.
I hope this bit doesn’t get lost in the conversation. Tenure seems to be extremely hard to get, even for very smart people who (in my opinion) fully deserved it.
It's not, which is why many schools are moving away from tenured faculty and more toward contract instructors. They're paid like regular faculty (not pennies like adjuncts) but aren't on a tenure track. 3-5 year contracts give better job security than a typical job, but not a guaranteed job for life.
That is easy to say when you don't have family. Children don't do well being pulled out of school and moved to different school, they can suffer academically, emotionally and socially from having their lives disrupted. Then you have to consider your spouses career.
More like "if one arbitrary student (of no particular description) can cause this much damage, how much damage can multiple like-minded students (of any particular alliance) cause?" And that question would apply to secularists Muslims Christians etc. equally.
Not necessarily "if one Muslim can do this, how much damage can lots of Muslims do?"
But maybe I'm wrong? I could see how you got that impression upon rereading the comment.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It seems like it. It seems like the university didn’t even clearly understand that Muslims are divided on this topic before taking action.
> Liberal institutions in the west have begun to increasingly yield to the demands of extremist minority views and doing so only emboldens them. You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country but everyone else is a protected class.
This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points.
I beg to differ, this is exactly my impression, too.
https://torontosun.com/life/rutgers-professor-calls-white-pe...
Or Drexel:
https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/health/drexel-professor-white...
Or Yale:
https://news.yahoo.com/psychiatrist-delivered-lecture-yale-d...
But say things that are embarrassing yet true of minority students at Georgetown, and you’ll be fired and disowned by the college in under 48 hours:
https://news.yahoo.com/georgetown-law-professor-fired-over-1...
The Yale link was about a lecture given by someone not affiliated with the University.
> you’ll be fired and disowned by the college in under 48 hours:
Yes, much easier to do with adjuncts compared to tenured professors.
The liberals can be overreaching about such matters, but I personally think racial slurs shouldn't be tolerated a lot.
This is just my 2 cents on the subject.
The problem isn't much about racism, it is about some people act like jerks. And people can be jerks with or without racism.
sometimes things escalate and this same random jerk might murder you if they think there is a high chance they will escape the justice system because you're basically a subhuman under the new laws that these lighthearted racists passed.
You can't make everyone good and decent, but you can for sure punish the racists and limit their access to power and that's what banning does in this case.
That’s not the point, though. Turning this into a “what about the white men!” whinge is blatantly misrepresenting this scenario as the result of “modern progressivism” when it’s actually something else.
I believe that you’re not going to find many proponents of the sort of progressivism that the “white about the white men!?”crowd fight against, that are actually in favour of this decision. Furthermore I believe that you’d find plenty that are against it.
Around the proponents of this ideology are concentric circles of people making misguided attempts to “capitulate to this PC culture”, often as an ass-covering tactic. By the time you get to a layperson perceiving ‘the culture’, it’s a xerox of a xerox of a xerox created by various corporate HR, PR, and marketing departments. Then, of course, you’ve got the people revolting against Big Org #836 mandating wearing pronoun pins in the office when that’s clearly not something any trans person would advocate for. The collective facepalming at misguided attempts to pander to “LGBTQIA+” is a big part of the current queer community / culture. This is just the community I am familiar with. I imagine it’s the same elsewhere.
I don’t believe that this is much of a ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy. It’s pretty easy to draw a logical bound between those that believe in the cause, and the rest.
I do not believe that this action was taken as a genuine act of modern progressivism. It’s a typical corporate ‘make this go away and don’t upset the minorities with megaphones’ action. But we’ve got some great keywords like “university” and “Muslim” which opportunists obnoxiously use to fuel the culture war.
The correct reaction is to look up.
> You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country but everyone else is a protected class.
White, cis, hetero, Christian, men as a class are some of the most protected and powerful people in this country. POTUS, Supreme Court Chief Justice, Speaker of the House Representatives, Senate Majority Leader, Attorney General, Director of FBI... all white, all men, all straight, all cis, all but one Christian. All state governors are currently white.
This is not to say that a white, cis, hetero, Christian man cannot face hardship or discrimination. But to pretend such people as a class aren't systematically protected in our society, when this class sits on top of most power structures in society, serves to dilute the entire idea of anti-discrimination, which honestly seems to be much of the point in making such claims.
It's a common fallacy where people assume equal inputs, so if the output doesn't match something must be amiss. But the assumption was incorrect to begin with. Not everybody is equal, and different demographic cohorts may in fact over/under perform others for any number of reasons.
What a hill to publicly die on.
Doesn't make it inaccurate. Trying to cudgel GP into submission by casting aspersions of being "alt-right" affiliated is evidence of it being true, even. The gaslighting is unwelcome.
Of course, I'd assume most muslim don't care about this event, besides a minority of fanatics. But I don't think it even matters. A art history teacher should be free to discuss a painting in their class no matter what "Muslims" think.
Clearly the issue is with the school here. Not the teacher, and not the "muslims". This complaining student should have been explained that her demands are not legitimate.
Over the top, much?
Were you upset of the 'don't say gay bill'? It's an example, not just of a single school acting to restrict academic freedom and freedom of expression in general, but the actual government enforcing this on ALL schools. That should be enraging to anyone who cares about freedom. A elementary school teacher was fired not too long ago for reading 'A need a new butt', because Christians found it offensive.
I think the decision to fire this guy was wrong, but this sort of action is hardly the sole domain of the 'left', the 'right' is doing plenty of censorship in schools all by itself.
3rd grade classrooms are not places of intellectual freedom. They are places of indoctrination. A third grader does not have academic freedom, there is no countervailing point in the classroom. It is completely different than a university setting. According to the t xt of the bill, I can't think of any good reason for a teacher to want to violate the law unless they want to push their own agenda onto the children. And that should not happen in a public school.
'I need a new butt', was a book on the schools reading list. Was firing that teacher perfectly reasonable also? Was a funny book about butts indoctrination?
Critical race theory is being muzzled at the university level by the government in florida. Are you angry about that overreach by state?
After all, Ibram X. Kendi who is generally regarded as the foremost proponent of Critical Race Theory argued in his book How to Be an Antiracist that, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” This is a fundamental position of Critical Race teachings.
Many would argue it's reasonable for parents to not want this sort of "good racial discrimination" being taught to their kids.
Again, I don't think this teacher should have been fired. But the arguments against it in these comments seem hypocritical when support is given to other types of censorship only because they happen to disagree with what was being suppressed.
Exactly my point. Arguments could be made about the validity of any of these topics. There is no consistent basis, just 'This is censorship because topic is bad in my opinion, but other topic can be censored without issue because I disagree with it'.
Ibram X. Kendi is making a few points in the quoted passage.
The first is that it's not enough to just say "no more discrimination" after the entire system has already been set up to discriminate. That just results in a system that perpetuates discrimination.
To illustrate with an example: you and I sit down to play a game of Monopoly. Except instead of letting you play from the beginning, I tie you down and you have to watch me play the game alone until I control the bank, and have hotels on every space. At this point, I untie you and invite you to join me playing by the usual rules of the game.
"But that's not fair, you're obviously going to win." you say
"How is it not fair? We're both playing the game by the same rules."
--
The second point he's making is that there's no "end" to discrimination. The entire idea is just nonsense given the dynamics he describes, and it shouldn't be a goal much like eliminating all bias to appear fair and balanced, or vowing to never make a mistake again in order to be competent. Even if you declare it at an end, and try your hardest to end it in practice, discrimination still happens. It should be our goal to think long and hard about how to deal with discrimination rather than to endeavor to eliminate it.
Do you think people in Appalachia or a trailer park near you who have lived in generational poverty are some how benefited by their skin color? That would assume upper class people associate themselves with lower class, just due to skin color. But we know really that it's based on in groups and out groups. To test this, ask the average upper or upper middle class educated white person to describe the average trailer park dweller with the same color skin, and see their response.
It also assumes a lot of things based on skin color alone. If the concern is that we want to help those who need financial assistance, or educational assistance or whatever then there are ways to do that with means testing, not by relying on a Sherwin Williams color chart held up against your skin.
No, that's not what I said. The point is that the state of the system interplays with the rules governing the system. You can't ignore the state of the system and declare the game fair by looking at just the rules.
> when the reality is we have no idea how much positive or negative impact the ancestors of any given person has had on their lot in life.
I mean, we do though. Generational wealth is a thing. American slavery isn't even the distant past; the last person born into slavery died within living memory.
> If the concern is that we want to help those who need financial assistance, or educational assistance or whatever then there are ways to do that with means testing
Right, which involves a process of discrimination to correct for past discrimination.
> not by relying on a Sherwin Williams color chart held up against your skin.
Of course there are better ways to do things than this terrible strawman you built.
So if 15-20 generations isn't long enough, how many more generations into the future would you say we need to discriminate against people based on skin color before we can call it enough? And what do we do about the millions of poor people with the wrong color skin, just keep discriminating against them due to their race and hope they don't take it personally?
It's not a strawman though. If you're basing preferential treatment on race, how exactly do you determine that? Race isn't a scientific thing, so we have to either take people at their word or use a color chart. Is there a different method you had in mind?[1] https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/generational-wealth:-why-do-...
[2] https://money.com/rich-families-lose-wealth/
[3] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-90-of-rich-peopl...
Maybe you missed where I said the last person born into slavery died in living memory.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_last_survivors_of_Am...
But the discussion of slavery kind of misses the larger point; that systemic discrimination was not in fact dismantled in America with the end of chattel slavery. Other systems replaced the intent, and those persisted long past the Civil War, well into recent history to today.
> It's not a strawman though. If you're basing preferential treatment on race, how exactly do you determine that?
No one is holding up color scales to people’s skin, and no one suggested doing so, certainly not me. That’s how your argument is a straw man.
It sounds like you are trying to make a different argument now, and if you want to make that one without building a straw man, please do so.
You are the one making the argument that we need racial discrimination to right past wrongs. I gave you the reasons that is not only immoral, but unworkable. So if you have some method to make your vision of present & future racial discrimination a net benefit for society, I would like to hear it. Logically it isn't possible, so I'm curious to hear your proposed solution.
To be clear: not all discrimination is racial discrimination, and you don't need to racially discriminate to fix the effects of racial discrimination. Saying we need discrimination is not the same as saying we need racial discrimination.
2) Although this discussion surrounds race and focuses on rectifying past racial discrimination, we don't have to turn to future racial discrimination to rectify it. The point is that we do have to discriminate, however. I believe even you recognize and admit the need for that, because you suggested as much in your earlier post.
For example, we can recognize the impact racist policies like redlining had on minority communities. We can fix this past discrimination by investing in those areas, which of course involves discrimination. We don't have to decide who gets those dollars based on race, but we are basing who gets those dollars on past racial discrimination.
3) If you want to implement a policy based on race, obviously you can just ask the person what their race is. It's okay to let people self-report sometimes. Or market the program to people who are in the specific community you are targeting and ask for proof of residence. There's lots of things you can do, but literally no one has color swatches or endeavors to implement such practices. That's a strawman.
Did you read the book? The foundation of the book is right in the title: to fight racism it's not enough to be not racist, one must be antiracist. The book is about defining this term and explaining that premise. The book makes a lot of points, some good, some strained, but I don't believe "racial discrimination is necessary" is one of them. I'd challenge you to find some quotes that support your position. And no, the one you already quoted does not fit the bill.
> And by backing Kendi, you are backing a racist.
Point in fact I was defending a specific point you raised, not "backing" anybody.
> Why would we ever want the government to participate in racial discrimination though?
I wouldn't and you wouldn't, but some people have wanted this in a misguided way.
Racial equity (as opposed to racial equality) by definition requires racial discrimination. There is no other way to achieve the "desired" equitable outcomes other than racial preferences. It's a point acknowledged in Kendi's work along with every other "antiracist" author of note.
Yes, and I did not get your interpretation at all. Considering the fact that in our discussion you've misrepresented a quote from Kendi, and built strawmen to argue points never made by Kendi or myself (to the point you couldn't even recognize my argument, instead favoring to argue against the strawman you've built), I'm wondering if you haven't strawmanned the entire book.
In a previous post I asked you to substantiate your argument with quotes from the book, but you haven't. If you don't want to substantiate your argument I think we're done here.
> Racial equity (as opposed to racial equality) by definition requires racial discrimination.
This idea is unrecognizable to me. It seems more like a caricature of what progressives and anti-racists believe than what they actually believe (which is a common thread that unifies your posts). If we want to try at a definition, here's one as good as any:
"Racial equity is a process of eliminating racial disparities and improving outcomes for everyone."
https://www.raceforward.org/about/what-is-racial-equity-key-...
Here's another one:
"Racial equity is achieved when race no longer factors into or determines one’s socioeconomic outcomes. It is when everyone has what they need to thrive, no matter where they live or how they identify."
https://unitedwaynca.org/blog/what-is-racial-equity-definiti...
So we have a definition for racial equity used by a notable antiracist org (united way) that explicitly says racial equity is achieved in through an absence of racial discrimination, not through it.
Again, bring some quotes or some other source to support your position and we can have a discussion.
> There is no other way to achieve the "desired" equitable outcomes other than racial preferences.
You also insisted that the only way to determine someone's race is to use a color chart (and also your view of race is very narrow -- it's not about skin tone), so I think your imagination is lacking. In fact if you actually listen to anti-racists (which is distinct from pretending to listen and then putting the words in their mouths you wish they had said), you'd hear that equity is achieved through anti-racism, which is not just reflected racism as you are claiming.
I'd encourage you to try and find some actual examples that run counter to this, and see for yourself.
I miss the progressivism of old, where there was more of an emphasis on tolerance even when one disagrees.
You'll find this is a feature of all isms. Even the free speech absolutists ban the blasphemers when given the chance.
I yearn for the, looking back, somewhat balanced days where not everyone was head deep in politics, and we could have useful debates about maybe health care or national budget, without degenerating into blanket character attacks. Then after the debate, everyone is at least cordial.
Just finished the first season of white lotus. Did not expect to see some good dichotomies of two generations interacting with one another (re: the scuba family)
Thankfully this isn't happening, so crisis averted I guess.
The intolerance that many trans-rights activists show to those who don't accept that a man with a 'female gender identity' is a woman is similar to the intolerance that many followers of Islam show to non-believers.
No-one on the gender critical side has been beheaded yet, but there is a surprisingly large "kill the terfs" movement that parallels the extremism of Islamists.
It's like if someone said the Elon Musk is bad because he invested X amount of money into Y, and I'm better because I didn't (suppose I'm broke and I spend my days in a basement playing games). The "I'm better part" is flawed because we don't know what I would do if I was given his choice.
Let's put this whole subthread in perspective. Someone told a story about how they "got scolded" and then two replies later the conversation has drifted to the idea that LGBTQ don't exist, their movement parallels one of the most inflammatory boogeymen you can use in US political discourse, and the only reason they haven't come for our heads yet is because they aren't powerful enough. The conversation usually drifts from here to "Well how do we stop them from getting power?", at which point it gets really ugly. It's a subtle move from "these LGBTQ don't even exist" to "these LGBTQ shouldn't exist", and unfortunately we've seen the consequences of that kind of thinking more often recently. The usual solutions are: make their existence illegal through the political system we control, or exterminate them with violence.
And this gets me back to the defense mechanism. It's unfortunate, I agree. In a better world there would be room for nuance and polite discussion to foster understanding. Unfortunately in the real world, things go really quickly from a misunderstanding to actual violence. The real kind, not the suspected kind. So to prevent that real violence, you get a "nip this at the bud" kind of responses to things that may be benign or just a misunderstanding. Unfortunately deadnaming and misgendering are followed often enough by violence, that even when it's not intentional the response can be harsh. The sad part is that this way of interacting is not productive for anyone, but survival mechanisms are usually a last resort, not something meant to be polite.
And this just doesn't come close to what he did and the battles he fought and the pain he's been through, all done to praise God and obey his commands, all to spread the message of God to the world, and he's been reciting a verse about the Idols and how they've wasted a lot of lives along with another verse, and he cries and raises his hands to the sky saying: Oh God my people, my people. as in "God I am afraid for my people".
He's dearer to us than ourselves.
I think there are shortcomings on our side speaking of explaining our religion to the western audience but trust me it's not easy because any conservative Sunni Muslim who speaks out is being silenced and you're being left with Shia and liberal Muslims, and you're not going to get anything related to Islam from these people, for now you can follow Daniel Haqiqatjou and Sheikh Uthman Ibn farook.
One final thing I have to clarify is, Shia aren't representatives of Islam, why? simple as their books are based on dreams this is the short version, the long version is something you have to research for yourself.
Sorry about your bad experience.
In the end, you will have one of the two encompass the other. Either you have a secular country living by democratic, progressive law which allows people to be Muslims modulo this. Or you have a Muslim country living by Shariah law, but tolerating secular non-believers in it.
First won't work because Muslims (in the traditional sense) won't tolerate some other framework encompassing their worldview. They have taboo topics nobody should ever question, and secular ideology based on science will question things.
And second won't work because Shariah law gives very concrete directions on dealing with non-believers.
Your reply here could fall under defamation.
Also, defamation does not mean what you think it means.
It is. There are plenty of more or less practising Muslims who behave perfectly well and are strongly opposed to theocracy. In the same way that there are plenty of white Christians who don’t feel the urge to take a gun and mow down blasphemers.
> And second won't work because Shariah law gives very concrete directions on dealing with non-believers.
It’s a false dichotomy. Lots of Muslims do not believe that Shariah law should be applied. On the Christian side there have been debates for centuries about this sort of issue, and pretty much nobody believes that the laws in the Old Testament should be applied or have any relevance nowadays. By painting the whole of Islam as being one simple shade of fundamentalism, we contribute to making the situation worse. People need to realise that there are old Muslim traditions that don’t advocate for stoning people, and that what we take for standard Islam is the creed of a particular cult and not universal.
The Ten Commandments are in the Old Testament, and there are lots of conservative Christians in the U.S. trying to get them posted in courtrooms and public school classrooms.
> Lots of Muslims do not believe that Shariah law should be applied.
I feel that one big difference of Islam is that it makes the rules very explicit, from how the government should be organized to the last detail of how you should wash your hands (and how often). Christianity, on the other hand, has very few concrete regulations, but instead a ton of metaphysical, mystical and ethical things from which people are trying to deduce those regulations.
So Christianity was easier to steer away from being a concrete manual for life to being a philosophical thing, a matter of choice that people who live within secular ethical framework can voluntarily practice. My question is, if you do the same to Islam will it still be Islam given how deeply the practical instructions are ebedded in it?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, I have a rather rudimentary education in both topics.
Well, have a look in the old Testament then. There are very explicit rules about how to treat homosexuals and heretics for example and they are not nice.
(I like the brick testament - famous bible quotes illustrated with Lego stones)
https://thebricktestament.com/the_law/homosexuality/lv20_13a...
And yes, there is also Jesus, but among other things he has (supposedly) said,
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law of Moses or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them."
https://thebricktestament.com/the_teachings_of_jesus/on_the_...
So it is really not that simple. But the basic comparison between Jesus and Muhammed, well the one seemed to be mostly a love preaching hippie and the other mainly a warlord. But I know I have met Muslims who were devout believers, but who would never use violence, except to defend themself.
And also doesn't Christianity give some good excuses to question or review these? Especially, considering that New Testament builds up on top of the Old Testament. I'm asking about the stuff around the quotes you've shown (otherwise we could fall for confirmation bias).
Please understand me correctly. I'm not saying Christianity doesn't have cruel or bad things. I'm saying it doesn't give one concrete, final, unchangeable set of rules. With Christian rules, it's easier to find excuse to augment or re-interpret them. I'm not saying there's no rules.
Like I said, it is complicated and up for debate. I have heard many conflicting viewpoints about it. Some take the whole bible literal, including the literal laws of the old testament - and they are not just a few, but many, many explicit laws about everything. More are mainly literal about the 10 commandments. And for some the only law is Jesus saying: "Love other people like yourself".
Since being raised catholic, I know quite a lot about the bible and less about the coran, but as far as I understand "With Christian rules, it's easier to find excuse to augment or re-interpret them." this is possible there as well, as Mohammed also said conflicting things, was softer in the beginning and harsher in the end, so you can also pick what you like. Hijab for example is not an explicite rule. And about Homosexuals, well, you probably won't find anything tolerant in the coran about it, but I think you won't find something in the bible either. What matters to me, is what people are doing.
To some extent, yes. Also, there is a long tradition of theological debates in Christianity, right from the beginning. Christians are much more comfortable with the idea that the Bible should not be taken literally.
Of course, there are 2 points that show up immediately when you say that. First, some Christians are literal fundamentalists so a long tradition is not enough. Second, Islam also has a long tradition of theological debates, and many different views and movements. I am not familiar enough with the History of Islam in the 20th century, but the fact is that there are lots of aspects that we associate with the religion without second thoughts that are actually Wahabbi practices. The rules against sex and alcohol are no less strict in the Old Testament than in the Quran. There is no reason why Islam would have to be more literal than any Christianism.
> With Christian rules, it's easier to find excuse to augment or re-interpret them. I'm not saying there's no rules.
That’s because we let a fundamentalist sect (well, mostly 2) redefine a whole religion.
Bit of a false scottsman. Not every Italian eats Tagliatelle and joins the Mafia but it's still an Italian recipe.
That’s a bit disingenuous. It’s easy to see who is Muslim and who is not: you just need to ask them. I don’t see a reason to say they aren’t when they identify themselves that way and believe in that religion. I am not saying that only moderates are true Muslims, just that there are more believers than the fundamentalists.
> Not every Italian eats Tagliatelle and joins the Mafia but it's still an Italian recipe.
I’d be surprised if Italians were the majority of tagliatelle-eating people these days.
Wahhabism is a view of the religion. It is the mirror image of Christian supremacism, just with a different book and different sound bites but with the same goal of subjugation. I would not say that all Christians are murderers, either.
Certainly some Islamic groups are incompatible with secular values.
If you read the news there is certainly a stronger impact by one group.
Yes it is. I don't know about Shariah law, but all muslims I know are just like anybody else. I think you're conflating some zealots with a large group of people who are mostly secular (just like lots of christians don't do anything christian besides celebrating Christmas and the occasional funeral at the church). The real issue here is some school administrators bending over because a fanatic complained.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: found it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDx3vnvSbm8
In India, a Lady, Nupur Sharma merely quote the Hadith about Mohammad's marriage to Aisha and she had to go underground.
Many people lost their lives. The Islamists call for 'San Tan se Juda' - Separation of the Head from the Body.
The Islamic world needs a renaissance.
This is not equivalent to the case in question (to be clear about my stand, I think the firing of the lecturer was completely wrong). However, there are few things to consider in Nupur Sharma case:
1. Nupur Sharma is not a random Lady, she was the spokesperson of the ruling party BJP. As part of the ruling party, she had the responsibility of acting as is appropriate for a national-level party member. More so as being the spokesperson, her views could be seen as the views of the party. See point #3 on why this is relevant.
2. Her comments were not part of some art history or philosophical discussion. By her own admittance, she couldn't accept the insulting of Hindu god Shiva and retaliated by making comments about prophet Mohammad.
3. Her comments were not made within the confines of a classroom where free academic discussion is paramount; she went on three national TV channels and basically tried to make the same comments deliberately knowing well that in a deeply religious country like India, such actions have far reaching consequences. My personal view is that one should be free to insult any god, Hindu or Muslim or any other religion; however, practicality demands that care should be exercised by members of political parties on such public platforms (if she was a Muslim leader who insulted a Hindu god, the point would still stand i.e. her behavior was irresponsible).
But it seems your comment sort of justifies all that because nupur is a spokesperson of a party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_on_T._J._Joseph
Anything as prominent in humanity and history as religion is certainly that. However, flamewars destroy intellectual interest (put bluntly, they're predictable, nasty and dumb), and it's nearly impossible for a large community to discuss religion without religious flamewar (the most predictable, nastiest, and dumbest of all flamewar). That's unfortunately the other issue with stories like this, besides the run-of-the-mill controversy that you correctly point out.
The article was a concrete instance of the abstract dilemma i posed in my comment, so it was on-topic and necessary imho.
either way, your home your rules, so whatever. (which, ironically, confirms my original point...)
I don't think the painting itself is significant, it could just be referenced. The context of why the painting is banned inside of Islam is relevant as previously there was a lot of idol worship and even nowadays figureheads like Jesus are now claimed to be God, stuff like "Jesus is Lord". But this moves more into theology than art history now.
Reminds me a bit of Kanye being banned on the new free speech platform Twitter and people saying it wasn't an actual Swastika, it was an UFO cult symbol, it being tied to the older peace symbol of Hinduism etc.
How is that relevant to anyone not muslim? Because this is what this is about - (some) muslims wanting other people to follow their religious rules.
It's not like any of the painting depictions had any notable art styles nor new techniques, from what I can tell. So I think it crosses moreso into the intersection of religion and art, that's why historical context becomes relevant. If you deem context irrelevant then why include any of it unless the art has some different quality about it?
I think there was art novelty with the decorations of churches and mosques though.