Pope Francis on Paris Attack - "one who throws insults can expect a 'punch'"

[politicus]

Seriously, after reading the Pope's actual response, he has said nothing wrong or untruthful. I continue to gain respect for the Pope more and more with each passing day.

Indeed.  Very few world leaders are saying anything intelligent about this, and it's refreshing to read that at least one person is.  Mostly people are talking about press freedom and free speech.  I'm a big fan of free speech.  I've fought over it and fretted over it.  I cannot count all the times my big mouth has gotten me in trouble.  I've been suspended from school, fired from jobs, and thrown in jail.  My own youth was terribly misspent and I'm still a loudmouth.  Certainly I think you have the right to insult my mother.  But you also have the right to expect me to punch you hard in the face when you do with the intention of breaking all your teeth.

Comparing terror against those who use political and social satire to a reaction to primitive insults and "fighing words" is plain wrong. One is  a planned attack, the other is an instinctive response in the heath of the moment. In a civilized society violent responses to satire are unacceptable - there is no free speech without the right to insult.

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Social etiquette does not - and should not - apply to satire. It is a free room where the normal conventions of polite society do not apply. Otherwise the satire becomes toothless and bland. Satirists fulfill a very important function in a democracy and should be respected and protected.

[politicus]

I'm very disappointed.

Why?  Two wrongs don't make a right, no matter how wrong one of the wrongs may be.

There was nothing wrong with what Charlie Hebdo did (and does). They fullfill a vital service to democracy by highlightening and mocking abuse of power and reactionary views.

[politicus]

Angus answered an early draft of my post with a phrase that meant the opposite of what I intended to say, so please don't quote his post without deleting his quotes from my post. Use the present version of my post instead.

[politicus]

I'm not sure that's what the pope is doing.  I know that I'm not.  I know what political satire is.  There was a paper in the 90s in the US called The Onion and it was a free weekly alternative newspaper, usually in little stands in coffeeshops and university campus buildings.  I haven't seen any around lately, but then I haven't been looking for them.  I know that it still maintains a web presence.  That was satire.  It was cute and quirky.  Much of it was lame, but from time to time there was something funny.

(In response to: "Comparing political and social satire to primitive insults and "fighing words" is plain wrong. One is an instinctive response in the heath of the moment, the other is a planned attack. In a civilized society violent responses to satire are unacceptable - there is no free speech without the right to insult.")

1) You made a clear parallel between your sons lack of social filter and the satirists work.

2) Proper political satire is not "cute and quirky". It has bite.

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1) It is not hate speech to mock religion (and I say that as a religious person myself).

2) Charlie Hebdo did not generally mock religion. They mocked the abuse of religious authority and the reactionary views and norms of many religious people. There is a clear difference.

3) There is nothing wrong with having an agenda if that agenda is fighting for freedom and against abuse of power.

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They were not bigots in any meaningful sense of that term.

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I said nothing against Muslim students and I respect their views. Do not put words into my mouth (this seems to be totally out of left field).

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I never said that.

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All I asked for was a little respect for the dead (and I deleted that part because it is unrealistic to expect on this forum). But try to imagine how you would react if Europeans showed disrespect to people with a similar status in US society, who died under similar circumstances. At least two of the dead satirists were great artists and another of the victims a prominent intellectual.

[politicus]

One left-oriented argument that springs to mind is that, especially in Europe, while Islam obviously isn't itself a race, it's rhetorically racialized in a way that lends itself to economic marginalization and political repression, and so, while criticism is certainly warranted in many instances, it's kind of unseemly to satirize it insofar as satire should punch up rather than punching down--id est, while I'm actually really offended by some of Charlie Hebdo's anti-Christian material, I don't think it's as problematic for them to be putting out as the anti-Muslim stuff.

Some of the worst Islamist fanatics are White converts and a lot of people that come from ethnic minorities with roots in Islamic countries (especially women) are suffering from oppression from Islamists and reactionaries trying to enforce their norms within Muslim communities. It would be wrong to make this about race. Muslims that accept Western norms on gender roles, masculinity and free speech (including critique of their religion) + acknowledge the importance of education and try to integrate generally do fine. Islam needs to adapt to work in Europe and there are people working on that. Protecting the reactionaries within the Muslim community from critique is not a viable path. Europe is a secular and to some extent anti-religious place and if you can not handle that you will be marginalized and ostracized. This is not really something you can change. You are doing Muslims a disservice if you pretend otherwise. There is a limit to cultural pluralism in Europe and the successful minorities are the ones that get this. Europe is based on national cultures that can to a certain degree be opened up to include new groups, but European countries can never develop US style cultural pluralism and Americans tend to ignore this when evaluating these matters.

[politicus]

What was the pope supposed to say? 'Blatant hate speech is essential to a free society, let 'er rip surviving Charlie Hebdo people'? As little as anybody short of Julius Streicher deserves to die because of a newspaper they put out, I don't think that would have been a morally responsible reaction. Juvenalian satire going out of its way to offend entire religious groups, in a country where at least some of the religious groups in question are already disadvantaged and marginalized, doesn't feature in legitimate political discourse.

There was no need for the Pope to say anything on this. There is no way he can play a constructive role on this issue, so he should simply have avoided commenting on it. The only result will be alienating more Europeans from the Catholic church.

And completely disagree on the hate speech part.

[politicus]

Why is this even in this section? Surely this belongs in either International General Discussion or Religion & Philosophy?

It has developed into an IG thread.

[politicus]

... this is pretty damn beautiful.

Best post on Atlas in 2015

[politicus]

Ah, the embedding tactic.  Okay, I'll give it a go, then I'm going to stop arguing with you because much of what you have said seems absurd.  

No need to be condescending.

[politicus]

I, too, thought it was bizarre to post the thread in the US General Discussion thread, and thought that the OP might have considered more wisely.  Now, you have given the OP yet another reason to think more carefully about thread placement in the future.  If you're not careful, it gets moved into the graveyard known as the "Religion & Philosophy" section.  I'm sure your intentions were noble, Ernest, but you realize, I assume, that removal of a thread to this board amounts to a death sentence for the topic.

Which may be for the best, we were going nowhere productive. There literally is an ocean between Americans and Europeans on this issue. I will return briefly to address some of the worst garbage you threw at me, but I think Alcon has made most of the points I wanted to.

[politicus]

Without wishing to wade too far into the rather fraught debate here, isn't there an element of 'shock as Pope is Catholic' to this? Or, rather, 'shock as Pope is the Pope'? It would be very, very surprising if the leader of the largest religious institution on earth was anything other than down on anti-religious satire.

1) At least half the people discussing here don't give a damn about the Pope. It is the principal aspect that generated the "fraught" debate.

2) There is the question why Francis felt the need to comment on this at all. The Vatican comments on a wide range of topics and he probably felt he had to have an opinion of something this big. Still, his advisers should have told this was a topic he better stay away from. It will only damage the church and there is no way he can play a constructive role. In the present situation there is no room for compromise on this issue in Europe.

[politicus]

Without wishing to wade too far into the rather fraught debate here, isn't there an element of 'shock as Pope is Catholic' to this? Or, rather, 'shock as Pope is the Pope'? It would be very, very surprising if the leader of the largest religious institution on earth was anything other than down on anti-religious satire.

2) There is the question why Francis felt the need to comment on this at all. The Vatican comments on a wide range of topics and he probably felt he had to have an opinion of something this big. Still, his advisers should have told this was a topic he better stay away from. It will only damage the church and there is no way he can play a constructive role. In the present situation there is no room for compromise on this issue in Europe.

The Pope should not be some politician who is afraid to speak out for public relations purposes. It is his role to weigh in.

Good point Al, sometimes it is important to restate the obvious.

Perhaps he shouldn't, but the Vatican is also political institution and they do lay low on issues from time to time. With the church near collapse in many European countries this will be yet another nail to the coffin for the Catholic church in Europe. 

[politicus]

Anyway, the backtracking has started:

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/Brad-Miner-Charlie-Hebdo-Vatican/2015/01/16/id/619111/

"One of the things that happens with this pope, that really didn't happen very often with Benedict XVI or John Paul II, are those follow-up memos from the Vatican to the press saying, 'Well, he didn't really say what he said,' or 'He didn't really mean what you thought he meant"

[politicus]

I'm really bemused as to why some people are shocked that the Pope didn't tweet an obscene cartoon of Mohammed or whatever. What did you expect his opinion to be?

Rubbish. No one was shocked by it.

Anyway: "that's the character of this man. He believes in spontaneity …  and he's trusting that the spirit will guide him to say the right thing."

[politicus]

Also, some random Catholic saying the pope misspoke doesn't count as the Vatican backtracking.

Backtracking may be too strong a word, but there was a lot of "he didn't really mean it" from their press people afterwards.

[politicus]

Without wishing to wade too far into the rather fraught debate here, isn't there an element of 'shock as Pope is Catholic' to this? Or, rather, 'shock as Pope is the Pope'? It would be very, very surprising if the leader of the largest religious institution on earth was anything other than down on anti-religious satire.

2) There is the question why Francis felt the need to comment on this at all. The Vatican comments on a wide range of topics and he probably felt he had to have an opinion of something this big. Still, his advisers should have told this was a topic he better stay away from. It will only damage the church and there is no way he can play a constructive role. In the present situation there is no room for compromise on this issue in Europe.

The Pope should not be some politician who is afraid to speak out for public relations purposes. It is his role to weigh in.

Good point Al, sometimes it is important to restate the obvious.

Perhaps he shouldn't, but the Vatican is also political institution and they do lay low on issues from time to time. With the church near collapse in many European countries this will be yet another nail to the coffin for the Catholic church in Europe.  

This manufactured controversy is not going to make anyone leave their church....this forum and the media makes a big deal out of minor things.

Maybe not per se, but it becomes part of a larger narrative of the church not "standing up" to Islamism and following what many perceive as an anti-Western foreign policy combined with it being left wing on economics this is alienating people who see it as being too political and on "the wrong side".

Charlie Hebdo is huge in Europe. It is the closest we have been to a 9/11. Bigger than the attacks in London and Madrid (outside UK and Spain at least) because of the symbolism of it all. There isn't that much room for being in the middle on this issue. It is "Western values" or pro-Islam/pro-terrorism for many people and the church can ill afford to be seen as too complacent.

I will admit the Catholics I know are German, Dutch, Danish, Irish and Polish (half my dad family are Catholics and I worked on a Jesuit school and a lot of my network are Catholics) and not from southern Europe and they may not be representative in general so I may weigh their opinion too much. Still, I think it is important to realize this is not your average terrorist act. The anger and fear is real and not a media invention. There will be a before and after Charlie Hebdo, just as there was a before and after 9/11 in the US.