Stupid people

[mundens]

Well, there were two things that annoyed me over the weekend, so I'm going to vent on one of them here, maybe the other later, but I'll cut it so you don't have to read unless you feel like it.

Comments

Hypocrisy

[eloieli]

The thing that really annoys me about this is the abject hypocrisy that has been made evident. As Mudens said, other minority groups are publically satarised all the time. In particular a cartoon was shown on friday nights closeup that I know many Christians found offensive (I didn't see the cartoon, but from what I heard I would have found it offensive).

The thing here is that with the 'anti-muslim' cartoons, the likes of the Prime Minister are coming out and saying that while the editor had the right to publish they shouldn't have. There's all this hand wringing and concern about upsetting the muslims and yet no one has mentioned the cartoon shown on prime time TV.

This is what really annoys me. I applaud the Dominion Post editor for publishing the cartoons because at least he is consistent. He wrote soemthing to the effect that "If we are going to satarize Christians, especially Catholoics, then we should not step back from satarising muslims just because they threaten violence."

If I had been watching Close Up on friday night, I would have excercised my right to tune out and watch something else if I found what they were showing offensive.

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Largely I agree with you, though I wouldn't agree that nothing is offensive. Child pornography is offensive, women being trafficked for pornography is deeply offensive, gratuitous graphic rape and violence are offensive to name a few.

I recognise that society doesn't live according to all of my values, but I do think there are values shared by the vast majority that can serve as a benchmark for what is offensive and what isn't. Obviously this will always be a flawed process and somethings should be censored that aren't and somethings with be realeased that shouldn't be.

I certainly agree that the reaction of many muslims (including the veiled threats of violence I saw from New Zealand muslims) are much, much more offensive that the original cartoons.

Re: Hypocrisy

[mundens]

Yes, we will continue to disagree about some of these things.

I'd reiterate that no one has to be offended by even child pornography. I'm not offended by it, for instance.

I don't like it, I don't find it arousing, I don't think it should be produced using real children*, but I'm not offended by it.

*(AFAIK, The jury is still out on whether producing it using virtual children is a good or a bad thing, there is some evidence that it can be used to allow paedophiles to function in society without molesting real children, in which case it would be a good thing, and some evidence it just makes them worse, which would make it a bad thing.)

The reason we control child pornography is not because people may be offended by it, but because it's production is usually associated with damage, whether mental or physical, to actual children.

The same applies to rape, and violence and non-consensual slave trafficking.

We outlaw them because of actual damge to, and rights infringments of, real people, we don't outlaw them for being offensive.

And only some people people find depictions of these things offensive, and again they have to choose to do so.

For instance there are women who find the idea and certain depictions of rape far from offensive. In fact, they find it quite a turn-on.

Sure, the majority of them certainly would not want to actually be raped, but we really must understand that there is massive difference between depictions of an activity and the activity itself.