First Offensive - The Gaia Wars: God, Allah, Freedom of Speech and the Law
Few argue, even in the Islamic community among the more mentally stable, that Islamic Way has largely come to define itself in the worldwide public eye as hardly benevolent or socially proactive.
If anything, quite the opposite could be said about current humanity's application of the Koran to daily life. Some elements of the Islamic faith have deteriorated into a multi-national self-pity hysteria that constantly casts about looking for something, if anything, that they find offensive in the first person and worthy of abusive, hostile and violent conduct in return - all the better to quench an insatiable thirst for attention.
Within the United States, the Islamic community always co-existed nicely with just about any other denomination under the Sun. Theology is theology, your theology may be different than mine, but the ultimate goal of all theology is practical, daily application of social benevolence.
Unfortunately, in the hand of misguided local clergy, the overarching tenets of any faith can be warped on practical application.
The recent foibles of the Roman Catholic Church in America is but one example. Largely a 'gay' oriented community run rampant without restraint or fear of redress, the American Roman Catholic Church deteriorated throughout the 20th Century into a procedural organization that molested both male and female children. The Camden Diocese in New Jersey and the Philadelphia Archdiocese in Pennsylvania are two, quite sad examples of what transpired - dozens, if not hundreds, of children were sexually molested or assaulted, verbally and physically, in a variety of formats. Paul VI High School in Haddonfield, New Jersey, is one finite example - the male staff routinely propositioned and then harassed male students during the 1970s, often labeling those who failed to comply as 'gay' as a means of social intimidation and retribution.
These kind of incidents were so glaring and generic within the Roman Catholic Church, as Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham duly noted in a 2005 report on the culture, that it is difficult to not say that the Roman Catholic Church was officially sanctioning the conduct - hence becoming, arguably, an abusive homosexual-oriented organization from a Church structure point of view.
The observation of abusiveness is not without merit. But one should proceed cautiously because the abusiveness 'template' that underlay the American Roman Catholic Church's fixation with sexual assaults has little to do with sexual assault or the Roman Catholic Church.
Simply travel to the southern United States and sit-in on a fundamentalist 'Christian' organizational meeting. Roman Catholics are oft portrayed in manner that is truly cartoonish, filled with every sort of fault and flaw - precisely what fault and flaw no one can really seem to define - that you would expect any practicing Roman Catholic to have a serpent's tail and a forked tongue, carrying devilishly pronged scepters. And there is active solicitation by fundamentalist Church elders to indoctrinate their youth into generically viewing any Roman Catholic in such a manner. Flawed. Unworthy, except of going straight to hell of course.
What's really afoot is something more Sociopathic, a "you are not like me therefore I socially marginalize and exclude you" psychology. Experiences based upon skin color, regardless of the color, are predicated on the same discriminatory exclusion conduct. "I exclude you from the business world because you are black." The theme underpinned much of American business life prior to the 1965 Civil Rights Act and that discriminatory legacy continues to fundamentally shape the American business and legal landscapes to this day.
At this point, one must be attentive to the fact that elaborate 'rationales' are developed to legitimize the exclusion processes. You are not excluded based on skin color - a sleight of hand substitution takes place - you are now excluded because you are lazy, not very bright, have low morals and a poor work ethic, your skin color just becomes a convenient catch-all. Any casual reading of the Pro-Slavery argument of the 1700s and 1800s is apt in verifying the argument, including Thomas Jefferson’s writings.
But, as hard as anyone may argue that the basic conduct was 'racist', it really had not much to do with skin color - it had everything to do with those in financial power excluding a dilution of that power. "Less money for you means more money for me" so the theme more realistically transpired.
You can actively see the same theme today, just as robust as in Thomas Jefferson's day, in excluding Social Security and Veteran's disability recipients from American Society - the Department of Labor does not count them in their employment statistics even if they no longer receive any benefits yet remain unemployed. Why? That's a fascinating question that can largely be answered thus: as a gratuity to American businesses, the federal and varying state Department of Labor structure their regulations so that disabled Veterans and injured workers need not ever be rehired in the American workforce, hence saving health care costs and bolstering insurance industry profits. A financial double-bang for American industry in return for a very small price in loss of human life.
In short, the disabled and previously injured are expendable. And labor statistics are fudged to conceal the matter gambling that America's media will be too lazy to inspect further. Generally, the gamble works.
So, we have a seamless transition - a portability of a behavioral template from religious grounds, to racial, to socio-economic. In all examples, the conduct is remarkably identical: 1. A desire to exclude and 2. Development of elaborate rationalizations to validate the lack of social benevolence.
It should shock no one that the same rationalizations used to validate slavery are oft used to validate exclusion of the previously injured from the workforce: they are, supposedly, really just lazy, of poor moral fiber and work ethic, and not very bright because - afterall - federal law bars discrimination against the disabled, hence the real core of the matter lies in some personal defect. To the letter, these tenets were the moral arguments in favor of Slavery.
So, how does any of this relate to the cartoonish characterizations of Muhammad?
Simply take the portable abusiveness template and slide it down the political ellipse. Is there any fundamental difference between how the American Roman Catholic Church handled its predatory homosexual, sexual, and pedophile issues and the modern radical Islamic communities approach to just about anything?
Instead of adopting a human benevolence point of view, the radical Islamic community adopts a "We do things because we can" modality of thought and act. Much like the Roman Catholic Church did with its dysfunctional sexual issues as Lynne Abraham so eloquently noted.
Which, from a social benevolence point of view, begs a question: when, and what, is fair commentary on anti-social conduct?
A picture of Muhammad with a bomb posing as his turban? Well, if the Islamic community finds the depiction unfortunate, it is certainly arguing against itself - the calmer, rational, socially benevolent segment versus the radical 'rationale manipulating' destructive segment that is out for 'revenge' in a series of self-fabricated insults?
Well, that is a dilemma. A quite intellectual one. Using the favored logic of the radical Islamic community, would the cartoon have ever appeared had not the radical Islamic community not favored destructive conducts?
And the media around the world do no service in limiting the debate. Perhaps the Islamic community is embarrassed by its more radical peers. Perhaps it should be. Much of the American Roman Catholic Church is embarrassed by their peers, if not their clergy, yet you do not see the lay community blowing up rectories and cutting off people's heads.
Why the difference? The American Roman Catholic Church, the lay community, reached a maturity long ago in deciphering that the procedural structures of any given institution are far different from any theological/philosophic tenet. And one should not casually be transposed or assigned to the other.
Camden County Prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi is an embarrassment to the Roman Catholic Church, the Camden Diocese, and the lay community because he refused to investigate the long history of abusive, quite illegal, conduct within the Roman Catholic Church in Camden County. Yet no one bombed the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.
The Islamic community, and any ardent proselytizing community, must realize that being 'ardent' and 'proselytizing' can translate into unrestricted, heavily rationalized 'abusiveness towards all, if not just anyone who is convenient, in a manner that is hardly 'socially benevolent'.
Jesus Christ, in one form or another, has been lampooned. So have conservative Rabbis.
Perhaps, in the pursuit of social benevolence, lampooning is not such a bad thing if it brings healthy perspective?
Whether all things community, Danish, American, or Islamic, the more intellectual elements of all three would answer that question in a decided affirmative.
And few would agree that anyone should exert 'law' into this debate to define its boundaries or scope, to impose restraint. Freedom of Speech exposes, it seldom conceals.
- Qi
The Political Ellipse footnote:
The political/theological/philosophical spectrum is more accurately represented - not as a straight line - but as an elongated ellipse. Hence, socially benevolent theological faiths can comfortably sit side by side even though taking divergent directions on 'procedural' issues. Essentially, two entities are tied to the same wooden post, facing opposite directions, but occupying the same fundamental ground.
One can comfortably tether conservative extremists with liberal extremists. Hence, odd pairings like Pat Robertson and Louis Farrakhan easily cross paths - either procedurally or substantively - in espousing their philosophies or how to implement them. Being 'pro' one segment of humanity often entails be 'anti' some other segment as anyone familiar with the American racial landscape can attest - skin color is no barrier to prejudice in any direction. The matter is no less so in theology. Or politics in general.
If anything, quite the opposite could be said about current humanity's application of the Koran to daily life. Some elements of the Islamic faith have deteriorated into a multi-national self-pity hysteria that constantly casts about looking for something, if anything, that they find offensive in the first person and worthy of abusive, hostile and violent conduct in return - all the better to quench an insatiable thirst for attention.
Within the United States, the Islamic community always co-existed nicely with just about any other denomination under the Sun. Theology is theology, your theology may be different than mine, but the ultimate goal of all theology is practical, daily application of social benevolence.
Unfortunately, in the hand of misguided local clergy, the overarching tenets of any faith can be warped on practical application.
The recent foibles of the Roman Catholic Church in America is but one example. Largely a 'gay' oriented community run rampant without restraint or fear of redress, the American Roman Catholic Church deteriorated throughout the 20th Century into a procedural organization that molested both male and female children. The Camden Diocese in New Jersey and the Philadelphia Archdiocese in Pennsylvania are two, quite sad examples of what transpired - dozens, if not hundreds, of children were sexually molested or assaulted, verbally and physically, in a variety of formats. Paul VI High School in Haddonfield, New Jersey, is one finite example - the male staff routinely propositioned and then harassed male students during the 1970s, often labeling those who failed to comply as 'gay' as a means of social intimidation and retribution.
These kind of incidents were so glaring and generic within the Roman Catholic Church, as Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham duly noted in a 2005 report on the culture, that it is difficult to not say that the Roman Catholic Church was officially sanctioning the conduct - hence becoming, arguably, an abusive homosexual-oriented organization from a Church structure point of view.
The observation of abusiveness is not without merit. But one should proceed cautiously because the abusiveness 'template' that underlay the American Roman Catholic Church's fixation with sexual assaults has little to do with sexual assault or the Roman Catholic Church.
Simply travel to the southern United States and sit-in on a fundamentalist 'Christian' organizational meeting. Roman Catholics are oft portrayed in manner that is truly cartoonish, filled with every sort of fault and flaw - precisely what fault and flaw no one can really seem to define - that you would expect any practicing Roman Catholic to have a serpent's tail and a forked tongue, carrying devilishly pronged scepters. And there is active solicitation by fundamentalist Church elders to indoctrinate their youth into generically viewing any Roman Catholic in such a manner. Flawed. Unworthy, except of going straight to hell of course.
What's really afoot is something more Sociopathic, a "you are not like me therefore I socially marginalize and exclude you" psychology. Experiences based upon skin color, regardless of the color, are predicated on the same discriminatory exclusion conduct. "I exclude you from the business world because you are black." The theme underpinned much of American business life prior to the 1965 Civil Rights Act and that discriminatory legacy continues to fundamentally shape the American business and legal landscapes to this day.
At this point, one must be attentive to the fact that elaborate 'rationales' are developed to legitimize the exclusion processes. You are not excluded based on skin color - a sleight of hand substitution takes place - you are now excluded because you are lazy, not very bright, have low morals and a poor work ethic, your skin color just becomes a convenient catch-all. Any casual reading of the Pro-Slavery argument of the 1700s and 1800s is apt in verifying the argument, including Thomas Jefferson’s writings.
But, as hard as anyone may argue that the basic conduct was 'racist', it really had not much to do with skin color - it had everything to do with those in financial power excluding a dilution of that power. "Less money for you means more money for me" so the theme more realistically transpired.
You can actively see the same theme today, just as robust as in Thomas Jefferson's day, in excluding Social Security and Veteran's disability recipients from American Society - the Department of Labor does not count them in their employment statistics even if they no longer receive any benefits yet remain unemployed. Why? That's a fascinating question that can largely be answered thus: as a gratuity to American businesses, the federal and varying state Department of Labor structure their regulations so that disabled Veterans and injured workers need not ever be rehired in the American workforce, hence saving health care costs and bolstering insurance industry profits. A financial double-bang for American industry in return for a very small price in loss of human life.
In short, the disabled and previously injured are expendable. And labor statistics are fudged to conceal the matter gambling that America's media will be too lazy to inspect further. Generally, the gamble works.
So, we have a seamless transition - a portability of a behavioral template from religious grounds, to racial, to socio-economic. In all examples, the conduct is remarkably identical: 1. A desire to exclude and 2. Development of elaborate rationalizations to validate the lack of social benevolence.
It should shock no one that the same rationalizations used to validate slavery are oft used to validate exclusion of the previously injured from the workforce: they are, supposedly, really just lazy, of poor moral fiber and work ethic, and not very bright because - afterall - federal law bars discrimination against the disabled, hence the real core of the matter lies in some personal defect. To the letter, these tenets were the moral arguments in favor of Slavery.
So, how does any of this relate to the cartoonish characterizations of Muhammad?
Simply take the portable abusiveness template and slide it down the political ellipse. Is there any fundamental difference between how the American Roman Catholic Church handled its predatory homosexual, sexual, and pedophile issues and the modern radical Islamic communities approach to just about anything?
Instead of adopting a human benevolence point of view, the radical Islamic community adopts a "We do things because we can" modality of thought and act. Much like the Roman Catholic Church did with its dysfunctional sexual issues as Lynne Abraham so eloquently noted.
Which, from a social benevolence point of view, begs a question: when, and what, is fair commentary on anti-social conduct?
A picture of Muhammad with a bomb posing as his turban? Well, if the Islamic community finds the depiction unfortunate, it is certainly arguing against itself - the calmer, rational, socially benevolent segment versus the radical 'rationale manipulating' destructive segment that is out for 'revenge' in a series of self-fabricated insults?
Well, that is a dilemma. A quite intellectual one. Using the favored logic of the radical Islamic community, would the cartoon have ever appeared had not the radical Islamic community not favored destructive conducts?
And the media around the world do no service in limiting the debate. Perhaps the Islamic community is embarrassed by its more radical peers. Perhaps it should be. Much of the American Roman Catholic Church is embarrassed by their peers, if not their clergy, yet you do not see the lay community blowing up rectories and cutting off people's heads.
Why the difference? The American Roman Catholic Church, the lay community, reached a maturity long ago in deciphering that the procedural structures of any given institution are far different from any theological/philosophic tenet. And one should not casually be transposed or assigned to the other.
Camden County Prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi is an embarrassment to the Roman Catholic Church, the Camden Diocese, and the lay community because he refused to investigate the long history of abusive, quite illegal, conduct within the Roman Catholic Church in Camden County. Yet no one bombed the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.
The Islamic community, and any ardent proselytizing community, must realize that being 'ardent' and 'proselytizing' can translate into unrestricted, heavily rationalized 'abusiveness towards all, if not just anyone who is convenient, in a manner that is hardly 'socially benevolent'.
Jesus Christ, in one form or another, has been lampooned. So have conservative Rabbis.
Perhaps, in the pursuit of social benevolence, lampooning is not such a bad thing if it brings healthy perspective?
Whether all things community, Danish, American, or Islamic, the more intellectual elements of all three would answer that question in a decided affirmative.
And few would agree that anyone should exert 'law' into this debate to define its boundaries or scope, to impose restraint. Freedom of Speech exposes, it seldom conceals.
- Qi
The Political Ellipse footnote:
The political/theological/philosophical spectrum is more accurately represented - not as a straight line - but as an elongated ellipse. Hence, socially benevolent theological faiths can comfortably sit side by side even though taking divergent directions on 'procedural' issues. Essentially, two entities are tied to the same wooden post, facing opposite directions, but occupying the same fundamental ground.
One can comfortably tether conservative extremists with liberal extremists. Hence, odd pairings like Pat Robertson and Louis Farrakhan easily cross paths - either procedurally or substantively - in espousing their philosophies or how to implement them. Being 'pro' one segment of humanity often entails be 'anti' some other segment as anyone familiar with the American racial landscape can attest - skin color is no barrier to prejudice in any direction. The matter is no less so in theology. Or politics in general.
posted by Qi at 11:31 AM
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