firecat: uhura making a scary hand gesture (uhura nichelle nicolls)
[personal profile] firecat
Subject line is a quote from Animal Farm by George Orwell. I'm referencing the "but some...are more equal" part, not attempting to insult any humans or any subset of humans by comparing them to animals.

I find this post upsetting: http://e-moon60.livejournal.com/335480.html
There was a lot of excellent critique in the comments to that post, but now the comments have been deleted, so I want to make my critique public. I'm only addressing a couple of bits.

Moon writes:
the business of a citizen is the welfare of the nation

I think the business of a human being is the welfare of other human beings and nonhuman life and the planet in general. (Other parts of the universe seem relatively protected from harm by us, so far.)

Insofar as the concepts of "citizen" and "nation" conflict with the above (for example, by encouraging the attitude "WE are good and THEY are bad, therefore THEIR welfare isn't worth our consideration"), I'm not in favor of those concepts.

Moon writes:
A group must grasp that if its non-immigrant members somewhere else are causing people a lot of grief (hijacking planes and cruise ships, blowing up embassies, etc.) it is going to have a harder row to hoe for awhile, and it would be prudent (another citizenly virtue) to a) speak out against such things without making excuses for them and b) otherwise avoid doing those things likely to cause offence.

How does "a group" get defined? Moon is arguing that the proposed Park51 development is "likely to cause offence" due to the terrorist attacks in New York on 9/11/01. She defines a group called "Muslims" that includes both the developers and the terrorists. But I would guess that a lot of Muslims don't think they should be lumped into the same group as the terrorists.

The group "monotheists" also includes both those developers and those terrorists. So would it be prudent of Christians to scrap their plans for monotheist cultural centers in case the plans offend people? Is it incumbent upon them all to say "As a monotheist, I think it's wrong for monotheists to attack the WTC"? If they aren't expected to do this, why not?

Then there's the phrase "likely to cause offence." To me the wording implies that offense is an independent entity or thing. It's not. It's a human mental/emotional state, based on beliefs. Wherever you have offendedness, you have some humans who believe certain things. But note that the phrase doesn't mention which humans are offended and doesn't mention what their beliefs are.

Moon writes:
they should have been able to predict that this would upset a lot of people.

So Moon is creating a set of people and labeling them as "other," as "immigrants," and associating them with the acts of a terrorist organization. Then she is arguing that the people so labeled have the following civic responsibilities: (a) understand that some people in the country they live in lump them in with terrorists and mistakenly consider them all immigrants; (b) come to an agreement about which of those people to avoid offending; (c) come to an agreement about what behaviors will "upset a lot of people"; and (d) all avoid those behaviors.

I think those are unreasonable expectations. Especially when they are NOT paired with the expectation that other citizens have a duty either to educate themselves about the groups they consider "other," or to leave them alone.

I don't expect everyone to agree with my opinion, but since this is a sensitive subject, I expect civility in the comments to this post. I reserve the right to moderate/delete/freeze comments/threads if I think there's trouble brewing.

Date: 17 Sep 2010 12:48 am (UTC)
tattycat: image of Lewis chessman, biting his shield (grr)
From: [personal profile] tattycat
Let's also not forget that no one has a Constitutional right to not be offended. I can't help but wonder why the opinions of those of us who are not only not offended but also think it's a great idea are not as important as those who are offended?

That's leaving aside the whole "people being hypocritical" issue, of course.

Only the dominant can be offended, too!

Date: 17 Sep 2010 02:00 am (UTC)
prairierabbit: Bandstand by Illinois River (Default)
From: [personal profile] prairierabbit
I think the concept of "offendedness" is another way for one group, Group N, to attempt to assert their privilege and control the actions of Group M, even though Group M is in the right both legally and morally. It never seems to occur to Group N that Group M might be offended that their goal of a cultural center is being denigrated and they are being called insensitive by Group N. I also wonder if some of this is a situation where some people need to feel "special" and this is another way to assert that, at the expense of fairness and tolerance.

Many people seem absolutely unwilling to examine the issues of how privilege in assigned in this issue and I think it's really important. Who has the right to never be offended? Why? How far do others have to go to not offend them? Also, why is a place with pole dancers and such okay within the sacred precinct and a cultural center an abomination? There seems to be a clear targeting of one group. If we allow that, what comes next? (It reminds me of people who are offended by people of the same gender expressing affection in public--they want the right to express affection themselves, but not to watch others express it in different ways. *sigh*)

Date: 17 Sep 2010 03:14 am (UTC)
necturus: 2016-12-30 (Default)
From: [personal profile] necturus
As far as I can tell the anti-Muslim hysteria being fanned by Republicans is little different from the anti-Hispanic hysteria being fanned by the same people; it's latter-day Know-Nothingism, xenophobia pure and simple. It is the antithesis of reason, raw emotion, of the same sort that led their predecessors to burn down an Ursuline convent near Boston in 1834, when it was the Irish immigrants who were the great threat to American civilization.

Date: 17 Sep 2010 02:18 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] flarenut
What's particularly disgusting about this case is that there's even video from last year of the Park51 project's founders being interviewed on Fox News, with the commentator saying that it sounded like a great idea for encouraging peace. The entire thing has been created out of whole cloth from the beginning, with the enormous pile of wingnut privilege as gravy.

Hmm: how would this work? "I am a White Man and a Taxpayer, and I am Terrifically Offended by the lies Glenn Beck is spreading. I and 100,000 others like me demand that he resign Right Now!"

Oh. Not so well.

Date: 20 Oct 2010 06:45 pm (UTC)
cereus: Ringtail Cat climbing tree (Default)
From: [personal profile] cereus
Moon writes:
A group must grasp that if its non-immigrant members somewhere else are causing people a lot of grief (hijacking planes and cruise ships, blowing up embassies, etc.) it is going to have a harder row to hoe for awhile, and it would be prudent (another citizenly virtue) to a) speak out against such things without making excuses for them and b) otherwise avoid doing those things likely to cause offence.


Eeek...

Date: 17 Sep 2010 05:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] johnpalmer.livejournal.com
The whole "they should have been able to predict that the right wing would need a good hatefest in August that this would upset people" *really* bothers me.

This was a ginned up controversy; no one cared until enough people started shouting, and then, the victims were blamed for the people shouting.

It reminds me *so* much of the bullying of my youth. And it's the thing that frosts me most about the Republicans.

"This is how you get power - with dishonesty and hate - and you think you *deserve* to be in charge? You think that somehow, you'll do some *good*?"

Of course, that's kinda the point; once people are pulling this kind of shit, they've already decided that having power is good in and of itself.

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