If you can stand another entry about Fahrenheit 911...

[firecat]

...my sweetie jwermont just forwarded me this excellent critique of the movie by Robert Jensen, professor of journalism at the University of Texas: "Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire".

Comments

[djm4]

First off, I said supposed marginalization; I'm not sold yet on whether Moore did so or not.

Indeed, but I don't really think that changes my point. The people doing the criticising/smacking are sold on whether Moore did it, and are providing examples where they see Moore doing it, which makes it a legitimate area for debate in my opinion.

Second, I see a difference between political and ethical compromise. To me an ethical compromise is setting aside the matter entirely; a political compromise is setting the schedule by which matters are prioritized.

To the extent that I am a political person, my politics are heavily informed by my ethics. I don't think I can easily make that distinction. I'm not even sure I want to be able to do that - I can't actually conceive of a situation in which I'd want to say to someone 'we're going to represent your country as an insignificant bunch of savages' or 'we're not going to include a person with your coloured skin, because it'll scare our audience', and not feel that I was doing something deeply, hurtfully unethical. Adding the phrase '...but we might reconsider next year' to the end of either of those sentences doesn't change that for me.

One thing that might change that for me would be if the other (marginalised or stereotyped) person agreed that it was the right thing to do. But I don't actually see that happening here.

You and I have very different ethical structures, though, I think.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I dunno how far apart we are in our ethical structures as I don't think we've ever tried to compare them in detail.

As to my desire for prioritization, I think that the achievement of my ethical goals is better served by arranging my assets and efforts to proceed toward a victory rather than noble but defeated attempts. I see little benefit to whatever downtrodden class one is supposedly trying to aid if there isn't some forward movement. And if I judge that my efforts are unlikely to yield forward movement for FOO or that my efforts might more readily generate forward movement for BAR that can be used as a building block for FOO then I am less likely to apply them on towards FOO and direct them towards BAR.

As a slight digression, this touches somewhat on why I tire so of people who promote themselves as Selflessly Championing The [Poly/BDSM/Pagan/Etc] Movement. More of their efforts seem to be spent on enhancing their own stature as Noble Martyrs than actually doing something productive.