Category Archives: Philosophy & Religion

The point of property

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The following was written in an attempt to clarify my own position on copyright, patents, etc. — topics I’ve willfully neglected for too long. I’m not sure how much use this is to everyone else, though.Anyone who has observed a two-year old with toys knows that toddlers have no problem with the concept “mine”. Possession, and the advantages it brings, are something we instinctively grasp at an early age. Parents constantly need to plead with their children to share toys with siblings, and it’s clear from personal observation that such attempts at socialization are, kindly put, an uphill battle. We are born to possess.

And yet it is also clear that ownership and property are purely human constructs. Structured collections of atoms and volumes of space do not objectively exhibit ownership qualities that scientists can discover. It’s amazing, then, that modern society is nothing if not the result of an ownership layer placed seamlessly on top of a physical, objective reality.To be clear, communism does not represent the antithesis to a will to ownership. Communism does not question the existence of the notion of property. Its quibble with capitalism is about ownership structures — who (or what) should do the owning. For our everyday social interactions we all don ownership-tinted glasses, so that we automatically know which atoms belong to which, and behave accordingly. Without the glasses, we’d run afoul of the law within minutes.

One way to explain the existence of property is through social contract theory — property becomes the result of a pact individuals have made with society; it is a useful fiction whose precepts we willingly obey because it provides a robust mechanism for regulating access to scarce resources, which is necessary for the proper functioning of large and complex civilizations.

While this explanation might work as a utilitarian justification for the need for property as a legal concept in society, the origin of property is more likely explained along sociobiological lines. We have always vied to possess scarce resources, as do animals, often at great cost to ourselves. But prehistoric clans that developed and enforced social behavior that ensured predictable access to resources for its members were able to reduce these costs, creating the kinds of surpluses that allowed them to form cities (or kill less evolved clans for fun and profit). The journey from possession to property is a prerequisite for civilization.

I don’t believe most people ever see property in this light, however — as a useful social adaptation forged from evolutionary pressures. To many, property is as tangible and unquestioned a notion as God, that other idea without an objective basis in reality which nevertheless regulates daily life for a great many.

Can property become a more explicit choice for people? In some ways, it already has. Because the things that we produce and consume are now so diversified, different mechanisms for mediating compensation between producers and consumers have evolved: from purchasing outright to also renting, licensing, leasing, mortgaging, coöperative ownership, shareware and the Creative Commons movement. Ownership is no longer a monolithic given, but something whose precise terms we negotiate.

What needs to evolve, however, is a broader awareness of the functionalist role property plays in society. It is only then that both producers and consumers will be informed enough to improve on the current mechanism with something that has the potential for even greater equity and/or utility. There is some urgency in the matter when it comes to intellectual property, because technology recently abolished the problem of scarcity when distributing music, text or film. With many consumers finding it extremely easy to “rip, mix and burn”, producer interest groups are reacting by trying to narrow the definition of ownership to something akin to passive enjoyment, while simultaneously looking for encryption schemes that work.

Both extremes — unfettered appropriation/copying on one end, a clampdown on options on the other — undermine the role property has played in society — as a legal guarantor that effort begets reward. Both extremes stifle creativity. A new middle ground is needed, and this is precisely what the Creative Commons is trying to provide: a spectrum of rights that a producer can choose from to offer the consumer.

Is there room for improvement? The main problem any new compensation scheme faces is robustness. If it is possible to replicate information with impunity, then the incentive to become the parasite in a positive sum game might prove too strong. Since encryption won’t ever work properly (because consumers will always be able to record what our senses are meant to perceive), I suspect the only long-term solution is education about the benefits of equitable compensation. This in turn implies the need for an active appreciation of why the notion of property exists, as opposed to an inherited, unquestioned predisposition for it.

Some concrete proposals, then, bearing in mind the above:

— Clamp down on the absurdly prolific levels of patents being granted, many of them uncritically. Also, the rights of patent holders are too strong when viewed from the perspective of their intended aim, which is to maximize creativity and hence social utility. Perhaps these rights could be reined in, for example by compelling patent holders to licence the patent to all comers, and capping the fees to a percentage of revenue. This way, standing on the shoulders of giants becomes affordable and legal again.

— Restrict the terms of copyright for intellectual property to at most the life of the author. Not 95 years, not life + 70 years. There should be no author estates — they prevent society from benefitting freely from the works when the author has no possible further use for compensation, seeing as the author is dead.

— By the same token, abolish inheritance. If you’re married and you die, then your property belongs to your spouse until he/she dies, but offspring really need to get their own life. This should be the basis for all meritocratic liberal societies.

All three proposals stem from a desire to maximize the incentive to innovate in society. All tweaks to the notion of property should be judged on their likelihood to achieve this.

Döm and Dömber

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Remember Åke Green, the backwater pastor who publicized an obsessively homophobic sermon in 2003, for which he was convicted to a month in prison by a regional court? That court had stringently applied a vaguely worded law that prohibits agitation against ethnic groups and homosexuals (hets mot folkgrupp) — that decision has now been overturned by an appeals courtBBC version of events.. I originally blogged him here and here. While there is no doubt that this is a victory for Åke Green, the prosecution has the right to appeal the verdict higher up the legal food chain, so the story is not over, though we are certainly in the next chapter.

The verdict, in Swedish, is here, as a one-page PDFOK, this really pisses me off. Why is Göta Hovrätt using DRM technology to prevent me from copying and pasting bits from their PDF without me first plying the document with some secret password? What possible use does this restriction have? Surely legal verdicts are in the public domain, not copyrighted? I can view and manually retype the verdict but not command-C command-V — why?!. The reasoning behind the verdict, translated by me, follows below (because it’s important to read the whole thing):

The purpose of criminalizing agitation (hets) against homosexuals is not to prevent discussions about homosexuality as such in churches or elsewhere in society. Nor are statements that judge homosexuals or expressions of disrespect automatically punishable by law. When it comes to sermons, the constitutional committee has declared that citing religious texts and merely encouraging listeners to follow these texts’ precepts does not normally constitute punishable conduct. However, the boundary between what is and what is not allowed is by no means clear, and in interpretations of the law even the European Convention must be taken into account. The conclusion here must be that only in rare cases should statements made in a sermon setting be deemed as hets mot folkgrupperPlease read along in Swedish on the DRM-protected PDF and suggest corrections to my translation..

It is clear from the sermon and the pastor’s words that his main aim was to spread his literalist bible message. That which is apt to offend/insult/violate/injure (kränka) homosexuals in the pastor’s sermon is the bible-based categorical denunciation of homosexual relations as sin. His own addition, wherein he ties together citations, is not scientific and can, even if he has many reservations, be strongly questioned. The pastor’s exposition of these bible citations is notable for his choice of words, but their content is hardly more far-reaching than the bible texts he refers to. The right to preach a literal interpretation of the bible implies the ability to interpret and explain the bible in one’s own words, as long as the account is connected to the bible’s message. Even views that are foreign to the majority of citizens or even provocative may thus be expressed.

There is nothing that indicates that the pastor used the sermon situation as a cover to attack homosexuals. The purpose of the sermon appears instead to have been to explain religious views and opinions which the pastor holds on bible texts and also to influence people’s way of life. Such conduct must be regarded as falling outside that which is punishable by law as hets mot folkgrupp.

What a bizarre judgment this is. I think I like it even less than the first one. Whereas the original verdict declared that certain declarations by Åke Green in his sermon had no biblical foundation and were thus not protected by a constitution that protects the free interpretation of religious texts, this judgment seems to be saying that in fact the bible is a homophobic document and that thus Åke Green can’t be blamed for merely divulging its contents with some added vim and vigor. It’s as if the majority of the court held up their hands and said, “Hey, we can’t help it if the bible has homophobic passages, but if that’s what the constitution protects, so be it.”

Both these verdicts, then, have themselves engaged in the interpretation of a religious text — deciding what the Biblical God did or didn’t think about homosexuals. The first verdict concluded that there is no basis in the bible for virulent homophobia, and the second concluded precisely the opposite, using it to acquit Åke Green.

This is so unsatisfactory on so many levels. I have no religious beliefs myself, and certainly no beliefs that hold a text to be sacred; are my ethical opinions, when expressed, now less protected by the Swedish constitution than Åke Green’s, because they cannot find supporting evidence in a religious text? What makes religious belief more worthy of protection than my own sincerely held beliefs? Does this mean that Åke Green is allowed to say “I think homosexuals should be jailed” because it is his sincerely held religious belief, whereas if a garden-variety homophobe makes the exact same statement he is criminally liable because his convictions are not of Biblical/Koranic/Talmudic originWhat’s more, who gets to decide which texts are religious — the state or the believer? Does Dianetics count? The Book of Mormon? Falun Dafa’s Zhuan Falun??

The verdict should have said that all speech expressing sincerely held beliefs (thus exluding perjury, libel, defamation and fraud) short of incitement to violence is protected. Period. Being convicted for hets mot folkrupp should imply violent action, or the ordering of violent action, or the verbal incitement of individuals to violent actions against a group. Åke Green is innocent not because he did such things in the name of religion; he is innocent because he did no such things, the origin of his beliefs being irrelevant.

Three questions for the conventionally religious

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I am an atheist, though this does not mean that I am not interested in the idea of God (I am not an apatheist). Opportunities for debate, however, are lacking, as I lead an improbably shielded existence — improbable, because while for the overwhelming majority of the world’s population the idea of God is the foundation of their world view, almost all my friends are either atheist, agnostic or apatheistic, rather than conventionally religiousBy “conventionally religious” I mean those who see themselves as belonging to a particular religious denomination, such as Protestantism, Catholicism, Reform Judaism, Sunni or Shia Islam, and who subscribe to its dogma..

Recently, I’ve noticed from comments left on my blog that there are likely more conventionally religious people among readers than I can find among friends, so I’m going to take the opportunity to pose three questions concerning religious belief that I’ve pondered. They’re asked in good faith, as it were, and they’re there for the purpose of stimulating debate, if you’re so inclinedUnrelated side note: I’m on the lookout for a new apartment to rent starting September 1. If you know of something in Stockholm, up to 6,000 kr/month and with bredband, email me. It needn’t be large, though it should be furnished, as I live like I travel: light. Anything longer than three months will do.
Kungsholmen, here I come!.

1. Is it possible for an atheist to be a good person? Is a belief in God a prerequisite for goodness, or for the rewards of goodness? Are equivalent good acts more or less good depending on the beliefs of the doer? Should good people be denied (some or all) rewards in the afterlife if they don’t also first make a correct decision regarding their religious belief? If not, does it remain important to belong to the correct denomination, or even to believe in God tout court?

2. Those born in Ireland do not, in the main, grow up Shia. Those born in Iran do not grow up Catholic. It seems evident to me that for almost all conventionally religious people, the denomination of their religion is not a matter of choice but the product of environmental factors. If one’s religious belief is an accident of birth, what are the implications for those who, through no fault of their own, subscribe to the wrong denomination? What about those who belong to the correct denomination, though not by choice but accidentally, by birth?

3. If you are Jewish, Christian or Muslim, you accept some religious texts in the Islamo-Judeo-Christian canon as being divinely inspired, but not others, just as you accept some of the historical accounts of miracles or divine acts as being literally true, but not others. How do you justify the varying levels of skepticism you hold towards the claims of respective religions? For example, Jews, Christians and atheists are all skeptical of claims that the Koran is the word of God, though Christians abandon such skepticism when it comes to similar claims about the New Testament, while Jews abandon it when it comes to the Old Testament. To an atheist, this seems inconsistent — shouldn’t you be equally skeptical towards all such religious claims, or else equally accepting (and become a Mormon)?

Åke Green Redux

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This week I forwent the pleasures of the internet for a stint of unwired living on Sandhamn, with moss and pine needles underfoot and the brushing of blueberry bushes against sandaled ankles on walks towards sunset viewsThe first of these two posts on Åke Green is here..

Returning to Stockholm, I found that my blog, abandoned, had done rather better at attracting comments than when I breathe down its neck. Inspired, I’ve gone off to do some further “research,” aka advanced googling, into how laws criminalizing hate speech against groups compare with libel laws for individuals in various countries. In particular, I wanted to clarify in my own mind whether there should be anti-defamation laws that protect groups, much like those that protect individualsWhat is the difference between libel, slander and defamation? Here is your idiot’s guide, with some amusing British examples as a manner of illustration..

It’s certainly an idea that’s been floated on the internet; and it has been argued for at length in at least one US law journal. I find the journal article shoots itself in the kneecaps rather effectively, however. Just read the abstract:

Abstract: In AIDA v. Time Warner Entertainment Company, currently before the Illinois Supreme Court, the American Italian Defense Association (AIDA) alleges that the television series “The Sopranos” portrays the criminal and psychopathically depraved character of the Mafia underworld as the dominant motif of Italian and Italian-American culture. The author, drawing upon his experience as co-counsel to AIDA, submits that the law should provide a remedy for racial and ethnic group defamation. It is paradoxical for the law to only allow a remedy for individual defamation. The current civil damage lawsuit for defamation is inapplicable because courts consistently deny damages for group defamation by refusing to recognize the individual harm caused by group defamation. Likewise, criminal defamation statutes are now found in fewer than half the states and rarely used by prosecutors. This Article proposes enacting a declaratory judgment statute at the state level to remedy group racial and ethnic defamation. This suggested remedy takes the form of model legislation in the Appendix to this Article.
 
I’m in the process of dealing with these Guido motherfuckers.
 
—Will Smith, in Enemy of the State (Touchstone Pictures 1998)

Had this not existed, The Onion would have been forced to make it up. I think the author, Professor Polelle — clearly a Guido himself — manages to use an example that illustrates perfectly what silliness such a law would engender in the US if legislated. Or Sweden, for that matter.

Of course, Italians are famously thin-skinned against insults, which is why cursing in Italian is so deliciously effective. Just this week, the country’s judicial system once again had to define precisely which insults are slanderous and which are legal:

ROME (Reuters) – A driver who told a parking attendant “You are nobody!” has felt the weight of Italy’s legal system, which ruled the seemingly innocuous words constituted slander — and fined him heavily.

I wonder if the driver would have been let off the hook had he been a registered Buddhist proselytizing his religion. Meanwhile, vaffanculo is fine, presumably as you are telling someone what to do instead of describing them, and so is calling a woman a rompipalle (ball breaker), because Italian women have been known to do just that, and the truth is an absolute defence in defamation cases.

Or so I thought. Italy’s approach to free speech is actually rather shocking: In civil cases, the truth is not an absolute defence against libel, to Berlusconi’s great delightBerlusconi, by the way, is very short, bald and fat, and for this he overcompensates, which goes a long way to explaining his disastrous reign. As one Italophile American friend says, so long Berlusconi is in power Italians lefties have no business complaining to him about Bush.. But even worse, Italy is one of the few western countries which still has criminal libel laws. Reporters Without Borders is on their case, and a proposed amendment to Italy’s defamation law, which would decriminalize libel, though still allow courts to ban journalists from writing, is currently wending its way through various committees.

A surprise (for me) is that there still are criminal libel laws on the books in some US states, though their use is rareHere is a great primer on libel law in the US.. Apparently, criminal libel convictions are always getting overturned on appeal, so nobody bothers. Still, it would be nice to drag the stragglers into the 21st century.

What does the Anti-Defamation League consider to be the best method of combating hate speech, notably anti-semitic speech? Tellingly, it doesn’t lobby for civil libel laws for ethnic groups, nor even criminal hate speech laws like the kind Sweden has. Instead, “ADL believes that the best response to the words of bigots and extremists is more speech: speech that reflects the ideals of American democracy and tolerance.” It proposes “penalty enhancements” for hate crimes in model legislation that serves as a blueprint for the law in most US states:

Expressions of hate protected by the First Amendment’s free speech clause are not criminalized. However, criminal activity motivated by hate is subject to a stiffer sentence. A defendant’s sentence may be enhanced if he intentionally selects his victim based upon his perception of the victim’s race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or gender.

And of course, it is always illegal to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre or to incite violence in a crowd, but that’s because a direct causal connection can be established between the intent, the act, and the effect.

This, to me, is the ideal solution. It does mean that the onus is on society to respond to the speech of bigots like Åke Green with “more speech.” Laws which silence him are easier, but they require the conceit that the current mores of “right-thinking” citizens are universal, and the forgetting that until not too long ago, citizens like Green were considered right-thinking. Society should not be tempted to cash in its moral chips through laws which ossify the consensus, but instead should be confident that tolerance and liberalism are the most competitive and popular long-term strategies for maximizing society’s utility.

So where does this leave Sweden? The ruling against Åke Green, based on what I now think is a faulty interpretation of a hate speech law that was kept vague on purpose, is being appealed, and so it will quite possibly be overturned for one of many good reasons. But as it stands, because the test the court used for deciding whether the law had been broken was so broad, the ruling really does amount to a criminal libel law protecting groups. This puts Swedish law in a strange place, for had the pastor made the accusations in his speech against a specific person instead of against a group, he would be tried in a civil libel case.

Swedish law has been in strange places before, however; in two cases I know of, there has been an overzealous application to the internet. I’ve already written about the legal obligation of Swedish websites to warn their users if cookies are used. But another ruling in 2002, just before my time here and hence which I missed until now, found daily tabloid Aftonbladet’s publisher guilty of hate speech because an anonymous user had posted such speech on an unmoderated forum of theirs on the web. This case, too, was criminal, and the publisher received a suspended sentence in addition to being fined.

What does this mean for Swedish bloggers, who might decide that when they find hate speech among their comments, they prefer to leave it up so that they, or others, can better argue against it (or choose not to comment at all)? Would they now be guilty of hate speech if somebody complained to the authorities? This scenario hasn’t happened yet, but I think it’s only because Green and his ilk are predominantly backward, and haven’t discovered blogs yet. But they will, as will Swedish anti-semites and nationalists. Are Swedish bloggers going to have to start manually approving every comment submitted to their site in order to avoid jail because of a de facto criminal libel law protecting groups? As for me, they’ll have to pry unmoderated commenting at stefangeens.com from my cold, dead hands.

Måndagsfyran

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Sweden is probably going to trade in a Christian holiday for a new national holiday. I approve, because I do not believe religious holidays should have state sanction, which makes this a small step in the right direction.
 
Meanwhile, one Swedish commune is taking a step in the wrong direction by proposing that, in addition to Protestant holidays, schools should also take days off for other religions, like Ramadan, the Orthodox Good Friday, and the Kurdish New Year, Newroz. While the intent may be admirable — to accommodate immigrants — the possibilities for unintended consequences are daunting. First off, Sigtuna commune is not suggesting that all ethnic groups be accommodated — only the fifteen most popular ones. Does the popularity of a religion then determine the legitimacy of its claim to a holiday? How is a government body going to decide and justify where the line is drawn? Will it find that there are not enough Jews locally to justify Hanukah as a holiday? Are strict Catholics going to be forced to take off two Good Fridays? Is Satanism or Scientology a religion?
 
I don’t think government, local or national, should concern itself with such issues, just as it should not concern itself with deciding what religious symbols students may wear. Give everyone X days, to use as they please. If many students and teachers at a particular school are Kurdish, then the school will simply have fewer classes on Newroz. The state should treat all religions fairly by ignoring all of them, rather than trying to accommodate all of them — which is impossible — or just some, which is unfair. Welcome to the multicultural Europe of the near future.Q: Tydligen ska Nationaldagen bli helgdag och Annandag Pingst tas bort. Är det bra att Nationaldagen blir helgdag? (Tycker du det är riktigt att man tar bort en annan? Är det för få helgdagar?)

A: Ja, men bara om vi tar bort en annan helgdag. Vi måste jobba mer, inte mindre!

Q: Vilken är den bästa helgdagen och varför?

A: För mig, även om jag är belgier, är bästa helgdagen amerikansk Thanksgiving i slutet på november. Det är icke-politisk, icke-religiös, populär, utan presenter, pro-familien — liten som Midsommar, min favorit svensk helgdag.

Q: Stefan, vad tycker du verkligen?

A: Tack för frågan: Det finns fyra sorter helgdag: Patriotiska, som Nationaldagen, religiösa, som Pingst, politiska, som Första Maj, och populära (eller säsongsbetonade) som Midsommar och Valborgsmässoafton. Av de här föredrar jag mest de populära, sedan de patriotiska, och minst de religiösa och politiska. Varför? Staten bör inte föredra en religion mer än en annan eller en politisk tilltro mer än en annan, därför att medborgare bör vara jämlika i statens ögon. Om vi ska ändra helgdagar, bör vi minska religiösa och politiska helgdagar, inte höja de.

Därför är det bra att vi kommer att ha en ny patriotisk helgdag istället av en religiös helgdag.

Därför, också, tycker jag inte om vad Sigtuna socialdemokraterna föreslog: inte bara ha lovdagar på skolor till protestantiska kyrkans högtider, men också, till exempel, till Ramadan, den ortodoxa kyrkans långfredag, och Newroz, det Kurdiskt nyåret. Jämlikhetsproblemet löses inte upp med att ha mer religiösa lovdagar, därför att Socialdemokraterna vill ha lovdagar bara för de 15 största etniska grupperna. För att ha jämlikhet, bör alla religioner i Sigtuna har deras lovdagar. Är det möjlig? Hur ska man bestämma var finns gränsen? Om det finns bara några Judiska familjer, far de inte har lov till Hanukah då? Om jag kände mig Scientologisk, fick jag inte har lov till L. Ron Hubbards födelsedag? Om jag är strikt Katolsk, ska jag vara tvungen att också har lov till ortodoxa kyrkans långfredag? Staten bör inte avgöra sån saker (och inte heller vilka religiösa symboler är acceptabel). Säkert inte nu att Sverige kommer att ha ännu mer invandrare.

Det är bättre att ge båda studenter och lärare X antal lovdagar, som de får använda hur de vill. Det gäller också för Protestanter, självklart, och för gudsförnekare. Så blir staten riktigt neutral på religiöst ärendet.

A tale of two passions: The unbeliever's guide

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Just when you have overdosed on Jesus, just when all possible excuses to blog him would seem to have passed safely, at least until Christmas, behold my belated Easter essay, arisen anew after being forsaken for rugged walks through Irish hills ending in Guinness and song at Ireland’s highest pub.

In Sweden last week, I saw two passions. The first was Bach’s The Passion According to St. John, performed in the Gustaf Vasa Church on Odenplan by the house choir and the royal chamber orchestra. It is a glorious piece, and it was deftly executed in a space that did it justice. Fellow SAIS grad Helena G sang in the choir, an impressive feat that is nevertheless more common than you might expect — Sweden is a nation of choirs, secular echoes of what constituted entertainment in religious rural Sweden until recently (is my wild guess). This love of performing is in the blood, and goes some way to explaining the ability of most Swedes to treat the Eurovision song contest as something other than an exercise in high irony.

The other passion was, of course, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ — about which I had been compelled to form opinions in advance of its showing here, so I thought I should at least do it the honor of a retroactive viewing.

Is it really fair to compare these two passions? Both pieces run around 2 hours, cover the same story, and hence tell it at about the same pace. Both have been accused of espousing antisemitismHere is a convincing case why Bach’s piece is not antisemitic, even by contemporary standards.. But whereas Bach’s work has maintained a relevance in the 280 years since it was composed, it remains to be seen if Gibson’s efforts have the same lasting power.

Although watching a film in Aramaic and Latin with Swedish subtitles is only marginally less taxing than the Finnish movie I accidentally saw last year, the story is so well known, even by those who temporarily were Christians by accident of birth like myself, that I found the language not really to be an impediment to my understanding of Gibson’s efforts. I only have two problems with his oeuvre: the means, and the ends. Let’s tackle each in turn.

I’ve read many reviewers who tussle with the message, but concede that the film is quite well made. I’d rather not grant it that distinction.

Here’s why: The film promises authenticity. It’s the big selling point, it’s what’s been drawing in the bible belts of the world, heightening the emotional effect for religious audiences when they finally come face to face with their personal Jesus. The movie is interesting to the extent that it is a documentary, or at least a plausible rendition of what transpired. The most touted example of this devotion to realism is that the actors speak Aramaic and Latin — it’s meant to be a constant reminder that what we are seeing is the real thing.

Except that it isn’t, to start the nitpicking. Having made the promise of authenticity, Gibson delivers clichés instead. The Roman vernacular was Greek in Judea at the timeGibson should have read a little more I, Claudius.. In the movie, Jesus has a manicured beard, long hair, western features, and looks rather glam, not unlike Jesuses from the illustrated bibles the Mormons hand out; in real life, Jesus probably looked more like Arafat than Beckham, and he was probably closer to 5 ft rather than 6, and long hair most definitely was not in with Jews thenIf you want to know what I really think of Jesus, read last year’s Easter post..

Crosses were not carried ready-made up the hill, as in the movie; instead, just the crossbar was. The trunks were fixed in the ground, as crucifixions were something of an assembly line process. The spike should have gone through his wrist, not the palm, because — as the Romans knew — the bones and muscles in the hand are not strong enough to sustain the weight of a body.

Evil is depicted as being literally ugly — witness the appearance of Satan as an invalid midget. The bad Jews are caricatured, with the priests sporting noses that are far more hooked and beards that are far more nefarious than the Jews on “our” side, such as the apostles, and Jesus himself.

At the very end, as Jesus rises from the dead, his flesh wounds healed, his beard and hair once again immaculate, we get a special effect right out of Terminator 2: A prefectly circular coin-sized hole through his palm is ready for the dazzling of the apostles, but not until we’re given a good look through it. It’s so cheesy — why couldn’t He fix that too? Either God works in mysterious ways, or Gibson does.

Over and over, Gibson is unwilling, despite the advertising, to deliver a work that departs from convential renditions of Jesus as perceived by orthodox traditions even when these renditions have long been known to be historically false.

My biggest problem with Gibson’s method, however, is in his use of music. He drowns the film in a shmaltzy, muzakked version of world music from the Middle East that has become easy shorthand for eliciting emotional responses in period pieces set in the region. You know it when you hear it — it’s that soulful, nasal wailing.

The pioneer of this soundtrack genre was actually Peter Gabriel, for The Last Temptation of Christ, still one of my all-time favorite movies. Gabriel went out and recorded contemporary Arab folk music, which he then turned it into a great soundtrack. I still get shivers down my spine when, at the end of that movie, we hear “It is accomplished,” and the ululating begins, which then segues into church bells. It is a brilliant compression of the next 2000 years of the story into a single musical momentWe also heard this genre in Gladiator, but there at least I was willing to suspend disbelief, because it was billed as fiction; and the main theme was memorable. Oh for a dogme version of the Passion. . Nothing remotely as memorable happens in The Passion.

So much for means. What about the message?

The torture of Jesus, based on a throwaway line in one of the gospels written a generation after the fact, is portrayed by Gibson as attaining epic proportions. Apparently, it’s not enough that Jesus suffered for our sins, but that he suffered for them beyond the limits of human endurance. The problem with this, theologically, is that if we buy into the realism of the film, Jesus’s torture was nothing special by the brutal standards of the day, nor by the standards of the inquisition, and probably not by the standards of some KGB outpost in Chechnya today.

Odds are that somebody is being tortured to death somewhere on the planet right now. This is of course awful, but is not the main difference between that victim’s story and that of Jesus the fact that Jesus ostensibly died for our sins, rather than that he did so painfully?

I think this is the main flaw in Gibson’s message. In focusing on the extent of the suffering Jesus underwent, Gibson is really undermining his own case for Jesus’s relevance. Is the suffering the main reason why we are supposed to recognize Jesus as the Messiah — for his superhuman feats of enduranceI identified most with Pontius Pilate, the world-weary Roman sent to control a bunch of restless natives and their silly pursuits. I am tempted to see Paul Bremer as a latter-day Pilate, sent out to bring all manner of civilizing influences in return for commodities and hegemony, a bargain the natives seems incapable of appreciating.?

Gibson’s literal interpretation of the gospels also allows very little leeway for alternate takes. At the start of the film, there is a brief moment when we think Jesus could plausibly be projecting inner demons — after all, even the Vatican acknowledges that mental illness is the most likely secular explanation for the experiences of assorted prophets and saints. Instead, by the time Jesus dies, the event is made to coincide with wrathful acts of God more at home in the denouement of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

This, then, is the main difference between the two passions: If you do not believe in the literal truth of the story behind them, only one of them remains transcendent.

Secular Israel, cont.

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Didn’t see it until just now on A&L Daily, but this is a fine fine article by Brian Klug, a symphony to my own humming from a week ago, though we’ve got the same tune in our head:

The alternatives are not black and white: either preserving the status quo or annihilation. There are a variety of constitutional arrangements in between. For example, Israel could continue to exist as a sovereign state but cease to define itself, in its basic laws and state institutions, as specifically Jewish. Or there is the so-called one-state solution: a binational homeland for Palestinians and Jews. The tragic impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has renewed interest in this proposal among some Arab and Jewish intellectuals. And although this view lacks a significant constituency in either community at present, attitudes may well change.

France's theatre of the absurd

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This is beginning to read like a Eugene Ionesco play. Education Minister Luc Ferry on Tuesday had an admirable go at taking to logical extremes the dictates of the proposed law banning “ostentatious” religious symbols from France’s public schools. Where exactly on the slippery slope of diminishing freedoms will the line be drawn for religiously inclined schoolchildren?

Beards are out. But only if they are judged to be a sign of faith in religion: “As soon as it becomes a religious sign and the code is apparent, it would fall under this law,” Ferry said. No word of whether pleading an affinity for Che Guevara will get you off the hook.

So are bandannas. But only if they are judged to be religious. “The bandanna, if it is presented by young girls as a religious sign, will be forbidden.” I suspect Madonna merchandise may make a sudden comeback.

But lack of a bandanna is also definitely suspect:

He also contended that hairstyles or the wearing of certain colors could be a source of manipulation. “Signs could be invented using simple hairiness or a color,” he said. “Creativity is infinite in this regard.”

Simple hairiness? The French Minister of Education just lamented French schoolchildren’s infinite creativity? Marilyn Manson’s act cannot possibly survive this onslaught of truly depraved hairy religionists.

Turbans are so out. When the law was first proposed, everyone forgot the Sikhs. Their men are obligated to wear a turban at all times. Nevermind that Sikhs died fighting for France in WWI — with their turbans on; this terrible symbol of male oppression will now also be banned, logically, even though the only way to get between a Sikh and his turban is to pry it off his cold, dead head.

I think it’s Ferry who’s lost his head. I may be wrong though: today I found myself in agreement with the Pope, who said that the law “could effectively endanger religious freedom,” though he was roundly chided for the comment by the unfortunately named Bernard Stasi, the official who first proposed the ban.

For a secular Israel (dream on)

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Sometimes posts I read bug me longer than expected. This tells me I should have blogged them to begin with. Here is a recent example: David Volokh Bernstein’s defense of ethnic/religion-based states, specifically Israel. Where to begin? With Bernstein’s semantic bait-and-switch:

Supporting Ethnic-Religion Based States: I occasionally get email from readers suggesting that Israel is unworthy of support, or even existence, because it is an ethnic/religion-based state.

Naturally, the rest of the post concerns itself with Israel’s right to exist, instead of what would be justifiable levels of support. Not interesting, especially if the argument, in a nutshell, goes like this: A) Poland is a ethnic/religion-based state. B) Israel is a ethnic/religion-based state. C) Poland has a right to exist. Therefore D) Israel has a right to exist. Basically, because A = B, if C then also D. And C is certainly the case. Hence D. Brilliant, that.

This rather truncheons nuanced argument from the likes of me, who support the right of Israel (and Poland) to exist, but think it indefensible for one religion and/or ethnic group to be elevated by law over others. If it’s deplorable when it happens in Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, we should deplore it in our midst too, whether that be the Vatican, Italy, Israel, Ireland, France, Bavaria, Apartheid South Africa or segregation Southern USA.

My reason: In an ideal world, a polity exists to create a level playing field for its constituent population. In the economic sphere, innovation and competition is assured by guarding against market failures such as monopolies; similarly, a free market of religious or cultural ideas cannot thrive if one religion or culture is granted monopolistic powers by law. Such monopolies might be stable, but at the expense of ethical and cultural innovation. Witness the stagnation of both the Catholic Church (in those areas where it is entrenched) and of societies that have implemented Islamic law.

Bernstein would probably sit impatiently through that last paragraph and now testily point out that all this is good an well, but that in Israel’s case, if you support taking the word “Jewish” out of “Jewish state”, you are de facto against Israel’s existence. That is not true: There would still be a majority of ethnic Jews living together with a minority of ethnic Arabs in a secular democracy, at least for its citizensPointedly not a democracy for Palestinians, but let’s just assume we can fast-forward to an independent but defanged Palestine, which is the inevitable solution and both sides know it.. One homeland with room enough for both Jews and Arabs is, believe it or not, quite compatible with the original mandate granted by the British to the Zionist movement in the Balfour Declaration of 1917:

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other countryWriting it was a mess of negotiations; clarifying it wasn’t any easier..

Ethnic Jews lose no freedoms in transferring to a secular arrangement, while Israeli Arabs gain a stake in the state as legal equals. Now that the state guarantees a free market of ideas, cultural and ethical innovation is worth exploring again. You only lose out if you subscribe to an orthodoxy. Which suits me fine.

Tvungen eller förbjuden

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In the wake of that digraceful ruling by the French, the debate concerning the acceptability of the muslim headscarf in Swedish schools heats up. Two opinion pieces in Sweden’s largest dailies are in favor of banning “the veil,” and I’m just doing my bit to make sure they do not go unchallenged.
 
I was pointed to statsvetare (“political science expert”) Lisbeth Lindeborg’s piece in Dagens Nyheter by new Swedish blogger Gudmundson. He also links to a Lisbeth Lindeborg pictorial in the Jan 1974 issue of Mayfair. Is it relevant to know that somebody who argues the Muslim headscarf demeans womens was once splayed across a British lad mag as “Sweden’s rising sex star”? Certainly.Nu börjar det i Sverige: Debatt om huruvida man ska förbjuda muslimska sjaletter i svenska skolor. DN har en debatt här, och Aftonbladet har en debattartikel här. Båda är emot slöjor i skolor, men argumenten är lika felaktiga som användandes i Frankrike.

Jag hoppas at vi kan vara överens att religionsfrihet är viktigt, och om man vill begränsa den, borde vi ha en ännu viktigare orsak. Men Lisbeth Lindeborg i DN påstår att förbjuda sjaletter utgör inte alls en begränsning, eftersom sjaletten/slöjan inte är en islamisk symbol. Kanske det enligt henne, och kanske det enligt många människor, men det betyder inte att det inte är symbol enligt dem som vill bär sjalett. Alltså tycker jag att det är Lindeborgs tolerans som är falsk, eftersom hon vill påtvinga andra sina religiösa åsikter.

Lindeborg erkänner att påtvinga religiösa åsikter är orätt, därför att hon skriver hur orätt slöjtvång är i Iran och Saudiarabien. Fundamentalisterna påstår att slöjtvång skyddar kvinnans värdighet. Lindeborg påstår att sjalettförbjud skyddar kvinnans värdighet. Jag påstår bara att båda slöjtvång och sjalettförbjud förnedrar kvinnor.

Och Lindeborg är inkorrekt när hon antyder att muslimska kvinnor bär slöja bara var man har slöjtvång:

Däremot är det en missuppfattning att tro att slöjtvång existerar i alla muslimska stater. Faktum är att de flesta muslimska kvinnor inte bär slöja, varken i Väst- och Nordafrika eller i Sydostasien.

Faktum är att flesta muslimska kvinnor som bär slöjan gör det utan slöjtvång. När jag reste några månaden i Pakistan bar många kvinnor sjaletter, utom dem kristna och dem Ismaili muslimer på Hunza dalen. I Indonesien bär fler och fler kvinnor slöjor, nu att dem få.

Intressant också är att Lindeborg inte försöker att skilja på de olika muslimska traditionerna rörande slöjor. Inte så många kvinnor bär den kompletta burka/purdah, som bekläder ansikten. Flera bär sjaletten som bekläder helt hår. Men flesta bär sjaletten som symbol, utan att det vore dölja hår. Linderborg försöker att förvirra begreppen. Jag har bara ett problem med kompletta burkar i svenska skolor, eftersom så är det omöjlig att kontrollera kvinnans identitet och att delta i skolklasser. Det är naturligtvist en begränsning av religionsfrihet, men jag tycker att det är viktigare att en kvinna få delta i svenska samhällan. Men det är också klart att bara bära sjaletten hindrar inte att delta. Inte alls.

Ayse Sungur i Aftonbladet är en bättre debattör. In fatta, jag tycker att hon argumenterar inte så mycket för sjalettförbjud men emot kvarvarande kristna traditioner i skolor. Men jag skulle fortfarande skilja mellan skolans/statens plikt att vara neutral, och människors rätt till religionsfrihet.

Vad vi behöver i Sverige och Europa inte är lagar som begränsar religionsfrihet av alla muslimska kvinnor, bara för att kunna skydda de några kvinnor som är tvungen att bär slöjan av släktingar. Vi behöver lagar som förbjuda att man få tvinga kvinnor att bär slöjan. Men vi redan har sån lagar. Vi måste använda dem bättre.