Assorted Charlie Hebdo links

1. Ross Douthat, on “the blasphemy we need.”

2. “A thorough understanding of the Iconoclast period in Byzantium is complicated by the fact that most of the surviving sources were written by the ultimate victors in the controversy, the iconodules.” That is from Wikipedia on the Iconoclastic debates.

3. Against Daumier (splendid visuals too).

4. Juan Cole on the attacks.  And Will Wilkinson.  And insulting Monty Python (video).

5. And, for something completely different, here is a video of dos niños colombianos.

Comments

#1 The Douthat piece is excellent.

How does the principle apply to the violence (or threats thereof) from government? Does defying the minimum wage become praiseworthy, as resistance against illiberalism?

Yes that is a very relevant and pertinent question. I'm also worried possible anti-Muslim backlash from this could hurt the chances of getting the borders open to help build the economy. All very very relevant questions I don't see the far-left media asking.

To some, it doesn't matter how many jihadi slaughters occur, nor how many innocent dhimmis lie ripped apart in body bags.

The biggest concern in their minds is always "possible anti-Muslim backlash."

Man, that really went over your head.

JAMRC is a fake open-borders fanatic

Wait, what?! Hello? What the hell does the murders in France have to do with the minimum wage?

Minimum wage insults the Prophet, or something.

Probably Daniel Klein's pet peeve, to be included in every comment, everywhere, anytime.

But as the for actual NYT? - '“Under Times standards, we do not normally publish images or other material deliberately intended to offend religious sensibilities. After careful consideration, Times editors decided that describing the cartoons in question would give readers sufficient information to understand today’s story.”' Quote from the Washington Post page where they publish a recent Charlie Hebdo cover Muhammad spoof.

Under Times standards, we do not normally publish...

Which is an entirely reasonable stance - but these circumstances are about as far away from 'normal' as it's possible to get.
Cowardice - or stupidity.

Here is a link to a New York Times page with an interactive image showing a statue of Christ in a container of urine: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/art-shock.html

So their policy actually should read: "Under Times standards, we do not normally publish images or other material deliberately intended to offend religious sensibilities of those who might saw our heads off and make a Youtube video out of it."

Christians are an icky majority, Muslims are an "embattled" minority. Totally different.

Funny thing is Jesus is a Muslim prophet too, just not THE prophet.

It sounds consistent with their statement. If you're publishing an article on 'shocking art' showing the reader at least a few pics of the art in question is necessary for 'understanding the article'.

If you’re publishing an article on ‘blasphemous cartoons’, showing the reader at least a few cartoons in question is necessary for ‘understanding the article’. But that would involve 'getting your head cut off.'

Look if the NYT wants to run pictures of A) Piss Christ and not B) cartoons of Mohammed, great, just admit that the people in group A handle it like adults and the people in group B will kill you for it. Stop pretending that you're being consistent with some external principle, other than the principle of self-preservation.

That also reminds me of how the NYT handles(d?) alleged affairs by politicians. They claim they normally don't publish such charges but if more tabloid outlets have already made the allegations 'an issue' they will cover that issue.

I hadn't seen that 'insulting Python' sketch before. Genius.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhstRrZzaso

Hats off to the Byzantine iconodules. They defeated terrorism! Wikipedia: Traditional explanations for Byzantine iconoclasm have sometimes focused on the importance of Islamic prohibitions against images influencing Byzantine thought. According to Arnold J. Toynbee,[2] for example, it was the prestige of Islamic military successes in the 7th and 8th centuries that motivated Byzantine Christians to adopt the Islamic position of rejecting and destroying idolatrous images.

I had my Byzantine history from an Anglo-Catholic in high school and an icon kissing Greek in college, and this was exactly how it was presented to me.

But then as a Catholic and art lover I think the bildersturm was one of the great tragedies of european history. It is no coincidence that there is a statue of Savonarola on the Luther monument in Worms.

John Julius Norwich's "History of Byzantium" is terrific on this period. All involved were nuts.

@RoyL -I probably am misreading you, but it seems that you are mixing your metaphors. The Bildertrum ('statute-storm', see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeldenstorm) is like the 726 - 842 CE Byzantine iconoclast controversy but in 16th century Europe. The iconoclasts are the ones that break statutes, so you should be rooting for the anti-iconoclasts, the iconodules. They are my heroes in my tongue-in-cheek comment. Savonarola was an anti-Pope ascetic mystic, and he did have a bonfire where art was destroyed. Luther hated Catholic rituals, so naturally Savonarola is a saint in his eyes. However, if you like art, you should be rooting against Luther and Savonarola. I trust you are probably saying the same thing, just condensed.

@Todd--no historian has the last word (save I). They all base their analysis off the same primary sources, so it's just a matter of interpretation. Sometimes the source material is limited, so your historian will speculate. His guess is almost as good as mine. As a historian wrote on Lincoln--we have more material on him than nearly any other president-- we still can't agree on his views towards slavery (which evolved over time anyway). I stand by my statement: the first freedom fighters against jihadists were the Byzantines. They did fight off wave after wave of Muslim hordes, starting with Leo III the Isaurian and ending with Constantine XI, but in the end they fell in 1453, with catastrophic consequences for the Balkans (where the Ottomans got two-thirds of their revenue). Only in the 1820s did the fulsome Muslim yoke fall off, and now the mantle has shifted to the rest of Europe, which must renew the Crusades. Will we see another Siege of Vienna, like in 1529? And I'm *not* talking about Vienna, Virginia either for you local yokels reading this blog.

and I forgot to add: another good Byzantine historian besides Norwich is: Cyril Alexander Mango (born 14 April 1928) a British scholar in the history, art, and architecture of the Byzantine Empire. A newcomer is a woman, name escapes me, I have her book, unread, somewhere.

"They all base their analysis off the same primary sources": more often they uncritically take material from secondary sources.

1. Ross Douthat has clearly been waiting to write this rah rah big balls of blasphemy piece for a while.

I look forward to him writing something blasphemous on principle very soon.

Considering his own paper's stance on showing the cartoons, his column *is* blasphemous. There are many orthodoxies to be blasphemous against, though only a few these days that kill people for it (though he acknowledges his own faith's darker history and use of "the rack or the stake.")

But I'd suppose you'd rather be on the side of Bill Donohue and his Catholic League (how many people is that besides Bill and his fax machines)?

In this case, of course, Douthat is defending a magazine that has been sued "14 times in recent years by the Roman Catholic Church." Given his own Catholicism, I'm not sure what other proof you need.

I don't find this piece controversial (especially right now--rah rah!), and I actually agree with most of what he said, though his writing is typically well-caveated. I'm just saying I hope he puts his money where his mouth is.

So you think that someone who supports the right to blasphemy is not "putting his money where his mouth is" unless he is actually blasphemous.

Curious, Jan, do you support the right to gay marriage?

I would say Ross both defends anti-Islamic blasphemy under his criteria #3 and criticizes their anti-Catholic blasphemy under his criteria #2.

Anything that needed to be said, was said at Regensburg or several centuries earlier. The Prophet Muhammad, a recent convert to Islam, immediately set out to do violence and convert by the sword. Nothing has changed in 1300 years except the will of the West.

tI think we've seen enough to draw a few conclusions: Islam is incompatible with Western ideals; welfare subsidizes violent, unassimilable, r-selected populations; and open borders mean the death (literally) of liberal society.

Islam is incompatible with anything but itself, and even then they fight with each other all the time

The "r-selection/k-selection" is not a very useful or coherent concept. Ashkenazi Jews had much higher fertility rates in the modern era until recently relative to Christians in Europe, despite higher IQ and patrental investment. European or Asian populations often had higher fertility rates than tropical populations with lower parental investment. Etc.

A self-refuting comment.

You can:
1. Invite violent, easily-offended people into your home.
2. Or insult them.

You really shouldn't do both.

Good reasons to ban the NRA.

I haven't seen that NRA members are disposed to violence against people who insult them. What news story am I missing?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/17/nugent-threatens-death-if-obama-wins-in-november/

If you think he's the only NRA member with these intense cray-cray thoughts running through his daft head, you're delusional.

OMG. So it's true.

And if you think Ted Nugent is a representative NRA member, you're delusional.

I think there are millions of anti-Obama gun nuts out there who have violent fantasies about killing him and other prominent Democrats.

You don't?

I think you are attempting to conflate the behavior of the NRA with the Islamic terrorists that just killed 12 people and you failed to make anything like a convincing argument.

Furthermore, you started by asking to ban the NRA, which would be a flagrant violation of the Constitution. You seem to be a person that let's ideology trump any kind of logical thought process.

No, I didn't conflate anything. I responded to a post that listed two conditions that, when combined, create problems.

The NRA fits those conditions.

Reading between the lines, the original post I responded to is a tacit call to disallow Muslim immigration, which is, hey, a pragmatic approach to avoiding the whole issue. I see banning the NRA as on par: avoiding a problem.

"No, I didn’t conflate anything. I responded to a post that listed two conditions that, when combined, create problems. The NRA fits those conditions."

The two conditions were: "1. Invite violent, easily-offended people into your home. 2. Or insult them"

The NRA doesn't fit those conditions. No one is inviting the NRA into the US. They are a legal group of individuals exercising their Constitutional right to peaceful assembly and organization. Furthermore, the original poster wasn't calling for a ban on anything. You childishly inserted that into the argument and then directed it at a group you dislike in a spurious attempt to associate them with the recent terrorist event.

"I see banning the NRA as on par: avoiding a problem. "

You see a group you don't like and you express a desire to use coercive power to suppress them.

What kind of gun control do they have in France?

And what became of those thoughts outside of their being printed?

Where is your evidence for a pattern of NRA members directing violence against those who insult them?

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the slums in my home town have a homicide rate that averages 35 per 100,000 per year. Rural and small towns in Upstate New York have homicide rates that average 1.14 per 100,000. In one locus, sport hunting is verrry popular, and it's not hard to find people with side businesses who process deer. In the other, it's not. Guess which, Mr. Dead Serious?

Let me guess: upstate NY hunters need assault rifles to hunt deer.

They also require membership in a national organization whose main agenda is to ensure that guns of mass destruction remain legal.

No, a real hunter believes in no such shit.

Assault rifles were banned a long time ago. Now, you're probably not pretending to be stupid not knowing that, that's usually genuine ignorance.

The law banning assault weapons expired In 2004.

That's why murderers are running wild thru the streets with "assault weapons."

"careless" (apt name) again showing his/her stupidity not only in the form of outright ignorance but pointing fingers and accusing others of stupidity while completely wrong.

Let's for a moment drop the "assault weapon" label. It's muddying the discussion.

Please tell me who you think "needs" an AR-15. What kind of person, and for what purpose?

What kind of person needs hollow-point bullets, or speedloaders, or extended clips? I'd suggest that if you feel like you "need" these things, you probably either need psychological counseling for paranoia, or you really need to fucking move, pronto.

If the Muslims get AK-47's, then I want my AR-15.

You just proclaimed that murderers weren't running through the streets with assault weapons.

You don't have a consistent argument or thought process, do you? You're just a scared little pussy, is my conclusion.

Assault weapons do not equal assault rifles. But keep digging, stupid.

I don't think I'll ever understand the "make yourself look stupid" school of trolling.

Self-reflective comment is self-reflective.

Oh schnap! Dead serious straight up hit you with the "I know you are but what am I?" Just try and defend yourself against that bon mot!

Oh look. Internet bullies come out from the woodwork to suck each other off.

Quaint.

If I made fun of you for whining about bullies, would that be bullying? But then maybe accusing someone of being a bully is bullying behaviour itself. A regular Mexican standoff.

Will Tyler or Alex dare to post a cartoon from Hebdo that mocks Islam to show that they won't tolerate attempts to silence free speech? (asks the coward who comments under a fake name)

No but they will (I would say mockingly) compete in a "who can one up the other in a Orthodox iconography face-off". On Christmas.

Every society enforces its taboos. France has laws declaring certain speech off-limits, so does Saudi Arabia. This is a clash of societies.

@ A-G Reply relevant to initial question how?

1. Tyler and Alex both clearly think that all organized religions are laughably false (though both would probably acknowledge they provide some benefits to believers).

2. Both clearly think that societies cannot advance without free debate that debunks laughably false ideas, and that these attacks are a direct assault on the debate.

3. The obvious response for them (as it is for everyone who believes those things) is to post those cartoons. If enough people do it, the taboo is broken. (This holds, even if you believe the cartoons are witless, as they are.)

4. Alas, being among the first to do it takes real courage.

Thus, the question is, do they have the courage to act on conviction or not?

No and they don't claim to be courageous. Honestly look at the name of the site. There's a lot of ruin in a nation so no use getting worked up is their mindset. I guess you could occasionally accuse Tarrobak of vainglory, but Cowen doesn't even hide the fact that if good ethnic food and conveinence require a police state well thems the breaks. What chance is there he's going to risk anything for the right to blasphemy.

"thems the breaks" should probably be "them's the breaks": Allah approves of helpful punctuation. At least in English.

I don't know that they think any of those things. I am sure there are areas Tyler and Alex consider off-limits by commenters on this mostly un-moderated blog. My point is that this isn't so much a matter of liberal principle as the more pedestrian issue of whose taboos we enforce. I haven't seen it mentioned that Charlie Hebdo published a parody of "hook-nosed, money-grubbing Jews," or a thesis that gas chambers were not actually used in the Holocaust, for example.

James D. Watson and Jason Richwine lost their jobs for blaspheming against 21st Century American dogmas.

So...

Pissing people off is probably best avoided in a decent society, but REALLY pissing people off to the point of physical violence is heroic?

What the fucking fuck kind of logic is this?

The hare-brained logic of cocooned, French liberals who think that people are fungible and that Arab and African Muslims will magically transform into secular social democrats.

French intellectuals have a lot of hare-brained ideas. This isn't one of them. History shows that mockery can make peoples with all sorts of genetic and cultural endowments abandon religion in droves. That doesn't mean people are fungible enough to assimilate fully with alien cultures, but it does mean that Europe could minimize resident radicals if everyone mocked radicals rather than leaving it to a handful of fringe publications.

History shows that mockery can make peoples with all sorts of genetic and cultural endowments abandon religion in droves.

I don't think history shows any such thing but that's neither here nor there. You're just hoping to recruit for your secular cause--I'm not on board, by the way--and it all comes down to whose ox is being gored.

"it all comes down to whose ox is being gored" I understand the expression but don't understand how it relates to my post about the power of mockery or why it would be in Europe's best interest to use it in this case.

Also, if you're really a believer, why do you care about any of these secular topics? If you think there's a just God out there, then you believe everything will turn out just fine. Besides, your life here is a trivial blink of an eye compared to your eternal afterlife.

#5 was wonderful.

4. Juan Cole's theory is really interesting, but at this point it seems highly speculative. We don't yet even know on whose orders it was carried out.

What I find more disturbing about the attacks are the tactics used. http://www.wieldingpowerpublishing.com/islamists-have-finally-figured-out-the-most-efficient-way-to-cause-terror/

IBT wants us to consider that it could have been the Joos: http://www.donotlink.com/framed?613280

+1 for identifying the tactics as a really scary part of this.

Bombs work well in the third world where there is little effective medical response and lots of armed potential interveners nearby. Guns work well in the first world where there is a rapid and efficient medical response but few armed potential interveners nearby.

If the Boston bombing had happened in Mosul, there'd have been 30 dead.

For that matter, if the Boston bombing had happened at the starting line, or on the Esplanade on July 4th as in the original plan, there would have been many more dead. Doing it right next to the marathon medical tent was an oversight by the attackers and a lucky break for the victims.

His basic point is that we should not forget that White Christian French people are the real problem.

So it doesn't matter who ordered it. If it was the Dalai Lama, his point would still be that White Christians are to blame. It is his schtick. It is what he does.

No, no. Jaun thinks the real culprits are (judicious use of "maybe" notwithstanding) much closer to home.

"Maybe the staff at Charlie Hebdo would be alive if George W. Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney hadn’t modeled for the Kouashi brothers how you take what you want and rub out people who get in your way."

http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/terrorist-radicalized-torture.html

Yeah, because the Bush Administration invented the contemplation and execution of violent acts ex nihilo. The Fall of Man actually took place in 2002 in the Oval Office when Dick Cheney persuaded GWB of the goodness the Fruit of the Tree of Legacy and lo, he took it and he ate it. There is no other means for someone to come to the conclusion that killing someone might be a good idea.

B-but he said "maybe"!

"Maybe the people at Utoya would still be alive if Merkel hadn't modeled for Breivik how you take what you want and rub out people who get in your way." That's a perfectly coherent and non-inflammatory statement!

Remember, Juan Cole got kicked off of NPR for being too conservative.

I believe you are thinking of Juan Williams.

You are quite right.

According to Cole, the real victims were not the murdered, but the French Muslims who might be the victims of some future pogrom which will never happen.

In the real world, no Western state has launched pogroms against its Muslim residents in the face of even more massive attacks. There are more "hate" attacks against Jews in the US than against Muslims.

'no Western state has launched pogroms against its Muslim residents'

The Spanish might just beg to differ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista

But then, who really cares about Spain's understanding of its own foundation?

And let us not forget those nasty Yugoslavian wars of the 1990s, with pogroms for everyone in the wrong place at the wrong time - though maybe one could argue that the former Yugoslavia was somehow not part of the West, only being European, and not Western European.

We wouldn't even need to be having this discussion if the left didn't conviently hold the principle that mocking Pat Robertson and the Religious Right somehow advanced the goal of standing up to religious fundamentalism of all stripes. To my mind thats even more pernicious than the the tu quoque/but but Crusades stammer so popular on the left when the left needs to evade a discussion about Islamic relgious violence

. A good portion of the left psychologically needs blasphemy to prove to themsevles they are keeping it real while making six figures working for Big Law. How great then if that blasephemous rancor was directed for the next five years in a truly courageous manner at Islam rather than at a completely neutered target like Christian fundamentalism. The left knows how to mock religion and drive adherents away from orthodox conceptions of religion. It did it successfully in the U.S. in two generations. That it won't use these tactics against Islam is revealing.

They're preoccupied with truly dangerous people like sport hunters and recreational target shooters.

I wouldn't have a problem with sport hunters and recreational target shooters if the tools they use to enjoy their hobbies couldn't also be used to kill large numbers of people in a very short period of time with little effort.

Have you ever actually fired a rifle?

What do you think about all those tools at the disposal of government bureaucrats?

I have, and I have many family members who are quite fond of them.

I think the "in case we have to fight the government" argument is lame.

That's not my point. My point is that another group of people have far deadlier, destructive weapons and have used them repeatedly to kill millions of people. But for some reason you seem to think the problem is the rifles used by hunters and target shooters.

The entire point of the 2nd Amendment was to have a well-armed populace to prevent the government from becoming tyrannical, including through democratic means. That was one of the common law purposes of militias.

Im reminded of a joke i once heard:

Do you know why PETA protests fur and not leather? Because throwing red paint on a biker's jacket will get you killed.

The Left attacks Christianity because, like rich old women, they make safe targets.

Juan Cole is essentially saying that the best way to deal with Islamic terror is to lay back and enjoy it. At least this time he didn't blame Israel.

No; you are essentially putting words into his mouth which don't exist.

You're right, he didn't exactly say they should enjoy it. That was a slight embellishment on my part, my apologies.

Excuse me, but can someone please explain: black countries for blacks, Asian countries for Asians, white countries for EVERYBODY?!

Look, it is obvious that the whole unpleasantness at Charlie Hebdo was the result of a lack of diversity on the staff. If only they'd had the foresight to include a couple of Iranian mullahs, or some Pakistani Taliban on their staff, then this never would have happened.

So clearly the entire western world needs more diversity. Much, much more diversity. And to repent, and confess that Mohammed is the Prophet, or submit and pay the jizya. Then true peace will be at hand.

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