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OK, but that's different than smashing a shop up. Perhaps your retaliation was justified, perhaps not, but it was in response to actual violence and the threat of further violence. I'm not a pacifist; I won't claim that war is always avoidable, but that shop wasn't about to beat anyone up. More generally, I don't think violence at protests is justified unless very strongly provoked (who provoked who is, of course, a very difficult matter to untangle, butthere has to be an element of self-defence for it to be at all legitimate, and even then I think it should be as restrained as possible while remaining effective).

No, it's not really a different thing, to me at least, it's a millennium old topic : is violence in itself to be justified, once you say that you can use it, it's a matter of threshold because there's not really a systematic (oh man, GD speaking there) way to make a model on which you can justify violence or not.

There is a comedy in France that's called OSS117, I loved the first one, and the second one was a bit too much for me but it had the merit to ask, although probably not conscientiously , through shocking jokes the question :

"Don't shoot, listen, I know it sounds crazy but I know people in high places, we could arrange a deal, just like jews, nazis could have a country of their own".

So do we have to say nazis are all the same and throw them bricks ? And they used a very similar joke at the end of the movie the Nazi general is trapped and goes "When you cut us, do we not bleed ? Are we less human blablabla" which as a friend pointed out "is a quote from the good samaritan parabola in the bible, but in the original one, it's a jew that is talking"...

Where is the limit ? Where is the rule that justifies violence on certain occasions and not in others ?

I just want to state, for the record, that I think Nazis are totally uncool.

That's because you never raped a Nazi... Wait... What did I just said ?

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That's because you never raped a Nazi... Wait... What did I just said ?

How do you know??? Maybe that's how I came to those conclusions?

Paging Dr. Freud!

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Sometimes the virtues of Enlightenment, as showcased here, scare me. You, being a Liberal-minded free-speech kind of duder, see it as an unfortunate paradox that you have to let the Nazis do their thing. The Nazis, on the other hand, see your Liberal-minded free-speech as something they would need to abolish, were they to come to power.

Sometimes the phase shift between ideologies in theory and in practice show a very scary middle ground that is hard to define unless one tries to cross from theory into practice. In theory free speech for the win, no compromise; in practice Nazis being totalitarian, narrowsighted, jingoistic, tribal, xenophobic are the natural enemy of free speech and open expression of differences. To preserve free speech in actuality, one needs to shut the Nazis the fuck up, make them go away, ridicule them, outlaw them, break their stores, etc. One has to get one's hands dirty in the very moral dimensions one purports to protect.

On the other hand, Enlightenment has worked rather well thus far, but at the very least we have to be wary of the enemies thereof. We gotsta keep 'em in check. ;(

Just to clarify, I'm not saying that the Nazis should have been allowed to march on city hall. That is fucking appalling in itself, and I greatly disagree with it. What brought me down was that the counter-protest fucking firebombed public transit. So no, the Nazis shouldn't have been there in the first place, but don't set a goddamn train on fire because you're frustrated. That does nobody any good. OssK, you had every right to retaliate against your attackers, and in doing so you discouraged further violence on their part. Deterrents can be useful, and on occasion necessary. In your case, from what you have said, it does seem to have been a necessity. I am still however fully against violence in a protest situation. It makes your side seem crazy, makes the thing or people you are protesting into martyrs, and is generally counter-productive. Smashing up a shop or burning a train does nothing to persuade people that Nazis are of the wrong frame of mind.

Also, on a happier note (and this is the life thread) I just got formally hired to that projectionist job! Woo!

Edited by miffy495

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I just got formally hired to that projectionist job! Woo!

Ace. Hope the work's as good as you were hoping for--sounded excellent when you were telling us during Grand Thumb Auto a couple of weeks back.

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Ace. Hope the work's as good as you were hoping for--sounded excellent when you were telling us during Grand Thumb Auto a couple of weeks back.

Speaking of that, does GTA work on Crossover mac or something ? I'd fucking love to play with you guys but I ain't buying a PC for that :)

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Yeah, as I was writing that, I was wary of martyrs, but I just wanted to bring the thought to its extreme, whatever its implication, for the purpose of on-going discussion.

The Republican party over here is overflowing with persecution complexes, even when they are in power, they invent The Liberal Media to rail against. They refuse to recognize facts and research that flat-out disprove their biases and prejudices and philosophies. They see natural selection as some sort of very elaborate (and always patently incongruous) conspiracy. Just like Nazis cashing in on their right to free speech, these people are cashing in on modern medicine and technology while refusing to recognize as valid the science that makes it possible.

These kinds of people scare me. And there is too many of them. How does one deal with a force that not only does not respond to reason and logic and basic human decency, but rails against reason and logic and basic human decency while crassly cashing in on the reason and logic and basic human decency of the society they're in?

Did I just pull some sort of reverse Godwin's Law aberration? Starting with Nazis and going on to include the Republicans?

You being scared or thinking there are too many Republicans really isn't a reason for Republicans to not be fully free to express their opinions, thoughts, and beliefs. I'm sure a lot of them find the likes of you scary as well.

You're also extrapolating out a lot. My parents are both longtime Republicans and Christians who deliberately raised me to be a rational person who puts great value in education, science, literature, art, and the humanities in general. I've met a number of their similarly-leaning friends who exhibit the same traits. I don't share their political or religious views--mine are probably at least vaguely in line with yours, for example--but I very much respect their general outlook on life.

Anyway I haven't the slightest idea how many Republicans are in that same mold but to associate the entire membership of what is currently the nation's second-largest party with the much more visible and audible Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannities of this country seems silly when you're discussing who should be allowed to have full, unfettered free speech or whatever it is we're discussing.

Maybe you're being deliberately overzealous and I'm being dumb, I don't know.

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Speaking of that, does GTA work on Crossover mac or something ? I'd fucking love to play with you guys but I ain't buying a PC for that :)

Well, we play on 360, so it wouldn't really be relevant...

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Yeah... There is something with all unrational people that might be scary.

Religious people and extremists (nazis for instance but I would hesitate to put communists in the same package because in essence, communism does not include exterminating any particular type of person, although it is hard to imagine a communist application without aberration as opposed to nazis who deliberately state that some men are inferior to others and should be removed from the face of the earth).

I really have a problem with religious people, in fact I had last year the cutest girlfriend who was really smart and so on but... Jeez how can you be an intelligent person and refuse to question something as obviously doubtable as god ? That's pretty much what got us to break appart... We could not discuss any slightly abstract idea without bringing god into the picture and being both embarassed from not wanting to go over the same discussion again...

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I just want to state, for the record, that I think Nazis are totally uncool.

You're not even a little bit into their uniforms?

No, it's not really a different thing, to me at least, it's a millennium old topic : is violence in itself to be justified, once you say that you can use it, it's a matter of threshold because there's not really a systematic (oh man, GD speaking there) way to make a model on which you can justify violence or not.

Do you seriously not see a distinction between self-defence and frustrated destruction of property? I'll grant you that the two have something in common, but they also have a lot to differentiate them. Granted, there are difficult border cases, but there are also clear-cut cases. For example: fighting off some people who are mugging you is OK; breaking a child's leg to see how it makes you feel is not OK.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. My point is that, to take a fairly recent example, smashing bank windows at the G7 anti-capitalism marches was counter-productive and impermissible. The minority who do stuff like that taint the whole affair, which isn't fair on everyone who just wanted to make their point peacefully.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Also, congratulations, Miffy.

Edited by JamesM

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I used to have a massive problem with religious people, and would describe myself as having been a fairly militant atheist.

Then I met lots of reasonable religious people and was troubled by it. I'm still an atheist, but recognise that many religious beliefs, even if I think they're fairy tales, are mostly harmless. At some point I'll disagree with them, but it's usually on something unimportant. The harmful fuckheads tend to be a minority.

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The harmful fuckheads tend to be a minority.

Not my experience

The minority who do stuff like that taint the whole affair, which isn't fair on everyone who just wanted to make their point peacefully.

But if powers do know that they risk nothing from the population, what will they care if you're marching or not. Consciously or not governments are afraid of a revolution and (rightfully) not of people saying what they think.

Do you seriously not see a distinction between self-defence and frustrated destruction of property?

What I meant to say is that I saw it but hardly do anymore, coz' being molested makes you want to act first rather than take beatings hours on end throughout the year.

So not talking about self defense, where is the legitimate violence ? Because you can, in a case of self defense draw a very clear line : the one who hits first had it coming whatever he might say.

Well, we play on 360, so it wouldn't really be relevant...

You are all hated right now, I won't say by who but something tells me he's posting on that thread...

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Sorry for introducing politics into this thread.

Just a few words regarding this particular shop-smashing.

Complicated stuff. I oppose violence and vandalism even in the context of such a counterdemonstration, but for me this specific shop and its circumstances are situated somewhere grey. (Might be reality-grey, might be inconsistency-grey.)

A little introduction. The shop opened up some weeks ago at the rather ugly and unpopular end of Halle's major shopping street that connects the central station and the city centre. (The opening was accompanied by peaceful and gaudy protest as well.) It's a disgrace to see this shop opening up at all, and its in your face location just adds to the feeling of anger and disgust. The brand it sells looks quit hip and casual and most of it isn't nazi at first glance, probably the stuff that would get advertised at Third Reich-MTV. It is adapted nazism, looks nice, oh, this is a fine and upright young man, a lot nicer than this pesky pot-smoking leftwing scum. It is modest, it undermines, it normalises. Another big problem is that those shops are supposed to be nazi pickup points and places were one secretly gets nazi-music and other propaganda that is illegal. As said, there were peaceful protests before, leaflets were spread, the local newspaper wrote something – efforts were made to make people aware.

So I hope that most of the people who heard about or saw the wrecked shop knew what kind of shop this is (and smiled). No other shops were harmed, nothing burnt, I heard nothing regarding further vandalism – the protests were peaceful. The smashing causes expenses of time and money for the owner, and I hope it strengthens the impression that he and his kind are really not welcome in our town and that he will have a hard time staying in business.

In conclusion I guess the singularity of the vandalism, that it was targeted and not blind, and that it fucks with the nazis makes it okay, even great in my opinion. Just to add to the confusion, I do think that arresting the guys who trashed the place is the right thing, it was illegal what they did, and I strongly support the rule of law.

(Not taken into consideration for this rambling: facts, police-expanses, insurance-money, a consistent argumentation)

Back to life:

A girl and I just broke up some days ago, by mutual consent, again, even multi-again, years were involved, we are still good friends, we really [think we] are, and now she is seeing some other guy, but I don't mind, maybe because I am still in love with this other girl, a lesbian in a long and happy relationship, a girl I maybe loved more than my now ex-girlfriend all along, a girl that never felt the same for me and that is my best friend. But, you know, complicated stuff, I don't know.

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The smashing causes expenses of time and money for the owner

Or it's insurance :)

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Where is the limit ? Where is the rule that justifies violence on certain occasions and not in others ?

Well, I think the closest thing to a definition of "justified violence" would be something like: 1)Will use of violence be effective and 2)will the harm caused by the use of violence outweigh the harm that would otherwise occur.

Of course this is not without it's flaws. Quantifying harm, especially quantifying the harm that you predict will happen, is often impossible and will always be subjective. Maybe this isn't a great formula for telling you if violence is justified, but I think you can apply it to see if it isn't - and in the case of smashing in a shop window, which achieves nothing worthwhile in the long term, it definitely isn't.

EDIT:

Also nice one Miffy, fantastic news.

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This.

I don't want to over generalise, but I think it's fair to say that far-right groups are mostly supported by poor, undereducated white people. These people have genuine reason to be angry, they're just misappropriating their anger. In my view the best way to tackle the far right is to tackle poverty and education.

Of course but it is my understanding that in the last 10 years the support for the BNP has grown at a rate that far exceeds growth of poverty and degradation of the education system. (this is the feeling i get from following the new over the past few years, actual data my prove this to be incorrect.) So that is why I thought it important to understand why people are moving towards the extremes. I believe a sense of disengagement from the current center crowding political establishment is one key factor, this could be more easily dealt with than improving education and reducing poverty.

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The smashing causes expenses of time and money for the owner, and I hope it strengthens the impression that he and his kind are really not welcome in our town

But what does it do to your long term political goal of drawing people away from the nazi party? You loose the moral high ground, let them feel like a victimised group probably unifying them more. The blockades showed that they were not welcome there, and using violence and intimidation to show people you disagree with their political views is not what it is to be liberal (which i assume you consider yourself). Find a way to draw people to your side rather than impeding their access to the other side, in the internet age political prohibition will never work .

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Well, I think the closest thing to a definition of "justified violence" would be something like: 1)Will use of violence be effective and 2)will the harm caused by the use of violence outweigh the harm that would otherwise occur.

Even in effective violence I feel that there is such a huge spectrum of useful because it pretty much depends on the cause...

In the rules you propose it might be useful after all to get rid of a part of the population because it will surely free jobs for others, there is little chance that the immigrant's nation to which you cause harm will retaliate also so it might end the violence loop and obey your rules.

Of course this is not without it's flaws. Quantifying harm, especially quantifying the harm that you predict will happen, is often impossible and will always be subjective. Maybe this isn't a great formula for telling you if violence is justified, but I think you can apply it to see if it isn't - and in the case of smashing in a shop window, which achieves nothing worthwhile in the long term, it definitely isn't.

No but I'm not saying it has to never ever be subjective but is has to be narrowed enough that you can have a basic idea of what the borderline cases are and what is easily classified as bad violence.

Of course but it is my understanding that in the last 10 years the support for the BNP has grown at a rate that far exceeds growth of poverty and degradation of the education system. (this is the feeling i get from following the new over the past few years, actual data my prove this to be incorrect.) So that is why I thought it important to understand why people are moving towards the extremes. I believe a sense of disengagement from the current center crowding political establishment is one key factor, this could be more easily dealt with than improving education and reducing poverty.

My guess is that :

History of democracy is short but when stretched far enough, we will see a pattern emerge :

=>Extremes take power, they do what they were elected to do : extreme things. In the long term, the majority of people will converge towards the other extreme but not too far because they are done with extremes.

=>A few generation later, people will tire of moderated view because the system overloads, it can't do everything for everybody, people tire of politics and want things to change radically, in the opposite movement, they move towards extremists who promise a drastic change. And then extremists take power and in a few generation you'll start the cycle again.

I guess we would have to meet in a thousand years to check if that's true but you can already see that in Europe, we can feel a rise of extremisms, I might be stupid but I think that will happen. But by extremists, I don't necessarily mean right or left, ecologists and so on are too and it might happen when people will see the see level rising and began to be scared, they will elect the ones who promises change.

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You're also extrapolating out a lot. My parents are both longtime Republicans and Christians who deliberately raised me to be a rational person who puts great value in education, science, literature, art, and the humanities in general. I've met a number of their similarly-leaning friends who exhibit the same traits. I don't share their political or religious views--mine are probably at least vaguely in line with yours, for example--but I very much respect their general outlook on life.

Anyway I haven't the slightest idea how many Republicans are in that same mold but to associate the entire membership of what is currently the nation's second-largest party with the much more visible and audible Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannities of this country seems silly when you're discussing who should be allowed to have full, unfettered free speech or whatever it is we're discussing.

Maybe you're being deliberately overzealous and I'm being dumb, I don't know.

I didn't say they should be forbidden from expressing themselves, I just said that they are not inherently friendly towards free speech, reason. That said, I probably wouldn't argue at length* that Republicans are a monolithic, homogeneous mass epitomized by Rush Hannity, but it is a far more uniform and disciplined mass than the Democrats.

I'm looking at the Republican leadership and the only reasonable people I can see near the spotlight are Charlie Christ** and John McCain† from three years ago and maybe Jon Huntsman‡ of Utah. And these people are accused of being traitors to the pure Republican base. Maybe the large bunch of Republicans in the middle are really freaked out by all this, and I know some thoughtful people who declare themselves Republican who couldn't vote for Republicans in the recent few elections, but I wouldn't consider these people the heart and soul of the party. And they definitely don't have a voice today.

Maybe California Republicans are a different breed from what I see from where I am sitting: a bunch of crypro-Jim-Crow good ole boys who recite Limbaugh as an authority on all things political, who came dangerously close to putting creationism in grade school science text books, who yesterday were so patriotic to see criticism of Bush as treason, but want to secede from the union today, etc...

There is a scary number of Sarah Palin 2012 bumper stickers around here, even though Bexar county went blue this cycle. It is reassuring, however, that so many Republicans were outright disgusted by Palin. These are reasonable people. I am not afraid of reasonable people, I am afraid of Sarah Palin.

__________________

*See † below.

**If I had a choice between voting for Christ or voting for any of the Clintons or anyone deep from within the Clintons' camp, I would probably vote for Christ.

†Man was a relatively sane, not-too-religious, western-type Republican who got mauled by the expectations of the bellicose fundamentalist wing of the party.

His transformation is representative of the kind of pressure Republicans are under to conform to the loudest currents within the coalition. This is why I can feel comfortable with my rough abstraction of all Republicans into these voices; it is a functional model for thinking about politics. May not be absolutely true for each and every Republican, but those who don't fit are outliers.

‡The only thing I know about the man is that he is willing to let gays have their rights and that he's from Utah.

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Pausing the whole debate thing for my little person, I will teach game design in the upcoming year, which I am happy about, since life has been a real bitch for the past two month, sorry for interrupting, you can now resume reading about an interesting topic.

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Pausing the whole debate thing for my little person, I will teach game design in the upcoming year, which I am happy about, since life has been a real bitch for the past two month, sorry for interrupting, you can now resume reading about an interesting topic.

Actually I think that is really interesting and I'm curious as to how you're preparing to teach something like that. Do you have experience teaching game design? Where are you teaching? (If you don't mind me asking...)

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I don't mind at all, I'll be teaching in Paris at ICAN, never taught GD in itself but teaching I did, in classes and conferences and privately so it's no big deal, I really like it.

How am I preparing ? I'm not really actually :P I'm working as a freelance on two game projects and there's a third one probably coming up so I'll have to delay the preparation phase till the end of july... It surprised me I wasn't really expecting it so I made a program for the year this morning in really strange conditions, I'll refine it and I can send it to you if you like.

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I just want to state, for the record, that I think Nazis are totally uncool.

Not to downplay the true atrocities, but they sure do make great villians in fiction! Hellboy, Indiana Jones, and the original Bionic Commando! Oh my!

Maybe you're being deliberately overzealous and I'm being dumb, I don't know.

Well, he also lives in Texas. I'm guessing it's a major factor that has shaped his perception. I feel him.

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This seems like an awfully interesting but tl;dr page. I will contribute, therefore, some random thoughts on some of the topics that may or may not be at hand.

Hello there everyone, I dislike organised religion and the right wing, and I reserve in my heart a special place of hatred for marriages of the two. The Republican Party appear to be the absolute manifestation of that. I don't live in the US, but I followed the election last year very closely indeed and have a fairly deep interest in politics across the pond. Their campaign was so anti-scientific, regressive and dirty, I find it hard to see anyone who even voted for them as valid members of global society.

I often have that problem, though. Even with centrist/right leaning or religious friends. It's like I regard anyone else with opinions on religion and politics far or even moderately removed from my own as - dare I say it - almost inhuman. It's awful, I know.

Religion now. Declaration of interests; I'm what some would call a "militant" atheist, though I've flirted with the thought of pantheism or naturalism.

Wouldn't have a problem with the church if they were all like Don Cupitt, but sadly I can't see that happening. The way some Christian friends don't have a clue about what their beliefs are founded on or entail is staggering, and I'd readily wager that I have a greater theological knowledge than 90% of so called "Christians" in Britain. The thing is, most people flat-out refuse to think about it, but for some reason it's taboo to question that. Live and let live I suppose, but it infuriates me when people consider themselves religious and are half assed and ignorant about their apparent beliefs. Honestly, I become consumed by a Dawkinsian rage. "But it's all about faith!" What the fuck is faith? Nothing, a big, belly-button fluff metaphysical get-out clause of shit.

:(

Sweet, ranting is awesome.

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Religion now. Declaration of interests; I'm what some would call a "militant" atheist, though I've flirted with the thought of pantheism or naturalism.

Me too, I've been at public protest for the separation of church and state to make cults pay taxes.

You want to get me angry as hell ?

Try injustice (like some politics / religions do every day) and irrationality (or if you really want to piss me off, try say... creating a logical loop, like the bible is true because the bible says it's true) and you'll see how red I can turn.

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