More about the cartoon controversy: Satire vs. ridicule
A blogger named Tristero (on "Hullabaloo") has this interesting take on the whole cartoon controversy:
"The objects of satire are often - always? - respected authority figures or ideas within the culture of the satirist. WITHIN the culture, not OUTSIDE the culture....as I see it, Islam is not part of mainstream Danish culture. Mohammed has no genuine cultural authority the way, say, the royal family might. To call the cartoons satire, therefore, seems to me inaccurate. It’s simply ridicule, and ridicule of a figure from a culture that, from within Denmark - the satirizing culture - is Other. Danes are heaping scorn and humiliation on someone’s religion, someone who is not Us. Someone who doesn’t look like us, doesn’t act like us, doesn’t think like us, isn’t as rich as us. And just can’t be us."
Tom Tomorrow adds: "And this is why so many right wingers have suddenly become free speech absolutists on the issue of the Danish cartoons. Right wingers hate satire, but they love ridicule."
www.thismodernworld.com
"The objects of satire are often - always? - respected authority figures or ideas within the culture of the satirist. WITHIN the culture, not OUTSIDE the culture....as I see it, Islam is not part of mainstream Danish culture. Mohammed has no genuine cultural authority the way, say, the royal family might. To call the cartoons satire, therefore, seems to me inaccurate. It’s simply ridicule, and ridicule of a figure from a culture that, from within Denmark - the satirizing culture - is Other. Danes are heaping scorn and humiliation on someone’s religion, someone who is not Us. Someone who doesn’t look like us, doesn’t act like us, doesn’t think like us, isn’t as rich as us. And just can’t be us."
Tom Tomorrow adds: "And this is why so many right wingers have suddenly become free speech absolutists on the issue of the Danish cartoons. Right wingers hate satire, but they love ridicule."
www.thismodernworld.com
posted by Editor at Large at 9:19 AM
2 Comments:
Great point!
Actually it was rather a stupid point.
And this is why so many right wingers have suddenly become free speech absolutists - another liberal lie. It is the liberals and socialists that seek to restrain the free speech. They don't want certain words spoken when the pledge of allegiance is spoke, they don't want prayer to be spoken in government buildings, etc.
I think if you examined the facts you would find your own are the real enemy of free speech.
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