There is no equivalence between these ideas. The man in the turban would want you dead for being some variety of Christian as much as some variety of gay, however you want to describe yourself today. The only threat to you from a Yank would be if you was black, honey.
You really need to have a long hard look at yourself if you're going to keep putting up crap like this on your otherwise splendidly entertaining 'blog.
"The only threat to you from a Yank would be if you was black, honey." Wasn't it Dr Johnson who first picked up on the discrepancy between cries of liberty coming from a slave driver? And the Evil Empire doesn't really need to be so threatening. It already exerts massive and pernicious influence on the rest of the world, so much so that Britain can be significantly described as merely an island off the coast of America.
You have chosen to use a very particular image of Other to draw your contrast, and no amount of nodding around with Dr Johnson will make that right. I think you need to seriously critique your own perspective before advancing the sort of proposition you're putting forward here in your choice of images. Since you seem to have time for reading, maybe you could settle yourself down with Edward Said's Orientalism. You need to be careful when bandying around terms like civilisation, particularly given that you are the acme of a privileged Westerner. Britain has yet to experience a CIA-sponsored coup. The same cannot be said for most of the Middle East. Whose civilisation do you mean to pass comment about by putting a picture of a man in a turban on your 'blog?
Is it so marvellous to see this contrast? In Britain we are caught between two extremes. On the one hand we have the nihilistic furore of the Muslim world (largely motivated by US interventionalist foreign policy), and on the other the paganism of modern American culture. Which is worse? Gay marriage is just as symptomatic of barbarism as public beheadings with crude and blunt instruments as far as I'm concerned. If you find this view disagreeable, I'm sorry but I'm not going to moderate it to suit you.
What is there in my position to critique? I am not arrogant (or try not to be), and I am loath to think I am any wiser or better educated (ha!) than anyone else, but I am convinced that we live in a culture of sameness and diminishing difference. Marriage is no longer sacred. So what? Neither is religion. Christianity is treated with just as much reverence as Buddhism or Mormonism these days. Why? Because they're all the same; cultural taboos and burdens we take on ourselves. So my disposition is naturally to treat Western civilization with as much contempt and indifference as it treats Christ. Therefore, gay marriage is just as bad as public beheadings with a pocket knife.
There is no equivalence between these ideas. The man in the turban would want you dead for being some variety of Christian as much as some variety of gay, however you want to describe yourself today. The only threat to you from a Yank would be if you was black, honey.
ReplyDeleteYou really need to have a long hard look at yourself if you're going to keep putting up crap like this on your otherwise splendidly entertaining 'blog.
"The only threat to you from a Yank would be if you was black, honey." Wasn't it Dr Johnson who first picked up on the discrepancy between cries of liberty coming from a slave driver? And the Evil Empire doesn't really need to be so threatening. It already exerts massive and pernicious influence on the rest of the world, so much so that Britain can be significantly described as merely an island off the coast of America.
DeleteYou have chosen to use a very particular image of Other to draw your contrast, and no amount of nodding around with Dr Johnson will make that right. I think you need to seriously critique your own perspective before advancing the sort of proposition you're putting forward here in your choice of images. Since you seem to have time for reading, maybe you could settle yourself down with Edward Said's Orientalism.
ReplyDeleteYou need to be careful when bandying around terms like civilisation, particularly given that you are the acme of a privileged Westerner. Britain has yet to experience a CIA-sponsored coup. The same cannot be said for most of the Middle East. Whose civilisation do you mean to pass comment about by putting a picture of a man in a turban on your 'blog?
Is it so marvellous to see this contrast? In Britain we are caught between two extremes. On the one hand we have the nihilistic furore of the Muslim world (largely motivated by US interventionalist foreign policy), and on the other the paganism of modern American culture. Which is worse? Gay marriage is just as symptomatic of barbarism as public beheadings with crude and blunt instruments as far as I'm concerned. If you find this view disagreeable, I'm sorry but I'm not going to moderate it to suit you.
DeleteWhat is there in my position to critique? I am not arrogant (or try not to be), and I am loath to think I am any wiser or better educated (ha!) than anyone else, but I am convinced that we live in a culture of sameness and diminishing difference. Marriage is no longer sacred. So what? Neither is religion. Christianity is treated with just as much reverence as Buddhism or Mormonism these days. Why? Because they're all the same; cultural taboos and burdens we take on ourselves. So my disposition is naturally to treat Western civilization with as much contempt and indifference as it treats Christ. Therefore, gay marriage is just as bad as public beheadings with a pocket knife.
"Therefore, gay marriage is just as bad as public beheadings with a pocket knife."
ReplyDeleteOh, really? That's quite a parallel moral universe you're setting up here. Perhaps you might like to join a conversation in a shared reality.
Well done, Mr. Sheridan.
ReplyDelete