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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 1, 2017 11:06:03 GMT
I get that you have strong feelings about this subject, and I do very much respect that.
But isn't "invariably done with a negative intent" a huge generalization in itself? How do you know that? And even if it's true...?
I still don't see why the distinction between a race and any other group matters. It seems to me that any subject could be made a taboo because of historical grievances. And we're really in that situation, where this is happening. So surely you see what motivates my pushing back against it on all fronts?
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Post by cato on Aug 1, 2017 11:35:00 GMT
Kj You have made no attempt to debate any substantial point raised refuting the claim Kevin Myers is antisemitic in any meaningful sense .
Dr Gerard Morgan in today's Irish times writes - No one in the Republic of Ireland has written more passionately and eloquently than he has done of the sacrifice of Irish men and women in the fight against Nazi Germany in the second world war ,and at a time when it was profoundly unfashionable for him to do so ... perhaps he assumed he was immune from any criticism of anti-semitism.
I personally suspect his arrogance led to carelessness especially in our hyper sensitive age. He deserves a telling off. He has made a grovelling apology and is obviously suffering immensely. His stupid mistake. does not merit the end of a brave man's career. The mercilessness of many commentators towards someone who is down is chilling. I for one have put my mouth in it at times. You seem to have avoided that weakness thankfully.I guess the message is shut up in public unless you can parrot the party line on all occasions.
Kj you have previously expressed strong negative views on Mr Myers on the national question which is your right . Could this be colouring your perspective slightly on the downfall of Myers? You do appear more jewish than the jews themselves (at least the Irish ones who back Myers refering to him as several times as Kevin in their warm supporting statement yesterday)on this issue. The Gentiles are the ones who want a pound of his flesh on this occasion.
One of the great philo semites and no doubt a hero of yours Sir Winston Churchill wrote in the margin of one of his speeches- argument weak here. SHOUT LOUDLY. That would appear to be the position of those who are delighted to put the boot in on this occasion.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 1, 2017 11:40:31 GMT
Funnily enough, Fintan O'Toole is pretty much lending weight to Cato's earlier point: that Myers is simply being penalized for years of political incorrectness. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-kevin-myers-broke-the-only-rule-that-matters-1.3172618O'Toole claims that Myers made the mistake of picking on a target that can fight back. Seems to me that could be called anti-semitic, too. Here is what he said: But they failed to notice they were sleepwalking across a line. They broke the only rule that matters – don’t pick on people who can answer back. Jewish people have learned from the most abysmal experiences to be alert to the tropes of anti-Semitism and to call them out when they see them. It’s a matter of survival. Myers was probably half asleep and wholly bored when he threw in some of those tropes to try to enliven the corpse of a moribund column. He woke up out in the cold he has so long pretended to enjoy inhabiting.There's a funny contradiction in that paragraph. He describes Jewish people as "people who can answer back". His next sentences seem to dodge the implications of this and say, not that they CAN fight back, but that they WILL fight back because it's a matter of survival. Is this not the case with other minorities? He says earlier in the column: "All you have to do is make sure your targets are people who have less power than a well-paid male star columnist. You can take your pick of who to pick on: women in general, immigrants, Africans, poor people, Travellers. And while you are doing so you can see yourself, not as a bully, but as a victim, a heroic resister of the PC oppressors." So, do "women in general", including feminists, have less power than a well-paid male star columinist? Is he saying Jews have MORE power than a well-paid male star columnist? Really, what kind of Nazi tropes is he trading in here? |
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 2, 2017 10:42:07 GMT
Hilariously, a single mother writing to the IT today makes a very similar point to the the one I made in the post immediately proceeding this:
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole (Opinion, August 1st) criticises Kevin Myers for his non-PC comments. I would like to draw Fintan O’Toole’s notice to his own comments. While berating Kevin Myers on his “mothers of bastards” comment he goes on to describe that comment as “a gratuitous kick at the weak” and an example of Kevin Myers “using his formidable talents to afflict the afflicted”.
As a single mother of three children with many friends who are also single mothers, I take offence at these throwaway remarks. Because single mothers may not always jump up to shout about non-PC rhetoric about themselves does not mean they are weak. It may mean that they have better things to be doing than reading rubbish in newspapers written by people who have no idea what is going on in the real world.
In my limited experience of single parenthood and observing my friends for many years neither would I think they would see themselves as being afflicted, but rather that we have been blessed with children.
People from every walk of life, poor, rich, single, married, etc, have their trials but that is no reason to label them. The richest, whitest, most educated, settled can be as weak and afflicted as the poorest, blackest, uneducated, Traveller.
Stop trying to squash people into boxes. Its downright lazy journalism. It is a poor reflection on print media that it is resorting to using entire pages of the paper for first Kevin Myers’s drivel and then for critiques on such drivel.
Perhaps best not to waste any more print space on this. I do recognise the irony of my reply. – Yours, etc,
JANE JACKSON,
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Post by ZenoOfCitium on Aug 2, 2017 11:24:32 GMT
That letter from Jane Jackson is a thing of beauty. She hits on an interesting feature of all talk of privilege &c.; that painting certain classes of persons as weak (women, black, single mothers and so on) does a disservice to the individual members of that class by imposing the label of 'victim' on them. It cannot be healthy in the long run and I'm glad to see people like Miss Jackson kick back against it.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 2, 2017 11:30:32 GMT
Presumably Fintan O'Toole will now have to commit hara-kiri, since he has been accused of insulting one of his own designated victim groups.
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Post by cato on Aug 2, 2017 12:43:36 GMT
If Ms Jackson can afford the Irish Times she cannot be a real (oppressed ) woman .
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 2, 2017 13:14:18 GMT
For his birthday a few years ago I got my father a daily subscription to the Irish Times. Eventually he asked me to cancel it because he didn't want to be supporting such a rabidly liberal and anti-Catholic paper. This was a few years ago, before the departure of John Waters, when it wasn't QUITE as bad.
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Post by cato on Aug 2, 2017 13:36:13 GMT
I boycott buying the Times except on Saturday and have been considering weaning myself of that too. I have managed to deprive them of a few thousand euros but they don't seem to mind. It's win win for all.
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Post by Tomas on Aug 3, 2017 20:18:54 GMT
Only tonight I read the whole thread, linked from blog Irish Papist a few days ago, and got this impression foremost after following the differences (basically two opposite views?): could it not be that Jewish identity actually is literally unique and thus also different from all kinds of other identities of all the other groups that has been mentioned? I personally don´t have either knowledge or skills to say anything in this subject apart from just wondering, no more than towards a question like that. Here is a link to an interesting exhibition by a Syrian artist who portrays today´s famous world leaders in settings like "a beggar holding a hand-written paper 'Please God, help me'" or "prime ministers waiting with sad faces in a queue to a street soup kitchen in ragged clothes" etc. I hope the link can be reached also if one don´t have a Facebook account to open with: www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/966803126794528/?hc_ref=ARSl0-m1YkpwiU6l64g6ojsFRooBL5oXYpkO0VmAVvTvwMZFMT8WrQln378msWpyAxc&pnref=story |
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 3, 2017 20:32:31 GMT
Yeah, I could get to that exhibition. I'm not sure of its relevance, though. You could just as well put Jeremy Corbyn or Noam Chomsky in the same picture.
To me, the problem with granting Jewish people a unique status is that every group of people is unique in some way or another. Once you begin pandering to the sensitivities, you've established a precedent. And considering what we know of political correctness now, I say: "No exceptions".
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Post by Tomas on Aug 3, 2017 20:54:56 GMT
I don´t know what to make of it all, but probably I disagree a bit here, not least because of what kj indicated, that there are some crucial aspects that really seems to be unique not only from a "political" perspective but rather from the historical (both religious and non-religious) backdrop.
The point made by the artist that we ALL are alike, all equally vulnerable, was relevant perhaps more as a sidenote to any discussion about strong vs weak opponents. Like this, more or less: PC-police, cultural marxists, on the wrong side, or Catholics, freedom fighters, conservatives, on the right side, or Syrian artists, social media users, and news media readers everywhere, no one can claim to "own" the whole truth.
I agree that PC as it is don´t deserve much respect in itself, to be mild... so "No exceptions" in that respect, whilst "Some exceptions" in other matters. Maybe?
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Post by Tomas on Aug 3, 2017 21:15:08 GMT
To state my impression a bit more clearly: in this particular case it seems, n.b. to me as an complete outsider (getting the story ONLY from this thread!), that it was somehow much too much of an overreaction, another storm in a glass of water, since the journalist that was being chased in many other situations actually had been known as a good journalist (relatively independent?) and had only been found guilty for a minor offence in the nature of "a stupid prejudicial remark". So the remarks in the first two posts were more about the Jewish uniqueness in general, and not the PC debate in itself.
But that might be the bad problem again, PC that spreads its diffuse behaviours into virtually all public areas. A try for a small conclusion then. An alliance between defending the Jewish people and applying PC-ish zerotolerance seems unnecessary. Even if the Jews would be honoured and seen as a unique people, why must it have been an overreaction like this for so small a matter?
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 3, 2017 21:23:30 GMT
I agree the Jewish people are unique. Indeed, I greatly admire the Jewish people and always have. An interest in Jewish history and heritage was part of what drew me to the Catholic faith.
So many of the things I admire are instantiated in the history of the Jews.
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Post by Tomas on Aug 3, 2017 21:32:51 GMT
Jesus Christ did came to the Gentiles from the Jews of course, and there must be many Jews who dislike PC as much as we do too!
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