Relative power
Reliably backing the wrong horse, our Jolyon.
Yes that’s Salman, embedding power all over the place, not challenging it at all.
Of course saying that relies on believing that Islam is powerless. Have a think about that for a minute or two.
Sure, but it’s not power over anyone who Maugham gives a shit about.
Remember, Islam isn’t dominant in England, therefore it’s marginalized in England. And what is true for England is true everywhere, because white people. Duh. So Islam is marginalized everywhere.
And, of course, if marginalized people feel offended by perfectly mild comments, then they are within their right to take knives, guns, acid, machetes, whatever too they prefer (barbed wire baseball bats?) and remove the life from the one(s) offending them. So very liberal.
The reality is that no matter how marginalized you are, and how much power the other individual has (and I would argue that many so-called marginalized groups have more power than the left will admit, thanks to the blindness of the left as to the violent tendencies of those they worship), you do not have carte blanche to kill. The majority of marginalized people recognize this, fortunately. But not enough of them.
And yes, marginalized groups can be violent, nasty, and regressive. They are as human as the rest of us.
Okay, lets talk about relative power.
On the one hand, you have the second largest religion in the world, supported by several heads of state and wankers like Jolyon just itching to make excuses for any violence in its name. On the other, we have an author.
I just don’t understand the concept of power in this context. I think I must be losing it.
twiliter: It’s simple. Salman Rushdie is an educated, respected man of means. Some of those offended by his writings are none of those things, so they have less power than he does. Therefore he’s oppressing people with less relative power.
Does this argument work if only one in a group of a billion has less relative power? Yes, of course. Why do you ask?
Yes, exactly. In countries where it’s the state religion, Islam is as benign and powerless as the Church of England.
This must be the same way that feminist writing kills trans people.
And as for relative power, what about the particular circumstances of the attack? Only one of the people involved was actually armed. The one who was armed was 50 years younger, and had the element of surprise. The attacker also likely believed that he had the blessing of a god on his side, not that this really counts when you’re playing rock/paper/scissors for keeps. Or, in this case knife/author. In the long run, the pen might indeed be mightier than the sword, but it’s not the obvious weapon of choice in the immediacy of a knife attack.
Thanks Nullius, I suppose I didn’t think in terms of social heirarchy. Is he equating power with influence? It still seems unclear.
Well, influence is a form of power, so I’d guess yes. If something can be represented in terms of hierarchy, then it can be viewed through the (Marxist) lens of haves and have-nots, of oppressor and oppressed, of privileged and marginalized. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from there to “lesbians are sexual racists” and “novelists are murderers”.
I would think the truth-tellers wield much more ‘power’ than the fantasy-spinners generally, in terms of influence that is, but these groups don’t map well onto a social heirarchy. I guess that’s what’s causing my fuzziness here.
Or my brain is imperceptably (to me) decaying from old age, sometimes I forget that possibility. :D
ABC News idiotic explainer about the attack on Rushdie;
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-15/who-is-salman-rushdie-what-is-he-famous-for-why-was-he-a-target/101332774
I wouldn’t have bothered posting this except it infuriates me that the explanation for “why would someone want to kill him?” goes into all this detail about how this or that is offensive, but doesn’t have one word about how people decide that being offensive warrants a death sentence.
That’s the thing isn’t it Sackbut? Who decided that threatening to kill a novelist for perceived disrespect of religion was less offensive than their writing? Why are people expected to wring their hands in anguish at the offence to poor ‘group’ when that group are threatening death on someone mocking a made up set of strictures on belief?
I regard myself as liberal on the vast majority of issues, but I become exceeding illiberal when people start threatening freedoms solely on the basis of belief or offence. those are after all subjective and depend on an internal frame of reference – the Universe doesn’t care.
We now have the same unholy alliance of facists, racists, anti-vaxxers, and general conspiracy theorists in NZ that we’ve been watching active in the US and elsewhere. Because they share ideas and strategies via the internet they’re very effective at creating a foothold amongst the vulnerable and disenfranchised. Their stated aim is to make NZ ‘ungovernable’. There’s a significant violent element who are openly talking about locking up and killing those they perceive as responsible for crimes (politicians, doctors, researchers, journalists, etc etc), although I’m sure they’d go for anyone who opposed them or stuck up for those they hate.
They call us sheep, but if comes to it they might find a few wolves in the flock as well.