The Confusion of Sticks and Stones

I don't know about you people, but currently I feel very confused as a western society citizen. Has common sense, like Elvis, left the building? I watched over a million people march in Paris as a show of solidarity for those killed in the attacks, but what made it all seem too ironic was that those people were supposedly marching also, for their belief in the 'freedom of expression', and by doing so, lent an air of both sanction and approval by the people (and authorities) for the way Charlie Hebdo ridiculed and satirised religious belief and icons of Islam.

Regardless of how you and I may feel about Islam, and Muslims in general, and Islamic fundamentalism, I think we are doing ourselves self-injury and negating the whole idea behind the march, by ignoring the double-standards and hypocrisy it is clothed in. Why is it perceived as okay for Charlie Hebdo to do what they did, and yet on a number of occasions, here in the West, we have prosecuted and jailed individuals for comments they made on their twitter feed?

Do we actually have freedom of expression, or are we meant to self-censor our thoughts and thinking in order not to bully or offend others? Personally, I prefer the latter, because I feel unbridled freedom of expression would cause such divisions and harm in society that society itself could not be a peaceful one, that it would eventually collapse under the weight of its own vitriol and self-criticism. How could you live in peace and good relations with your neighbour if you consistently satirised and ridiculed them in front of other members of your community? How are you going to keep your windows intact if you yourself throw rocks through them in order to break the windows of your neighbour? You cannot seriously expect a simple shrug of the shoulders from your neighbour as a response?

Do you want our diverse and multicultural societies to function peacefully at all? If 'yes' is your answer, then you have to compromise in your thoughts and thinking and behaviour towards others. On that there is no compromise.

When you joined ATS, you registered and agreed to the terms and conditions set by the owners of the website to conduct yourself with decorum, intelligence, and an affability that would promote a good exchange of dialogue, even when disagreeing with each other. There was no option to suggest that you could maybe think about following the terms and conditions after joining. If you want to participate you stick to the agreement, and there are no mitigating circumstances that excuse you for not doing so.

I feel it has to be a similar agreement of compromise in society. If you truly want full freedom of expression, then you have to excuse the behaviour of criminals and the way they express themselves, but of course, who is logically going to approve of criminal behaviour? I suppose one could suggest a limited form of freedom of expression, but even in permitting this it has to be applied fair and equally right across society's board, leaving no one out of its sanction and justice. Where you see fun or the application of an agenda, the victim feels and perceives bullying and oppression, which takes its toll in its enduring persistence.

The killing of the 12 journalists and hostages as a response to a perceived offence was utterly criminal and abhorrent. It was wrong no matter which way you sliced it. Yet, some accountability has to be levelled at Charlie Hebdo for poking the wasp's nest. They brought a consequence upon themselves and upon innocent civilians. It shouldn't happen, of course it shouldn't, but it did, and now the out-pouring of so-called solidarity has to pull aside the heavy-drawn curtains of grief. Emotion and reason do not make good bedfellows, and what we are seeing is emotion pushing aside reason in order to be heard, but within that emotion pronouncements are being made which reason itself should state.

Are we to hate all Muslims because of what Islamic fundamentalists have done? Are we to single out any Muslim and make them the target of our angry response for the attacks? Of course not, but we rightfully condemn fundamentalism in all its forms of (freedom of) expression. Fundamentalism is the very reason why society should prefer individualistic self-censorship, for if we each self-censor our own impulses to openly attack that which we would condemn out of simple dislike, or as part of mob action, we give ourselves room to at least come to understand and proceed in dialogue with that which we could blindly hate. In turn, we remain that which we pride the most...civilised.

a reply to: elysiumfire

In turn, we remain that which we pride the most…civilized.

Empires aren't civil, though. They just pretend to be. You want to bring out their true nature, try disagreeing with them.

Other wise, Band wagon… Hoooo!

Make the death penalty the answer to every crime. You'll see how fast people change.



EDIT: Even though I have to restrain certain forms of expression, I still feel free. So in my mind, I retain the freedom of expression. We must learn to disagree mentally instead of physically. Once it leaves your mind is when you should hold yourself accountable. We may be able to stop the actions but never in my opinion can we stop having negative thoughts.

intrptr:

Empires aren't civil, though. They just pretend to be. You want to bring out their true nature, try disagreeing with them.

Unsure of the point you're making. The point I made was that 'man' not his 'empires', can retain his highest achievement...civilisation amongst and with all races through compromise. This way, also impedes the manipulation of divisory thought.

eisegesis:

Make the death penalty the answer to every crime. You'll see how fast people change.

Capital punishment is not the answer. Innocents are sometimes executed as well as the real offenders. Are they to be simply consigned as martyrs for your mindset?

a reply to: eisegesis

Null and void comment. Sorry.

a reply to: elysiumfire

It was a joke, lol. Sorry for the confusion. The point was to poke fun at how nobody would even leave the freakin toilet seat up if they knew there was imminent death!

I knew these emoticons sucked...

a reply to: elysiumfire

I can't really add to what you have already said so eloquently other than I agree.

I've no wish to offend anybody. I would hate to think that my actions did so.

If all this can happen over a silly humorous cartoon though I think we can safely say the world has lost its sense of humour.

7 billion job vacancies available for comedians world wide. No skills necessary just a good sense of humour!

eisegesis:

EDIT: Even though I have to restrain certain forms of expression, I still feel free. So in my mind, I retain the freedom of expression. We must learn to disagree mentally instead of physically. Once it leaves your mind is when you should hold yourself accountable. We may be able to stop the actions but never in my opinion can we stop having negative thoughts.

You make a very salient point in a round-about-way. We are, indeed, all accountable for our actions and the effects or impacts they have on others. We can all see the benefit that self-censorship holds for society, but it must be implemented fairly and equally.

a reply to: eisegesis

Sorry, I will amend my comment accordingly.

lonesomerimbaud:

I can't really add to what you have already said so eloquently other than I agree.

Thank you, and my regards.

I've no wish to offend anybody. I would hate to think that my actions did so.

Such a circumspect notion would not be necessary if the dialogue is conducted on a level playing field. Offence can be understood as not being deliberate, but due to the absence of understanding by all parties, As long as there is a willingness for dialogue and thus to understand, we can work out all that divides us.

a reply to: elysiumfire
Sticks and stones...

If we learned to stop physical violence, which will be never unless an Equilibrium type of society is forced upon us, we would only be left with words.

Physical violence over words is what certain peoples actions have been reduced to.

We get angry as a protective mechanism when are lives are in danger. People have carried this instinctual response from protecting themselves from physical harm to protecting their beliefs in the same way.

Moving backwards as a species if you ask me.

a reply to: elysiumfire
I appreciate your view on the matter, my view is there are plenty of things that can offend us. Each society/tribe has their own particular ways. If you don’t like their ways, live in a country/space where you do like the culture and the habits that go along with their people. From there you have more of a choice to ignore what you don’t appreciate. A grown up person, knows that and would hardly be interested in going to another persons country to kill someone for doing a cartoon that hurts what you believe in. The other matter would be, was that the real reason for the murders? that is what we don’t know. Whoever are the culprits they are cowards as they don’t have decency to share there reasons. When it comes to killing, I believe the reason should be forthcoming.

a reply to: elysiumfire

Ignoring it only makes radicals more so. Peaceful protest only give them satisfaction. I'm for bring the pain. I won't hide from my duality. It's not healthy. When someone cusses you out at the bar, hit the bastard. You know it's coming and might as well get the first punch in. You may pity me but it's all escalated to that point. Nothing to do but fight it now. No open debate will fix it. No amount of civil thought has any idea on how to fix it. How many more people need to die for some ideology before you get mad enough to meet it with pain. I know for a fact it's coming. I'm not naive to the evil that men do.



Let's get it on. I perverted the meaning so the enemy feels at home.

I'm sure it's not CIA plants because they would have ran out of idiots already. I'm not into talking about how we fix it anymore. I'm into action. Talking got us into this mess. Our policies probably had a lot to do with their thinking. You didn't stop them from going to war. You didn't fight the system. You made them just like the rest of us. Now they want blood. Who are you going to fight and who are you going to fight for? Are you going to stand on the sidelines and let your elected officials create more? You want to change the narrative? I'm sure it's not going to change itself. The great # storm of our time. Go deep into the problem. Real deep.

I just wanted you to know where my mindset is at this juncture in time. I'm not below meeting force with force if the need arises. I'd rather it didn't come to that but I'm realistic. I will have to pick a side regardless. Here's the kicker. I'm always for the home team, even if they suck.

I'm pretty sure that Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and atheists won't cut your head off due to an errant joke or slip of the tongue; or if the joke or cartoon is really bad.

So you are telling us to be tolerant of a religion that has no tolerance?


So, are you Shia or Sunni?

I thank you all for your responses, and all I ask of you is your continued honesty, but also honesty with yourself.

I don't claim to have an answer to Islamic fundamentalism, but I do think I understand some of its true aims. It doesn't want to dominate the world, because it knows it could never do so, but one thing it knows and believes it can achieve is a the application of systemic 'terror' in order to halt Muslims integrating into western societies, as that is the road to Muslim secularism, and it cannot allow that to happen.

By attacking western countries drip by drip, Islamic fundamentalists can foment discord amongst races. It seeks to turn multi-race tolerance into multi-race hate, and it is doing very well at it. Islamic fundamentalists know full well that they cannot take on western military might head on, but neither do they attack the fragile places of western infrastructure, like nuclear reactors, health centres, etc; no, their intent is primarily to prohibit Muslim integration, and there can be no better way to do that than by fomenting discord through terror.

We in the West have to respond rationally to this discord. If we allow ourselves to hate any Muslim and seek his removal from our lands, Islamic fundamentalists win, and you and I will have been nothing but pawns in their agenda. If we respond with bomb and bullet, we do nothing to win heart and mind, we simply provide the recruitment call for Jihad.

We have to box clever, by being specific in our responses. We can remove those Muslims who preach nothing but hate for the West. We need to protect Muslim children living in the West from sermons of hate at the mosques, we cannot give an allowance of voice to hate speeches, whether Islamic or Christian, or even political. We have to stop killing Muslims hoping that we are eradicating the fundamentalist, and we can remove their pathway into the West simply to cause harm.

Many Muslims integrated themselves into the march in Paris, and denounced in the same voice as other Parisians the attacks carried out by Islamic fundamentalists. What we have to bear in mind, is that to be a Muslim in the West, one is not only fearful of attack from Westerners through prejudice and hate, but also from other Muslims who disagree with their integration into western society. They are people like you and I, yet as culturally different to us, as we are to them, but they are making an effort to achieve the same thing that you want, a happy and productive life in a stable society. All Muslims are not the same, they are not all fundamentalists, and we should not treat them as such. If we continue to treat them with suspicion and distrust, then we compound the problem for ourselves and them.

They, too, have a part to play, by denouncing the terror tactics, and turning away from the fundamentalists. It can be achieved, but we have to meet each other half way, and it cannot be forced. I hope that you can find it within yourselves to let go of the distrust and the hate, not just of Muslims, but of each other, because together we really can turn things around.
Regards all.

a reply to: NightFlight

I'm a 21st century schizoid man. It's the dirty tricks and indoctrination that made it so.