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France266 Posts
On August 16 2016 05:18 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 04:15 Koorb wrote:
But that is exactly what islamism (and some other forms of organised religion to a wider extent) is about. It's a big machine that seeks to remove every inch of individuality from the people who adhere to its tenets, and to make sure that everyone fall in line with the creed. Diversity is haram is this worldview. Islamism fits the profile of a totalitarian system of beliefs in the sense that everything that is not mandatory is forbidden. It's not a mere school of thought that admits a broad array of interpretations, and that restricts itself to a narrow and specific part of people's lives. It's a way of life that requires a complete obedience to a set of worldviews,of political views and of personnal beliefs, that are written in stone and don't let any room for diversity. Must be why “islamist” is applied to things as varied as the Hamas, the Hezbollah, the AKP, the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS or Ennahdha. How come people who use the word “islamism” specifically talk about “radical islamism” when they want to make a distinction between… between what and what, since you said “islamism” admits neither diversity nor interpretations? If there is unity in what you call “islamism,” then how come it regroups movements whose goals, methods, priorities and alliances differ? How can a monolithic ideology include currents which are contradictory to each other?
My point wasn't that islamism is a homogenous school of thoughts. It was that each particular brand of islamism (salafite, wahhabite, muslim brotherhood, takfiri, shiite hardliners...) is rigorously homogenous, and that individuals within these brands who try challenge the tenets are shunned and rejected by their fellow members. See how Hamas murdered its less radical members in 2007 for example.
On August 16 2016 07:02 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 04:15 Koorb wrote:On August 15 2016 17:11 OtherWorld wrote:On August 15 2016 05:44 Koorb wrote:On August 15 2016 04:17 OtherWorld wrote:On August 15 2016 02:46 Koorb wrote:On August 14 2016 23:43 WhiteDog wrote:
I don't really understand why but somehow the decision to ban burkini was accepted by the administrative tribunal of Nice - I was sure that it was going to be rejected. Maybe the state council will refute this. Either way, this is a clear indication that the current tolerance towards muslims is going down in France, now I don't know the specific of Nice so maybe the burkini was a real problem at the beach.
But considering the arguments used (that the burkini was some kind of indirect support for isis) it clearly shows that people are less tolerant. « No freedom for the enemies of freedom » © Louis Antoine de Saint-Just The decision of the court makes sense given how the ban was motivated by the city council. Great thing about that quote is that you can hardly apply it to reality, unless you have a really strict definition of freedom or want to end up with a self-destructive state. It is also based on a wonderful black/white world view where you're either an ennemy of freedom (whatever that means) or a "freedom supremacist". You've got it completely upside-down. In Saint-Just's mind, the definition of freedom is as far as a black and white worldviews as possible. What the quote actually means is that any ideology or system of belief that seek to exist in a secular republic has to coexist peacefully within it, and accept that other ideologies benefit from the same liberty. In return for this acceptance, it earns the right to advocate an infinite range of opinions (under the law). But the moment an ideology starts to deny the right of others to exist and to be expressed, then it should be shunned and denounced. If this ideology (ie. islamism in our discussion) doesn't accept otherness, its freedoms must be revoked. That's the meaning of Saint-Just's words. Yes, that's all good and nice. Except that it completely misses the point that ideologies are not entities moved by a single will, but that it is only a basis for ideologists, who are many and diverse. In practice, there are no ideologies, only ideologists, and using an ideology or entity as an excuse to deprive people of their rights is both dumb and disrespectful of basic human decency. In other words, an ideology does not deny the right of others to exist. Individuals do that. Thus, what needs to happen is not shunning and denouncing an ideology (because of the "Extremism breeds extremism" law, that can only be counterproductive, and I bet you'd be hard pressed to find an historical example of this succeeding), but understanding why individuals become ideologists and start to change their behavior. Seeing the world as "ideologies", "entities", fighting each other and not as individual beings trying - struggling - to live together is a sure way to fuck things up and end up with blood on each side, because as you dehumanize individuals into big groups, you lose touch with reality and start to think that mindless violence is a legit way of doing things. What is true for jihadists - ie, dumping everyone into the "apostate" category is a psychological trick to make it easier to kill people - is just as true for us : dumping everyone wearing religious signs related to Islam or showing signs of being a active believer as "jihadist" is a psychological trick to make it easier to deny people's rights, and that is worrying. And this is why you end up with a black/white view of the world and of freedom : you forget that within an ideology, everyone's not uniform, and that you'll have various degrees of following. And every time you make the intellectual abuse of giving group responsability where there only exists individual responsability, you push new individuals towards radicalization. Our Republic's motto is liberté, égalité, fraternité, not laïcité, sécurité, uniformité. But that is exactly what islamism (and some other forms of organised religion to a wider extent) is about. It's a big machine that seeks to remove every inch of individuality from the people who adhere to its tenets, and to make sure that everyone fall in line with the creed. Diversity is haram is this worldview. Islamism fits the profile of a totalitarian system of beliefs in the sense that everything that is not mandatory is forbidden. It's not a mere school of thought that admits a broad array of interpretations, and that restricts itself to a narrow and specific part of people's lives. It's a way of life that requires a complete obedience to a set of worldviews,of political views and of personnal beliefs, that are written in stone and don't let any room for diversity. In addition to Downfall's (brilliant) post, I'll say that you're falling into the trap I just described. Yes, Daech's ideology is very much about denying individuality and establishing something that looks fairly totalitarian - at least that's what we can conclude from the few informations we have of what's going on inside. Now, if we build from here : can you conclude that everyone who lives under this regime necessarily approves of it? Clearly no, since we just had images of liberated people in some recently liberated city openly showing their happiness of not living under this regime anymore. Can you also conclude that anyone who follows its main ideology is necessarily responsible for it? No, if we look at the Nazi regime, we see that in case of totalitarian societies you'll have a good chunk of people who are following out of necessity ( Muss-Nazis), or out of social pressure ( Mitläufer). Can you blame people for not going against peer pressure, when the drawbacks of doing that heavily outweigh the advantages?
... Let's not forget that the case we're discussing is not the one of Syrian and Iraqi victims of the islamic state, but of burkini-clad women in France. Are you telling me that these women living in a secular republic can't go against peer pressure to wear islamic garments ? If your answer is that they can't, then surely you agree that the source of this social pressure has no place in our society and should be fought --> hence coercitive measures being taken against islamism. If your answer is that they can face up to peer pressure, then surely you agree that these women do wear these clothes as a statement of adhesion to hardline islamism ?
On August 16 2016 07:02 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +
It is not us, the non-muslims, who came up with the concept of Ummah. It's not us who made it loud and clear that observant muslims must be part of this big community of indistinguishable and interchangeable individuals, where people are expected to police one another.
Same trap. I don't know if you do, but I know many muslims to whom the idea of being an interchangeable and indistinguishable individual is no more attractive than to me or you. Also, grats on clearly stating your us vs them mentality. If you think any problems are going to be resolved by thinking like that...
I made clear in my previous post that I was specifically refering to islamists, not to secularised muslims. Attacking a straw man and putting words in my mouth doesn't resolve problems either.
On August 16 2016 07:02 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +In your previous message, you stated that "within an ideology, everyone's not uniform". But when the people who adhere to a certain ideology start to actually wear an actual uniform that erases their individualities and marks their segregation with the wider population (ie. face-covering veils, burkinis, ...), you can legitimately wonder is these people .are really able to dissent from the creed or not. The second purpose of the uniform, however, is simply to identify with a group ; the major difference is that it's an expression of freedom and not something that is forced upon you by hierarchical superiors, like in the previous cases. Gothic kid X won't come to school clothed in gothic style because it's been forced upon him ; football fan X won't come to the stadium wearing his team's jersey because it's been forced upon him ; Rolland Garros spectator X won't put the white bourgeois hat on their heads because it's been forced upon them. All these people are, ironically enough, making a statement of individuality by adopting the codes of a given group. You could even go further and say that they're expressing a belief in their clothing - eh, doesn't that remind you of anything? Yes, in a sense they're "marking their segregation with the wider population". That's kind of the point. Yes, in a sense they're having a herd mentality of adopting a group's codes instead of their own. Yet it is still a statement of free will, free will of following a group. What is the difference with a woman wearing a burkini?
.. Are you suggesting that islamic clothing and bourgeois tennis attire descend from the same herd mentality ? Pray tell me then what are the societal and political statements carried by a white Lacoste shirt, compared to the ones of wearing islamic garbs. The former is a mere item of consumerism, linking its owner to a loose community of (casual) interest. The latter is a powerful symbol of adhesion to a fully-fledged religious, societal and political way that is at odds with our society ; as well as a message that its owner want to segregate themselves from our common customs.
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On August 16 2016 06:52 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 06:45 IgnE wrote:
You have to admit that banning the burkini is pretty stupid. The birkini is banned in some place in morocco too. It's stupid, and I'm seriously surprised that the interdiction stand in regards to french laws, but well that's how it is. I have to say tho that in regards to what happened in Corse, it might be good to ban it just to prevent more conflicts. But tell me, do you think wearing the burkini or the burka to protest against its interdiction is good ? Because that's exactly what we were talking about previously.
I think it might be good. Encroachments against freedom of speech/expression should be resisted.
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On August 16 2016 07:09 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 07:07 OtherWorld wrote:On August 16 2016 06:45 IgnE wrote:
You have to admit that banning the burkini is pretty stupid. Well, you'd think people who went through the Ecole de la République with the highest honors, and who then went on to the most elitist administration schools in Europe, would know how to govern stuff intelligently. Sadly that's not the case. Are you talking about the mayors ? Because they're the one who made the decision to forbid the burkini. They mostly did it out of security concern : people are getting less and less tolerant (for obvious reasons) and the government wants to do everything it can to prevent violence.
About the mayors, and about the Conseil d'Etat who most likely won't do shit (btw, I met someone working at the Conseil d'Etat yesterday, his life is crazy chill and if you think that as a 18-hour/week teacher you're a parasite, think again).
As for the mayors and the public order excuse, yeah I dunno. I can only imagine that a reverse situation (ie a "non-muslim" event being called off because there are risk of violence from nearby muslims) would make everyone go mad and scream that the rule of law is disappearing, that one cannot feel safe in France anymore and that Our Holy Goddess Laïcité is being dishonored. At one point we have to be coherent, we cannot say that newspapers should be free of publishing what they want, even if it leads to a huge risk of heavy violence, and at the same time cancel events like that on the basis that it can lead to violence.
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No terrorist here, please move on...
On the other hand: what's up with crazy people, knives and trains nowadays? Or are these incidents just covered more often?
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On August 16 2016 11:17 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 06:52 WhiteDog wrote:On August 16 2016 06:45 IgnE wrote:
You have to admit that banning the burkini is pretty stupid. The birkini is banned in some place in morocco too. It's stupid, and I'm seriously surprised that the interdiction stand in regards to french laws, but well that's how it is. I have to say tho that in regards to what happened in Corse, it might be good to ban it just to prevent more conflicts. But tell me, do you think wearing the burkini or the burka to protest against its interdiction is good ? Because that's exactly what we were talking about previously. I think it might be good. Encroachments against freedom of speech/expression should be resisted.
By putting on clothes restricted to women and forced upon them by some interpretation of islam and in some countries ? Personally I find that ridiculous.
On August 16 2016 16:30 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 07:09 WhiteDog wrote:On August 16 2016 07:07 OtherWorld wrote:On August 16 2016 06:45 IgnE wrote:
You have to admit that banning the burkini is pretty stupid. Well, you'd think people who went through the Ecole de la République with the highest honors, and who then went on to the most elitist administration schools in Europe, would know how to govern stuff intelligently. Sadly that's not the case. Are you talking about the mayors ? Because they're the one who made the decision to forbid the burkini. They mostly did it out of security concern : people are getting less and less tolerant (for obvious reasons) and the government wants to do everything it can to prevent violence. About the mayors, and about the Conseil d'Etat who most likely won't do shit (btw, I met someone working at the Conseil d'Etat yesterday, his life is crazy chill and if you think that as a 18-hour/week teacher you're a parasite, think again). As for the mayors and the public order excuse, yeah I dunno. I can only imagine that a reverse situation (ie a "non-muslim" event being called off because there are risk of violence from nearby muslims) would make everyone go mad and scream that the rule of law is disappearing, that one cannot feel safe in France anymore and that Our Holy Goddess Laïcité is being dishonored. At one point we have to be coherent, we cannot say that newspapers should be free of publishing what they want, even if it leads to a huge risk of heavy violence, and at the same time cancel events like that on the basis that it can lead to violence.
Personally I think the elites and the elected representatives of our countries are lost and afraid.
Now, when you decide to split the religious and the politic as we do with the laïcité, it's "normal" that one try to eat the other and any kind of equilibrium takes ages to actually appear. Some muslim tried to eat the public space with religious demand (I don't know who said that, but there are muslim political party, I can vote for them where I live, at least for the last regional election) and now it's the laïc that try to eat out part of the religious sphere.
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On August 16 2016 10:46 Koorb wrote:
... Let's not forget that the case we're discussing is not the one of Syrian and Iraqi victims of the islamic state, but of burkini-clad women in France. Are you telling me that these women living in a secular republic can't go against peer pressure to wear islamic garments ? If your answer is that they can't, then surely you agree that the source of this social pressure has no place in our society and should be fought --> hence coercitive measures being taken against islamism. If your answer is that they can face up to peer pressure, then surely you agree that these women do wear these clothes as a statement of adhesion to hardline islamism ?
1) Why do you automatically assume that those clothes are worn because of pressure from male relatives? Can be, but it can also be the woman's choice; and sometimes male relatives actually aren't happy with that (some prefer discretion/invisibility).
On a side note, I also find it funny that most people suddenly seem to (re)discover the concept of patriarchal pressures/injunctions only when it's linked to islam, as if otherwise women weren't subject to countless familial, cultural or social pressures... I am sure that feminists would be absolutely delighted if coercitive measures were taken against patriarchy with the same vigor!
2) What makes you so adamant about those clothes being the expression of some political project, rather than their personal interpretation of religion, or some classic form of religious puritanism (for the burkini)?
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On August 16 2016 20:52 WhiteDog wrote:
Some muslim tried to eat the public space with religious demand (I don't know who said that, but there are muslim political party, I can vote for them where I live, at least for the last regional election)
I was talking about a political party at a national level. No one is going to claim there is a strong anti-Semitic political movement because Dieudonné once ran for some European election at a local level.
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On August 16 2016 10:46 Koorb wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 05:18 TheDwf wrote:On August 16 2016 04:15 Koorb wrote:
But that is exactly what islamism (and some other forms of organised religion to a wider extent) is about. It's a big machine that seeks to remove every inch of individuality from the people who adhere to its tenets, and to make sure that everyone fall in line with the creed. Diversity is haram is this worldview. Islamism fits the profile of a totalitarian system of beliefs in the sense that everything that is not mandatory is forbidden. It's not a mere school of thought that admits a broad array of interpretations, and that restricts itself to a narrow and specific part of people's lives. It's a way of life that requires a complete obedience to a set of worldviews,of political views and of personnal beliefs, that are written in stone and don't let any room for diversity. Must be why “islamist” is applied to things as varied as the Hamas, the Hezbollah, the AKP, the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS or Ennahdha. How come people who use the word “islamism” specifically talk about “radical islamism” when they want to make a distinction between… between what and what, since you said “islamism” admits neither diversity nor interpretations? If there is unity in what you call “islamism,” then how come it regroups movements whose goals, methods, priorities and alliances differ? How can a monolithic ideology include currents which are contradictory to each other? My point wasn't that islamism is a homogenous school of thoughts. It was that each particular brand of islamism (salafite, wahhabite, muslim brotherhood, takfiri, shiite hardliners...) is rigorously homogenous, and that individuals within these brands who try challenge the tenets are shunned and rejected by their fellow members. See how Hamas murdered its less radical members in 2007 for example. Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 07:02 OtherWorld wrote:On August 16 2016 04:15 Koorb wrote:On August 15 2016 17:11 OtherWorld wrote:On August 15 2016 05:44 Koorb wrote:On August 15 2016 04:17 OtherWorld wrote:On August 15 2016 02:46 Koorb wrote:On August 14 2016 23:43 WhiteDog wrote:
I don't really understand why but somehow the decision to ban burkini was accepted by the administrative tribunal of Nice - I was sure that it was going to be rejected. Maybe the state council will refute this. Either way, this is a clear indication that the current tolerance towards muslims is going down in France, now I don't know the specific of Nice so maybe the burkini was a real problem at the beach.
But considering the arguments used (that the burkini was some kind of indirect support for isis) it clearly shows that people are less tolerant. « No freedom for the enemies of freedom » © Louis Antoine de Saint-Just The decision of the court makes sense given how the ban was motivated by the city council. Great thing about that quote is that you can hardly apply it to reality, unless you have a really strict definition of freedom or want to end up with a self-destructive state. It is also based on a wonderful black/white world view where you're either an ennemy of freedom (whatever that means) or a "freedom supremacist". You've got it completely upside-down. In Saint-Just's mind, the definition of freedom is as far as a black and white worldviews as possible. What the quote actually means is that any ideology or system of belief that seek to exist in a secular republic has to coexist peacefully within it, and accept that other ideologies benefit from the same liberty. In return for this acceptance, it earns the right to advocate an infinite range of opinions (under the law). But the moment an ideology starts to deny the right of others to exist and to be expressed, then it should be shunned and denounced. If this ideology (ie. islamism in our discussion) doesn't accept otherness, its freedoms must be revoked. That's the meaning of Saint-Just's words. Yes, that's all good and nice. Except that it completely misses the point that ideologies are not entities moved by a single will, but that it is only a basis for ideologists, who are many and diverse. In practice, there are no ideologies, only ideologists, and using an ideology or entity as an excuse to deprive people of their rights is both dumb and disrespectful of basic human decency. In other words, an ideology does not deny the right of others to exist. Individuals do that. Thus, what needs to happen is not shunning and denouncing an ideology (because of the "Extremism breeds extremism" law, that can only be counterproductive, and I bet you'd be hard pressed to find an historical example of this succeeding), but understanding why individuals become ideologists and start to change their behavior. Seeing the world as "ideologies", "entities", fighting each other and not as individual beings trying - struggling - to live together is a sure way to fuck things up and end up with blood on each side, because as you dehumanize individuals into big groups, you lose touch with reality and start to think that mindless violence is a legit way of doing things. What is true for jihadists - ie, dumping everyone into the "apostate" category is a psychological trick to make it easier to kill people - is just as true for us : dumping everyone wearing religious signs related to Islam or showing signs of being a active believer as "jihadist" is a psychological trick to make it easier to deny people's rights, and that is worrying. And this is why you end up with a black/white view of the world and of freedom : you forget that within an ideology, everyone's not uniform, and that you'll have various degrees of following. And every time you make the intellectual abuse of giving group responsability where there only exists individual responsability, you push new individuals towards radicalization. Our Republic's motto is liberté, égalité, fraternité, not laïcité, sécurité, uniformité. But that is exactly what islamism (and some other forms of organised religion to a wider extent) is about. It's a big machine that seeks to remove every inch of individuality from the people who adhere to its tenets, and to make sure that everyone fall in line with the creed. Diversity is haram is this worldview. Islamism fits the profile of a totalitarian system of beliefs in the sense that everything that is not mandatory is forbidden. It's not a mere school of thought that admits a broad array of interpretations, and that restricts itself to a narrow and specific part of people's lives. It's a way of life that requires a complete obedience to a set of worldviews,of political views and of personnal beliefs, that are written in stone and don't let any room for diversity. In addition to Downfall's (brilliant) post, I'll say that you're falling into the trap I just described. Yes, Daech's ideology is very much about denying individuality and establishing something that looks fairly totalitarian - at least that's what we can conclude from the few informations we have of what's going on inside. Now, if we build from here : can you conclude that everyone who lives under this regime necessarily approves of it? Clearly no, since we just had images of liberated people in some recently liberated city openly showing their happiness of not living under this regime anymore. Can you also conclude that anyone who follows its main ideology is necessarily responsible for it? No, if we look at the Nazi regime, we see that in case of totalitarian societies you'll have a good chunk of people who are following out of necessity ( Muss-Nazis), or out of social pressure ( Mitläufer). Can you blame people for not going against peer pressure, when the drawbacks of doing that heavily outweigh the advantages? ... Let's not forget that the case we're discussing is not the one of Syrian and Iraqi victims of the islamic state, but of burkini-clad women in France. Are you telling me that these women living in a secular republic can't go against peer pressure to wear islamic garments ? If your answer is that they can't, then surely you agree that the source of this social pressure has no place in our society and should be fought --> hence coercitive measures being taken against islamism. If your answer is that they can face up to peer pressure, then surely you agree that these women do wear these clothes as a statement of adhesion to hardline islamism ?
These women can go against peer pressure, in the sense that it is always possible to go against peer pressure. Some of them do, actually. Some of these women, however, can't realistically go against peer pressure, in the sense that they have very little to gain and a lot to lose. Is that a problem? Yes, I think it is fair to assume that every individual should be able to realistically go against peer pressure, although thinking that someone can be free of any peer pressure is naive. Some women also choose to wear that by themselves, and it's in their freedom to do so.
But I think this is where two subjects should be separated, though they are often and wrongfully considered together. Because islamist ideologies have been the basis for terrorist attacks, it seems people can't separate the two things, and that's sad. Terrorist attacks, and the groups behind these attacks, and the various groups and nations giving money to these groups, should obviously be fought harshly and relentlessly. But why fight the ideology itself, ie "coercitive measures being taken against islamism", as you put it? Did the existence of the ETA (829 deaths) justify the establishment of coercitive measures against the idea of Basque independence? Does the existence of Buddhist Terrorism in Sri Lanka or Thailand justify coercitive measures against the politicized Buddhist ideology? Does the presence of casseurs in many demonstrations mean that the principles behind these demonstrations are bad?
We both agree that a hardline islamist vision of the world is not what we want. But I think it is much more efficient not to take coercitive measures against it, because it will only make it stronger : look at the way the FN rose to proeminence in 2012 (or at Dieudonné vs Valls, or at literally everything) and you'll see that martyrdom is a powerful tool, and that the more an entity can pretend to be the victim, the more they'll gain traction and approval. Every time a mayor forbids the burkini, it pushes new individuals towards taking a hardline stance, be it anti-islamist or islamist, and reduce the chances of reason winning over stupidity. Every time a politician says that the veil in universities should be forbidden, the same happens. Every time someone feels his voice isn't being heard in the political debate, no matter if that voice asks for hard measures against muslims or is a young muslim who feels their religion is being disrespected, the same happens. Extremism breeds extremism. There's a reason "know your ennemy" is an old adage : you can't win without understanding, and if you narrow you mind, you can't understand. No, as long as you're not actually trampling upon others' freedom, "supporting radical islamism" by doing things such as wearing a burkini should not be considered as a crime or a bad behavior. We don't care what the ideology preaches as much as what factually happens.
Instead, it would be much, much more intelligent to cut ties and fight countries who are, behind our back, financing murders happening on our soil while dealing with us at the same time ; to stop fueling instability in nearby countries by encouraging corruption at our political leaders' profit ; to have our politicians create a real, engaging narrative uniting individuals while recognizing their differences ; to stop fueling instability in our own country by having politicians trying to divide people to get votes ; to have active and competent propaganda services countering Daech's propaganda ; to build a completely new educational system adapted to the realities of today instead of the weird and dying beast from the 70s that we currently have ; to start having a government based on facts and not on "public opinion".
But that would be intelligent. Intelligence doesn't sell.
Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 07:02 OtherWorld wrote:In your previous message, you stated that "within an ideology, everyone's not uniform". But when the people who adhere to a certain ideology start to actually wear an actual uniform that erases their individualities and marks their segregation with the wider population (ie. face-covering veils, burkinis, ...), you can legitimately wonder is these people .are really able to dissent from the creed or not. The second purpose of the uniform, however, is simply to identify with a group ; the major difference is that it's an expression of freedom and not something that is forced upon you by hierarchical superiors, like in the previous cases. Gothic kid X won't come to school clothed in gothic style because it's been forced upon him ; football fan X won't come to the stadium wearing his team's jersey because it's been forced upon him ; Rolland Garros spectator X won't put the white bourgeois hat on their heads because it's been forced upon them. All these people are, ironically enough, making a statement of individuality by adopting the codes of a given group. You could even go further and say that they're expressing a belief in their clothing - eh, doesn't that remind you of anything? Yes, in a sense they're "marking their segregation with the wider population". That's kind of the point. Yes, in a sense they're having a herd mentality of adopting a group's codes instead of their own. Yet it is still a statement of free will, free will of following a group. What is the difference with a woman wearing a burkini? .. Are you suggesting that islamic clothing and bourgeois tennis attire descend from the same herd mentality ? Pray tell me then what are the societal and political statements carried by a white Lacoste shirt, compared to the ones of wearing islamic garbs. The former is a mere item of consumerism, linking its owner to a loose community of (casual) interest. The latter is a powerful symbol of adhesion to a fully-fledged religious, societal and political way that is at odds with our society ; as well as a message that its owner want to segregate themselves from our common customs.
Well, brands with strong brand identities are certainly striving for their consumers to have a herd mentality. For example, did it ever struck you that the early iPhone fans were a bit, how shall I put it, fanatical and intolerant? Similarly, I'm sure you've heard these stories, that the medias were keen to recycle over and over again before "Islamic clothing" became a worthy topic, of kids bullying another kid because he didn't wear clothes from "prestigious" brands - Adidas, Nike, Puma, etc? And while a white Lacoste polo doesn't express an explicit political message, it certainly expresses a certain way of life, thus making the societal statement that you can afford this way of life. Why do you think the recent Ralph Lauren polos had much bigger logos than before, if not to increase the size of the statement you're wearing (although in this case, their latest polos reversed to the small logo and aesthetics won over brand-worshipping, thankfully)?
Now don't get me wrong : I'm not saying that a Lacoste polo is the same thing as a burkini. I'm saying, though, that the underlying mechanism for wearing either are fundamentally the same - assuming the individual chose to wear it freely, of course - , though they (greatly) differ in the intensity of their expression. And I'm saying that yes, most of the time you'll "segregate yourself" (since you see it that way ; I personally consider that segregation can only come from those who segregate, not from those who are subject to said segregation) by wearing what you wear. Why do people choose to wear quality clothes, if not to differenciate themselves from the masses in the street? Why do people chose to wear bling-bling stuff, if not to make sure they appear as rich to everyone? etc
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On August 16 2016 18:41 schaf wrote:
No terrorist here, please move on...
On the other hand: what's up with crazy people, knives and trains nowadays? Or are these incidents just covered more often?
The over mediatisation is probably generating vocations (Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame)... Medias also need stuff to fill in any void anyway.
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And no motive for it could be found, guy also seemed to specifically target women. Not a Terrorist attack, just a crazy (right wing) loner.
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On August 16 2016 03:38 WhiteDog wrote:
You did not argue that Marx and Feuerbach were all mammals, you said Marx didn't add anything to Feuerbach's philosophy on religion. So tell me, when is it that Feuerbach talks about the religion of the everydayy life and fetichism ?
"there is a disconnect between agency and need, " yeah that's what Marx define as alienation, both are.
"the agency exists without reference to need" due to the alienation, also true for religion (religions is the object and exist outside of one's brain, it is instituted, it has laws, it is produced and structure the daily life of men outside of any anthropological needs for salvation).
"In the case of religion, the satisfaction of a need robs man of his agency" are you saying that men litterally lose their brain due to religion ? It is just the usage of their brain which is structured by the idea of god, much like capitalism restrict the usage of one's hand through wage labour and the private property of the means of production. People can still think, they just think through the religious lens, much like they still produce through the division of labour. Men then fetichise the product of their activity, by confering the necessary qualities to respond to the needs of men to gods and merchandises, without any reference to their condition of production. It's exactly the same.
No, I said that Marx did not add anything to Feuerbach's critique of religion in the context in which you quoted him, i.e. religion is the opium of the people, because this critique, which Marx himself refers to himself, forms the entire context of the metaphor.
Marx's concept of fetishism (which were not his original ideas either) was not utilised to explain religion generally, but applied to religious art, which he saw in the context of its perpetual conflict with religion itself. Fetishism, in this context, is the reversion of the divine into material objects. The phenomenon being analysed is the reverse from the one alluded to in the "opium of the masses" statement, which refers to religious thought, not to religious art.
"Religion is the opium of the masses" has nothing to do with religious laws or the organisation of society. It means exactly what it says it means; religious thought as the imagination of an ideal self, and while religious suffering as a reflection of real suffering; Marx says nothing about that real suffering being brought about in consequence of religious beliefs. There is no need to project an extra layer of meaning into it.
My comments yesterday imploring my readers to think about that statement historically rather than ideologically is precisely for this reason. The phrase "Opium of the masses" did not come from Marx. Marx took it from Heinrich Heine, and anyone thinking historically would be far more interested about the original context in which it was written:
Für Menschen, denen die Erde nichts mehr bietet, ward der Himmel erfunden ... Heil dieser Erfindung! Heil einer Religion, die dem leidenden Menschengeschlecht in den bittern Kelch einige süße, einschläfernde Tropfen goß, geistiges Opium, einige Tropfen Liebe, Hoffnung und Glauben!
Marx was literally paraphrasing someone else; there is no reason to search for a "deeper" meaning in the Marxist expression than its literary source, except for those deifiers who invoke Marx for the sake of absolute authority which they attach to his name.
The entire phrase of course, invites us, who are not Marxists, to look at the statement as a game of verbal slot machines.
Romantic love is the opium of the masses.
Friendship is the opium of the masses.
Art is the opium of the masses.
Television is the opium of the masses.
Video games are the opium of the masses.
Anything which is subjectively pleasureable for which there is no objective basis in materialist logic can be seen as the opium of the masses, and you can construct a cosmic theology out of any of those notions. But it gets better. If you retreat from the entire assumption of Marxist materialism, anything can be the opium of anything for any reason. The interesting thing for us to observe about this statement, working outside of the Marxist intellectual framework, is that any reductionist thought system invites the same metaphor, in which there is a hierarchy of "realities" being asserted.
And that is why WhiteDog hates the intercession of poetry so much in the debate; art is the sole form of human thought which does not provide us with an unmediated access to an intellectual hierarchy. A poem, working by the force of aesthetic impression, suggests, rather than explains, communicates, rather than subordinates, and as such, it reveals the real hole in the entire "Opium of the masses" critique. Marx proposes to create a world where religion is no longer necessary and man can see his objective self. He provides no means by which man can do this, because it is a contradiction in terms. The self is that which can never be seen; we need a mirror, either in the guise of a perfect self in heaven, or an abstract theoretical self in socio-economic philosophy. But the true self is always the subject, and can never be made into the object of thinking.
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Are you seriously hurt somewhere or can't you understand what others write ? Who reduced Marx's idea on religion to "opium of the masses" ? Do you not know that in the same text he refers to religion as an "aroma" and as a "halo", which means that religion cannot be explained by itself. There is an underlying critic of Schopenhauer, and a slight step away from Feuerbach, that is necessary to understand Marx's position in his later writing - and yes there is a deep link between religion and fetichism IN THE CAPITAL.
Which lead exactly to what I said like ten comments ago : for Marx economic alienation supercede religious alienation ("Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.", or "I requested further that religion should be criticised in the framework of criticism of political conditions rather than that political conditions should be criticised in the framework of religion, since this is more in accord with the nature of a newspaper and the educational level of the reading public; for religion in itself is without content, it owes its being not to heaven but to the earth" from Marx's letter to Ruge, nov. 1842).
You seem to try very hard to make it seem like you know something, but always respond something that is off and, in the end, propose nothing but a caricature of a 1rst year philosophy class.
And this entire debate, that you forced on us, is completly useless in regards to what I was arguing, which is that in the end Marx indirectly refer to an idea of man free from its alienation - there is a normative component to his critic, which is the basis of all politics to me, and which has been forgotten by Foucault.
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On August 16 2016 23:25 WhiteDog wrote:
Are you seriously hurt somewhere or can't you understand what other right ? Who reduced Marx's idea on religion to "opium of the masses" ? Do you not know that in the same text he refers to religion as an "aroma" and as a "halo", which means that religion cannot be explained by itself. There is an underlying critic of Schopenhauer, and a slight step away from Feuerbach, that is necessary to understand Marx position in his later writing - and yes there is a deep link between religion and fetichism IN THE CAPITAL.
You seem to try very hard to make it seem like you know something, but always respond something that is off and, in the end, propose nothing but a caricature of a 1rst year philosophy class.
You did. In your statement:
This is why, to Marx, religion is a renversed conciousness of the world, because it's some kind of illusion (due to the consumption of opium, the metaphore is quite beautiful) that makes you struggle for something (the afterlife ?) that does not exist (at least not in this life), and by doing so you actually permit the reproduction of what is the true source of your suffering (the exploitation and the alienation).
The last subordinate clause is an inaccurate explanation behind the opium metaphor, because that was not the reason, viewed from any rational scriptural translation, that Marx used it.
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On August 16 2016 23:32 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 23:25 WhiteDog wrote:
Are you seriously hurt somewhere or can't you understand what other right ? Who reduced Marx's idea on religion to "opium of the masses" ? Do you not know that in the same text he refers to religion as an "aroma" and as a "halo", which means that religion cannot be explained by itself. There is an underlying critic of Schopenhauer, and a slight step away from Feuerbach, that is necessary to understand Marx position in his later writing - and yes there is a deep link between religion and fetichism IN THE CAPITAL.
You seem to try very hard to make it seem like you know something, but always respond something that is off and, in the end, propose nothing but a caricature of a 1rst year philosophy class. You did. In your statement: This is why, to Marx, religion is a renversed conciousness of the world, because it's some kind of illusion (due to the consumption of opium, the metaphore is quite beautiful) that makes you struggle for something (the afterlife ?) that does not exist (at least not in this life), and by doing so you actually permit the reproduction of what is the true source of your suffering (the exploitation and the alienation).The last subordinate clause is an inaccurate explanation behind the opium metaphor, because that was not the reason, viewed from any rational scriptural translation, that Marx used it.
Sorry if in all my posts I don't quote the entirety of Marx's critic of religion.
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This is an issue that is actually very important for me as a historian, because I was thinking yesterday of a phenomenon that is related to this fact. It is the historical consensus formed by most German and international historians, of what they assumed Hitler's motives were in invading Russia. Their general consensus was that if we read Mein Kampf, Hitler had always believed in a war of conquest against the inferior Slavs, and hence he advocated a hostile foreign policy vis-a-vis Russia in that book.
The problem is that although it is accurate that Hitler makes disparaging racial remarks about Russians in Mein Kampf, this was not the rationale for which he proposed his foreign policy. To find his actual rationale, you cannot substitute one ideological notion for the local context in which the actual assertion has been made. And this is why, to my mind, very few historians have the correct historical interpretation for Barbarossa, which they see in ideological-racial terms, rather than realpolitik terms.
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What's the link with Marx's critic of religion and his relation to Feuerbach ?
I mean, Marx idea of religion being "of the earth" is already there in his contribution to hegel's critic of the philosophy of right - like the three metaphores (religion as opium of the masse, religion as an aroma, religion as a halo). In germ, there is already most of his materialist vision which will lead him to split with philosophy as a whole. This is not decontextualized, it's just how it is - he is influenced by them and is a product of both Hegel and Feuerbach, but he is also different.
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Finally the UK did a good thing - they arrested that bastard Choudary. I hope he'll rot in jail.
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On August 16 2016 18:41 schaf wrote:
No terrorist here, please move on...
On the other hand: what's up with crazy people, knives and trains nowadays? Or are these incidents just covered more often? They are just covered more nowadays. Literally every media is in a rush to report even the most minor public violent incident because they want to be the first to cover any incident that can be linked to terrorism, whether it is or isn't. Just see the crazy speculative media circus every now and then.
On August 17 2016 00:43 SoSexy wrote:
Finally the UK did a good thing - they arrested that bastard Choudary. I hope he'll rot in jail.
The strangest thing is that I can't find what exactly he is arrested for. He appears to be charged with "he had invited others to support "the" Islamic State group. " Not that I don't disagree that he is scum of the earth that needs to be denied the freedom to spread his messages, but it's somewhat chilling that due process doesn't seem to have been followed.
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EPT
