Fri 9 May 2008
The three top discussions on WSO last night involved: 1) Railing at the hypocrisy and silliness of the College’s environmental initiatives, 2) Pointing out the stupidity of Cluster Housing and speculating on the date of its inevitable demise, and 3) Mocking excessive concern for Muslim sensibilities.
And people say that I am out of touch with the opinions of current students. Untrue! I am just a year or three ahead of my time . . . here, here and here.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
your sampling technique is terrible
May 9th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Ugh… nobody was “Mocking excessive concern for Muslim sensibilities” in that thread. They were DISCUSSING the topic of freedom of speech and its relationship with advertising and the public domain.
Way to juice it up to try to turn it into something else! As a Muslim, I would like to have you censored, Kane. Or at the very least, put in a burka.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Anyone else joining the “kane in a burka” campaign! Anonymous facebook group and petition to come later!
May 9th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
The original poster (and my co-author) wrote, “Sad because some people think they can shit all over the first amendment.” (Later conversation clarifies that this is a UK case so replace first amendment with freedom of speech.)
So, I am ready to replace “mocking” with “criticizing” but the central topic is “Muslim sensibilities” (with regard to whether or not it is acceptable for women to wear bikinis in advertisements on public billboards) and the students claim that it is ridiculous that these sensibilities should be allowed to restrict an advertising campaign.
So, would you accept “Criticizing excessive concern for Muslim sensibilities” as a fair description. Now, obviously, different participants in the thread have different points of view, with some going on to discuss the topic in a broader context. The same is true of every WSO discussion thread. But it seems obvious to me that the person who started the thread was not interested in the “topic of freedom of speech and its relationship with advertising and the public domain.” His focus was on one particular case involving Muslims.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
well, the first poster also was focused much more on the philosophical ideal of free speech and much less on muslim sensibilities.
there’s something interesting to the fact that both of these posts on free speech are now blasting muslim sensibilities…i think that’s more the current fad more than anything else in groups to attack. Previously, it had been Tipper Gore and the campaign against indecent lyrics, or Bob Jones university, etc.
hell, your post that you linked back to didn’t need to have anything to do with Muslim sensibilities, but they are the easiest prop for these rants about PC-ness and free speech because of the implications (don’t let them win!), they’re much easier targets than other potential targets.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Rory, to be fair, they are not just easier targets because of a “don’t let them win” mentality but because of the extreme overreaction (to put it mildly) of a not-insubstantial number of Muslims to any kind of speech, art, cartoon, etc. seen as remotely critical of Islam. When people are threatened with death (or actually killed) because of their published views about Islam, it is understandable when many are less than sympathetic to Muslim sensitivity to speech they find offensive. If Jews, for example, reacted in the same violent fashion to the vile and repugnant anti-semitism prevalent throughout the state-sponsored press of just about every Muslim nation, there would be riots and calls for the head of various Muslim authors, heads of state, journalists and cartoonists on virtually an hourly basis.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Jeff,
yes, but just as you caution me, I caution back:) The birmingham example had no such threat of death, etc. to paint with such a wide stroke is another flaw of them being the easy target, even if it is somewhat justifiable compared to other groups.
in this case, it looks like an elected official who is muslim complained about the advertisement while also chastising the vandals. sounds like the type of moderate leader we’re supposed to be supporting, right?
nuance is key and the lack of nuance in the criticisms of muslim reactions to the western world is a serious problem.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Yes, indeed, I would like to see this man (bottom left corner) in a burka.
(geez…he looks so…innocent)
May 9th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Thank you frosh mom for bringing us back to the real matter at hand: the burkarification of David Kane. We will not be silenced until Kane is veiled.
May 9th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
M.E.S.’06:
I think it could be done tech-wise…something tells me Ronit is the candidate for proper (ahem) burkarifiKANE-ation.
In the meanwhile, this can serve as inspiration for the burkarificafier.
May 9th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Hmmm…let me try this again.
Inspiration, here.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Wow. We could have a little interfaith peace thing going: burkane and the Santa/elf woman. Be sure not to mess with the female Eph’s clothing in the process of burkaning Dave.