No Offense Meant
When it is called an offense to photoshop a picture of your face over the face of a figure of Christ, and you are punished with an almost five hundred euro fine, you know a thin red line has been crossed somewhere. The figure of Christ belonged to a Brotherhood, one of many that carry their figures on Holy Week. When one of its members saw the photoshopped face on Instagram, he asked the person who had done it to take it down. The person ignored the petition; he wasn't intending to harm anyone, just having some fun. The Brotherhood then went to court. The photoshopper was found guilty of offending religious sentiment, and fined €480. The guy, a victim of the new economy, worked at temporary, low paying jobs, and didn't have the money. A crowd funding on internet raised the money for him.
The news created an outpouring of photoshopped Christs on social sites. That there is a law against offending religious sentiment is as medieval as a law can get. How does it fit in with an equally guaranteed right to free speech? Where does free speech end and offense begin? And what if what offends you doesn't offend me?
Of late, there seems to be a new puritanism of sorts. It is no longer correct to speak incorrectly at any moment, in any venue. Yet, even the Nazis were once defended in their right to voice their opinion. Back in 1977, when puritanism was still biding its time, a group calling itself the National Socialist Party of America, or Nazis, decided to hold a rally in Skokie, Illinois. The town refused to let them march, yet the ACLU upheld the association's right to freedom of speech, and won the case in court. In the end, realizing probably that their viewpoint was very much hated, and that they would not make any converts, the day came and they didn't march. The group actually disbanded soon after.
This happened only thirty years after the Holocaust created by the original Nazis with their hatred of humanity in general, yet the right to voice an opinion was considered sacrosanct, no matter what that opinion might be. These days, that is no longer the case.
Now, one has to be careful what one says, aloud, on social sites, at a rally, in a public forum. One group or another might take you to court over an opinion which offends somebody somewhere. My personal opinion is that most conservatives in government, most priests in Church hierarchy, and too many of their followers, are hollowed-out people, who mouth words without feeling their weight. I'm sure that will offend someone, but it is only my opinion. I have a right to voice it, just as much as those people have a right to say that all liberals are stoned and going to hell. That's their opinion and it doesn't affect me.
Of late, everyone is offended by everyone else. Even students at Princeton. Apparently, three students who had signed up for a class on hate speech, blasphemy and pornography walked out on their professor after he used the word n****r in class. He used it to get a response from students. Yet students felt insulted, even though he was not using it with its original purpose, merely as an academic object, to plumb the area where free speech degenerates into hate speech. The class has since been cancelled. I don't like that word, and will not use it, nor others like it, yet it must be understood in its context. It does not bother me in books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. That word was used on a daily basis in a context of slavery. At that moment in time it was acceptable. It is not acceptable now, except in certain contexts, where its meaning is investigated and challenged, as in that Princeton class.
Which brings me to puritanism in art. What was considered art in the human form, is now considered either pornography by some or sexist by others. Again, one must look at things in their context. If at this moment it is not considered correct to paint the female image in certain ways that can be considered offensive (and all good art will offend someone, somewhere, sometime), it was recently the norm, and must be understood as such. I consider it a violation of free speech and free thinking to take down art simply because it has a female figure in the nude or posed in a suggestive way. So, yesterday it was art and today it's trash? Explain the reasons for it, but leave the art on the walls for each person to opine for themselves.
Sexism is another bugaboo. Yes, I am a feminist. I do not like it when women are used as objects to sell anything, nor only for the pleasure of men without a thought to the women's sense of pleasure. Formula 1 has decided to no longer have young, pretty women in short skirts holding umbrellas over the drivers. But I do not like it that only young boys are to be hired for that. What would have been correct would have been to hire all kinds of women and men for the job, and that the uniform could have a choice of attire, such as skirts of different lengths, shorts, or pants.
We all have an opinion. The only bad opinion is the one put into action that impinges on another person's personal and public rights. So what someone said offends you? Before calling a lawyer, consider the context. And let's be a little less delicate. We all have to live on the same planet together so we may as well learn to get along.
The news created an outpouring of photoshopped Christs on social sites. That there is a law against offending religious sentiment is as medieval as a law can get. How does it fit in with an equally guaranteed right to free speech? Where does free speech end and offense begin? And what if what offends you doesn't offend me?
Of late, there seems to be a new puritanism of sorts. It is no longer correct to speak incorrectly at any moment, in any venue. Yet, even the Nazis were once defended in their right to voice their opinion. Back in 1977, when puritanism was still biding its time, a group calling itself the National Socialist Party of America, or Nazis, decided to hold a rally in Skokie, Illinois. The town refused to let them march, yet the ACLU upheld the association's right to freedom of speech, and won the case in court. In the end, realizing probably that their viewpoint was very much hated, and that they would not make any converts, the day came and they didn't march. The group actually disbanded soon after.
This happened only thirty years after the Holocaust created by the original Nazis with their hatred of humanity in general, yet the right to voice an opinion was considered sacrosanct, no matter what that opinion might be. These days, that is no longer the case.
Now, one has to be careful what one says, aloud, on social sites, at a rally, in a public forum. One group or another might take you to court over an opinion which offends somebody somewhere. My personal opinion is that most conservatives in government, most priests in Church hierarchy, and too many of their followers, are hollowed-out people, who mouth words without feeling their weight. I'm sure that will offend someone, but it is only my opinion. I have a right to voice it, just as much as those people have a right to say that all liberals are stoned and going to hell. That's their opinion and it doesn't affect me.
Of late, everyone is offended by everyone else. Even students at Princeton. Apparently, three students who had signed up for a class on hate speech, blasphemy and pornography walked out on their professor after he used the word n****r in class. He used it to get a response from students. Yet students felt insulted, even though he was not using it with its original purpose, merely as an academic object, to plumb the area where free speech degenerates into hate speech. The class has since been cancelled. I don't like that word, and will not use it, nor others like it, yet it must be understood in its context. It does not bother me in books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. That word was used on a daily basis in a context of slavery. At that moment in time it was acceptable. It is not acceptable now, except in certain contexts, where its meaning is investigated and challenged, as in that Princeton class.
Which brings me to puritanism in art. What was considered art in the human form, is now considered either pornography by some or sexist by others. Again, one must look at things in their context. If at this moment it is not considered correct to paint the female image in certain ways that can be considered offensive (and all good art will offend someone, somewhere, sometime), it was recently the norm, and must be understood as such. I consider it a violation of free speech and free thinking to take down art simply because it has a female figure in the nude or posed in a suggestive way. So, yesterday it was art and today it's trash? Explain the reasons for it, but leave the art on the walls for each person to opine for themselves.
Sexism is another bugaboo. Yes, I am a feminist. I do not like it when women are used as objects to sell anything, nor only for the pleasure of men without a thought to the women's sense of pleasure. Formula 1 has decided to no longer have young, pretty women in short skirts holding umbrellas over the drivers. But I do not like it that only young boys are to be hired for that. What would have been correct would have been to hire all kinds of women and men for the job, and that the uniform could have a choice of attire, such as skirts of different lengths, shorts, or pants.
We all have an opinion. The only bad opinion is the one put into action that impinges on another person's personal and public rights. So what someone said offends you? Before calling a lawyer, consider the context. And let's be a little less delicate. We all have to live on the same planet together so we may as well learn to get along.
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