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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   34788 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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No, it doesn’t. They will be very upset because you’re strawmanning.

Can you give any examples?

Yes!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Lives_Matter_street_murals

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/okay-to-be-white-halifax-1.4887174

I promise this is not meant to be a low effort sneer. The treatment of these two slogans only makes sense if they are religious icons and heresy, respectively.

We make public statements, even murals, for things other than religious icons. Is New Deal art religious? Is everything funded by the National Endowment for the Arts?? I could see a case for the Lincoln memorial bordering on religious, but what about the Washington monument? The Capitol proper? These are big artistic projects explicitly symbolizing our culture—but they remain firmly in the realm of the secular.

The same applies for unappealing speech. It’s a much broader category than heresy. You could replace those posters with pornography, slander, even proselytizing and see a similar article. Offending/intriguing the public enough to get a news article does not require a religious schism.

Yeah, but ignoring the ideological significance of art for a second, people do not get nearly as upset when regular art (especially low effort stuff) is besmirched or even vandalized. Can you imagine the police investigating some tire marks on a crosswalk, were it not a religious symbol? The same thing has happened with BLM logos as well.

Consider that the slogan "black lives matter," was painted by the government (or sanctioned) in huge letters on countless prominent streets in America. Then consider that the nearly identical but less assertive "it's ok to be white" on 8x11 sheets of paper launched police investigations and news articles about how racists are among us.

Yes, there is a double standard, and I'm not trying to argue that people feel the same about black and white identity politics. What's that got to do with the religious character of a belief?

Look, if you swapped out the 8x11s for glossy photos of someone's asshole, regardless of race, I'd expect people to get upset, launch investigations and write news articles. Does that make obscene pictures religious? There are perfectly secular reasons to notice and be concerned about them. In the case of the "ok to be white" posters, maybe those reasons are dumb/inconsistent. It doesn't mean they're religious.

Here's some quotes from one of the many "it's ok to be white" incidents

Masked men spotted downtown, alarming passersby

A group of men wearing identical white masks stapled posters with the slogan "It's okay to be white," on poles throughout downtown Halifax on Wednesday night, sparking concerns of racism.

Jody Corkum had just finished his dinner at a Barrington Street restaurant when he saw "four or five" men in masks and dark clothing. At first he thought they were Halloween revellers.

"But they're posting stuff along the way as they're walking down the street," he said. "When I looked at the poster… it says 'It's okay to be white.'"

He found the message disturbing for its "undertones" of racial intolerance.

'Shocked and disgusted'

Chad Simmons said he and his girlfriend were "shocked and disgusted" when they encountered the group at about 6:30 p.m. AT near Barrington and Sackville streets.

"They were talking amongst themselves and laughing," he said.

"We followed them for a few blocks, tearing down the signs as we went. I think at one point they noticed but they did not say anything. I was not trying to hide at all."

He saw the act as "attacking the community in my home city."

The whole thing is like this. Similar coverage does not exist for pictures of buttholes.

People don't tend to put up butthole photos on telephone poles because there are actual, state-enforced consequences. No, the bar is set lower.

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1004/obscenity-and-pornography

Look at the first picture in that article. Protestors were up in arms over pornographic films. These private citizens rallied around a text-only marquee symbolizing the objectionable content. That sounds exactly like the response to your posters.

It's long been a point of 1st Amendment contention precisely because opinions are so strong on the matter--even in the absence of a religious character. I don't see anything in your example that suggests a religious objection.

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