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Comment by microcolonel | Hacker News Reader

Okay, you have your copyright. The exact strictures of the religion are considered important by these people, so if you're not willing to follow those strictures, you're just not part of the same group. No harm, no foul.

If you don't want to cut your son's genitals, you'll also not be welcome in the same way.

Edit: to be clear, I agree with the way that Deborah resolved this issue. But I'm just not sure how she could take offense, but continue to follow all the other common orthodox Jewish rules/interpretations on the basis that she hasn't personally been offended by them. It seems like a bit of a shallow way to decide what rules are appropriate.

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You say the phrase "exact strictures of the religion", as if there aren't an untold number of different ways to interpret a set of religious texts that are in many places explicitly and intentionally ambiguous.

I said strictures, not scriptures. They don't need to read any scripture again to know the rule about women's names they seem to be employing. It is a very, very common rule that certain groups of Jews follow, and they don't need to justify it with an interpretation of scripture every time.

Yes, but you also described it as the strictures of "the religion", as if there is a single monolithic Judaism that universally follows that rule.

She disagrees with the way they operate; she doesn't need to justify herself either. They were able to come to a satisfactory business agreement regardless.

I think what I'm responding to is that your circumcision comparison made it sound like you're suggesting she's somehow "less Jewish" or an outsider to Judaism, when in fact the specific thing she's disagreeing with isn't a universal part of the religion.

> Yes, but you also described it as the strictures of "the religion", as if there is a single monolithic Judaism that universally follows that rule.

I don't see why this has to degrade to an argument of semantics, but here we go.

Just as if we were talking about Hokkien, we could talk about "the language" Hokkien, despite the fact that you could say "the language" and mean Chinese (which may include Hokkien) in some other context. Right now we're talking about this specific publication's circle of association. They clearly have different religious rules than Deborah, but she is still Jewish.

> I think what I'm responding to is that your circumcision comparison made it sound like you're suggesting she's somehow "less Jewish" or an outsider to Judaism

She is, in relative terms, more of an outsider to this specific publication's Judaism than somebody who would agree with their first offer (assuming they still hold the view that their first offer was preferable).

>The exact strictures of the religion are considered important by these people,

Sounds a bit ironic to tolerate using work from a woman without being willing to give her full credit then. Maybe they should get pictures from a male photographer next time.

As someone who grew up Hasidic (and spoke only Yiddish until 17) I am also not sure what the article is attempting to do here.

Is she trying to bring attention to the sexist attitudes of the Hasidic community? They wanted something, she wanted something else, they paid as per the new conditions. End of story.

I think the point of the article is that taking away someone's identity because she happens to be a woman is something that she has the right to oppose, especially if she is that woman. Also, they were dishonest.

Personally, I would side with her view regardless of what kind of religion or publication type it may be.

So again, is she trying to bring awareness? Is she trying to show how she morally disagreed with something and then...nothing happened?

I am no longer Hasidic and I absolutely side with her stance regarding the name used but I still do not understand the point of the article.

I mean, this is a short blog post on her personal blog, right?

I don't know if there's that much more to it than "here's an interesting story that happened to me, including being happy to tell you about how I was able to donate $500 to some good organizations".

Is there anything wrong with highlighting the sexism of the Hasidic community? Shouldn't religious intolerance be called out wherever we see it? All sexism is bad, regardless of its root cause.

No, it's good. But it wasn't clear to me, especially since an article purely focusing on sexism within the hasidic jewish community doesn't usually make it to the front page of HN.

It was, in my view, an article about where copyright and ethics meet. An interesting take.

I hear you. Still a very subtle take on things.

I'm entirely on Kaplan's side in this, but the way you express it gives me pause. "All sexism is bad" is true from my perspective, but it clearly isn't true from the perspective of the community concerned.

In the interests of pluralism (not relativism), I don't think it's a good idea to attempt to universalise social norms in that way.

"In the interests of pluralism (not relativism)"

Honestly asking as I hadn't seen anyone side-stepping the moral absolutism/relativism question in this way before - where is the line between 'pluralism' and 'relativism'? At what point does 'accepting' an alternative set of morals become 'condoning' them? (again I'm not arguing a side here and I'm not asking in an attempt to tease out a standpoint I can attack - I'm interested in arguments from both sides)

What I have in mind is cultural pluralism. Take the US; most people accept a certain set of political norms: democracy, the constitution, a republic-style political system. But people who accept those basic norms and institutions can have a wide variety of cultural and political beliefs. They can be left wing or right wing, Orthodox Jew or atheist, patriarchal or egalitarian. But they all accept the basic US framework and recognize that people with differing beliefs have every right to freedom of conscience and lifestyle.

It's not relativism because I wouldn't claim that every group or culture's norms and practices are equally right. I might think some of them are completely wrong. But I do hold that, so long as their wrongness doesn't go against the core norms and institutions of the nation, then we live and let live, with the caveat that people are also free to leave their communities and join others.

So far as I can see, this is the only pragmatic way to organize things, since people are going to disagree about important things and we all have to live together.

I think it's important within the pluralist framework to also recognize that we require conformance from all groups in more than just the small core. We require all groups to be law-abiding in action if not thought. Part of the democratic ideals is that if The People make a law, everyone will follow it, even as they campaign to change it. (Which glosses over some legitimate forms of protest, but this is an internet comment, not a book.)

Whether there are laws on the books that could be applied to this case, or whether there should be, I am not a lawyer or a politician, but American pluralism doesn't require blind acceptance of any practice of another group, even religious practice (polygamy, for instance?). The core of our shared system provides mechanisms for deciding whether a behavior is acceptable, prohibited or obligate.

The US Constitution places very strict limitations on what kind of laws are allowed to enforce those “shared beliefs”.

I think this is a net positive. I believe when people advocate for expanding the scope of what beliefs and behaviors government can enforce, they lack the imagination to wonder what could happen if you find your beliefs in the minority one day.

Some might feel that not giving complete credit to a woman because she is a woman goes against the core norms and institutions of modern civilization.

Yes, some might, which is why I specified that people must be free to choose their own culture, and, of course, people must be free to speak their mind.

But the price of living in a society with diverse communities is that we occasionally have to hold our noses when people embrace shitty ideas. In fact, we have to defend their ability to do so.

> At what point does 'accepting' an alternative set of morals become 'condoning' them?

As far as I can tell, those words mean practically the same thing. "Condone" is modernly generally only used in the negative sense, and thus people may be confused into thinking it means something akin to "endorse" or "support". In actuality it means something much more akin to "tolerate".

"pluralism" and "relativism" are harder words to nail down. One way might be to say the relativism says that all moral systems are equally valid while pluralism says that there are more than one valid moral system.

Here, I think "pluralism" is being presented as its own moral virtue (rather than as a philosophical stance): tolerance of other moral systems and beliefs is good.

> pluralism in general tries to leave people alone to pursue their own ends as long as they’re willing to play nice with others. Part of playing nice with others for pluralism is not trying to coerce others into adopting your truths, values, and ethics, even if you think you’re right and the other party is wrong. That live and let live attitude may be the same practical result as relativism, but it is reached by starting at a different philosophical standpoint.

http://blogs.bu.edu/dscott/2011/06/24/pluralism-vs-relativis...

So I guess the point being made is that while a lot of sexism is bad, especially where it is imposed unwillingly, there there may be acceptable sexist moral systems that limit that sexism to voluntary participants of that moral system.

However, the choice of voluntary participation in the moral system is usually suppressed in sexist moral systems which makes them unacceptable from a pluralist stance.

Again, why is this being downvoted?

Sexism should be highlighted. Many of the comments here are trying to rationalise injustice.

Some people think sexism is only bad when Christians do it. Other religions have their reasons, of course!

What they wanted was unreasonable by her standards, and she said so. The end of the story is not the transaction because our interactions with other people are not governed by exclusively transactional concerns, even when they are in large part transactional in nature.

They weren't the photographer's "new conditions". The original agreement said she wanted credit for he photos with her full name. Quite reasonably in my opinion, especially given the zero price offered under those conditions.

After having agreed, and right towards the end of the publication process, the editors refused those originally agreed conditions. They paid according to new conditions imposed by them. (Apparently with poor grace on the part of the editorial communications, but with at least outward signs of professionalism and good manners on the part of the author.)

End of story, sure. But it was an interesting story none the less. I'm glad she told it (and appreciate whoever posted it here).

After having agreed, and right towards the end of the publication process, the editors refused those originally agreed conditions.

From my reading of the article, I don't think this is accurate. The original agreement was between an independent writer and the photographer. The editors had never agreed to publish her name. While I strongly disagree with their editorial policy, I don't think it's fair to consider them bound by an agreement made by a third party without their consent.

Yeah - fair call.

From the photographer's point of view though, she'd negotiated a deal with the author.

That deal was then rejected (by the author's editors, who the photographer had no agreement with), and a new deal had to be negotiated. That should have always been a problem between the author and the editors (which is sounds like is where it ended up, with the author paying the price of the newly negotiated deal).

Going back to the photographer and asking nicely if she'd reconsider the details of the attribution is reasonable - but the editors pushing back when she said "no" with "WE APPRECIATE YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THIS ISSUE (KNOWING THAT NO OFFENSE IS INTENTED ח”ו). THANK YOU" is, at least in my opinion, offensive - perhaps not maliciously/intentionally so, but certainly obliviously careless in assuming their religious traditions need to be understood and accepted by everybody else.

I think the end result was appropriate. I'm less certain the manner in which it was arrived at wasn't poorly handled and an attempt to pressure the photographer into a worse deal than agreed upon - even though that deal was "zero dollars, just credit me by name".

It’s pretty clear the author is Orthodox, so this is within her community. That said, many forms of Orthodox Judaism aren’t far off from what we would call “radical Islam” when it comes to their views on women (they don’t wear an abaya, but many wear wigs and full-body covering).

Why is this downvoted? Seems pretty much on the spot.

Because the author writes that her synagogue is a member of the Conservative movement, which is not the same as the Orthodox movement? It's not so much "pretty clear" as it is "wrong."

Ah, thanks for clarifying! I'm not familiar with the many facets of religion, so thanks for the help?

She is not, she clearly identifies herself as part of Conservative Judaism.

Yeah, exactly. I have more than one (female) Orthodox friend and they’re constantly having to stand up to elders within their own communities for respect. The older generations still believe women shouldn’t work.

Disagreement with orthodoxy is heterodox. You can't be orthodox and heterodox at the same time, that makes no sense.

You can be mostly orthodox except for one practice. Absolutism is hard.

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