Comment by lake99 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lake99 | Hacker News Reader

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> not be a get-out-of-jail free card

I have no idea if you meant "jail" literally or figuratively. If you meant it literally, our differences are irreconcilable. If you meant it figuratively, no, Dawkins had to face the consequences of retweeting the video. He got disinvited by NECSS, and he was subjected to a ton of abuse and harrassment on Twitter. He was threatened with violence, which is not acceptable by law. As far as I know, he did not press charges against anyone for that, so they go free.

> bloodstained racist tropes about people of different skin color and/or foreigners representing a sexual threat to women

What racist? There was no racism there. Why would you assume that all Islamists would be of a different race and/or nationality than Dawkins. In any case, Muslims are not all the same race either. He has written plenty against Chrisitians and some British political parties too.

> If that were the case ... publish it without consequence.

Well, that was not the case. Dawkins had to face the consequences of his actions. NECSS had to face the consequences of their own actions.

No, I did not mean literal jail, just as I was not referring to a literal card. I hate to disappoint you, but no one was arguing that Dawkins should go to jail; they were more interested in whether he did something wrong.

Crucially, we're not talking about the consequences Dawkins suffered or did not suffer (a descriptive question); we're both talking about prescriptive questions: whether his posting that video should be considered wrong, and if so what consequences are appropriate and proportional.

Your one word response to Dawkins' pretty troubling juxtaposition of Muslims and rape, "Parody." indicates to me that you view parody as something that either means nothing wrong occurred or could occur (ie parody should be excluded from ethical analysis), or that things in the category of parody should be immune from any societal rebuke. You're welcome to correct me if I am misreading you on that.

My counterargument is propose a world in which people were able to make any racist or homophobic (or for example antisemitic) allegation and bake it into the premise of a parody. Should they be automatically immune from societal rebuke? If so, we open up floodgates; anyone who wishes to make racist or homophobic allegations will naturally just take the path of least resistance and sandwiched these in parodies and escape rebuke; it reduces more or less to society having no power to rebuke racist or homophobic remarks in general.

Conversely, if being incorporated into a parody does not exclude an author from moral responsibility for his remarks, then your justification of "[it's a] Parody" is clearly insufficient.

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> What racist? There was no racism there

If we are talking about the video made by Sye Ten Bruggencate and published by Sargon of Akkad, then because it is a video we do not need to make any tortuous suppositions about the ethnicity of Muslims in the parody, you can watch the video and see for yourself. It fits quite squarely into a long history of racist caricatures of foreign figures or in cartoons, and even more so into a long and vicious history of presenting foreign or non-white men as a threat to white women.

> we're both talking about prescriptive questions

No, we're not, because I am not.

> whether his posting that video should be considered wrong

Consider it wrong, if you wish, and act accordingly. I don't consider it wrong, and I'm acting accordingly. Therefore, the question of appropriate consequences is not one I'd pay any attention to.

> ie parody should be excluded from ethical analysis

I don't know about shoulds, but so far, I haven't come across any parody that has gotten me all worked up. Let me lay out a few issues: when it comes to abortions, I'm completely pro-choice, and yet, I haven't come across any parodies made by pro-life people that has gotten me worked up. When it comes to human-caused climate change, I believe there is sufficient evidence for it, and yet, I haven't come across any parodies by those who deny it that has gotten me worked up. I'm an Indian, and I have seen plenty of cartoons and skits that parodies Indians, and yet, I haven't come across any that has gotten me worked up.

> Should they be automatically immune from societal rebuke?

I refuse to think on "society"'s behalf, and I'd definitely get worked up if someone claims to think on my behalf. If we are talking about violent activities, or activities that cause large-scale environmental damage [2], I'd participate in a discussion on how society should deal with it.

> we do not need to make any tortuous suppositions about the ethnicity of Muslims in the parody

All I saw was a caricatured generic Maulvi-type person, who could as easily have been British as Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Pakistani, Indian or Indonesian. I know that in the US, Arabs and Persians are considered "white". When there was a wide-spread scandal of the Catholic Church and sexual abuse of children, I did not concern myself with the issue of the ethnicity or the nationality of priests depicted in caricatures.

[2] - Edit: or fraud

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