catsittingstill | Tolerance--he said it better than me.

Tolerance--he said it better than me.

There is a great essay about freedom and tolerance here. I wish I had written it. But I enjoyed reading it, so I forgive the author for making me jealous.

And a stray thought. 19 terrorists who were also Muslims (out of a group of about 10,000 al Quaeda members) destroyed the World Trade Center nine years and a smidge ago. There's a diagram here. There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. 1,500,000,000 minus 10,000 is 1,499,990,000. If rounding to three significant figures is a reasonable first approximation, then to a reasonable first approximation, NONE of them were involved. The terrorists disappear in the rounding error. They stay in the rounding error until you get to the seventh significant figure. It's weird to think like this--but it also makes me wonder why I haven't thought this way all along.

The diagram also makes clear why we would rather not be at war with Islam if we can avoid it. Not to mention that a sizable chunk of us* are Muslim, which would make it all even harsher.

*Where I'm using "we" and "us" to mean Americans, and beg the indulgence of anyone I discomfit thereby.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Thanks for pointing to that, he makes some very good points. I hadn't come across his newspaper articles before, I've made a note to look for them in future.

Most of us (on this side of the Pond) know David Mitchell, the author, mainly as a comedian on quiz shows (and his own show occasionally), but his style of comedy seems to be based a lot on observation and pointing out things which are wrong or don't make sense and they generally have a deeper 'bite' when you actually think about them. I've got a lot of time for him, he's one of only a few comedians I'll watch a programme because he's on it.

This article (and reading some of his others; I can't watch video on this machine) has confirmed my opinion of him.

:-) I'm glad you liked it. I wouldn't mind seeing more of this guy's writing. Or his comedy, though since I don't have a TV, and live in the US anyway, I suppose that isn't too likely.

If you click on the link to te article, then click on his name, you'll find articles going back a couple of years. I haven't watched the video articles there as I don't have sound on this computer (and video is dodgy, it's rather under-powered) and have only sampled the text articles, but what I've read both makes me giggle and at the same time makes me think. He seems to write the same way he talks, I can 'hear' him saying it as I read.

I'll see if I can find any of his comedy programmes online.

Thanks for the link to the article on the difference between tolerance and respect. I love it.

Yeah, I thought it was great and wanted to share it. I'm glad you like it too.

I disagree with some of his details rather forcefully (what he says about tattoos makes him a complete ass), but the broad point that we have no business banning things just because we don't love them is certainly something I support.

The burqa issue in particular is a really hard one for me. On the one hand, I see the religious tradition that demands it as a form of oppression that cries out for a forceful response from the state. On the other hand, if someone decides on her own to wear the thing, saying that she's not allowed to is repugnant.

On the one hand, when members of a dominant religious group are allowed to wear their symbols openly, merely wearing those symbols can be oppressive to non-members. On the other hand, not allowing a person to wear the symbols they care about oppresses that person.

It seems like all possible choices are intolerably harmful to someone.

The Framers, I think, were very wise in the First Amendment. There are very few cases where direct government intervention in family and religion is helpful, and very many when it only makes matters worse, sometimes much worse. Unless actual crimes of abuse are committed, I don't think it wise for the state to intervene.

But what constitutes crimes of abuse?

Violence, the threat of violence, or deprivation. Keeping an independent person in a family or religious group against their will. Gross fraud, especially when large amounts of money are involved. In other words, the sorts of things that are crimes in every other context. I do not think this is in basis complex.

Does teaching a child that he'll burn forever for being bad constitute a threat of violence? Does preventing a child from learning about safe sex constitute deprivation? Does raising a child to be ignorant of any other way of living constitute keeping them in the group against their will?

I've been struggling with such issues for years. Don't patronize me by telling me they're trivial.

[Added: it was not my intention to patronize you.]

I know no way to outlaw these things without making matters worse. Are we to make a list of disapproved beliefs, which, if taught, allow the state to take children from a family? Where could we find the saints who could write and enforce such law?

At least these days outs are available to most children.

Edited 2010-09-18 02:29 (UTC)

Actually, I wonder if putting and end to home schooling would help with this. Children raised in such conditions would at least discover at an early age that other people thought differently if they mixed with children from other subcultures in school.

I think he is entitled to his opinions about tattoos, but I think his main point there is "here is something I think is a bad idea. Isn't it a good thing that I can't ban it?"

My major issue with the burqua is --I'm okay with someone *choosing* to wear it, because it makes her feel holy or whatever. I'm emphatically not okay with someone being threatened or pressured in some way to force her to wear it. I agree we need safeguards against that, but aside from laws against domestic violence (and taking it seriously as being "crime" rather than "women's issue") and resources to make it easier for women in bad situations to escape, I don't see what we can reasonably do without intruding unacceptably on people's private lives.

He came across as saying that tattoos are, in all cases, such an obviously bad idea that only a complete idiot would get one. I don't have any myself, but I'm sort of open to the idea that I might get one some day, and I have friends who have ink I greatly admire, so I took it kinda personal.

I'm pretty much in agreement about the burqa. It's definitely a crime to force someone to wear it, but it's pretty hard to justify the proposition that making it illegal will help the victims of that crime.

Yes, he did come across as saying that. I don't understand why that makes him a complete ass, myself; many people have subjects on which they're not entirely reasonable.

But his point was (I thought) "Look, here's something I think is stupid and hurts the people who choose to do it, but I'm not advocating banning it because people should be as free as possible, even when that means making asses of themselves."

The fact that you don't think tattoos are stupid, in my opinion makes it a better example.

The problem with making the burqua illegal is that then those women who are forced to wear it will be confined to their houses. Better they should have the freedom of the world outside their door, even with a burqua, than be imprisoned completely, I think.

On this I entirely agree with you. I want those women in the mall shopping for nice comfy shoes, in the library picking up books to read, and on the city bus taking their little daughters to school. I want them turning out with their families to watch fireworks and parades. I want them strolling in the Public Gardens and going down to the waterfront to watch boats go by. I want them out there enjoying life the way I enjoy life, beacause they are my sister humans.

In addition, though, I also think a right is only meaningful when the opposite right exists.face and body under metres and metres of cloth--but telling me I can't even if I want to isn't defending or protecting my right to choose my mode of dress, it's saying, "You can only have this right as long as you don't use it in ways we don't like." This demotes it from an actual RIGHT to a removable privilege, which can then be removed from other people too. (Something I don't have a problem with in the case of gun ownership, but that's a different matter.)

Besides, I am reserving my own right to wear a full-face covering just in case I'm ever in a horrible disfiguring accident.

I also think a right is only meaningful when the opposite right exists.

Yes! I knew somebody else out there would understand this without needing it to be explained.

I think membership and participation in a cultural system, as with membership and participation in a family, involves demands and compromises on the part of individuals. While some families and cultures are more just and loving than others, I do not believe it is possible to construct either a culture or a family that is perfectly loving and just. This is just part of life. It is only in ideas of heaven where such things are possible.

Which is not to say making changes and advocating justice and compassion are not worthwhile. But I do not see how heaven on earth can be achieved.

:-)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tolerance--he said it better than me.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject