Althouse: "It's an interesting perspective. You claim to be tolerant, but then you want to prevent people from doing something their religion motivates them to do. Obviously, some things motivated by religion really are so harmful to public order that a ban shows no disrespect toward religion. (For example: murder.) The question is where to draw the line, and hiding one's face is not an obvious harm. Verdonk cites the need to interact and communicate, and people who cover their faces do seem to be excluding others. Yet, it is part of freedom to decline to interact with other people as you go about your life, walking around in public, and it's a common thing to dress in a way that signals to people you are not open to interaction. But if you lived in a place where more and more people were entirely hiding their faces and signaling exclusion of others, life would feel scarily different. At what point would you want to use government power to make them stop?"
Saturday, November 18, 2006
"... hiding one's face is not an obvious harm."
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23 comments:
Can someone voluntarily be a slave?
Yet, it is part of freedom to decline to interact with other people as you go about your life, walking around in public, and it's a common thing to dress in a way that signals to people you are not open to interaction.
-Bull. If I refuse many forms of commercial or public interaction with Muslims, or anyone, I can be prosecuted under human rights law. Althouse sounds as if she lives some comfortable, detached, bourgeois (consumer, not producer) life that allows her to roam about town in a coccoon, exercising her novelistic gaze, bathing in her sense of "tolerance", and not actually having to try and deal with people as her equals in producing social goods. Althouse still lives in the postmodern "victimary" paradigm in which everything is owed the minority victim, and nothing the needs of society as a whole to reproduce the freedoms its allows.
And no one can define herself her right to privacy, as if I could demand that no one look at me on the bus. This "right" is first of all a public good and a public gift.
However, I think I have said all I have to say about this in the previous "American Thinker" post; i'll just add that, no, according to our laws and ethics today, with their claims to universal truth, no you cannot voluntarily sell yourself into slavery.
Most assuredly. Very difficult to not be a slave to one's beliefs, whatever they may be. After all, they do somewhat validate our existence, do they not. Thus the difficulty of keeping an open and flexible mind.
I love synchronicity. TP, as to the last sentence of your 1:16 post which must have preceded mine by mere seconds, and which so deftly contradicts mine, even if tongue in cheek (?). Could you expand on those "universal truths".
Also, "sell" was not a part of StY's question, though I suppose one does hope for a return when investing in beliefs.
Covering one's face is not a religious duty in Islam, covering one's head is.
The burka has become a symbol of power. I can read you but you cannot read me.
I think this has gone way beyond religion.
Just to clarify, I neither have an argument against, nor desire to have an argument against, the hijab.
Just the hiding of the face.
luther,
Very difficult to not be a slave to one's beliefs, whatever they may be. After all, they do somewhat validate our existence, do they not. Thus the difficulty of keeping an open and flexible mind.
-i think this is basically true. But difficult does not mean impossible or not necessary. People are attracted to ideologies or religions because it gives them answers about a necessarily uncertain future and allows them to live towards the future with the sense that their life has meaning as long as it is lived in terms of the ideology/religion that will supposedly give meaning to the future.
-the universalist response to this need is actually one of humility. It does not deny the need for good faith (and it is open to exploring what kind of faith system works best, for oneself and for societies in competitive struggle with each other)
In humility, the seeker for universal truth also knows that we cannot know very much , especially about the future, but we can figure out ways, through historical trial and error, to be maximally open to the future and not try to pre-empt it with our ideologies. This then leads us to questions about, e.g., the nature of freedom, and of faith in an inexhaustible open-ended human creativity (those who think God has already completed his revelation, and it is all here, in this book, cannot be true seekers of universial truth, imho), and of duties and responsibilities to build the kind of society that best supports these concerns for open-endedness. We ask about what is truly universal - what all humans share - and how that unity can serve our goal of insuring an open-ended future for all.
In other words, I believe in "universal truths" but i see these as minimal (though all the more powerful for this minimality) truths; in form, they are minimal, though they can take on a lot of different historical content. An example of a universal truth would be that all human beings and their societies are bound to a need for narrative, so much so that this need can engender fundamental conflicts between two societies with two fundamentally different stories about the emergence and future of the signs they hold dear. (IN universal terms, a founding narrative is that which tells the story of the emergence of the sign that is fundamentally sacred to a society.)
Does this clarify the question?
Syl,
Wikipedia:
In some Arabic-speaking countries and Western countries, the word hijab primarily refers to women's head, face, or body covering. But in Islamic scholarship, hijab is given the wider meaning of modesty, privacy, and morality.[1] The word used in the Qu'ran for a headscarf or veil is khimār (خمار).
This should be at the start of the quote:
Hijab or ħijāb (حجاب) is the Arabic term for "cover" (noun), based on the root حجب meaning "to veil, to cover (verb), to screen, to shelter"
Seneca,
Women in Islam do not for the most part volunteer to wear the burqa.
Where do you get that idea?
Seneca,
Of course, you know that beating is prescribed for a disobedient wife. It's in the Koran.
And, I'm guessing you know that the burqa is usually taken up en masse when a Saudi-trained Imam arrives in an area.
And, I'm guessing you can understand the idea that the burqa is often a conspiracy of the men in a community which is then forced upon the women.
Only a very strict "Libertarian" in the Ayn Rand mode could call such a "decision" to wear a burqa a "choice."
By the way, did the people who lived in the Soviet Union choose their oppression under Communism?
If a woman chooses not to wear a burqa what is her next step? What is her husbands next step? Does not the fact that his wife chooses to not wear a burqa, within a community where every other woman wears a burqa, bring shame upon him? If the husband is "humiliated" by his wife's choice to not wear the burqa, then does the wife have the choice to move out of the house? Where will she go?
Breathlessly awaiting your response.
And no one can define herself her right to privacy, as if I could demand that no one look at me on the bus. This "right" is first of all a public good and a public gift.
Okay, Tru ... but then the hypothetical beveiled woman isn't asking you not to look --- just refusing to let you see.
As far as the human rights laws, I might not be thrilled about them either --- but then is your issue with the veiled woman, or with the human rights laws?
People are attracted to ideologies or religions because it gives them answers about a necessarily uncertain future and allows them to live towards the future with the sense that their life has meaning as long as it is lived in terms of the ideology/religion that will supposedly give meaning to the future.
Um, no. My religion explicitly says that these answers, and even the questions, are necessarily ill-formed, and that "meaning" is a bad habit. What you mean is that your religion does those things.
Pastorius --- from the number of women who quite vehemently insist that the burqa is their choice.
Especially the ones in Britain and the US, for whom the choice isn't enforced by law.
Okay, Pastorius, we'll play this one out a little further. I assert that brassieres are portable concentraztion camps. If women were truly free, there would be no expectation that they keep their nipples covered.
Oh, and skirts --- after all, both custom and law force women to wear skirts in order to enter a church, all through Europe.
You might want to look up what Ceasar said to Theodotus in the Shaw play.
More thoughts. The methodolgy of Stockholm Syndrome is actually one of the most effective systems for creating willful cooperation. Like Vito Corleone said, "You can get pretty far with a kind word, but you will get much further with a kind word backed up by a gun."
People who persuade with an apparent appeal to reason, which is then backed up with the threat of violence are very often beloved people. The reason for this is because the person who is persuaded does not want to admit to his or her self that they have renounced their own will. So, they replace their awareness of their own slavery with a love for their enslaver.
The Koran provides a system of motivation which is exactly the same as that which creates Stockholm Syndrome. I believe you are aware that apostates are to be killed. I believe you are also aware that the term "apostasy" is somewhat slippery in Islam, and can include simply agreeing with the Infidel. For instance an academic was recently killed for daring to suggest that his country ought to recognize Israel.
I believe you are also familiar with honor killings. Honor killings are very close to the same thing as stoning for apostasy. What is it, specifically, that bring dishonor upon a Muslim family. We know that that is also a slippery thing. It can, for instance, include a daughter merely talking to a boy her father does not approve of.
The enforcement of such slavery does not require that every woman be killed or beaten for bringing dishonor. Just knowing that some will be killed and beaten is enough to enforce the very strict groupthink which is Islam.
Have you read The Case For Democracy by Sharansky? In it, he details the way a Fear Society works. It is the same mechanism that is at work in a fundamentalist Islamic community.
Actually, Pastorius, I think your response is a manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome. you've clearly been coerced and threatened until you agree that someone can't possibly agree to dress in a way their society defines as "modest" if it doesn't meet what you think they should do.
It's equally obvious that Americans wear swim-suits because they've been forced, brainwashed, into doing so when it's clearly more comfortable and convenient to simply swim naked.
Aftger all, go swimming naked and you can get arrested, roughed up, fined.... damn, Stockholm Syndrome again.
Don't agree with me? Clearly another manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome.
Got any other silly-ass arguments?
As to Seneca’s argument about bras: in our society we bring the coercive force of law and custom to bear on people’s choice of clothing inasmuch as people are not allowed to walk around in public with their boobs or wieners hanging out. Ok, so what? Do you mean: We have our “dress code,” so do they? Bras are as coercive as burqas, therefore… therefore we can’t ban burqas?
Almost. I'm suggesting that if you're going to claim that people ought to be restricted from wearing burqas, you need something stronger than "I think it's icky but making people wear bras and pants is just normal."
I referred Pastorius to Ceasar in Caesar and Cleopatra: the line is "Forgive him ... he is a barbarian, and thinks the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature."
Seneca,
Are you joking, perhaps?
If not, then why don't you deal with the meat of my argument, instead of the "silly-assed" way you go about attacking me.
Do you deny that women can be and are physically coerced to wear the burqa in the Islamic world? Do you deny that women can be and are threatened with violence if they don't wear the burqa? Do you deny that that violence is backed up by the Koran? Do you deny that they can be and sometimes are charged with "dishonoring" the family, or with apostasy for refusing to wear the burqa? Do you deny that Islamic society will sometimes support a penalty up to death for such a woman? Do you deny my comparison of such a situation to Sharansky's "fear society"?
I think you are a smart guy. I went to the trouble of making a rational argument, and you responded with that.
You can do better, my friend.
Seneca,
As for your response to the Gormless one, the argument is not simply that we think it is "icky." Once again, I think you are smarter than this. Where did I, or gormless norman say anything resembling icky. My argument is that the burqa is a shroud which denies the human being the right to express themselves with their faces. The other part of my argument is that the burqa is coerced by threat of physical force.
And, your referring me to the quote from Caesar and Cleopatra smacks of the kind of postmodern moral conflation that is more in line with the thinking of anti-Western lefties.
Guess what? Our culture is better than Islamic culture? Do you want to argue that one next? Because I will. I've got quite a bit to back me up on my arguments there as well.
Do you deny that women can be and are physically coerced to wear the burqa in the Islamic world? Do you deny that women can be and are threatened with violence if they don't wear the burqa? Do you deny that that violence is backed up by the Koran?
Do you deny that women can be physically coerced to wear bikini tops in the American world? Do you deny that men can arnd are threatened with violence if they expose their pubic area in the American world? Do you imagine that a woman wearing a burqa in Vancouver or Ann Arbor is in the Islamic world?
Do you think Islam is alone among the Abrahamic traditions in permitting beatings?
Are you joking, perhaps?
To some extent. I'd certainly say that I'm treating your argument with the degree of seriousness it deserves.
I think you are a smart guy. I went to the trouble of making a rational argument,....
No, actually you didn't. You started with a pronouncement, went from there to a straw man, proceeded on to another straw man, chased off after a red herring, made a quick left at begging the question, and ended up somewhere in ad-hominem-land. I'm just enough of a cranky old sonofabitch that I refuse to go around the track with you.
This ["he is a barbarian"] refers to Caesar's shock upon learning that Egyptian custom allows brothers and sisters to marry, correct?
Close, but no cigar. It refers to Brittanus' shock; it's Caesar apologizing to Theodotus for Brittanus' outrage. Someplace in Act II. You're right that Brittanus is shocked that siblings can marry in Pharoiac families.
I think there's a little more to be said about bras vs. burqas. First, their restrictive "dress code" applies only to women; on our beaches we make everyone cover their private areas -- and by the way, if someone doesn't, they're not going to get stoned to death.
Actually, no, sorry. Men as well as women are expected to remain modestly covered ("hijab") in Islamic countries, just as in ours. All that's different is what's expected; in the Moslem world, like ours, specifics differ.
I defy you to tell me where stoning is required as a punishment for immodesty.
In any case, though, this is all a silly red herring again: we're talking about the US and Canada. Whether or not hijab is mandatory in the Islamic world --- and somehow more mandatory there than the laws against indecent exposure are here --- we're talking about women who voluntarily wish to be "modestly dressed" in the US.
We're talking about telling people how they can wear a goddamn scarf.
I think female genital mutilation is icky.
Red herring, fifteen yard penalty and loss of down.
By the way, guys, do you actually know what a burqa is? Are you aware that they're only an Afghani custom?
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