The Hazards of Belief

recedite

RikuoAmero wrote: »

In my hypothetical scenario, I am the owner of a company with several employees. I am known as the head of that company. On my own initiative, I write a story in which you, by name, are raped and murdered. Your response is to hack my company's servers (not just shut down as you said there) and to release private information relating to my employees, who had nothing to do with me writing and posting online the offensive story. So the janitor I hired should just shrug his shoulders when you release online his PPS number, his medical history, etc etc?
Is that a a justified response on your part? To hurt others in an attempt to get back at me?

No, I don't think that's justified.
Can we stick with my hypothetical example now, because its simpler. All the employees are directly working on the movie. Kim has organised the hacking, but nothing violent.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Interesting, but what if the offended party retaliates in a more "proportionate" way, do you think that is justified?
I'm thinking now of Sony's movie "The interview" portraying a mock-up of the murder of Kim Jong Un, who was obviously offended by same. Although nothing is proven, suppose for the sake of argument that Kim had responded by hacking the Sony website, releasing personal e-mails and by damaging the marketing opportunities of the movie. But no actual violence. Would he be justified in doing this, or would his response be an attack on free speech?

It’s a good question. I don’t think it lends itself to a one-word, or even one sentence, answer. Couple of points:

1. I haven’t seen the film, or read the script, or read any review or account of it. So I don’t know whether I would consider it offensive, or how offensive I would consider it. Obviously the Dear Leader considers it offensive, but he is not someone to whose judgment I would instinctively defer in this (or any other) matter.

2. The right of free speech does not mean the right to speak without being criticised, (verbally) attacked or denounced for what you say. If I say something and you say that it’s appalling and disgraceful and that I should never have said it, you are not attacking or infringing my right to free speech; you are merely exercising your own right of free speech.

3. On the other hand, if I say something and you shoot me for it, you plainly are infringing my right of free speech (and my rights to life and bodily integrity - we’ll come back to that).

4. Obviously, somewhere between scenarios 2 and 3 above you have crossed a line in your response to me. Can we say where exactly that line lies? Suppose that instead of merely denouncing what I have said, you organise a social and/or commercial boycott of me? Suppose you mount a picket outside my premises, calling attention to what I have said, and inviting the public to patronise alternative businesses? Suppose the picket is rowdy, even intimidating?

5. I think the gist of the Douthat piece in the New York Times is not that in every case we can criticise either the offensive speech or the intemperate response, but never both. It’s not a simple binary; what he says is that the degree to which criticism of my offensive speech is appropriate is inversely proportional to the extent to which I am threatened with lethal violence. The more I am threatened, and the more credible that threat is, the more important it becomes to denounce that threat, and the more denunciation of my offensiveness becomes a distraction from the real issue. We could probably extent that approach to cover not just lethal violence, but any other response that we consider unacceptable.

6. The North Koreans aren’t threatening anybody with lethal violence (over this issue). They are mounting what is essentially an economic attack; hitting Sony in the pocket book. And they are doing so by illegal means - hacking, theft of IP, etc - as opposed to the organisation of a boycott, say.

7. I’d say that’s pretty bad, but it’s not on the same order of magnitude as bursting into the editorial offices and shooting dead 12 people. And the need to denounce what the North Koreans are doing is not such as to make any criticism of the film inappropriate (if any criticism is warranted at all which, as noted above, I don’t assume). But unless the film is far more offensive than I think possible, the denunciations of what NK is doing should be much more ringing than the denunciation of the film.

8. And a further thought; you can characterise what the North Koreans are doing as an attack on free speech. But you don’t need to appeal to the right to free speech to denounce it; you can equally denounce it as theft, vandalism, an attack on property rights, etc. Similarly the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices is horrifying not so much because it’s an assault on free speech as because it’s terrorist murder.

9. It seems to me that the importance of free speech, and the need to invoke it, mainly arises in relation to legal, state action. I can denounce the Charlie Hebdo massacre or the Sony hacking without any appeal to “free speech”, but I need to appeal to the right to free speech in order to oppose, say, censorship laws, or blasphemy laws, or hate speech laws.

Pawwed Rig

There is no right to free speech in the Irish constitution. They do allow freedom of expression but it is defined within morality parameters which themselves are undefined.

Peregrinus

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

There is no right to free speech in the Irish constitution. They do allow freedom of expression but it is defined within morality parameters which themselves are undefined.

But you, or I, or anyone, can assert the right of free speech and demand that it be protected regardless of whether it is recognised in the Irish (or any other) Constitution, can't we?

robindch

Mildly interesting article on living relationships between religious believers and non-believers:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30708242

RikuoAmero

robindch wrote: »

Mildly interesting article on living relationships between religious believers and non-believers:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30708242

You're a bit late. Someone already posted that in the Atheism/Existence of God thread

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

4. Obviously, somewhere between scenarios 2 and 3 above you have crossed a line in your response to me. Can we say where exactly that line lies? Suppose that instead of merely denouncing what I have said, you organise a social and/or commercial boycott of me? Suppose you mount a picket outside my premises, calling attention to what I have said, and inviting the public to patronise alternative businesses? Suppose the picket is rowdy, even intimidating?

I think in this situation, we are not called upon to defend the insulter, because no violence is being used against them. At the same time time, we are not called upon to defend the insulted party either, just because they have taken offence. There is an element of "calling it quits", the insulter has just reaped what he sowed, and was free to sow. There is no "moral obligation" on anyone else to take sides.

Peregrinus wrote: »

.. We could probably extent that approach to cover not just lethal violence, but any other response that we consider unacceptable...
... you can characterise what the North Koreans are doing as an attack on free speech. But you don’t need to appeal to the right to free speech to denounce it; you can equally denounce it as theft, vandalism, an attack on property rights, etc.

OK but what is "illegal" can sometimes be subjective when it comes to international relations and especially to hacking. The situation that Julian Assuange finds himself in is a case in point.
Another example is that Chinese industy often does not respect copyright or patent law, saying it does not apply to them.

Hotblack Desiato

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/gavin-peacock-former-premier-league-star-turned-pastor-posts-tweets-stating-wives-should-submit-and-encourage-husbands-leadership-9960593.html

Former Chelsea, Queens Park Rangers and Newcastle United midfielder Gavin Peacock is facing a backlash after posting a series of bizarre, sexist messages on Twitter.


Husbands: one of your primary duties in loving your wife is to feed her with the Word of God daily.
— Gavin Peacock (@GPeacock8) January 6, 2015

Wives: one of the primary ways you are to respect your husband is by gladly submitting to and encouraging his leadership.
— Gavin Peacock (@GPeacock8) January 6, 2015

God's divine design for marriage in male headship and female submission is complementary not competitive.
— Gavin Peacock (@GPeacock8) January 6, 2015

Delirium

Pastor brags about assaulting a kid who "wasn't taking the Lord seriously"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q19qRUBj-ic

RikuoAmero

SW wrote: »

Pastor brags about assaulting a kid who "wasn't taking the Lord seriously"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q19qRUBj-ic

When I watched that video, my brain superimposed the Charlie Hebdo shooters over his image. Punching someone and shooting someone obviously aren't the same thing, but the urge to do violence because that person insulted your god? The exact same. This guy is no better than the Hebdo shooters.
Also take note of when he said "He was a bright kid...made him more dangerous". Yeah, of course it's a problem...he might see through your bull**** by using that intelligence, we can't have that now can we?

Pawwed Rig

RikuoAmero wrote: »

When I watched that video, my brain superimposed the Charlie Hebdo shooters over his image. Punching someone and shooting someone obviously aren't the same thing, but the urge to do violence because that person insulted your god? The exact same. This guy is no better than the Hebdo shooters.
Also take note of when he said "He was a bright kid...made him more dangerous". Yeah, of course it's a problem...he might see through your bull**** by using that intelligence, we can't have that now can we?

'The kid is intelligent, that's a problem right there' :pac:

robindch

SW wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q19qRUBj-ic

Not the best choice of text on that poster in the background either.

RikuoAmero

robindch wrote: »

Not the best choice of text on that poster in the background either.

I completely missed that. Heil Jesus anyone?

Nodin

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

'The kid is intelligent, that's a problem right there' :pac:

'Looks like we got us a thinker'

swampgas

SW wrote: »

Pastor brags about assaulting a kid who "wasn't taking the Lord seriously"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q19qRUBj-ic

Because if you don't believe and fear the Lord, why would you fear and respect the pastor? So when his superior position as pastor was undermined by the kid's intelligence, he was so threatened that he resorted to physical violence, and hit the child as hard as he could in the chest.

He wasn't worried about the kids relationship with god, he was worried about his status. What he really meant was "don't fcuk with me kid, I'm the boss around here".

I'd like to think he was charged with violent assault against a minor, but I won't be holding my breath.

jank

RikuoAmero wrote: »

The exact same. This guy is no better than the Hebdo shooters.

The guy is a douche no doubt and if he assaulted a minor should be charged. However in saying that, he is 'better' if you want to use that word than people who executed 12 people for printing offensive cartoons.

obplayer

jank wrote: »

The guy is a douche no doubt and if he assaulted a minor should be charged. However in saying that, he is 'better' if you want to use that word than people who executed 12 people for printing offensive cartoons.

His mentality is the same; I'm right, you're wrong and I will do what I want to you to enforce this. The difference is that he lives in a society where he will be punished if he goes "too far". Don't doubt that fundamentalist Christians are of the same breed as religious fundamentalists of all varieties.

RikuoAmero

jank wrote: »

The guy is a douche no doubt and if he assaulted a minor should be charged. However in saying that, he is 'better' if you want to use that word than people who executed 12 people for printing offensive cartoons.

I did say and acknowledge, did I not, that punching someone and shooting someone are not the same, but that the mindset behind both are? Both the preacher and the Hebdo shooters were being confronted by people of intelligence mocking them and their religion - both the preacher's and the Hebdo shooters' response was to do violence. The only difference between the two is that in one situation, a kid was punched, the other guns were used.

jank

obplayer wrote: »

His mentality is the same; I'm right, you're wrong and I will do what I want to you to enforce this. The difference is that he lives in a society where he will be punished if he goes "too far". Don't doubt that fundamentalist Christians are of the same breed as religious fundamentalists of all varieties.

The mentality is similar as he has not killed anyone, thus there is a key pointed difference, even if he is a douche and a thug. There are various degrees people need to be aware off.

The society point is false, as the attackers last week were French born and grew up in a Western Liberal Democratic society. French society punishes people who go 'too far'. You would have a point if they grew up in Saudi or Iran for example but these guys as like many before and after grew up in the West. One has to look at the particular ideology they subscribe to, not the society.

Fundamentalists exist in all walks of life, be it political or religious. It is a wider argument. Are they all the same, is there different shades of grey and so forth. On the cover they are the same, but by their widespread actions over the past week/months/years there are differentiations and we are dealing and have to deal with the present Islamic problem that seems to be a weekly event almost at this stage.

jank

RikuoAmero wrote: »

I did say and acknowledge, did I not, that punching someone and shooting someone are not the same, but that the mindset behind both are? Both the preacher and the Hebdo shooters were being confronted by people of intelligence mocking them and their religion - both the preacher's and the Hebdo shooters' response was to do violence. The only difference between the two is that in one situation, a kid was punched, the other guns were used.

Well, you did say that the guy is 'no better' when clearly punching someone is 'better' than a bullet in the head. But I understand your point, dogmatic views on things can lead to violence to uphold that view and its honour. However, lets not all do the predictable 'Sure, they are all the same' so common in todays discourse of current affairs. Critical thinking should be paramount when it comes to these serious issues that plague society.

stevejazzx

http://news.yahoo.com/Egypt-student-gets-3-jail-term-atheism-152045172.html

To which the first reply I saw on Reddit was:

What if he doesn't become a Muslim during his 3 years in Jail? Does he go right back to jail after release?

robindch

OUP authors told not to write about sausages or pigs in children's books to 'avoid offence'


http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/authors-of-school-books-advised-not-to-write-about-pork-9976620.html

Independent wrote:

Authors of UK-published school books have been asked to take other cultures into account when writing in order to allow their texts to be exported to foreign countries.

Suggested guidelines for authors published by Oxford University Press (OUP) include not portraying the consumption of pork or bacon, which is not eaten in the Muslim world.

A spokesperson for Oxford University Press explained that books needed to be applicable to other cultures in order for them to be exported.

“Many of the educational materials we publish in the UK are sold in more than 150 countries, and as such they need to consider a range of cultural differences and sensitivities,” the spokesperson said.

[...]

Hotblack Desiato

Need a 'SAVE OUR BACON' campaign


Meanwhile...

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/catholic-church-has-become-too-feminised-says-cardinal-raymond-burke-1.2066236

Conservative US Cardinal Raymond Burke has identified women as the real problem in today’s Catholic Church.

In an interview with the website The New Emangelization, the outspoken cardinal suggests that the Catholic Church has become too feminised, adding that the use of altar girls may have led to a decline in vocations.

In the interview, Cardinal Burke said many of the church’s current problems began with the advent of the women’s rights movement in the 1960’s. The push by “radical feminism” for female participation in the church has obscured the “goodness and importance of men”, he argued.

“Apart from the priest, the sanctuary has become full of women . . . the activities in the parish and even the liturgy have been influenced by women and become so feminine in many places that men do not want to get involved. Men are often reluctant to become active in the church. The feminised environment and the lack of the church’s effort to engage men has led many men to simply opt out,” he said.

RikuoAmero

robindch wrote: »

OUP authors told not to write about sausages or pigs in children's books to 'avoid offence'


http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/authors-of-school-books-advised-not-to-write-about-pork-9976620.html

Facepalm

I have bangers and mash every day for dinner when I'm at work (mainly because it's tasty, and it's about the only thing the work canteen serves that won't kill me due to my allergies). If I'm in Britain, would I be expected to go without, so that the Muslim guy three tables over won't be 'offended'? Is he even being asked as to whether or not he actually is offended, or is the UK government just assuming that he would have a problem with me eating my dinner?

Peregrinus

And facepalm right back at you!

What's happened here is that the Oxford University Presss has advised authors that if they want to write educational textbooks which will sell into international markets (which is a big money-spinner for the OUP) they should write books which will appeal to the markets they are targetting. Sounds like good common sense to me.

An unprofessional subeditor at the Independents has written a headline saying the OUP has advised authors to do this in order to "avoid offence", though careful readers will not that that the newspaper report does not use the quoted words, or anything like them. The motivation is not to avoid offence - Muslims have no objection to non-Muslims eating pork - but to maximise profits. School textbooks generally seek to feature characters and situations with which students can identify.

A Tory MP wants "the Government to intervene and ban OUP from asking its authors to cater to Muslim sensibilities".

Curiously the sceptics who inhabit this board, while supposedly keen to encourage critical thinking, have so far failed to spot that the newspaper headline is not an accurate reflection of the reported story. And for some reason they think publishers trying to commission books that they can actually sell deserves a facepalm, while a politician demanding - in the name of free speech(!) - that the government should dictate what publishers may and may not seek to publish passes entirely without remark.

Lift your game, lads! If you're going to display this kind of Pavlovian reaction to every headline which includes the words "sausages", "pigs" and "offence", the chances of your being able to persuade the rest of us to embrace scepticism and critical thinking are not very high.

robindch

Peregrinus wrote: »

And facepalm right back at you!

Not at me, since I stopped quoting the article at about the point where it turned from direct quotes into a dailymailesque "its political correctness gone mad" rant :rolleyes:

But the general point stands - is it reasonable to pretend that nobody over here eats rashers and drinks beer so that you can sell teaching materials over there? I don't think so. But neither do I think that a book that includes gratuitous references to prohibited practices is going to appeal to a conservative school book-purchasing policy, and an sales + influencer opportunity will be lost. And what about more controversial references - should teaching material contain, for example, at one end, references to women in bikinis, and at the other, refer to the infinite justice of rabbinical/sharia law or the eternal truth of jehovah/allah? I don't think so either.

I think it's a better idea to avoid sweating the small stuff like bangers and instead, aim for the large and use fairy stories, metaphor, allusion and indirection of every kind to transfer usefully dangerous ideas, rather than easily-slapped direct references to one prohibited thing or another. So far as I recall, George Orwell's Animal Farm didn't mention Russia, Communism or the Bolsheviks once, but it was the most incisive commentary that all three ever received.

Peregrinus

I don't think that the OUP is advocating that school textbooks should "pretend that nobody over here eats rashers and drinks beer". But an English textbook in which the protagonist tucks into a pork barbecue won't have much appeal in Saudi Arabia for the same reason that an English textbook in which the protagonist's father has four wives won't have much appeal in the UK; you want textbooks with protagonists with which the student can identify, not protagonists whose protagonists are pointedly "foreign" to the student because, from an educational point of view, that gets in the way of the purpose of the book, which is to enable the student to learn English by presenting scenarios which which he is familiar, and employing English in that context.

For the record, Muslims don't eat pork, drink beer, etc but they are not offended at the thought that others do; pork and beer are not forbidden to non-Muslims. A book which describes a non-Muslim protagonist drinking beer is not in any sense offensive. What does offend them is a failure to accommodate their desire to avoid pork, etc, e.g. in eating facilities patronised by both Muslims and non-Muslims.

As for stopping quoting before the article goes all Daily Mail, even the bit you did quote makes it fairly clear that the concern here was not giving offence, but simply producing textbooks that wouldn't sell. And I can't avoid the suspicion that you not only stopped quoting at that point; you stopped reading. I can't believe you would have read the bit in which the Tory MP calls for the government to control what publishers can and cannot commission without realising how well this makes the point that anti-religious sentiment can lead us into nonsensical, incoherent, illiberal and dangerous positions just as readily as religious sentiment. The hazards of unbelief?

robindch

Peregrinus wrote: »

And I can't avoid the suspicion that you not only stopped quoting at that point; you stopped reading.

Nope, I read it to the end and didn't bother quoting for the reason above - it's just pointless raving.

But the earlier bit which I did quote does raise useful questions about where the line on this kind of stuff should be drawn.

RikuoAmero

Okay guys, I admit it - I went off half-cocked here without taking the time to fully digest the article. What I thought was going to happen was that books were going to be published and sold in the UK that wouldn't contain any references to pork, so as to not "offend" muslims. I admit that I started thinking in the slippery slope fallacy (which isn't always a fallacy, but most often is).

Hotblack Desiato

RikuoAmero wrote: »

What I thought was going to happen...

...was the reaction the headline writer intended, presumably.

Disappointing to see the UK Independent (not our trash mag) go down the Daily Wail/Daily Excess inflammatory headline route.