Wouldn't it be great if the really, really gay opera was cancelled because of fear of muslim violence? Fuck political actions, with out power combined, we can engineer this.
Might it be worth pointing out that German and American free speech protections may not be the same?
A right is indeed no less a right when someone chooses not to exercises it, but de jure rights mean nothing in the face of de facto impediments to their use.
And I'm not sure that I'm worried about all de facto impediments; too lazy to think of a clear distinction, though. I'm not convinced it's a bad thing if a radio station freely chooses (i.e., no governmental pressure) to refrain from playing Prussian Blue because they think the message is hateful and not worth the airtime or the hassle from the public.
My recollection is that Germany and France both restrict the display of Nazi insignia and certain kinds of commentery about what the Nazis did. Didn't everyone want Ahmenejad (sp?) to go to Germany for the World Cup so that he could be arrested for Holocaust denial? On a bet, TNR doesn't complain about those laws (which I'm fine with), and wouldn't have minded had Amhmenimexican been arrested.
I worry (not much) about free speech here; concerns about the rest of the world--particularly Europe, where it's hard to claim there's a real problem--are ancillary.
How does a Creten boy get the head of Muhammad, anyway?
Cala, may not be the same, yeah, but the moral/legal thing. I'm not worried about all de facto impediments either, but the one little way I'm on the side of Beinart against the FORCES OF EVIL is that it really does bother me that there's a double standard on sacrilege because of worries over violence. Glenn Reynolds is at least right that it's a bad incentive structure.
Wow, who else will I agree with before the day is out? "Hugh Hewitt makes a good point..."
Michael-- and how does he get it so long before Mohammed was born?
From the write-up on the opera, it seems the Cretan boy was going to be surrounded by the heads of... the heads of many major religions.
The double-standard bothers me, too, but it's just not the same problem; it requires better law enforcement, maybe, but not overthrowing the government and writing a new constitution.
My divination attempts using the crystal ball of Google reveal nothing.
1- How about a play where Mohammed has teh gay sexx? That would make a few heads explode on both sides.
FWIW, this controvery sparked the muslim community to form a comittee to work with the german government over a 2 year period to improve relations, and the committee supported showing the opera. I heard this on NPR, so I don't have a link, and I'm gonna be lazy and not google it, b/c I have books to read so I can suck up to people.
Don't we have a composer on board here? Let's write up a libretto for him involving Buddha, Muhammed, Jesus, Maimonides, and Joseph Smith in buggery, teabagging, and The Dirty Sanchez, and then do a world tour in the company of our lawyers and publicists.
We could throw in Bertrand Russell just to prove that, as secularists, are even-handed about this.
the ill-conceived vow based on a definite description
This is cracking me up. Rigid designators, people!
And the best thing is that it is, in fact, a very common fairy-tale theme -- I can think of a couple of others off the top of my head.
We could throw in Bertrand Russell just to prove that, as secularists, are even-handed about this.
But about Bertrand Russel, it'd just be true.
I humbly suggest that Dirty Sanchez must be a character, not just an act.
The definite description thingies I remember involve action like this: Hera tells mortal lover of Zeus "get him to promise you any wish" and then when he does "ask to see him in his true glory" whereupon she is burned to cinders. Woo-woo!
That's it! Bertrand Russell can appear, talk about "on denoting," then have kinky sex with everyone. So the opera will be based on a true story AND warn people about the dangers of definite description.
I think it's obvious that Jesus and Buddha will play catcher. But what about Mohammed?
There's a fairy tale where a beautiful princess is sent to marry a beautiful prince but on the way her evil handmaid (who is a witch, natch) forces her to switches clothes and places so she is a servant and the witch is the princess bride. Once the ruse is figured out, the councillors & princes tell the witch a story about deception ending with them asking for her judgment: how should the liar be treated? And of course she suggests being tossed naked into a barrel spiked with nails that is then dragged along by horses, and then they say 'You are the liar!'
And then there's a wedding party. And something about talking drops of blood.
But pretty much any story involving asking a genie for a wish or a blessing or curse will involve an unintentional reference shift. In the Bible, too.
"On Denoting" makes passing, sly reference to bestiality: "'"I fucked x, and x is human'' is not always false'." Left unstated is that sometimes it is false.
18 -- Something I had not realized but picked up on when I was reading "Hansel and Gretel" the other night, is that witches are supposed to be an actual separate species -- not just wicked people who have gotten magic powers -- they are a breed of magical creature, like dwarves or elves or goblins.
18: Oh, man, I found that story completely compelling as a kid. That's the one with the beloved horse whose head gets nailed up over the castle gate, and gives the princess advice? And the princess has to herd geese? Particularly complicatedly creepy, even for a fairy tale.
The drops of blood always say: 'if thy mother knew thy pain, her heart would surely break in twain.'
Yes, she herds geese and the horse's head talks to her, and at one point she loses the drops of blood, I think right before everything starts to really go to hell.
20: I think that's right. No moral qualms about killing witches because they're not bad humans, they're witches. Sort of like the ethics of killing vampires on Buffy; they're demons, it's okay, they just look like people.
19: I must have studied the expurgated version of "On Denoting," because I don't remember that reference.
Is that before or after the Gray's Elegy passage?
Text of "The Goose Girl" is here. Scroll down to the table of contents.
If it was supposed to be offensive shouldn't it be something like Mohammed and Jesus having the hot gay sexxor in heaven or something? The interfaith romance that dare not speak it's name?
'You don't need Astroglide in Heaven!'
we can surely agree that the LGF crowd is toolish
IHNTSH, IJLS 'All of God's little tools.'
max
['C'mere, you little screwdriver...']
20: That's crazy talk. Witches are ordinary humans with a rare and valuable skill set. Compare with wizards, warlocks, necromancers, etc.
I'm pretty sure the waiting woman in "The Goose Girl" is not a witch, but a human. The word "witch" is never used to describe her, and plus witches are very ugly and it is unlikely the prince would have been deceived into marrying her just by a change of clothing. Also I thought "You go girl!" when the waiting woman said to the princess, "Get down yourself, and if you are thirsty stoop down and drink; I will not be your slave." The line in 23 is spoken by the severed head of the princess's horse, not by her mother's drops of blood, though the blood does say something quite similar.
I'm with SJ. Fairy-tale witches are people.
29 -- check it out: "Witches have red eyes, and cannot see very far; but they have a fine sense of smelling, like wild beasts, so that they know when children approach them." Sounds to me like fair folk.
32: Your source is either misinformed or describing a different phenomenon. Witches aren't born - who's ever heard of a baby witch? - they're initiated from the larger human population at regularly-held Black Sabbaths.
who's ever heard of a baby witch?
I could be misreading I guess -- I'm not particularly wed to this theory which I've only held since the night-before-last. I still don't think the waiting woman in "The Goose Girl" is a witch.
For connoisseurs of sexist writing and weird psychoanalytic interpretations, I recommend Stein's "Loathsome Women. He diagnoses five of unhappy, malicious female patients as witches. I am not exaggerating a bit. It's real hidden treasure.
You're welcome, girls.
No, she's not a witch. Just a baddie, but I did pretty well remembering considering I last read it 15 years ago.
I think it depends on the story. Sometimes they're evil women, sometimes they're demons or fair folk in human form.
You did remember well, Cala. I did not mean to be critical. Now about the "trivia" thing OTOH -- well that's another story.
Interestingly, Mannheim translates the horse's head's words as "Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it,/ Sadly, sadly, would she rue it." And the blood drops' words precisely the same, which indicates to me they are the same in the German text. I wonder why Crane translates them differently.
Emerson: another good text is Hans Ritz, „Die Geschichte vom Rotkäppchen - Ursprünge, Analysen, Parodien eines Märchens“.
(Um, I mean "Taylor and Edwardes", not "Mannheim".)
I thought all opera was really really gay.
So I read the synopsis of Idomeneo and I gotta say... that's really pretty lame. Everybody lives? Where's the tragedy? Where's the drama? Where's the pointless, stupid horror of it all? And it calls itself an opera!
If everybody lives, what are those heads about?
Rotkäpchen has a number of great interpretations. She didn't mean to stray from the path, but the flowers were oh so tempting, and so beautiful! and so she went further and further until oh! she was in real trouble!
And then the nice young man with the promising hunting business comes along and saves her family's honor.
Having got less than the requisite 8 hours, I read 'a ringing defense of graphic depictions of sodomy from the Malkin wing' as 'a ringing defense of graphic depictions of sodomy with the Malkin wing' and thought, yeah, I'd pay to see the YouTube of that, but no fucking contraltos and portly tenors for the soundtrack.
Although a fatwa against Terrance McNally was issued after the production of 'Corpus Christi', and the fundies protested when it staged in New York, the show went on. The fact that the opera didn't because of threats of violence is a double standard to say the least. Is it because we are more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims, or because of fear of violence from some of those Muslims. Should Christians therefore become more violent in their protest of 'Corpus Christi' and 'Piss Christ'?
In Germany, the fundies can protest however they like. Here in America, I doubt we're more sensitive to Muslim fatwas than Christian ones.
The fact that the opera didn't because of threats of violence is a double standard to say the least.
The fact that two different organizations in two different countries on two different continents did different things under similar circumstances is a 'double standard'? Just for entertainment's sake, can you name the hypocrite here?
n Germany, the fundies can protest however they like
Untrue. They can't protest by holding up swastikas while marching around in Nazi regalia, now can they?
Cowardly, maybe, overcautious, maybe, but above all stupid. Deutsche Oper should have seen this coming from a mile off and recognized that such an obviously provocative and theatrically pointless gesture wasn't worth the fight. Edgy remakes of inherently un-edgy operas by self-styled enfants terribles such as Neuenfels (the director) are pretty fucking irritating more often than not.
Mozart's early operas, meh. Some nice music, but nothing compared to the Da Ponte collaborations and Die Zauberflöte. Now if you were to do Così with the four leads turned into Christ, Mohammed, Buddha and Ganesh, and perhaps Alfonso into coyote and Despina into Richard Dawkins -- well, that would be art worth fighting for.
Wouldn't it make sense for the people who are driven to distraction over the cancellation of a German Opera performance to move to Germany in order to more effectively protest the protest of the performance? It's hard to protest Germany's protesting muslims from here.
Also, it would make sense for those people to actually enjoy opera.
Deutsche Oper should have seen this coming from a mile off
I think they use kilometers there.
51: The metric system is the tool of the devil.
Should Christians therefore become more violent in their protest of 'Corpus Christi' and 'Piss Christ'?
I could refer you to my culture war-explaining blog, but the short version about Piss Christ clarifies that street-pounding Christians had nothing to do with that protest, if you even want to call it such. The outrage was invented, more or less whole cloth, by former Senator Jessie Helms, who used his office to rally political-conservative groups to bring pressure to bear on museums, aid-granting governmental organizations, and liberals. To my knowledge there has never been a threat of violence issued from an American fundamentalist interest against an artwork or museum.
53: I've shown an image of Piss Christ to my churchgoing, Fox-watching, every-word-of-the-Bible-believing mom (without ever telling her what it was). She thought it was very beautiful.
52
51: The metric system is the tool of the devil.
That's why Robert Johnson or Tommy Johnson or whichever one come back from his deal-making playing a 10-stringed guitar. In 10/10 time.
53. Exactly my point. Non violent protest has been the rule, whether grass roots or astro- turf. And LB- I also agree that there is very little that we who are Americans can do about the cancelling of an opera in Germany. But there seems to be a tolerance for Muslim threats of violence in liberal societies that openly derides peaceful protest of Christian fundamentalists in similar circumstances. The recent Danish cartoon protest would be another example, let alone Theo Van Gogh and Pim Fortyn's murders.
No, you don't agree with me. At least, if you did, you'd be saying different things.
tolerance for Muslim threats of violence
Who's tolerating them? Seriously, who are you annoyed with here? Point fingers. Name names. If this is 'the director of that German opera company was sure a coward about stirring up controversy', dude, that I can agree with. Other than that, you're going to have to tell me who you're troubled by.
The relative absence of mainstream murderous violence is one of the ways in which America is not fascist. The exception is the anti-abortionists, and they seem to have calmed down. The Nazis have always been marginal.
One of the signs that the Weimar Republic was doomed was that political assassins got a lot of sympathy and often got lenient sentences.
Yes the director who cancelled the show was a coward. And I don't know that there are any specific names to be called out, because I don't have a problem with either McNally or Mapplethorpe. But I am troubled by the avant guarde who think it's OK to tweak the boobousie, but hide in the basement when challenged by Islamists. Further, I stand strongly in the camp of disagreeing with what you say but defending your right to say it. The show must go on.
17: Come now, we can have no double standards. They must both be bottoms, or preferably versatile. You can make up your own joke about Jesus teaching The Prophet to turn the other cheek, here, because it'll probably be better than mine.
60. And after all that silliness about free speech, we finally return to what's important.
I'm not sure what to do about a verbal joke involving turning the other cheek, but I do know it means we have to work in a spanking scene.
Which Deity will be with Mark Foley in the chatroom?
But I am troubled by the avant guarde who think it's OK to tweak the boobousie, but hide in the basement when challenged by Islamists.
You know, assuming without any basis whatsoever in fact that the director here would have gone on in the face of civil protests from Christians, but changed the show because of violent protests from Islamists, is this anything worse than cowardice? I mean, it's not so much anti-Christian as 'being willing to insult people I'm not scared of'. Which is a natural human condition.
If the change was motivated by fear rather than courtesy, I think the fear was inappropriate, but it seems weird to sit here in a country that collectively shits its pants everytime an olive-skinned man sneezes in an airport and get all judgmental about this director being skeert of the evil Muslims.
"But I am troubled by the avant guarde who think it's OK to tweak the boobousie, but hide in the basement when challenged by Islamists."
And what many of us are asking you is: who are these avant gaurde, hiding in the basement, tweaking boobies? Who is saying, "quite right, Germany, good show!" while masturbating over Robert Mapplethorpe prints? It is my strong suspicion that you have constructed these people out of thin air, in order to be annoyed with them.
The Comedy Central decisionmakers might qualify as double-standard-invoking, given that they wanted to avoid a neutral representation of the Prophet (pbuh) but accepted many unflattering depictions of Jesus.
Who is saying, "quite right, Germany, good show!" while masturbating over Robert Mapplethorpe prints?
Damn. Busted.
61: Does Islam believe that Mohammed was the literal child of God, also? Because if so I have a really great visual of a "Who's your daddy?!" *slap* "YOUR daddy is!" exchange.
I knew it was you, LB! I just bought those.
Also, the DO decision looks fear-based:
Mr. Neuenfels’s production was scheduled to reopen at the Deutsche Oper next month. But acting on an anonymous call from a worried operagoer, the Berlin police made an assessment that staging the opera would constitute a “risk with incalculable consequences.” In German as in English, incalculable can mean two things. It can mean too high to reckon, or it can mean your guess is as good as mine. The Deutsche Oper’s artistic director, Kirsten Harms, took it in the former sense. On Monday, she announced that “Idomeneo” would be struck from the fall schedule.
Yeah- I don't know how much of Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" I really buy. Post war Western Europe gets rich, has low birth rates, and imports populations that are difficult to assimilate for a variety of reasons, then feels under seige in their own homes. Kind of how Rome fell, but there aren't exactly Vandals and Visigoths ready to sack Paris and London.
you have constructed these people
La paille garde.
Foley will, of course, steal Jesus' line "suffer the little children to come to me." Which is when Jesus breaks out the handcuffs and flogging stick.
you know, i'm trying to stick to what's important here, but, really, I think it's awful judgemental to decide whether the director was being cowardly, or Comedy Central, even. I don't think it's actually important that free speech be 100% never infringed. There is a point at which it becomes worrisome, and is worth fighting for, but I think we should be a little more practical about this. Is a silly opera worth endangering people for, when there's really no greater social victory to be gained from it? I doubt it. Same with the comedy central episode. Free speech is not in enough danger to justify risking divisive, dangerous violence.
64. Didn't people get all hot and bothered when the pre 9/11 Guiliani threatened to cut funding from that Brooklyn (?) museum for putting up the show with the elephant dung Madonna? Maybe the brave challengers of the status quo who back down from the fatwas are made up, cuz I can't name anyone. And actually I was encouraged by Emerson's statement in 58, because it reminded me that although the dark night of fascism is decending on America, it always falls on Europe.
TLL, you're aware that there have been no protests whatsoever of the opera in question, much less threats of violence, right?
So the opera was cancelled because of the possibility of threats and violence and that's better?
A relevant link by the way, here:
"The decision to drop Mozart’s Idomeneo, because the production features the decapitated head of Muhammad (along with those of Jesus, Buddha and Poseidon), is a dramatic exhibition of cultural cowardice. We might call it pre-emptive grovelling. No Muslim had uttered a word of protest. But one anonymous operagoer, who saw an earlier production, told police that he felt Muslims might be offended." [emphasis mine]
OK then this really is a free speech issue, because the government has shut down a proposed staging of a work of art because of non exsistant threats. This seems even more perverted than the spanking scene proposed earlier. (Not that I have any objections to the British vice).
78: I was addressing a factual error in your 45, in which you stated that the opera received "threats of violence." In truth, no one had protested it at all. This was self-censorship, no different than thousands of other examples that take place all the time in the United States in deference to Christian sensibilities.
And the government didn't shut it down, you nitwit.
83. C'mon, making a mistake about who shut down an opera in germany doesn't make somone a "nitwit".
83- you're right- the government merely stated that they were unable to provide protection from non exsistant threats. So the company self censored. And you don't have a problem with this?
My wife can't do Halloween-themed activities in her elementary-school music classes -- they have to be "harvest"-themed -- because they offend the sensibilities of fundamentalist Christian parents in the district whose children sometimes retreat to corners and curl up in the fetal position at the mentions of witches and the devil. True story.
the government has shut down a proposed staging of a work of art
No, it hasn't. The opera was shut down by the opera house director. In fact, prime minister Angela Merkel protested the decision to shut down the opera, and recently got it reinstated (all links by way of Ezra Klein, by the way).
So:
- The event you're complaining about didn't take place.
- The event that happened doesn't mean what you think it meant.
- Much of this is becoming irrelevant anyway because of more recent events you haven't been paying attention to.
- Next time, please read the article.
TLL, geez, i was trying to defend you a bit. LB is on record in this thread having a bit of a problem with it. I can't do your reading for you.
As far as I can tell, I'm the only one without a problem with it, at all. Because tell me one reason why I should care.
86- Don't get me started on the neutering of holidays in school. It really makes my blood boil. And I suppose that I had conflated several recent events, and cherrypicking things to be outraged about will always lead to trouble.
everyone here is a poof, and you should all be outraged at your collective poofiness.
Rule three- no poofters
It occurs to me to mention that the lack of an explicit threat is not proof that the danger nonexistant. Perhaps if you have better knowledge than I, and can say that in the past muslim's never react violently to instances of sacrilege without first calling in threats, then you at least have a good basis for your assumption. I would like to know if this is the case.
Even self-censored, I think it's unspeakably lame that the opera director got their knickers in such a thorough knot over something that wasn't even happening. I think FL is quite right that there's nothing we can do about it, but that there is something very bothersome about these chilling effects. In fact, I find the fact they pre-emptively self-censored in some ways worse than if the gub'mint or some freaks with picket signs or anyone else had shut it down in actual protest.
I'm still working on which Diety would be young enough to attract Foley's eye, Michael.
87- Hooray for Merkel- champion of free speech. Which is as it should be.
Is a silly opera worth endangering people for, when there's really no greater social victory to be gained from it? I doubt it.
I didn't speak out when they came for the opera queens, for I was not an opera queen. The greater social victory is an emphatic statement that free artistic expression is a right that will be protected even when it offends religious sensibilities. Second, I think that announcing that one will capitulate to worries about violence, but not to peaceful protest, is a terrible precedent.
Bedtime story tonight was "The Goose Girl". And "The Three Spinners", which is sort of a bizarrely upbeat take on "Rumpelstiltzkin". And, since the Fraeulein was still awake and wished to have another story before she drifted off, "The Bremen Town Musicians", which is her #1 fave fairy tale.
Worries about principles aside, it's possible that things have turned out for the best. Germany has launched a 3-year conference on Islam because of this*, and it seems to me to be just the kind of thing that is needed. Relations b/w Muslims and Germans are rocky, and probably, given human nature, not to be improved by poking each other.
Setting a bad precedent could be occur, but it also seems that what's happened is a bit of introspection by the muslim community, and dialogue between the two larger communities. And perhaps having all 3 of these things occur is better than not having any of them occur, and instead infuriating and alienating the muslim community even more.
*oddly, on my first google for this, the second result was the Wikipedia entry from pederasty.
I bet Ogged would support me here if he weren't afraid of being disappeared for doing so.
Coincidently, 101 will be dialogue in our play.
I hope no other independent non-governmental foreign organizations make decisions that don't rally around American free speech ideals overnight.
I agree with 96, but trying to pin it on the German government or make it a free speech issue is pretty silly.
Cala, I agree with everything you say always, with the possible exception of the claim about free speech. It depends on other facts, I guess, such as the efforts the German authorities would be willing to make to prevent some tenor's head from being sawed off. If there isn't sufficient interest in protecting the de facto right to expression, that's a serious problem, I think.
I don't think the question of enforcement ever came up here, though.
Right, it seems that in this case the decision was the opera house's, and that it hadn't been encouraged by the police.
In other words, we have no one to be angry at except for the management of Deutsch Oper, and they recanted anyway. Advantage: rightosphere!
I'm not claiming this is much analogous, but as a point of clarification Labs, how would you weigh the free speech rights of someone in 1970s Alabama who wanted to stage a play about lynching?
1. Obviously cancelling the opera was silly.
2. However, in the current political climate in Europe where Muslims are concerned, you can kind of understand it.
3. Which doesn't mean "you must never offend Muslims." It's a practical, not a moral statement. See #1.
4. Re. double standards, e.g. the head of Christ/the head of Muhammed. In point of fact, Islam traditionally doesn't allow for depictions of Muhammed. I believe that orthodox Islam doesn't allow for depictions of people, full stop, which is why the art in mosques is always beautiful abstract geometric shapes. Christianity, even orthodox fundie Christianity does allow for depictions of Christ (and Mary, and everyone else). So it's not quite a level playing field.
5. Which still isn't saying that I, personally, as a western liberal Catholic, think that yanking the production was the right thing to do. Merely that the analogy is oversimplified and, dare I say, culturally ignorant.
You're such a racist. Tell me why this case is problematic?
B, let me take this up: So it's not quite a level playing field.
I know about the restrictions on depictions. But the depictions of Christ are seriously unflattering, to say the least, so it's not clear that it's some greater offense to Muslims to simply show Muhammed on the screen than it is to Christians to show the King of Kings doing all the dumb shit he does on South Park.
someone in 1970s Alabama who wanted to stage a play about lynching
Maybe it's more analogous to a production of less well beloved Shakespeare whose director decided to add a provocative bit of lynching stage business for no instrinsically logical reasons. A production that had already been shown a couple of seasons, not to any great acclaim (I'm guessing), which the theater director was underimpressed by anyways?
I was just trying to think of a case where it's much clearer that we would think "that's an insensitive provocation" before we would think "not doing that would be a de facto curb on free speech."
To put this another way, the stupid barbarism of the muslim reaction doesn't retrospectively justify the disrespect that provoked it.
To put it yet another way there are many many things we don't say, because they would be socially unacceptable, and yet we don't think of not saying them as abridgements of our speech rights.
111: Christianity is also a a majority religion in the U.S. Making fun of Christianity is balanced out by lots of other cultural discussions/arguments/events. Islam, not so much, and if the only (or one of a rare) public acknowledgement of a religion is hostile, it's not the same as if it's one shocking South Park episode among a hundred Christmas specials.
To put it yet another way there are many many things we don't say, because they would be socially unacceptable, and yet we don't think of not saying them as abridgements of our speech rights.
This gets it right. Just because a group exercises prudence doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing.
The fourth way to put, of course, is that you're a racist bastard and I can't decide whether to pin the note to your body before or after I shoot you, inshallah.
Sorry, B, I thought you were referring to the Comedy Central thing.
It's hard to gauge degree of offensiveness, and in this case we can't rely on how people respond (a kind of behavioral test) because that begs the question. I think it's pretty clear that Christians have to put up with a lot of, for lack of a better word, sacrilege partly because everyone knows they take it without, in most cases, a serious threat of violence.
Thought experiment: imagine a staging of some affront to Christians equal in outrageousness to Muhammed's severed head. Does the production get shut down for security reasons? More likely everyone yawns.
Ogged, I take it that many things that are insensitive provocations ought still be protected, both in the sense that they are legally permissible and that the state is obligated to protect the provoker from unlawful retaliation. We could think, "Christ, what an asshole you are for staging the opera that way" and at the same time think "let no one prevent this through threats."
It's not *self-restraint* that counts as a free-speech abridgement, it's restraint prompted by threats of violence. (Here we're moving away from the actual case, I say explicitly.)
Cala, I seriously don't understand how that changes anything.
More likely everyone yawns.
No, they don't. They protest, they write letters, they rage from the pulpit. Remember Godard's "Hail Mary"? No serious threat of violence, sure, but not for lack of caring.
This is a moment at which it would be useful to clarify what's being argued about. I suspect we have different theses in mind.
Actually, I'm more sympathetic to your position than to the one I've been arguing for. I do want to be clear that we shouldn't forget the issue of respect, but I'd agree with you, Labs, that insofar as we don't have a genuine choice about whether we'll be respectful or not--that is, when the de facto state is be respectful or die--it's impossible for "being respectful" not to seem like capitulation, and capitulation in this case is unacceptable. What that means in practice, I'm not sure. Does it mean that we should keep provoking muslim crazies until they understand what kind of society this is? Or do we hold off on provocations until Muslims feel comfortable enough that they're not so sensitive? Hard to say. I imagine a few more wars will help clear things up.
111: I think there's a difference not only of scale, but of quality, between depictions allowed, but we don't like unflattering ones, and depictions not allowed, and we don't like outsiders breaking that rule (especially when the depictions are unflattering). I mean, surely it makes more sense for a non-smoker to object if someone lights up in his house than it does for a smoker to object if someone lights a cigar.
Cala, I seriously don't understand how that changes anything.
I don't really mean anything all that profound except that there's a difference, in how it will be received, between a joke or outrageous depiction or insult aimed at a majority group and one aimed at a minority group. It's funny when Richard Pryor does 'whiteface.' It would be pretty cringeworthy if a white comedian did blackface today.
And I think that Christians are majority enough that poking fun at it doesn't really constitute a serious threat.
120: I think it's important to focus on the fact that there's no one "we" provoking crazies or making muslims feel comfortable. To the extent that there's a coherent "we" in this scenario, it's a secular political community that must insist that interactions between citizens are governed by a particular set of norms. It's simply the price of admission into a liberal society. Inevitably, some person-- not the community as a whole, just some boring opera guy-- will make decisions that inflame the sentiments of a religous minority. It's not something we did, but it's something that we have to protect in virtue of our acceptance of these norms.
Isn't provoking someone just to prove a point kind of assholish? Quite apart from the issue of whether provoking someone unintentionally, or because it's unavoidable, or for some artistic/educational reason, is okay.
122: It's hilarious that you're the Christian in this conversation.
124: B, I'm not making any judgment about whether it was good or interesting or worthwhile to do something offensive. I'm interested in what happens given that someone has done something offensive that falls within a perfectly reasonable construal of freedom of expression. It's not like my view on this would change if I learned the production were particularly good or bad--imagine the disaster if speech were protected to the extent that it isn't assholish: that requires an official orthodoxy on what's an asshole-making feature of an utterance.
I'm interested in what happens given that someone has done something offensive that falls within a perfectly reasonable construal of freedom of expression.
But why is this a free speech issue at all, rather than an issue of threats of violence? There's not govt. restriction, and no evidence that the government is unwilling to either protect potential victims or prosecute anyone who commits violence.
Tim, right; 104 made a move in this direction, and once we got into this, we've left the facts of the case behind, since there was no official unwillingness.
96: The greater social victory is an emphatic statement that free artistic expression is a right that will be protected even when it offends religious sensibilities.
And then we get Theo Van Gogh.
The problem is that, in reality, no one can truly protect the people who exercise free artistic expression. Social victory is all well and good, but I can understand why an opera house might cavil at the notion of Salomé being staged starring its lead tenor's actual head.
It should be pointed out that the original opera didn't have a reference to Mohammed [or Christ or Buddha] in it; that was an addition made by Neuenfels. IMNSHO, there's a vast difference between presenting a classic as it was written and adding deliberately provocative elements at a time when assorted conflicts are already setting people's nerves and sensitivies on edge. Nothing like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre or "Terrorist!" at the airport check-in.
129: I've been insisting that it doesn't matter whether it was a good or bad decision on Neuenfels' part, or at least that it doesn't matter for the sake of one of the many interesting issues here.
All right, I'm too tired to continue to continue strangling this thread. A-salaam-alaikum.
be respectful or die
this would make a great t shirt.
I admit that "Amhmenimexican" made me laugh a lot. Aloud.
Labs, I'm sure we're on the same page. I'm just reacting, probably, to the "where's the outrage?!?" issue.
I'm not outraged b/c I'm bored with this kind of stuff, and b/c I think provoking it is silly. The opera production, whatever, silly to cancel, they changed their minds, it's over.
Now if they had instituted a casual dress code, on the other hand...
This may already have been mentioned up-thread, but the mayor of Berlin is teh gay, so in a sense the whole city government is one well-funded production.
He's the one who borrowed someone else's wife for the evening.