4 ms·

My recollection, which could be faulty, was that people sided with Rushdie but there was a "but he probably shouldn't be so provocative" attached to it. So that

by jzb 4y ago

My recollection, which could be faulty, was that people sided with Rushdie but there was a "but he probably shouldn't be so provocative" attached to it. So that tracks with the "entirely without fault" bit, as I remember it. However, that's based on my memory from the "buzz" around the book and the fatwa when I was a high school senior. I could easily be misremembering or maybe took too strong an impression from a specific op-ed or talk show. Finding copies of coverage as it was happening is a little tricky.

jojobas 4y ago
If there is a group that is likely to be violent at that sort of provocation, you very much want to provoke them so they can be found out and somehow extinguished.
- smt88 4y ago
  You can't extinguish an ideology, and someone who has been murdered is already murdered even if you do. By your insane logic, we should put kids out on the street by themselves to catch child predators. Sometimes the safety of the threatened party is more important than finding out who wants to harm them.
  - jojobas 4y ago
    Yes you can, that requires some balls (such as not allowing fucking Hizb ut-Tahrir run schools). You'd think it violates the free speech principle, but smart people have that covered by the paradox of tolerance. Also we put fake kids online and young-looking cops to lure predators all the time for that exact reason. As long as there are people wishing to "behead those who offend Muhammad", there should be an offensive Muhammad cartoon on every street light.
  - XorNot 4y ago
    We absolutely should do that, if we can do that without actually harming children. Literally this is why we do not do that: because it would be wrong to harm children. There should also be an international institute of holy text destruction. Build a big armored building where once a day, mass-market copies of all holy text's in common circulation in the world are unceremoniously set on fire and live-streamed. Because if you can't deal with that without trying to kill someone, you have no place in modern society (not to mention that contextually, burning a holy text - and a flag for that matter - is considered the correct way to dispose of it).
LastTrain 4y ago
That isn't my recollection at all, can you provide an example of a mainstream publication or politician attaching "he shouldn't be so provactive" to their support. And if you can't, why would you go on believing it?
- ejb999 4y ago
  https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1994/03/273-3/132677371.pdf https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1994/03/273-3/132... "Salman Rushdie’s rights as an author are absolute and ought to be inalienable. A free society does not ban books. . . . But it is preposterous to pretend that the first principle governing the publication of Satanic Verses is the last word on the subject. . . . Mr Rushdie is entitled to abuse the religion in which he was reared and must be protected against those who want to intimidate him into silence. [Guess the conjunction] But the idea that we all have a duty to applaud his calculated assault is a novel interpretation of the liberal obligation."
  - XorNot 4y ago
    Yanking a couple of outlier authors and commentators out as representatives of common opinion is disingenuous as hell. Society-wide we've also got a huge problem with victim-blaming when it comes to crime, and we are only just starting to make in-roads on it. We've just done another round on this with "somehow NATO is causing Russia to invade Ukraine in a campaign of murder, rape and destruction".
  - notahacker 4y ago
    So an unequivocal assertion of his absolute right to make those statements and obligation of a free society to defend him, coupled with the idea that liberals shouldn't feel obliged to form a consensus opinion on the actual book... I'm sure other commentators came up with much more heavily caveated and reluctant defences of the Satanic Verses than that one, but that one seems fully in agreement with most ideals of free speech tbh, actually more so than the "Speech is violence? Not..." article author's insinuation that criticising the book or acknowledging it was offensive was incompatible with liberalism...
  - 4y ago

by jzb 4y ago

jojobas 4y ago

If there is a group that is likely to be violent at that sort of provocation, you very much want to provoke them so they can be found out and somehow extinguished.

smt88 4y ago
You can't extinguish an ideology, and someone who has been murdered is already murdered even if you do. By your insane logic, we should put kids out on the street by themselves to catch child predators. Sometimes the safety of the threatened party is more important than finding out who wants to harm them.
- jojobas 4y ago
  Yes you can, that requires some balls (such as not allowing fucking Hizb ut-Tahrir run schools). You'd think it violates the free speech principle, but smart people have that covered by the paradox of tolerance. Also we put fake kids online and young-looking cops to lure predators all the time for that exact reason. As long as there are people wishing to "behead those who offend Muhammad", there should be an offensive Muhammad cartoon on every street light.
- XorNot 4y ago
  We absolutely should do that, if we can do that without actually harming children. Literally this is why we do not do that: because it would be wrong to harm children. There should also be an international institute of holy text destruction. Build a big armored building where once a day, mass-market copies of all holy text's in common circulation in the world are unceremoniously set on fire and live-streamed. Because if you can't deal with that without trying to kill someone, you have no place in modern society (not to mention that contextually, burning a holy text - and a flag for that matter - is considered the correct way to dispose of it).

LastTrain 4y ago

That isn't my recollection at all, can you provide an example of a mainstream publication or politician attaching "he shouldn't be so provactive" to their support. And if you can't, why would you go on believing it?

ejb999 4y ago
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1994/03/273-3/132677371.pdf https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1994/03/273-3/132... "Salman Rushdie’s rights as an author are absolute and ought to be inalienable. A free society does not ban books. . . . But it is preposterous to pretend that the first principle governing the publication of Satanic Verses is the last word on the subject. . . . Mr Rushdie is entitled to abuse the religion in which he was reared and must be protected against those who want to intimidate him into silence. [Guess the conjunction] But the idea that we all have a duty to applaud his calculated assault is a novel interpretation of the liberal obligation."
- XorNot 4y ago
  Yanking a couple of outlier authors and commentators out as representatives of common opinion is disingenuous as hell. Society-wide we've also got a huge problem with victim-blaming when it comes to crime, and we are only just starting to make in-roads on it. We've just done another round on this with "somehow NATO is causing Russia to invade Ukraine in a campaign of murder, rape and destruction".
- notahacker 4y ago
  So an unequivocal assertion of his absolute right to make those statements and obligation of a free society to defend him, coupled with the idea that liberals shouldn't feel obliged to form a consensus opinion on the actual book... I'm sure other commentators came up with much more heavily caveated and reluctant defences of the Satanic Verses than that one, but that one seems fully in agreement with most ideals of free speech tbh, actually more so than the "Speech is violence? Not..." article author's insinuation that criticising the book or acknowledging it was offensive was incompatible with liberalism...
- 4y ago