Unfortunately, Libertarian, your remark equating criticism of the Hart strip with being anti-Jesus doesn’t come off any better with the added line. It’s still nonsensical claptrap. If you can develop some kind of context that puts it in a good light, fine. But I think you’ve got your work cut out for you.
Hart’s strip is an in-your-face dismissal of a religion whose adherents have faced centuries of persecution and mass murder and are still experiencing hostility in many places. My response to the advice to “get a thicker skin” is: Develop some empathy and common sense.
I’m not attempting to put it in a good light. I’m saying that people will put it in whatever light they please, and then react accordingly. Chaim is still right: the cartoon is no more or less “offensive” to Judaism than Christianity is itself. You can call that nonsensical claptrap if you like, but there it is.
Well, Ben it seems as if you want to continue this debate, instead of simply apologizing and letting things be. That’s unfortunate, for me, as I am not a very good debater. I tend to simply state my view and let my listeners take it or leave it, as they will; you, on the other hand, make careful notes of your opponents in order to surprise them with their own words, spoken in haste, before they understood the rules of conduct; you attack people’s characters, find their weak points, use their own semantics against them, all in the name of “winning” your argument. You are very good at debating.
Let me reiterate - I regret writing as I did back in July. I don’t expect you to believe it, but at the time, I did not truly believe my remarks to be offensive. Today, of course I understand that they may seem to be so, and I apologize for stating my opinion.
On the other hand, I do not apologize for having this opinion. You see, I may look American, I may sound American, and I may write in an approximately American fashion, but I am not American. I am from the Middle East, and in the Middle East, we think in terms of tribes. And yes, while I do feel kinship to all mankind, my foremost loyalty and responsiblity is to my own tribe, just as I expect someone else to feel similar sentiments to his. This is not racism - nor is it “grotesque”. Racism is negative; it’s saying that my tribe is better than yours, in absolute terms. This is positive. This is me taking on a greater responsibilities, besides the responsibilities I have as a human being.
Now, you may find this sort of feeling reprehensible; truth be told - at times, so do I. But that’s how people think in the Middle East. In fact, that’s how people think in Africa, in Asia, and probably, if you scrape a bit off the surface, that’s how people think in Europe, too. Only Americans think differently, in terms of the individual alone.
(Although I seem to remember the fact that a catastrophe gets a whole lot more news coverage here when there are Americans among the casualties, and that when the helicopters lift off from the embassy in Saigon, they let the Americans on first).
But this is an American board, and I will follow American rules. Therefore, I apologize for what I wrote as a newbie. I should have known better, even though I couldn’t have. And yes, I believe that Johnny Hart should apologize as well.
“Good. I now know the proper light in which to view your seemlingly offensive comments, and I also know that you do not have a double standard.
…
I had no way of knowing the emotional circumstances which led to them.
…
Now, on with the show:”
From what I said, I think it’s clear that I was now only interested in understanding your response to Hart’s comic, that I had retracted my accusations of a “double standard” and had admitted that I didn’t know your full situation. If I had known your full situation, I clearly wouldn’t have dug up the quote. I admitted I was wrong- perhaps that wasn’t abject enough for your taste?
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If I was so taken aback by your paranoid, anti-gentile rant that I remembered it months later, that’s scarcely my fault! Do you really think that if your big mouth gets you into trouble, it’s because people are out to get you?
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The “rules of conduct” in question being, “Don’t refer to people as ‘Gentile bastards.’” Funny, I understood those “rules of conduct” in kindergarden.
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I believe I have already acknowledged that fact.
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If the Israeli school system and your Israeli parents didn’t teach you that it’s offensive to call a room full of Gentiles “Gentile bastards” and tell them “tough shit” that it’s no longer “Jew season,” then I really have to wonder about Israeli culture.
**
Again, I find this fascinating, in light of the question which you still refuse to answer. You don’t apologize for stating your opinion in an uncouth fashion. You don’t apologize for not phrasing your opinion in such a way that Gentiles would know where you are coming from. You apologize for stating it at all. Again, it looks more and more like the “tact” you expect of Hart (and, for that matter, of yourself and your fellow Dopers) is to keep certain opinions unvoiced.
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Yes, and in the South they think in terms of races, but if some cracker tried to justify his racism in the terms you use to justify your own prejudices, I wouldn’t respect him either.
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Did this feeling of kinship develop within the last nine months, or did you feel it while you were telling us Gentile dopers that we couldn’t rape Jewish women any more?
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I don’t care one fig how people in the Middle East, Africa, or Antarctica feel. I care about what is right, and, IMO, your opinion is wrong- but that’s not what I’m trying to argue here. What I am trying to argue with is the self-serving logic by which I am some sinister figure who is only interested in “winning” an argument against poor little Alessan, who honestly didn’t know that it was offensive to tell the Gentile bastards of the SDMB that it was tough shit that they couldn’t rape Jews anymore.
For what? As I said, I already admitted that my accusations were based on a misunderstanding. Do you want me to apologize for thinking that your opinions are racist? That’s not going to happen.
Err, Ben, Alessan, guys? Could you take it to the pit or somewhere? The thread seems to have degenerated into you two fighting a long time feud. Also, Ben, Alessan made the statement he made back in that other thread, and apologized for it then, then he apologized for it here. I think it’s time to drop it.
Like I said before, I accepted Alessan’s apology, I dropped the issue of his earlier comments, I admitted that Alessan did not have a double standard, and I tried to steer the conversation back towards his definition of “tact.” Alessan is the one keeping this argument going, the one smearing me with accusations, and the one who is trying to make it look like I, not he, is the one who is responsible for the “degeneration” of the thread. So why are you telling me that Alessan apologized? Why not tell him that I had accepted his apology for his comments, and that he should apologize for his smears and drop it?
Well what the hell is wrong with me? I think it is perfectly ridiculous and SO far-fetched to think this strip is offensive…I just dont get where you all are coming from. To me this is a bunch of politically correct semantics. I guess Im just too stupid.
Actually, I don’t think it’s stupidity so much as religion. What’s the religious (or cultural) background of the pro and con people here? Are there any Christians who found it to be offensive? Are there any Jews who didn’t?
To me, Hart’s cartoon was a “rolleyes” moment. I fhound it ham-handed and unfunny but I understood what he was trying to say even if I disagree with it.
Frankly the reactions of the ADL and the JDL are far more offensive to me. NEITHER speaks for me. NEITHER is a good picture of what I belive ‘mainstream’ Jewish opinion is (neither am I by the way. I’m not defining the center as where I am).
The JDL, to me, seem to be a bunch of kooks who’ve made it their career to be professionally offended
The ADL, IMO, is simply a shill and lapdog for the more Leftward side of the Democratic party.
Compared to how sick and tired I am of having to distance myself from both organizations every time one of 'em shoots their mouths off, I put Hart’s (poorly written) statement of faith into a whole lesser catagory of irritation
Oh, I don’t know … I remember a few years ago the Easter strip was a drawing of the cross on the hill, with the blood of christ running downhill and forming a river in front of B.C.'s cave. (kind of like the last image of this year’s, but it was the full strip.) I found that strip offensive, and I find this one offensive. When I read it this morning in the paper I almost dropped the comics in surprise (well, also because they DIDN’T run Liberty Meadows this week, but that’s another topic)
I immediately thought it was offensive and insulting to Jews, and I’m an atheist. MOST people don’t know the differnce between a seven and a nine arm mennorah. To them, ANY mennorah is considered a symbol of Judaism. To use it is an insult ([hijack] Kind of like the fish is a generic symbol for christians and they consider it an insult to add legs and call it a Darwin fish. Where did the fish symbol come from? Well, according to a friend of mine who’s a pastor, it was a ‘password’ from the early days of christianity. One person would draw an arc in the sand with his foot, and if the other person was a christian, he drew the second arc, completing the fish and letting the first person know that it was safe to discuss christ.[/hijack])
I’m Catholic (and yes, that does mean Christian), and I found it tacky and inappropriate.
As ** manda JO ** pointed out (this is about the third time I’ve said that in about a week, and probably about the tenth time I’ve thought it – she probably thinks I’m stalking her), the part that offends me the most is the implication that Christianity replaced Judaism, and thus Jewish people are something out of history, with no real import in the contemporary world. It’s patronizing in the worst way.
Maps in the United States don’t label England as “Proto-America.” That would be offensive. England didn’t cease to exist after the founding of the United States. We don’t simply remember the English, in a quaint and fond way, as creating the Magna Carta, and then gracefully fading out of the modern world.
A Christian who believes that Judaism was replaced, or ended, with the advent of Christianity is perpetuating a gross injustice. And yes, I find that offensive.
I have noticed that in the last 40 years or so, taking pot-shots at religion, under the protection of the First Amendments, seems to be the chic thing to do. Shouldn’t those who defend religion had the same right to their side of the matter?
I tried in vain to locate a posting in this thread, a comment by a Doper concerning “political correctness,” which, of course, ipso facto, overrides everything, including the Constitution.
I once read a quote by none other than Bejamin Disraeli, who noted that “Christianity is completed Judaism, or it is nothing.” Jesus and the apostles were themselves Jewish; and there are 332 distinct prophecies in the “Old Testament” pointing to the Messiah.
In fact, in medieval times, because of the horrendous treatment afforded Jews by the Catholic Church, the Jewish scribes deliberately tampered with a verse in the 9th chapter of Daniel, which specified a time in which the Messiah was to appear.
That said, I don’t necessarily agree with Hart or most fundamentalists concerning the “cross”; this is something perhaps Cecil himself might want to research. For my part, I have gone through several encyclopedias in 30 years or so and the conventional cross appears as a pagan symbol in many non-Christian civilizations; some Indians in the New World wore a cross cut into their foreheads, as a sacred symbol, before Columbus landed in the Western Hemisphere. The closest ancient symbol I found to the “cross,” was the ankh. And I clearly question the use of the word “cross,” in the KJV, for example.
In any case, I don’t believe that Hart has stepped out of line. From the way religion is treated in contemporary print and broadcast media–remember a movie with Robert DeNiro, guards at a reform school, and a perjuring priest, a few years ago? I consider Hart justified in doing what he has done, lest we be faced with a “one-way street,” after a fashion.
No one seems to be discussing the part of the cartoon that really upset some people, according to the story I read in the paper, namely the use of the phrase, “Do this in rememberance of me.” As I understand it, this phrase, coupled with the extinction of the flames in the lamp and the transformation of the candle holder into the crucifix implies that Christians should attmept to either convert Jews to Christianity (change Judaism to Christianity in rememberance of Christ), or eliminate Jews (extinguishing the flame of Judaism in rememberance of Christ).
At a minimum, it is clear that the author of the strip sees the birth of Christianity arising out of what happened to the Jew, Jesus, and is showing the link of Christianity to Judaism. If that were all that were reasonably inferred from the strip, I think it would take a certain amount of over-sensitivity to construe it into an attack on Judaism or Jews.
However, the imagery of extinguishing the flames that represent Judaism in the strip, leaving at the end only the cross, raises in a reasonable mind the concept that the author either forsees the end of the Jewish faith as a result of the crucifixion of Jesus, or wants to see the completion of the ‘job’ of Jesus, that is, redeeming Jews and bringing them into a ‘proper’ relationship with God. It is very difficult to believe that the author wouldn’t understand the potential for ‘misinterpretation’ of the imagery used, and frankly his apparent attempt to assert that the strip pays homage to the Jewish faith is highly ingenuous.
Nor can this strip be taken out of the context of events this year. It is well-remembered that there are organizations in this country who view it as their mission to convert Jews to Christianity. I do not think that anyone can assert reasonably that the message of Christianity inherently is one of intolerance of other religions, except in the sense that it asserts that it is the only ‘true’ way to salvation. But some Christians view it as important to bring as many to ‘salvation’ as possible, especially the members of the religion with which Jesus was initially concerned. In light of the tensions this year from these attempts, it wouldn’t be surprising that either Mr. Hart was preaching a message of conversion, or that, at least, Mr. Hart should have known that his strip would be interpreted by many (and not by any means all of them some sort of unreasonable fanatics) as implying the need to convert Jews.
Does this make it anti-Jewish? That depends on your meaning in using that term. It implies that it is important to convert Jews, possibly that Jews will eventually be all converted or otherwise brought to a point of non-existence. I think it stretches it a bit to see an implication that the lives of Jews should be extinguished; but it may be reasonable for a member of an oft-persecuted minority group to see any reference to the ending of that group as offensive and ‘anti-Jewish’. I, as a member of the majority, am not in a position to judge such a feeling too harshly, nor to dismiss it as unreasonable.
I beg to differ. Here’s a case in point:
Many years ago B.C. was walking along the seashore and a clam suddenly got up and started walking.
B.C. was startled, then he yelled, "I SEEN HIM!!! CLAMS GOT LEGS!!!"
The clam said, “Now I have to kill him.”
I told this to radio personality Geoff Edwards on the air–and he broke up laughing, still on the air.
Could Nancy and Sluggo top that?
FYI, Hart started injecting religion into the strip back in the '80s, after he underwent a conversion experience.
Anyhow, for my .02, part of the trouble of the strip is that he may have had good intentions, his muddled thinking resulted in implications that were not thought through clearly.
I mean, look at the last panel, with the trail of blood leading to the cave, the wine and bread and “This do in remembrance of me.” It sort of makes sense, but it’s clumsily executed. Instead of being inspiring, it just gives me a queasy feeling.
Hart’s like an old vaudevillian who’s been doing this schtick for so long he doesn’t realize it’s not amusing anymore. There are a lot of cartoons out there who are just like his: Wizard of Id, Ziggy, Family Circus, Garfield (although my son likes him, so that’s cool).
I don’t mind religious thought showing up in unexpected places – does anyone really mind Ned Flanders, for example – but for God’s sake, still be funny! That’s why they call it the funnies!
Gee, that’s quite insensitive of you. {I was going to post a pit-worthy remark until I remembered that this is not the Pit.)
First: The Mormons, correctley referred to as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not only are Christians, but they also consider the Holy Bible to be part of their Scriptures.
Second: This bad ol’ Mormons would be offended by such a cartoon.
Third: Let me know if you want pit worthy response and I’ll be happy to start a thread over there.
