https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting
This is a sensitive topic for some people, so please do your best to have civil discussions. Let’s do better than the average social media.
A week ago I was in line to check out and there was a young woman in a hijab. When she turned to help me I saw her entire face and hands (all I could see really) had acid burns all over.
The paradox of tolerance will never be something I struggle with once The Fall happens. Regardless for whichever religion seeks to lynch me.
How did you know they were acid burns as opposed to the many other things that could burn someone?
once The Fall happens
What’s that?
One of the four seasons
I thought they stopped making music in the 60s.
More like 1720 but who’s counting LMAO 🤣
My god are there people who think like this? Hahaha
The “Paradox of Tolerance” is only a paradox if one starts with the ridiculous assertion that tolerance is a universal good.
I think most people would agree with the following: even if you feel the cartoon was in poor taste or was “punching down,” the shooting was a terrorist act that just served to reinforce the worst stereotypes about Muslims and—ironically—the offending cartoon itself.
Opinions can vary about the cartoon, but that’s the point of defending satire and free speech; what’s completely indefensible is violence that clearly isn’t in the service of self-defense. People who quibble about the definition of self-defense and even skirt the idea that the terrorists in this incident had a right to do what they did, in my opinion, are likely either sophomoric contrarians or bad faith actors intentionally trying to muddy the waters, akin to some far-right militia members on conservative subreddits.
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My opinion is that satire must hurt. Otherwise it may have no impact, then it is nothing else than cheap comedy. But it is possible that it hurts too much, so that some people cannot endure it. Society has a duty to protect the weak as well as the artists. It is a narrow line.
Reality keeps sliding into absurdity rendering satire mute.
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More dehumanizing rhetoric is definitely not the answer. The attackers were human, as reprehensible as their actions were.
I think the people’s presumption that they have some right to be free from offense has done way more damage than anything.
In the words of Sam Harris: “People were murdered over cartoons. End of moral analysis.”
Well, he may have a point there, bit this is the same guy who promotes racial screening in airports in spite of repeated refutations of the usefulness of such measures by a security expert, so…
I’ve listened to maybe 10-15 hours of Sam Harris and I’ve never heard him say that. Can you source that?
I’m sure there are folks here who have listened to a lot more Sam Harris than I have, but I’ve listened to several audiobooks and probably 40-50 hours of his podcast. He has some smart things to say about neuroscience and mindfulness, but my god he has some toxic, middle-school-ass takes on Islam. I haven’t heard that quote before, but I’m not surprised he said it. He’s Ben Shapiro with a PhD who makes deliberately obtuse, reductive, bad faith statements about Islam and Muslims.
For the record, I’m a white atheist. I think religion has been the source of immeasurable violence in the world. I don’t think anyone should be shot over something they say or draw, but to declare “end of moral analysis” is ignorant.
It is hard to make satire now when we seem to be living in an age that satirizes itself.
Satire is a necessary way to call out impropriety in Democratic society. The humor softens the blow of the reality of horrible acts and makes less horrible but still bad acts easier to understand. As long as it’s not saying things that are just totally without merit or using it purely to spread hate, it should be staunchly defended regardless of who is offended by it.
Example of bad satire is something like a cartoon of an LGBTQ+ person going to a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist saying it’s a mental illness and their head explodes. This is pushing the narrative that being gay is something to be cured and that gay people just can’t accept it. This can be considered satire, but like any type of speech it’s stating something designed to harm others. Satire is meant to over-exaggerate a problem, not make up a problem that doesn’t actually exist for the express purpose of hate.
Would you support killing a person who published such a cartoon?
Social ostracization or ridicule is an appropriate response to bad statements, not violence
No. I don’t support the death penalty for any crimes except in circumstances where secure imprisonment is impossible and the criminal is a serious physical danger to others. I said defend satire, not punish hate speech disguised as satire which is another subject on how to do that.
Obviously it’s horrible to kill people over speech. Cartoons do not justify violence or terrorism.
But we also shouldn’t pretend like speech is necessary or valuable just because it’s offensive or that offending people to the point of violence is noble.
If someone was killed for saying the n word that would be a tragedy and should be condemned. But we shouldn’t all go around yelling the n word just to assert our free speech or pretend like the guy saying the n word was a hero for doing it.
This view is ostensibly reasonable (I’ve been tempted by it myself). The problem is the slippery slope. As soon as someone declares, “I’m offended so pleased don’t say that”, you begin to get de-facto limits about what (perfectly legal) things may be said. In the case of religious offense it’s doubly dangerous because religion always gets a free pass when it comes to offense.
Next thing you know, only a few very brave people are willing to say whatever (perfectly legal) thing has been established as verboten. And then they become easy pickings for extremists. This is exactly what has happened with innocuous, legal, Mohammed cartoons, among other things. It’s called the assassin’s veto and personally I find it much more offensive than any cartoon.
It’s not a slippery slope, it’s an ambiguous gray area which a lot of moral rational debates like this don’t do well with. For example I think we can agree that white people shouldn’t call black people n*gger, but what about negro? There are some people who will do the victim hood Olympics and say calling people black is bad too.
If we follow the free speech absolutist line then we get a bunch of white men demeaning every marginal group with horrific slurs. If we follow the no offense at all costs line then we’re walking around a term for Mexican food because someone said that it’s racist. We need to find some sort of middle ground and that ground is going to be very blurry, socially determined and subjective, and it won’t have any easy hard rules that people desperately search for in stuff like this.
The punishment for leaving this area should just be social ostracization though, not violence or death. There shouldn’t be an assassin’s veto but there also shouldn’t be an asshole get out of jail free card.
This all wasn’t my argument though, I was arguing against the people in this thread saying we should’ve doubled down, published the cartoon in all major publications and done more Mohammad drawings simply to assert free speech. That’s saying that speech is valuable and should be spread simply because its offensive and caused an overreaction which is the same logic as those annoying right wing assholes who say horrible shit to “trigger the libs”. Offensiveness can be a means to an end but when it becomes an end unto itself then it just becomes cruelty.
This leans heavily on two very modern, and US-centric, ideas:
- to insult a group is the worst possible form of speech infringement
- that non-physical abuse can constitute “cruelty” (you didn’t use the word “harm” but it’s right there)
Personally I dispute these premises. I think it would be better if we stuck to something close to free-speech absolutism: easier to police; no perverse incentives to victimhood; resilience is an underrated virtue, etc.
Technically I belong to one of your “marginalized groups” but I don’t see myself as a victim. My answer to insults is usually to roll my eyes rather than to break down in tears and call for Daddy to step in.
Anyway, I think this is really about the cultural zeitgeist. My ideas are going out of fashion and yours are coming into fashion. Better hope this experiment goes well.
Taboos aren’t new, they’ve just shifted. Before they were based more on Christian morality but nowadays it’s mostly from a secular multicultural morality.
If someone repeatedly called you a slur you may not break down and cry, though I don’t judge those who do, but wouldn’t you at least stop talking to them? Wouldn’t you tell other people to also stop associating with them? I know I would and that is the social ostracization that I think should be a punishment for offensive behavior.
I don’t see how you can make the case that verbal abuse doesn’t harm people without completely ignoring psychology and mental health. If someone becomes depressed due to harassment are they not harmed? What if they commit suicide, is it purely their fault since they couldn’t toughen up and the bully is absolved as some fucked up form of natural selection?
Even ignoring mental health words can damage your respect which is a valuable resource that is being unjustly taken. If your bosses right hand man keeps making misogynist jokes and using slurs against you and then you get passed over for a promotion because your boss doesn’t take you seriously then those words cost you monetarily. Your level of respect can open or close many doors in your life and having someone degrade that which you may have worked very hard for is harmful.
The discrimination question is a valid concern. My general approach there is to have strong legislation that puts the onus on companies etc to prove non-discrimination, and leave it there. Trying to legislate outcomes is counter-productive, there are other ideals that are more fundamental than group non-discrimination. We are human beings before we are members of this or that group. Alas Americans, especially younger ones, tend not to see things this way any more!
But for this question of “emotional harm” (which is clearly what you’re talking about), I think it’s more complex than it looks. That somebody might be “hurt” by some non-physical “violence” is a subjective reality that we created collectively. It can therefore be uncreated collectively, if we so desire. I think that would be the better path to take.
I agree with your sentiment although the n word wouldn’t have been my choice for that analogy.
I agree with intentionally provocational speech hiding behind the ‘free speech’ disguise being stupid, but I think its also important to see a difference between racial slurs and discrimination based on things that people can’t change, versus legitimate criticism of religion - which, although not always easy to get out of (I.e. cults, trapped family members, cultural norms) I see as still a fundamentally voluntary behaviour that you can to an extent opt out of as a belief system, as opposed to discrimination on race, sex, disability, nationality, etc.
Now of course that doesnt mean I will go into religious buildings and shout obscenities or try to have edgy atheist rants at inoffensive elderly worshippers - but the saying that “your freedom ends where mine begins” holds true for me, and I won’t tolerate outward discrimination on religious grounds, the forcing of those belief systems inside secular systems like schools or courts or governments, and I think I’m well within my rights to criticise harmful and unacceptable behaviour undertaken for ‘religious’ grounds, which would otherwise be crimes or offences. (I.e. animal torture/sacrifice, child marriage, slavery etc.)
There is a big difference between the two!!
You do not chose to be black, you chose what fairytale to believe in.
You do not try to convert other people to be black, religious try to convert others into their nonsense.
You do not kill people for stopping to be black, Islam does.
Religion NEEDS to be mocked, because it is ridiculous and it is infecting everything around us.
I wouldn’t care about anyone’s religious beliefs if they practiced for themselves and left everyone else alone, but they never do. They have to spread their bullshit and infiltrate governments to try to legislate their bullshit.
Charlie mostly draws satire of people in power or with influence. Do you think they only do that to be offensive?
No, speaking truth to power is an important part of satire and political discourse in general. I haven’t seen the original cartoon but if that’s what it was then I’m all for it, though Muslims are very marginal in France and don’t hold much power.
This was in response to all the people, including a lot in this thread, that also probably haven’t seen the cartoon but want it published everywhere and for us to show more pictures of Muhammed. In that case people are valuing something not because of its message but because it offends and “triggers” people, which is the same rational for some of the worst right wing “comedy”.
Offensiveness can be a means to an end, such as showing the corruption of the powerful, but when it becomes an end unto itself it simply becomes cruelty.
Indeed, that’s why those cartoons don’t target Muslims but the islamists or politicians (Islamism is a political ideology) who try to influence others.
I think what they do is really different from the people in this thread posting offensive cartoons for the sake of freedom to do so. In fact, freedom of expression is much more regulated in France than in the USA. If you post racist content with no indication that it is a satire or some other good intention, you can get condemned for racism. The former leader of the far right party Le Pen who just died yesterday have been convicted multiple times for his racism in the media.
I don’t have any issue or opinion or dog in the race with the prophet Muhammed, but those idiots made it important to say “muhammed the prophet is a giant cunt who should be laughed at and get a pie in the face” every now and then just to remind everybody how getting to talk works.
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“Islamists” are politically far-right - paleoconservatives, theocrats, fascists.
See Hamtramck, MI. They took over the local government and banned pride flags. The mayor is an Islamic Trumper. It makes no sense to me.
“I got mine here in the US, so fuck the rest of you all!”
I don’t see how this is an opinion about satire or religious satire.
The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone. – Frank Wilhoit
There are paradoxes in the system, but rest assured that these religions, the Abrahamic ones and other World religions, are all conservative in their construction.
You are not going to find the answers to the paradoxes, you’re not going to find the equilibrium. I’m certainly not going to give you the solutions in some obscure comment, this kind of stuff requires shelves of books and papers.
Note that if you think the satire magazine is some dangerous fascist organization posting their propaganda in order to recruit for an underground militia type organization, you have to prove that. It’s not too difficult to prove or disprove, but that can be a skill in of itself, something all moderators everywhere should have.
Here’s one of their covers satirizing French racists:
So they Charlie hebdo shooting was over a cartoon of the Islamic religious figure against the artists at a French newspaper.
The above comment is describing the state of mind and beliefs of the attacker.
I am aware of the charlie hebdo shooting and why they claimed they did it. But I don’t see how the above statement relates to it, besides the loose connection of “islamists”. Are they saying there are enough violent islamists that one should fear repercussions? Or are they dismissing the islamists’ views by labeling them as paternal conservatives? It’s really just a statement about islamists, and not about the freedom of satire.
But I don’t see how the above statement relates to it
So that is called “willful ignorance” and the weight of not being able to see the relation is YOUR burden to bear.
It correlates quite nicely and you’re throwing a fit because you disagree emotionally.
It was depressing that every newspaper in the developed world didn’t print the cartoon :(
They sold millions of them here in France though but yeah you’re right. Especially the Danes who backed down then and again.
In respect to their Muslim readers. Whatever you think, for Muslims, including me, it’s profane to picture Mohammad, as much it’s profane to picture Jesus fucking Peter in the ass.
Even if there’s no reasoning behind it, respecting 1.8 billion people’s sensibilities should be the niceness I’d like to see in the world.
The price of living in a free society is being ready to accept other people’s speech. In the West we had an Enlightenment, so blasphemy is not against the law. Christians would indeed find a picture of “Jesus fucking Peter in the ass” offensive, but they will sigh and move on. Same for all the other world religions.
Only your religion treats offense as a justification for extreme violence. You need to think carefully about that fact.
Thank you very much for informing me about my religion and everyone else’s high and developed society.
But please take a moment to check what you embraced as “the” civilized fellows done in Gaza, breaking 4 years old kids ribs with their knees. You need to think careful about that fact.
The question was not about Gaza.
I’m offended, very offended actually, when Muslims (and not only) suggest that some brutally murdered cartoonists had it coming because of their “disrespect”. At least as offended as you could possibly be offended by some picture. Your religion needs reform. It needs to learn tolerance.
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Oh, so when we come into some other religion’s “higher stance” is just being an illusion, a propaganda to see “colonizers superior culture” is why they have free pass on crimes towards the oppressed, suddenly it wasn’t about that, huh. Like, they would never ever do such things. Except they do massacres, daily.
I’d like to see how “developed” MAGAs or AFD people to react to Jesus and Peter published on every “developed” newspaper’s front page, as the commenter I’ve replied suggested. Run over the newspapers stands with a truck? Then step down and shoot around? Maybe they aim to kids. That’ll show’em.
Extremism is everywhere. No belief, religion or politic stance, is exempt from it. I didn’t said a thing about Hebdo, just surprised to see how people in 2025 taking worse stances than George Bush in 2004 when it’s about Islam.
Man you are a lunatic
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No.
[…], as much it’s profane to picture Jesus fucking Peter in the ass.
Christians were upset and made a lot of noise about it, but didn’t kill or even beat up anyone:
Should homosexuality be banned, to respect 1.8 billion people’s sensibilities?
It’s always someone comes to build a strawman whenever one mentions Muslims could have some sensibilities.
Ah yes. A strawman. 🤔
Funny, you just did the same thing with your argument about Gaza. So when somebody else uses the same approach, it’s a strawman?
Yes, collective punishment is always a good response that has never backfired.
That has nothing to do with collective punishment
Sorry, I thought you meant as a response to the murder of the Hebdo staff by the two brothers and their accomplice.
How did you mean it?
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