Terrorist attacks and beheadings in France

[chilango]

Why shouldn't the teachers just resolve to teach effective lessons without pissing people off unnecessarily?

This is the other aspect that irks me in this discussion no teacher anywhere can just say/show whatever they like without consideration for how it will be received. Teachers doing their job do not have the same "right" to freedom of expression that may be present in other situations.

Perhaps they should. But they don't.

 

[bimble]

Why shouldn't the teachers just resolve to teach effective lessons without pissing people off unnecessarily?

Which people , all students and their parents have an equal right to not be pissed off presumably but those with religious beliefs easier to offend than others. I’m saying this act of violence (outlier that it is obv) will have an impact on who is prioritised when making sure you don’t offend any of your pupils which is shit. If it was someone’s mad animal rights uncle beheading the biology teacher would the conversation even get to this?

 

[Edie]

Interesting read. I kept getting swung from one side of the argument to the other.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Let’s find a way of discussing biology without mentioning Darwin and evolution, because some people find it offensive. It’s perfectly possible to discuss biology without mentioning evolution.

In case anyone thinks it is an exaggeration, this happens. In children's biology books that will be published in the US, this happens today in 2020, a decision taken to censor made by non-religious people who don't think it's sensible to leave out evolution, but who are scared of the religious lobby.

 

[Spymaster]

Where's your evidence for this being the case Si?

Particularly in the light of we're being told options were given to leave the class? If I wanted to intentionally and grossly offend you, I wouldn't give you an option to leave first.

You also said earlier "loads of muslim kids" were in the class. Where's your evidence for that? How many muslim kids were in the class? How do you know?

Or are you just using emotive language in a misplaced belief exaggeration will make your argument stronger? (It doesn't)

Ok, so his intent may not have been to cause offence but he clearly realised that there was scope to do so, evidenced by the fact that he felt it necessary to tell the muslim kids to leave if they thought they would be.

 

[chilango]

Let’s find a way of discussing biology without mentioning Darwin and evolution, because some people find it offensive. It’s perfectly possible to discuss biology without mentioning evolution.

The principle here is that religions are demanding a degree of delicacy that they really aren’t due. The more we behave the way some on here would have us behave, the more we abandon oppressed groups within certain cultures to increasingly reactionary and increasingly powerful fundamentalist oppression.

This thread is utterly depressing, and I’m fucking furious at the liberal cowardice on here that would just give the most reactionary elements within any culture exactly what they want. We are sleepwalking into a dire, dire future if that’s the way you folks want to play it, and it fills me with an dark, empty feeling of hopelessness and dread.

Y'know Danny, I've actually taught in Sudan, and made some heavy heavy enemies there doing exactly what you (and I) would like to encourage here.

 

[Athos]

Ok, so his intent may not have been to cause offence but he clearly realised that there was scope to do so, evidenced by the fact that he felt it necessary to tell the muslim kids to leave if they thought they would be.

Do you think people have a right not to be offended?

 

[Spymaster]

Let’s find a way of discussing biology without mentioning Darwin and evolution, because some people find it offensive. It’s perfectly possible to discuss biology without mentioning evolution.

How about 'let's find a way of discussing FoE to a class containing muslims without showing cartoons that have already offended muslims'?

 

[Edie]

Do you think people have a right not to be offended?

What does it mean to have a right? (Something protected in law?)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How about 'let's find a way of discussing FoE to a class containing muslims without showing cartoons that have already offended muslims'?

So if I want to stop people from showing something, I just need to be offended by it?

Of course, as is often the way, and as was the way with The Satanic Verses, many of those wailing about the offence haven't even seen/read the offending pieces.

 

[danny la rouge]

In case anyone thinks it is an exaggeration, this happens. In children's biology books that will be published in the US, this happens today in 2020, a decision taken to censor made by non-religious people who don't think it's sensible to leave out evolution, but who are scared of the religious lobby.

Exactly. The “right not to be offended” leads us down pretty unacceptable alleys.

If my religion means I find it offensive to sit next to a woman on the train, I just get the women moved out of the carriage, right? Where next? What demands do we meet next?
Is it gratuitously offensive for women to travel when they know full well they might run into the ultra orthodox?

 

[Athos]

What does it mean to have a right? (Something protected in law?)

Not necessarily, but it's a tricky one - the idea of natural versus legal rights, and social norms.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Really, how is this any different from Mary Whitehouse with added violence?

 

[chilango]

People don't have the right to offend nor do they have the right not be offended.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How about 'let's find a way of discussing FoE to a class containing muslims without showing cartoons that have already offended muslims'?

Here you go again with this homogenous grouping. Don't you see the problem with this?

 

[Spymaster]

So if I want to stop people from showing something, I just need to be offended by it?

Nobody is saying that the cartoons shouldn't be shown at all. The question is whether or not a teacher showing them to a class with muslim kids in, knowing that they are likely to cause offence, is exercising sound judgement.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

People don't have the right to offend nor do they have the right not be offended.

Rubbish. Two gay men snogging in the street have every right to snog even harder if a religious wanker takes offence. Clearly we're not obliged to accommodate everyone else's prejudices and bigotry.

 

[danny la rouge]

How about 'let's find a way of discussing FoE to a class containing muslims without showing cartoons that have already offended muslims'?

Some Muslims. Some.

To go back to what Kenan Malik wrote (and has to repeatedly write):

“
What is called “offence to a community” is usually a struggle within communities. There are hundreds of thousands, within Muslim communities in the West, and in Muslim-majority countries across the world, challenging religious-based reactionary ideas and institutions; writers, cartoonists, political activists, daily putting their lives on the line in facing down blasphemy laws, standing up for equal rights and fighting for democratic freedoms.

It’s the unwillingness of liberals to stand up for basic liberal principles, their readiness to betray progressives within minority communities, that nurtures reactionaries, both within Muslim communities and outside it. The more that society gives licence for people to be offended, the more that people will seize the opportunity to feel offended. And the more deadly they will become in expressing their outrage”.

 

[Red Cat]

I don't think it's about the right to do anything, it's about power and violence. Fundamentalist violent people are frightening, especially when they get together, whatever their guise.

 

[chilango]

I don't think it's about the right to do anything, it's about power and violence. Fundamentalist violent people are frightening, especially when they get together, whatever their guise.

Very much this.

 

[Spymaster]

Some Muslims. Some.

To go back to what Kenan Malik wrote (and has to repeatedly write):

“
What is called “offence to a community” is usually a struggle within communities. There are hundreds of thousands, within Muslim communities in the West, and in Muslim-majority countries across the world, challenging religious-based reactionary ideas and institutions; writers, cartoonists, political activists, daily putting their lives on the line in facing down blasphemy laws, standing up for equal rights and fighting for democratic freedoms.

It’s the unwillingness of liberals to stand up for basic liberal principles, their readiness to betray progressives within minority communities, that nurtures reactionaries, both within Muslim communities and outside it. The more that society gives licence for people to be offended, the more that people will seize the opportunity to feel offended. And the more deadly they will become in expressing their outrage”.

Ok, some muslims.

Why deliberately offend any of them if there's a perfectly effective way of dealing with the subject without doing so?

 

[danny la rouge]

Ok, some muslims.

Why deliberately offend any of them if there's a perfectly effective way of dealing with a subject without doing so?

Why bother even having Darwin in biology texts? It offends some people.

 

[chilango]

Rubbish. Two gay men snogging in the street have every right to snog even harder if a religious wanker takes offence. Clearly we're not obliged to accommodate everyone else's prejudices and bigotry.

They don't have that right though do they? Many places they'd get the shit kicked out of them by a homophobic mob.

 

[Athos]

People don't have the right to offend nor do they have the right not be offended.

That's a difficult one. Currently in the UK, generally speaking people do have a legal right to offend (insofar as there's little proscription of speech that falls short of being hateful), and the vast majority of people respect a moral right to say things others find offensive in the vast majority of circumstances.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

They don't have that right though do they? Many places they'd get the shit kicked out of them by a homophobic mob.

so you're not saying anything of any note, then? In Soho, they would have that right.

Don't use the word 'right' if you mean something else, eh?

 

[bimble]

I think (same tangent sort of ) that public state run buses in some parts of Israel used to until recently have womens sections at the back, so orthodox men wouldn’t have to sit near or walk them, but that this ended when challenged in court by secular / non orthodox. Because putting the loudest most easily affronted people first isn’t the way to go.

 

[planetgeli]

Nobody is saying that the cartoons shouldn't be shown at all. The question is whether or not a teacher showing them to a class with muslim kids in, knowing that they are likely to cause offence, is exercising sound judgement.

Leaving aside I think you're coming at the issue from a distinctly strange angle when ultimately we're talking about a fundamentalist beheading an educationalist...

...the question any educationalist usually asks is whether primary sources are better than secondary sources - and primary sources always win.

"Let's discuss (amongst other things) this picture"

"What picture Sir/Miss?"

"I can't show you the picture, I'm only going to tell you about it in my words"

"Then how can we evaluate the evidence fully?"

"Erm..."

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I think (same tangent sort of ) that public state run buses in some parts of Israel used to until recently have womens sections at the back, so orthodox men wouldn’t have to sit near or walk them, but that this ended when challenged in court by secular / non orthodox. Because putting the loudest most easily affronted people first isn’t the way to go.

Various stop the war meetings tried to enforce sex segregation to cater to loud voices from Muslims who wanted it. It was a mistake to do that. And it is incredibly arrogant of the various groups to demand it.

 

[danny la rouge]

I’d personally prefer to get away from the term “rights”. It’s used as shorthand, but actually can encompass some some implications I don’t find helpful.

Better to frame it in terms of freedom, praxis and direct action.

Do we really want to keep retreating in every way the reactionary religious right want to push us? No. We really don’t.

 

[chilango]

so you're not saying anything of any note, then? In Soho, they would have that right.

Don't use the word 'right' if you mean something else, eh?

it's about having the power to assert your values over those you disagree with.

We (I think) share broadly the same values, we differ in our confidence in our power to assert them.